In which, after escaping from the "Natural Horsemanship" demo, I get a frosty email.

Zed is right, I am not very good at concealing my annoyance when people flail me with sales pitches. This one was an in-the-flesh infomercial!

I knew my question ("Well, what would the FIRST STEP be if a person wanted to try this technique?") was brash. So I wasn't surprised to receive this email from Jennye last night:

I am sorry that I wasn't able, in that setting, to stop my demo in order to share with you the instruction that would have been necessary to answer the question you posed. I had to stay on task...

The event was not a clinic but rather a demo. But I hope you could see from today's experience that one can have a member of the equine family (horse/donkey/mule) obedient and acting like a real partner when we, the human, follows the principles of Natural Horsemanship.

Through this language we are able to enroll the animal in becoming our partner. We establish ourselves as the 'boss mare' and life begins to change drastically in the relationship. This is quite a specific process. Progress can be seen in literally minutes.

Today Zed and I set out on an evening walk with Jethro, explaining to him about Man's unique relationship with the Equine and how we needed to be At One and that he, Jethro, should be alert to our every unspoken command. And how this other lady's horses were so obedient, and how if she did not "excuse" her horse he would await further instruction, and that she could leave him there and go in the house and play a game of bridge and when she came back to the paddock the horse would still be standing immobile, awaiting further instruction.

Jethro was horribly bad on his walk. I don't think he likes this sort of talk.

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