Horses and ducks

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See if you can correctly answer this
question.

"When a duck quacks, it does not make
an echo...even in a canyon known for
echoes."

Is the answer "True" or "False"?

If you said "True", then you guessed
right.

It "is" true that a duck's quack
does not echo. And the funny part is...

...no one knows why.

That makes me wonder if a horse's
neigh echoes. I'll bet it does.

But if it didn't, scientists probably
wouldn't know why either.

Fortunately, we "do" know a lot
about horses and why they act like they
do.

Even in the times before Christ,
much was understood about horses...but it
was only understood by the astute observers.

Consider Alexander The Great.

Besides conquering many countries
and being one of the winningest war Generals,
he was especially adept with horses.

When he was a boy (in his teens),
he saw several men working with a rearing
horse. The men couldn't calm the horse down
enough to even try to get on him.

The King (Alexander's father) announced
that anyone who can "Tame this wild beast"
shall earn my admiration and knighthood.

Alexander immediately said, "Hey!...I
can do it!".

Although laughed at, Alexander tried
it.

Did he succeed?

Yep.

Alexander recognized that the shadows
of the men were scaring the horse. When the
men moved, the shadows moved and inspired
fear in the horse.

When Alexander took over, he moved
the horse and faced him into the sun. That
way the shadows were behind him and horse
had only to see Alexander.

Very quickly the horse calmed down
and Alexander mastered the horse.

Alexander's father was so moved that
he cried tears of joy.

Now if you think about it, there's
a big lesson in that true story.

And that is this.

A horse's characteristics don't
change a whole lot over time. How they think,
act, and behave is fairly constant.

This is a story that came from the
time before Christ. It happened more than
2,000 years ago.

Back then horses had the "built-in"
fear. Today, they still have the built-in fear.

It is part of the horse's DNA and what
makes a horse a horse.

Recognizing that, we have to learn to
deal with it. We have to learn to manage his
fear. We have to learn to get him to look to
us for confidence and encouragement.

We want the horse to trust us and to
trust us he shouldn't fear us.

That's one of the reasons horses don't
want to be caught - fear. Another is they
think they're going to be worked to death and
they don't wanna participate-thank you just
the same.

Naturally, there's lots of reasons
horses do what they do and it's up to us to
learn them so we can help our horse.

If you think about it, it's not much
different than raising a child. As the child
grows he or she becomes their own person.

A personality develops and you have
to work within the personality's confines to
nurture this person along.

My teenage son has had a personality
shift in the last 6 months. He's sort of a
Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hide. Laughing, poking fun,
and enjoying life one minute, and the next day
about as friendly as a hungry bear.

I complained to my mom about it one
day and said, "I was never like that...was I?"

She just laughed.

Anyway, I'm learning about my son and
every day it's new. And with horses, it's
learning every day too.

The more you learn, the better you
become and the more effective you are with
them.

While we may never know why a duck's
quack doesn't echo, there are things we "do"
know and can learn.

So do yourself and your horse a favor
and learn all you can about him.


Sincerely,

Andy Curry
www.horsetrainingandtips.com


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