I'm not sure many of us stop to consider this question from the view point of the horse. I have been guilty of asking 'what can I give' my horses, but not what do they actually need?
If we stop to think about it from the horse's perspective then just using common sense alone, it is unlikely we would come up with needs such as; being ridden and competed, being stabled for hours, being driven around in motorized 'cupboards', turned out alone or spending many stabled hours without access to food and mobility.
There are horses who serve Queen and Country for their lifetime who have even less: who are stalled 24 hours a day with their head tied to a brick wall, standing on concrete, approached always from behind and unable to turn or lie down. To think we are a nation sympathetic to our animals and their welfare is at times nothing short of a big fat lie.
Sadly, much of what we offer our horses falls short of what they would wish for themselves. If you don't believe this just ask a non-horsey person what they suppose a horse would enjoy as a lifestyle!
Now is the time to be honest about the way we keep our horses - if not now then when? To help us, Essy spelled out what horses everywhere need:-
1. Important Relationships: People should understand the important relationship foals have with their mares and other horses and stop interfering with it and cutting important relationships short
2. Healing touch is peace: Humans have a gap in their awareness of understanding horses. People aren't listening: People need to move away from agendas with their horses, to listen instead. Listening is reality: peace is reality
3. Horses see the future: Horses know what it is people do, think and feel. There are no secrets.
4. Horses want to be free: Free from slavery, from over work, from the wrong sort of work, from being without their friends, free from pain, domination, and bullying
5. Partnership: Horses will be our partners but in a different way with equality and respect not systems and methods
So now the hard part is done, the question remains "are we listening"? Will we honour these requests now that we have them? Do we know how to let go of our own equestrian agendas to become more of the loving guardian that sleeps inside? Who will support us? Institutes steeped in old fashioned myths about 'how to keep horses' seem to be the most deaf. Leaving us to question can ordinary horse folk wake up a consciousness in others that is based on common sense and empathy versus qualifications and exam passing?
In our important human to human relationships most of us don't ask often enough "what do you need?" from one another. Imagine the sense of responsibility if we did! Worse yet is the breach of trust that would be felt if we didn't at least try to deliver it when we did ask.
At the end of the day, If it's a hard message to hear isn't it better to hear it sooner versus later when we still have a chance to do something about it now, and change the myths for the future?
(Find out more about Essy's wishes on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGSRDSFvjGM&list=PLuWEKuyqZzRzej4ACWTe489ivCdoVY3Jh&index=8)
If we stop to think about it from the horse's perspective then just using common sense alone, it is unlikely we would come up with needs such as; being ridden and competed, being stabled for hours, being driven around in motorized 'cupboards', turned out alone or spending many stabled hours without access to food and mobility.
There are horses who serve Queen and Country for their lifetime who have even less: who are stalled 24 hours a day with their head tied to a brick wall, standing on concrete, approached always from behind and unable to turn or lie down. To think we are a nation sympathetic to our animals and their welfare is at times nothing short of a big fat lie.
Sadly, much of what we offer our horses falls short of what they would wish for themselves. If you don't believe this just ask a non-horsey person what they suppose a horse would enjoy as a lifestyle!
Now is the time to be honest about the way we keep our horses - if not now then when? To help us, Essy spelled out what horses everywhere need:-
Essy's direction to help humans give horses more of what they want...
1. Important Relationships: People should understand the important relationship foals have with their mares and other horses and stop interfering with it and cutting important relationships short
2. Healing touch is peace: Humans have a gap in their awareness of understanding horses. People aren't listening: People need to move away from agendas with their horses, to listen instead. Listening is reality: peace is reality
3. Horses see the future: Horses know what it is people do, think and feel. There are no secrets.
4. Horses want to be free: Free from slavery, from over work, from the wrong sort of work, from being without their friends, free from pain, domination, and bullying
5. Partnership: Horses will be our partners but in a different way with equality and respect not systems and methods
So now the hard part is done, the question remains "are we listening"? Will we honour these requests now that we have them? Do we know how to let go of our own equestrian agendas to become more of the loving guardian that sleeps inside? Who will support us? Institutes steeped in old fashioned myths about 'how to keep horses' seem to be the most deaf. Leaving us to question can ordinary horse folk wake up a consciousness in others that is based on common sense and empathy versus qualifications and exam passing?
In our important human to human relationships most of us don't ask often enough "what do you need?" from one another. Imagine the sense of responsibility if we did! Worse yet is the breach of trust that would be felt if we didn't at least try to deliver it when we did ask.
At the end of the day, If it's a hard message to hear isn't it better to hear it sooner versus later when we still have a chance to do something about it now, and change the myths for the future?
My new mindset, now that Ive 'heard' is to do everything I can to be sure that when I retire from my years of being with horses I'll have no regrets and will have helped others to feel the same way!
(Find out more about Essy's wishes on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGSRDSFvjGM&list=PLuWEKuyqZzRzej4ACWTe489ivCdoVY3Jh&index=8)
No comments:
Post a Comment