Horse Dentist

Yesterday was a full day. I met Mr. Gary Biggerstaff at 8:00 and we did not get back into Spartanburg until around 7:00 in the afternoon. We drove to Charlotte, NC and visited three different Horse Farms where he did his work as an Equine Dentist. It was interesting to see the trust that the horse had for someone to grind or pull his teeth.

At one of these farms I met with a lady named Charlotte that has won national trophies several times for her horsemanship. She thought my project was neat and proceeded to tell me about how she learned about psycho pathways, and right brain left brain. Extremely interesting but somewhat difficult to understand. From what I understand and remember- a teacher taught her students by making do tasks that involved both their right brain and their left brain. Charlotte heard about this and attempted to do the same thing with horses. It kind of relates to my project, but is so difficult to understand, I'm not sure it will be fully included into my paper.

With talking to Gary I learned that he used to be a very shy person. He said that working with horses has allowed him to open up and communicate more and better with people. This is exactly what I have been searching for. Horses have helped him to become more comfortable around people and therefore communicate better with them. I was extremely excited to hear him speak of how his life had changed because of horses.

Today I rode Midnight with another person on a trail. It was very fun and different from just riding in the arena, but I learned that he is not very confident in himself and I am not a very assertive person. Maybe that is why I am not great in crowds of people.. I am not assertive enough to put myself out there... this is what I have been looking for. If I can learn to be more assertive with the horse, and since I have learned this about myself, maybe I can work on it and become better and communicating with other people.

I also volunteered at Hope Remains today. There was a new kid there today, and before we went down to see the horses he claimed that there was not way he was going to ride him. By the time the hour was up, he was riding and I believe enjoying himself. It is amazing how therapeutic a horse can be. It seemed that spending even an hour with this horse gave him more confidence than he walked in the door with. I am sure with time, he will learn to have confidence with other things in his life.

I have worked some more on my paper today, no where near where it will be come Feb. 1st, but slowly getting there. Yesterday was a major motivation for my paper, and learning from Gary inspires me to continue to learn about horses and keep them in my life. My advice, if you have a bad day find a horse to pet or brush, you will be more relaxed that you could imagine.