|
|
|
|||
 |
||||
|
|
Your help is important to us.  Pennies for Ponies Program We ask everyone to bring in all your pennies. It all goes to the care and up keep of the horses. Every penny counts!! Why It Works - Connecting With Horses There are many physical reasons why therapeutic riding works. The rider is above the trainer and the therapeutic riding volunteers and experiences the rhythmic swinging motions of the warm-bodied horse, as the horse is led around the arena, pastures and trails of the Farm. This achieves a number of valuable benefits:
Animal Assisted Therapy
Animal assisted therapy is a rapidly growing field as it is found that having a pet, usually a cat or a dog, may assist healing and wellness processes. This may be another factor in creating the benefits that special needs children gain from therapeutic riding. Very often a special relationship develops between a child and their particular therapy horse.
You may be interested to explore what others are finding out about the relationships that can develop between horses and humans. Connecting With Horses is the title of a book by Margrit Coates. The following draws on her writings and on what others have written. You will find a series of other websites dealing with this topic at the end of this article for your further reading. Horses Are More Than Exciting Creatures To Ride
It is exciting to ride a horse. You might assume that this is the biggest factor in achieving the beneficial effects of therapeutic riding that are seen with our special children. However a horse is a very special animal and there is another side to the horse that comes into play.
Of course many different animals are used in various forms of therapy, including dogs and cats and even fish. Perhaps you had not thought about it but there is one very striking difference between horses and other animals such as dogs or cats. Horses Are Prey Animals
Horses share a characteristic with some other mammals that are involved in therapy. Think about dolphins, whales and elephants. What they all share in common is that they are prey animals. In the wild, they live with the constant fear that their young or the weak of the herd may be attacked and killed by predators.
There are many features that distinguish between predators and prey animals. Predators like cats and dogs have forward facing eyes to help them focus on their prey. Once they have caught their prey, they will then spend much of the day sleeping or resting in one place. 
Prey animals like horses must spend most of the day eating and have eyes on both sides of their heads for maximum visibility. Their ears are constantly on the move to detect the slightest sound that may signal danger. They have much keener senses of smell than dogs or cats. They look around for the slightest hint that something unpleasant will be happening soon.
This constant fear forces them to be always on the alert for potential threats and be ready to take to their heels if there is the slightest suspicion that something unexpected will happen. If they are free to go, then they will act on that suspicion and will escape to a less threatening place. When free, they stick with the herd
Given that a horse will flee when danger seems to be imminent, a human can only come close to a free range horse in situations where there is no threat. Such a relationship only develops as mutual trust grows over a period of time. A horse cannot be intimidated into being close.
Nevertheless horses are curious and, if they feel no threat, will often slowly approach a human being as they would approach another member of their herd. This is the cardinal principle in whether a mutually fulfilling relationship will develop between the human and the horse. The horse must willingly come close. Good Horse-Human Relationships Are Between Equals
Good relationships between humans and horses can only develop in non-stress, welcoming conditions. The best horse-human relationship does not involve a hierarchy. It is not based on power on either side. It is there to be enjoyed provided you put in the effort to allow it to happen. Horse and human are very different but neither is superior and neither is inferior. The Best Communication Takes Place Between Equals
In a human relationship, it is difficult to avoid a hierarchy developing even if both humans strive to avoid this. Even the best boss working with a confident employee is still the boss. A helper may inevitably appear to be superior to the person being helped. This hierarchy may influence how ideas are exchanged and how actions are decided on. We have all seen the band-wagon effect when a boss is keen on an idea and his team goes along with the idea rather than making waves.
If the hierarchy effect can be eliminated then reviewing possibilities and choosing actions is likely to be based more truly on the factors that matter. Some humans believe that two way communication by thought processes does occur with their horses. New creative ideas and different ways of sizing up the alternatives can come to mind when such communications occur between horses and humans.
Whether all humans working with horses can communicate in this way is open to question. However it may be that some of our special children are benefiting from such communications. Others Who Connect With HorsesThere are many others around the world who are involved in similar work and this is a partial list of some of the leaders in the field:
Help Our Special Children Connect With HorsesIf you have found this interesting and helpful and are able to, why not consider donating to help our special children connect with horses. Whatever you can manage will be really helpful.
|
|||
|
||||
| Hosting proudly donated by Alternet Internet Langley, BC © 2009 - 2011 Valley Therapeutic Equestrian Association. All rights reserved 3330 - 256th Street, Langley, BC Canada V4W 1Y4 Tel: (604) 857-1267 |
||||
