In May of 2014 my wife, Doris, announced to me that she wanted to get a horse. She told me very seriously that it was something she’d thought about doing many times, but just never got real serious about it. Unknown to me at the time she had been talking to people about horses and what would be the best way to go about getting into it. Anyone who knows Doris knows that there are two great loves in her life: her family and critters. So we began to talk about it.
At first I thought that maybe this was something that she was just thinking about and wanted me to be a sounding board, however the more I listened the more I realized this was something she was really serious about. It became clear to me that not only was she thinking about making the emotional and financial investment into a first horse, but that she was considering a young horse. She said that out of the people she talked to, both people in and out of the horse community, including a few that actually have ranches in the area, half said it sounded like a good idea to start with a young horse while others said because of our age and inexperience we should start with an older horse that was already broke. I’ve always hated that term: something that is broke is, well… damaged and why would anyone wish to damage a horse?
To be honest I was a little nervous until my mother said, “If she wants to start with a young horse let her. I think it’s a great idea; you both can learn things together.” Looking back on it now she was right, however neither of us had any clue as to the scope that the learning would encompass. A year and four months into it now I’ve learned one very important item: the more I learn the more I realize just how little I really know and the more I have to learn!
Over the last 32 years of marriage there has always been either one or more cats and dogs in our home along with children and now grand-children. Lots of critters – both two and four-legged. Both of us are more dog people than cat people so we’re very accustomed to how to communicate with and get along with dogs. We’ve got two German Shepherds and two Boston Terriers, so knowing how man’s best friend thinks is almost second nature to us. They are family in every sense of the word. The only major thing dogs and horses have in common is the number of legs they have. I very quickly learned that one of the main reasons man and canines get along so famously is because we’re both predators; we think very much alike. We like to eat many of the same things albeit dogs aren’t averse to eating many of those things raw, but I digress… The point I want to make here is that the journey we were about to set off into was and still is literally a paradigm shift in our thinking and learning to be that has had far more benefits than costs.
The journey begins… >>>