Wagging Tails, Swishing Tails, Fluffy Tails and Other Tales

The dogs, horses, and cats all brought different experiences to me that increased my wish to learn to talk and communicate with them.

My earliest memories are of playing with my dogs and exploring our yard with my dog following me. My parents loved dogs, and they were a large part of my family life. My mother had pictures of me as a toddler with Skipper, a Collie who came to visit from the farm next door. It seems when Skipper’s own human children grew up he moved next door and adopted me as his new job. My mother used to say that I learned to walk by pulling myself up on his long silky coat as he stood by me; then he walked beside me to steady my first steps. In looking back at photo albums I notice that he is in many photos of me, keeping a very watchful eye in my direction.

The first dog I have clear memories of is Molly, a Dalmatian. Molly loved her human family and knew her job was to protect us from outsiders. She would nip at my friends if they got too close to me and she would always position herself between my mother and any people she did not know when visitors came to our door. The family story of Molly reaching up and holding my mother’s arm to prevent her from spanking me was told many times. She didn’t bite, but my mother knew that Molly felt I didn’t need such punishment for whatever I had done. I remember Molly sleeping on a chair in my room when I was sick and home from school. Mother would have to force her to take a bathroom break or make her leave the room to eat, and it would not be unusual for Molly to develop a sore throat if I had just had one.

My special companion from grade school through high school was Butterfly – a small, black dog of very mixed heritage. He came to me as a puppy, a gift from our farm employees, and received his name because I had been watching a beautiful group of butterflies on the day he was given to me. We became inseparable almost immediately. He slept on the foot of my bed, and followed me all over the house and farm like a four-legged shadow. If, in his opinion, I had stayed up too late over my homework, he would drag his blanket from the bed to wherever I was working and sit on it until I put both of us to bed. He adapted to childhood games of dress up and tolerated wearing hats, scarves and other pieces of clothing, many times posing for pictures in his finery.

In time horses joined my dogs as my best friends. The dogs had been my guardians, companions and friends, but my horses gradually became my teachers. I had grown up riding a large bay pony named Prince. My mother always supervised all my barn and horse activities, but I longed to spend time alone with him. As I grew older and more independent, the horses became my escape from everyday life. Not only could they run and jump, but in riding them I felt that I could fly away too. It was so easy to forget school or problems with my parents when I went to the barn. I just lost myself in caring for the horses and in riding. I had a large farm to ride over and could be anything from an Indian to a cowboy or a jockey. I knew my horses enjoyed carrying me around the farm. We had nothing to accomplish, we were just in the moment having fun.

As I got a little older, I began competing in horse shows. I had been taking riding lessons for several months and entered my first horse show only because my friends were doing it and I didn’t want to be left out. At ten years of age I received my first ribbon, a second place, on King my lesson horse, and started a new world of horse shows and competition. I always loved challenges and was very competitive. I didn’t feel I had to win but I always strove to be in the top three or four places in each class I entered. My competitive and perfectionist nature started to take a beating. The challenges of showing horses over jumps, jumping each fence and doing it all correctly grew as my abilities and levels of riding skills grew. My family was continually pushing me to new levels, which meant a new horse, a new trainer, and higher expectations from my family. Throughout all of this I bonded completely with each horse I rode. In the horse world there is a term called “over-mounted,” meaning that the horse was more skilled, more educated and worked at a much higher level than his rider, and I was usually over-mounted. In an effort to raise my riding skills, professional trainers and riding lessons became a large part of my life. No matter how bruised I was from falling off or frustrated from not accomplishing my trainer’s goals, I always stayed in tune with my horses. And I started to watch horse trainers, my own and those I met at horse shows, to see how they trained their horses.

Living on my parents’ farm introduced me to the world of breeding and raising Thoroughbred horses. All the horses were raised to be racehorses and I was able to follow their progress from birth to the breaking and training that prepared them for the race track. Our lives revolved around the farm, and I loved to accompany my parents when they made their daily rounds. Every day the horses were examined for physical injuries, and there were regular meetings with the farm manager to talk about the health and training of each horse. I was also able to watch the farm veterinarians, blacksmiths and horse trainers while they worked at their respective jobs on the farm.

I soon observed that some of these men developed a closer and more understanding relationship with the horses. Others moved through their jobs quickly, and failed to establish a secure relationship with the horses. I watched the exercise riders and trainers work with the yearlings. It was easy to see which of them developed a trusting relationship with the young horses, and I started to realize that these riders knew intuitively what to do to give each horse confidence and guidance during their weeks of training. The people who the horses responded to most readily seemed to have a sixth sense that completely connected them to their horses.

In my opinion this intuitive part of working with horses was just as essential as learning training methods. Through all of my work with horses the most important things that I learned were to be quiet, observe the animals and try to tune in to their thoughts and feelings by observing their body language. This taught me the main aspect of nonverbal communication that I stress today – be quiet, clear your mind and wait for the animal to send you a message.