Whisper in The Wind

Hi Everyone – Todd Johnson here from The JBIT Ranch, LLC here to share with you a natural horsemanship concept I like to call – The Whisper in The Wind.

Have you ever been out with your horse and all sorts of commotions are going on in the area, but he spooks at a bird or a squirrel or the neighbor’s kid coming around the corner of the barn? Why didn’t the people and the traffic and the rest of the commotion bother him, but the tiny out of nowhere stimulus did? Because horses are conditioned to hear the Whisper in The Wind.

Maybe you’ve watched the Discovery Channel and seen the zebras grazing out on the Serengeti and the pride of lions on the hilltop just a few hundred yards away frolicking and playing or maybe sleeping and rolling and wondered why the zebras weren’t running, but then one lion rolls into a crouch and looks at them with an intent stare, and – 40 pairs of eyes and ears snap to instant attention. They just tuned in to the Whisper in The Wind.

Have you ever been stuck in a levels task and the bigger you get the less it works? The harder you try, the more distracted your horse? You’ve tried to make effective use of your phases, but all you accomplished was to beat the popper off of your Savvy String? This most especially could be with a horse that has a terrific friendly game or a horse that has a great level 2 but seems to be struggling to move into level 3.

What’s happened?

For those of us parents of youngsters, we know the answer. For my little 1 year old Colton, as long as he’s making plenty of noise and I know what the noises are, I can relax – and maybe even type a blog post ) – but if it get’s too quiet, or the wrong sound, even if ever so faint, occurs – I am tuned in! Just like my horse, I just tuned in to the Whisper in The Wind.

Horses, like us, are conditioned to tune out the big, loud, overt noises and pressures that generally mean nothing at all, but are highly tuned to the slightest sights or sounds that need our full attention NOW! Many of us can sleep with the TV on and the kids playing but are on instant alert if someone calls out our name.

Next time you play with your horse, try this: Get Small —– Whisper!! Be big and loud and overt in your friendly games (and be creative with them) but when it’s time that you really need your horse to tune in, get physically much more quiet, but mentally far more focused, deliberate and intense – Become The Whisper in The Wind.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Carrie-Darlene-Negley/555356533 Carrie Darlene Negley

Love this! It is amazing how small you can get and it will make your horse really listen!
Apachezmom

This is awsome advice. My horse acts this way all the time…..he spooks at the little things – a shovel ; yet will walk calmly past a running Tractor or ATV !! I love the idea of trying to get smaller and just Whisper. I will definitly try some of these tips and see what happens.!!
thanks Todd !!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Diane-Ayers/1038713477 Diane Ayers

The whisper in the wind sounds very lovely and romantic, but my horses have told me something a little different. A horse’s number one priority is safety and that is the job of the herd leader. If you train your horse to accept you as the herd leader, then he can relax his vigilance and leave that job to you. His job then becomes to pay attention to you. I have employed this paradigm over the last 4 years with both of my horses, one very dominant and the other kind of laid back and anxious, and it has been very effective. We have come to the point that all I have to do to get rid of the spookiness is get my horse’s attention and he immediately focuses back on me and forgets about the squirrel/bird/leaf that was distracting him before. This works on the ground and in the saddle.

Anonymous

Thanks for your comment, Diane. I agree wholeheartedly. The concept I conveyed picks up where your third sentence leaves off – “His job then becomes to pay attention to you.” By suggesting that this would apply to a horse that was Level 2 heading to Level 3 in the Parelli program, we should expect that leadership has already been determined and he is very happy to let you make the decisions. Whisper in the Wind is about refining and elevating the relationship to greater and greater levels. Instead of getting my horse’s attention, being small and specific is about keeping it, never losing it, and instead of competing with his environment, becoming more interesting than it is. When you watch horses and humans doing wonderful, beautiful things together in clinics, demos and in otherwise hectic environments, what you’re seeing is a horse that’s tuned into the Whisper in the Wind and a human that has learned to become it.