Do Horses Swim Underwater & Like to Compete?

Can Horses swim underwater?  Do horses like to compete?  These questions get at least one answer in this episode.

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Transcript

0:03

This is the Horse Human Connection, a captivating podcast where we extend into the world of equine assisted learning, horse training. and gentleness in working with these magnificent creatures. Captivating stories from the leading professionals and ordinary people alike unravel novel ideas in being with horses. The Horse Human Connection is an idea, a place, and a voice. The idea is to support the quiet revolution and recognize the intelligence and true nature of the horse. The place is a destination farm near the Umpqua Forest and River that slows down visitors and patrons enough to experience the shift. The Voice is this podcast. Welcome to today's episode. Welcome to today's episode.

Samson Q2U Microphone: 1:15

Again, welcome to the horse human connection matrix. And the quiet revolution in the horse world. I think more and more people are beginning to understand what I mean by the quiet revolution. Is that place where we realize that horses are truly intelligent and that they have the capacity to interact with us. In other ways than us just being dominant with them. So today I have a couple of stories for you. The first one. Is about a red Tennessee Walker named Maddy. I saw somewhere on Facebook recently, a question that said, can horses swim under water? And it prompted me to realize that of all the stories I've told about the herd that I had at the ranch. I have not told this one and it's a. It was, it was something. So the situation is I have some horses separated and, and I have. Electric fencing up around the edge of a pond so they could drink. And it's rather a hill. And I had taken Maddie. Back to the spot. She wasn't currently in that pastor, I was taking her. For a walk to the water. And it was early. In the morning I had just fed and I had fed in my pajamas that morning. There was no one around. So if it was early feeding, sometimes I would do that. And I took her to the edge of the water and this particular pond had grown a mat. In the middle of it, of a pond plants of various kinds. There were several different kinds out there, but it had gotten quite thick in most of the middle. And the pond is about 60 feet long by 30 feet wide, roughly. And it has a rather steep it's built in a draw. With a dam. It had a rather steep embankment on the backside that continued up the hill. That's the side that we were on. Maddie's taking a drink. a little bit of history. Maddie likes to jump creeks and small waterways and living in Oregon. Most of the year, at least half, if not more of the year there's drainage ditches, almost everywhere. And getting Maddy to walk through them had been some we'd worked on a whole lot. And occasionally though, she just would, rather than get her feet wet, she would rather jump. So she's getting a drink in this pond. And she sees the mat in the middle of the pond and she thinks it's solid ground. So before I knew it, she had leaped from the side. Into the middle. Only to discover. That it was deep water, not Not salted land at all. And she sank and she went under water. And I completely was shocked, surprised, and panicked like, oh my gosh. And I had the same question that people on Facebook, it can have horses swim under water. What she going to do? Is she going to. Yeah, the horses are pretty heavy and it's one thing to wait into a stream and slowly start to paddle. And swim. It's quite another to sink to the bottom and try to come up and swim. Especially since I'd never seen this horse swim at all. So I waited and In my, in my teenage years, I had been a lifeguard. And once your lifeguard, I think it never leaves you. So my life guard training started to kick in and I'm thinking I have to rescue her. But I'm like, she's a horse. How, how, how am I going to do this? And I'm dressed and it's spring time. So it's cold. It's not freezing, but it's cold enough. But swimming and clothes, especially sweatpants doesn't work very well. So. It took me a few minutes to think about like kickoff the shoes, take off the pants, jump in with my arms spread wide. So I don't go under water and I've got to swim through these plants and try to find, like, try to find the horse. So about the time. I've taken off my shoes and my pants and getting ready to jump in her head, pops up and I'm like, oh good. So I went ahead and I jumped in. I found a lead rope. She had a halter and lead rope on and found the lead rope and guided her. To the side, to the damn edge of the pond and which had three strands of barbed wire. So the cattle and horses wouldn't drink from that side and erode the damn. Oh, my goodness. So I got her to the side and she, she had been panicked. She was absolutely banning. Panicked. I think about. Or breathing and her face and her big eyes and the whites in her eyes. And I got her feet. She and I got her feet there on the edge of this embankment. And then I'm like, now what, how do I get her out of here? There's Bob wire. You know, and turning around and swimming back across the pond in her panic state just didn't seem like a good idea. Jumping it after her in retrospect didn't seem like a good idea because of those hubs. And I just didn't know. How she was going to be. But I got her to wait there and I ran down and I got the bulk cutters. Soaking wet barefoot on the gravel path brand down. Got the bulk cutters came back up. Cut the fence. And bent it back and was able to help her, help her out, laughing to myself. About the whole thing. And she shook that water off. She shook off the experience. And yeah, so there's the answer. Yes. Horses can swim underwater and you don't actually have to jump in after them. They'll figure it out. Horses, some horses or silly or than others. And, you know, that kind of leads me into intention. I've been thinking a little bit about this intention and expectation. I've talked a lot about intention. And riding and co-created rides in the past, on my podcasts. I don't know if I've talked about, about this particular thing. So at one point, my horse Sipsy went away to a trainer who I interviewed and thought that we were on the same page and that there was trust and that she knew what she was doing. And I was sending her there to get finished, to learn some lead changes. So learn transitions between gates better. To get more comfortable galloping with a person on her back. And this woman. Oh, my gosh. She should have given me more than a refund. Anyway, it was horrible. By the time I got my horseback it was another year on the ground to build trust with her because she was so checked out. But one of the things that stuck in my head about this particular trainer. Was when I got there, she said to me, she said, Leadership is up for grabs at any time every day. Which is true with horses in the wild, like the leader at some point is going to not be the fastest, smartest, most aware, best hearing. Horse and that leadership is up for grabs and that's, that's important for the survival of the herd. I don't think that same thing exists in a barnyard or a barn installs and a few pastures, but this woman thought I did. And because she thought it did it did. Horses live up to our expectations. So what happened at this farm was every time she fed these horses, There was like the scarcity thing.'cause she said leadership is up for grabs at every meal. And her horse has fought about food at every meal as if they were expected to. Which created problems. You know back at home, I had three horses and I know the thing about put four piles. So if one gets chased off, they always have a pile, but we'd gotten to a point with my horses where I had always said, there's plenty of food. Nobody needs to fight. And they didn't three horses, three piles, no fighting. That was the expectation. Expectations are really important. With silliness too. I know another woman who. I think part of our, kind of enjoy some of the horse antics and how they can get themselves into some silly situations. And sometimes though, I get hurt. But that's her experience. That's her belief. And that's her expectation. My expectation on the other hand is that my horses are really intelligent and they can get themselves out of almost anything. Like Maddie and the water, she could have gotten herself out of that, given the chance. So. Along with intention. I really believe that expectations are super important. Well, that doesn't mean that every horse wants to compete and win. And has that competitive drive. But if, if you do, and you're competing with your horse you know, having some expectations to rise to the occasion, Just like kids, a few don't expect them to do well in school. They're probably, aren't going to try as hard. I believe it's the same thing. So that brings me to the story about Firefly and competition. So firefighters, my retired Fox charter. And this was before she retired, but she was like 20 years old at the time. And I took her to a place called the Oregon horse center, which is the largest horse center in Oregon. I believe. And has five larger arenas and they host a mountain trail and obstacle competitions, and they may even be responsible for inventing the sport. Not sure. But there was a clinic. To learn more about mountain trail and obstacle while they had the big core set up, they had a smaller course in one of the smaller arenas and someone was teaching this. And then there was a little kind of mock competition afterwards. It wasn't the big competition, but it was just for the people taking the clinic. And a little bit about firefight, although she was a very well-trained horse. She has been a food queen. Like her mom was a Rollie poli and she's just always been interested in a lot of food and had a tendency to be a very easy keeper as well. So on the trail, if she had one fault or vice, it would be like, let me stop for a bite and let me stop for a nibble. Even, you know, when, she would, of course, listen. And some of the time on the trail, when the grass was really tall, we had the rule. Go ahead, take a bite. Just don't break stride. As long as you're doing it, because when the grass is like right at their mouth level, why not? Anyway. So we did the, we did the clinic. And the last obstacle that she had to be judged on. Was being ground tied next to a stack of three bales of choice, alfalfa. And not look at it, not taste it, not anything. And I knew this would be too much for this horse. Like there's no way she was going to do that. I hadn't even practiced ground tying with her. Like she knew the concept. Whoever trained her, did it with her, but it wasn't something in our regular repertoire that I required of her. So when I dismounted. And ground hide her next to the soft alpha. And mentally told her don't you dare eat that. And she didn't even look at it. I knew that she knew that we were competing. Yeah, it was a moment. It was like a moment of realization. Like she completely understands this. Otherwise she totally would have been all over that alfalfa. And This was in the beginning with firefighters. I was just beginning to learn how in tune she really was with me and how much she did understand. So at the same competition. We were spending the weekend. At the Oregon horse center, she had a stall. And we had trailered with a friend. And the friend's trailer was a stock trailer that wasn't too tall and she'd hit her head on this trailer before. And she wasn't fond of getting in. And I was fairly novice horse person at this point. And so the friend was attempting to load and she was, she could kind of big and strong and definitely dominant with the horses of so much. So that. It took me years later before I could understand what the release was, because her release was invisible to me, apparently not to the horses, but to me it was, and all I saw was her being really big and really angry. And I thought that's the way you were supposed to handle horses. It turns out. It turns out. I don't agree with that anymore at all. But she was trying to practice load. Firefly in the stock trailer and firefight was not having it. So at some point I was living in the same town as the Oregon horse center, which is Eugene, Oregon at the time. And I kept Firefly at a barn stalled and stable. Did a barn. That was about three miles from the Oregon horse center. So when the horse was having all this trouble getting in the trailer, my mind started drifting to, well, I'll just ride her home. What streets do I have to cross? How busy are they? What, what, what field can I cut through here? What field can I cut through there? How will it be to ride along the edge? Of this road and that road. And I had it all mapped out in my head. I was like, yeah, this is doable. I'll just ride her home at off. She'd be kind of fun. It'd be a good experience for us. So we still had more time, like she was practice loading, right. We weren't leaving until the next day or later that evening, or I don't remember exactly. But. There's a big field out back of the horse center. At least there used to be. And I thought, well, I'll just take her for a little ride out here in the pasture. And see if that doesn't like calm us down that are better, eat a little bit and, you know, take a break from the busy-ness of inside. The big barn with all the stalls. So as I'm doing that, This was also the same way that I had in my mind that we would have to ride home. And in previous podcasts, I've mentioned the front brain and the back brain and how horses could read your front brain. So. Looking back. And in that moment, I realized when I started writing and she went into this beautiful little Fox trot. But in a hurry years forward intent, like you can tell when a horse. Has an intention of where they're going and when they're just listening to you or meandering, she was intent. And the angle at which she was cutting across this field was the exact trajectory that we needed to get to the gate. On the other side of this large field to get to the road that would lead us home. She had read my thoughts about going home and thought I wanted to go home right now. I know this sounds like a lot to a lot of people. And maybe not everybody's brain works the way mine does. I still wonder if. Now that I realize I'm on the autism spectrum. If somehow my brain connect differently with animals and it's very possible, but I think this story illustrates a couple of things that horses definitely read our intentions. That, what we expect is transferred to them. Asking these questions about what horses are capable of, whether it's swimming under water, reading intention, living up to expectations. Or asking them to, do you like to compete? Like Firefly turns out love to compete? I wish I had been a better rider when I got her. We could have done so much. She didn't end up with third place in that little clinic competition. And when I pinned the ribbons on her saddle, I have a picture of her. She was so cute. She turned her head around to look at the ribbons. Like she was proud. She knew, she knew that she gotten ribbons for what she did. And That's really something, you know, I don't know if other people experienced that with their horses or if they could. I think they can. I think some do. And what does it take if you're not one of those people to bring that into your life? Or do you want it. Like, maybe I should be asking that question to maybe people. Don't want deeper relationships with their horses. I can't comprehend that, but it's possible.

Samson Q2U Microphone-1: 18:00

Just like, I can't believe that it's possible that people wouldn't want a deeper relationship with their horse. One that involves listening and being with another sentience being. That they wouldn't prefer that over basically slavery. It may be. It doesn't surprise me that I can't comprehend that because as an. Person on the autism spectrum. I also can't really comprehend how people treat each other. Especially in the last few decades where corporate culture. Has. Infiltrated into our personal relationships. You know, customer service used to be a thing. The customer was always right. And shop owners and corporations treated customers with dignity and respect. Because word of mouth could ruin you and that's no longer the case. It doesn't matter anymore. And I'm old enough to have seen this change. And I'm old enough and strange enough, I guess, with the autism spectrum disorder to notice these things acutely. And to wish for a different world. It confuses me. And I'm a little off subject here, but not really, because this is things that I can't really comprehend. Right that Springs out of this story that I'm telling about Firefly. I can't really comprehend. That there've been books around about communication and active listening from Alice Miller back in the eighties to non-violent communication. Handbook and teachings. Too. What's demonstrated in TV shows. Especially with like strong female characters and hero wins who speak their mind and are respected for it. Who communicate directly and are appreciated for it. But the reality that I experienced in the world is quite the opposite. But here's the weird part, right? It's like, People on the spectrum are different because we naturally do those things and are inclined towards those things. And our culture and media suggest that that's the way everybody wants to be and they want to be authentic. Huge movement to be authentic. It's like, oh, wrong. No, if you want to fit in, you got to just pretend. All of this is really confusing. Animals are simple. Why would I not want to listen to my horse? Why would I not want to enjoy an honest relationship? With another sentience being. When our culture and society make doing that with humans. So incredibly difficult. And my guests. That because of the big shifts in the last couple of decades. And the real changes in. The, the different generations, generation X, and Z and whatever y'all are that. More people than are just on the spectrum are also confused by what is supposed to be a societal norm. Anyway, that's probably enough about that. I appreciate you listening. I hope he joined the quiet revolution.