"You Quit Riding an Hour Ago"
“You shoulda kept riding,” he said, looking down at me.
“What do you mean by that?” I shot back, as I tried to crawl up the still-collapsing bank. “I was riding! It ain’t my fault she decided to buck met off!”
“She didn’t buck you off.” His voice had a hint of bluntness to it. “You fell off ‘cuz you quit riding.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, obviously upset. “I was riding.”
“No,” he corrected me, “You weren’t riding. You were sitting. You quit riding over an hour ago.”
Horsemanship Through Life, Mark Rashid
Something made me go find this book this morning, just to reread this passage in which Mark colorfully describes his unplanned exit from a “bomb-proof” horse named Dixie while out riding with the Old Man. His detailed decent culiminates when he lands in a stream, and is admonished by the Old Man for not actually riding, despite having been straddling the horse just moments before. I’m struck by how often we aren’t actually “riding” when we are with our pets and animals - not just horses, but even with our dogs or cats. We aren’t actually present with what we are doing here, in the moment now. Our mind is off somewhere else, and our pets, and especially horses, are very aware of that. When left to their own devices, they’ll do whatever comes naturally in the moment, and sometimes that is bucking.
If our pets don’t have our focus, then why are we interacting with them? What is our goal of being together if we aren’t focused on them? I know, the first thing you’ll say is “That sounds exhausting! That’s not why I have my dog/cat/horse/critter!” And I agree - it can be challenging. But when we are of “one mind” and present in the moment with what we are doing and the goal we wish to achieve we are far more likely to get to that goal. Learning to stay present with our actions, and our pets, has the potential to turn every day activities into exercises in moving meditations, which reduces stress and anxiety - and that reduces our pet’s stress and anxiety.
When our thoughts are scattered and all over the place, our pet’s attention is likely to be all over the place, too. They sense our distractability and are going to respond accordingly. For some pets this may mean deciding they are going to do what they please (in which case you might find yourself dragged off by your dog charging after something). Other pets may get anxious and worried because you aren’t really present (as was the case with Mark - for horses not being present is dangerous to their well being as a prey animal).
When I bumped up against this realization the first time I remember thinking I just don’t want to be that way all the time! Sometimes all I want to do is just relax around my animals and be mindless. There’s nothing wrong with that when that is the goal of the interaction. I veg out on the couch all the time with my cats, sometimes napping together, sometimes they nap and I mindlessly scroll facebook. All animals have “down time,” quite a lot, actually. But if we are checking out while we are actively doing something with our animals, then that opens the door for behaviors that we don’t want. “Where our focus goes - grows.” I don’t know where I heard this the first time, but it’s true. Whatever we put our focus and energy on is what we’ll get more of. So being distracted around our animals guarantees a distracted result from them, whether that’s the dog that won’t “just walk” when we take them out, or the horse that constantly spooks or ignores requests.
The clearer we can keep our thoughts about whatever is at hand when it involves our pets the easier accomplishing tasks becomes, and the better the relationship is. Focusing on being together and present will bring better quality results regardless of what the end goal is. So give yourself, and your pets, the gift of being present today, and see what happens.
