Sticky Feet

Occasionally I forget horses live in their bodies 24/7, so they know more about themselves than we do. I shouldn’t be surprised or amazed but I am.

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Lately I have had a series of experiences with different horses that have taught me just how aware they are of where their feet are and what they will and won't do with them.

I watched while a lady asked her horse to go into her trailer. I observed the horse’s front feet inch forward to a foot from the end of her trailer and go no further. When she asked her horse to move forward past that foot of spacing into the trailer, instead of her horse going forward, he started to go left or right past the trailer opening. When that didn’t work her horse just stood in front of the trailer opening and started to inch his hind feet forward hoping that would satisfy her. When that didn’t work, her horse tried rearing and backing up to get away from the pressure of going into the trailer

I saw similar behavior when someone tried to back their horse out of their trailer and the horse came to the trailer edge. Instead of stepping down out of the trailer, the horse began inching his front feet towards his planted back feet. If that didn’t take the pressure off and the owner still wanted him to step down out of the trailer backwards, I watched him try pushing forwards to the front of the trailer or tried turning around.

I have ridden horses that don’t want to cross running water or go through a mud hole. They will rear, back up, run sideways left or right, spin, buck or inch close to the edge and plant their front feet and then inch their back ones forward.

What all these horses have in common whether it is not wanting to load or unload in a horse trailer, leave home without their buddies, cross a stream or go through a mud hole, cross a bridge, or go down a trail into dense forest is……… lack of confidence and understanding that they can do it and nothing bad will happen to them. They stick their feet to the ground and choose to do variety of other things with their body instead of moving the feet.

I will use the horse who didn’t think he could back out of the trailer. He could be backed to the very edge. He couldn’t really see the edge very well because his eyes were too far ahead of his hind feet so he had to go more with the feel of what his hind feet were telling him about the terrain. He knew he was close to something with a lot of air and empty space with nothing solid behind him. He did try a time or two to place a hind foot out there in space but he couldn’t find anything solid to touch since the ground was about 6-8 inches below the edge of the trailer. In his mind, he knew the Grand Canyon was just inches outside that backdoor! The next thing he tried to do was go forward inside the trailer and then attempted to turn around. When that didn’t work he allowed to be backed up to the trailer edge again and planted his hind feet there. He then started to inch his front feet towards his back feet until they got pretty close together. He was a really good horse and was still trying to work with his handler but he was pretty worried about the thin air outside the trailer.