Riverwest stables and Rottweilers

I’m starting to wonder if we’re loving horses into fragility.

Seriously.

When did good horsemanship turn into micromanaging every single aspect of a horse’s existence?

The perfect feed.
The perfect supplements.
The perfect footing.
The perfect temperature.
The perfect turnout schedule.
The perfect routine.
The perfect environment.

Everything analyzed. Everything optimized. Every tiny change immediately “fixed.”

And then we take that same horse somewhere new, they’re stressed for five minutes, and our first instinct is to remove them from the situation.

But how are they ever supposed to learn that they’re okay?

How does a horse learn to settle in a new barn if we take them home because they’re anxious the first day?

How do they learn to stand quietly somewhere unfamiliar, haul somewhere new, handle a different routine, be separated from their buddies or experience the world if we never give them enough time to work through being uncomfortable?

Being stressed for a moment isn’t the same thing as being harmed.

Learning to regulate after stress is a skill.

And we can’t expect horses to develop that skill if we continually remove every opportunity for them to practice it.

Obviously there’s a line. There is absolutely such a thing as overwhelming a horse, and good horsemanship means recognizing when something is too much.

But somewhere between flooding a horse and preventing them from ever experiencing discomfort is a really important middle ground.

Horses are supposed to adapt.

Physically AND mentally.

Different weather. Different footing. Different routines. Different places. Different horses. Different expectations. Sometimes things simply not going exactly how they’re used to.

We spend so much time trying to eliminate stress that sometimes I wonder if we’re accidentally eliminating resilience right along with it.

Not every uncomfortable moment needs an intervention.

Not every stressful moment means something is wrong.

Sometimes they need us to give them enough time to realize:

Oh. I can handle this.

Maybe the goal shouldn’t be creating a life where our horses never experience stress.

Maybe the goal should be raising horses that know how to come back down from it.