The Beginning

Over the Holiday break I was flipping through the channels on TV trying to find something interesting to watch. Luckily there was nothing interesting on, so I went passed the channels I would normally watch and found something great. There is a channel RFD TV, that presents information and products about horses. As I started watching this channel I thought that the man was only trying to sell a product, but with patience I learned more. The product he was using was called a Blocker Tie Ring. This ring was designed to teach a horse not to pull back when tied up. It is extremely dangerous to a horse and person if a horse pulls when tied to a post or fence, it is possible to break the halter or the lead rope which can result in physical harm to the horse. The blocker tie ring allows the horse to move its feet when tied up. When the horse pulls or backs up the lead rope gives allowing the horse to back away from whatever may be frightening it. Since a horse is a flight animal ( when presented with a dangerous situation a horse would rather flight than fight), this allows them to get away from what scares them without harming themselves while still being tied up. With demonstration of this product, once the horse realizes that being tied up is not as frightening as it once was they will no longer pull on the rope.
This demonstrates an important aspect of horses and how we should approach a situation with them. You should always realize that horses are flight animals and use this to communicate with them. When they are frightened you have to show them gradually and gently that their fear is not as fearful as they thought.
I read in a book once that you must make an idea a horse's idea before it will be accomplished. Once the blocker tie ring was used and it was the horses idea to stay tied to the post it happened without complication. I believe this concept will be extremely important with communication with horses this month. I also believe that this could become important with communication with other people in the future.