10/31/2025
Donkey time, food for thought.
On Thinking, Soaking and Donkey Time
One of the fun things about having your horses at home is you can come up with all sorts of creative ways to help them learn, far away from the critical, nay-saying eyes of many a (usually) well-intentioned boarder.
Yes, that is a stick under my horse's tail. Yes, I put it there on purpose.
When learning something - if the horse is truly going to integrate the lesson - it's pretty important that the horse have some time to think.
The amount of time a horse needs to think will vary based on a number of factors, one of which being the horse themselves. Some horses are deeper thinkers than others and require more time to process. Some horses think quite quickly. Most fall somewhere in the middle. All horses need more time to think through things when the lesson or idea is new.
There are also different points during a lesson at which we can offer the horse some time to think. During our active conversation is one such time: we ask a question and allow the horse as much time as he needs to come up with a response. We can also offer horses time to think after they've offered the response, especially if that response was in line with what we wanted or took a lot of effort for the horse to come up with. Some folks use the term "soaking" for this time after the session is over: it's not uncommon to hear of people tying their horses for a little bit after a ride to let them "soak". While I find it can sometimes be a useful practice, I think it tends to get used a bit more in lieu of allowing the horse to think DURING the session, which I find much more valuable for the horse, and thus for me.
The phraseology my mentor uses is "donkey time" which I appreciate and have adopted myself largely because I have donkeys and I have learned how differently donkeys can be in a lot of ways from horses, especially in their need to process what's being asked of them. Donkeys do not like to be hustled, and their tendency towards being labeled as stubborn comes from the fact that they do not appreciate crudeness in handling. When a donkey offers you something, you can be assured he's thought the subject through thoroughly and arrived at his decision with conviction.
That said, donkeys can also be incredibly stoic, and so in my experience the term "donkey time" takes on even more valuable meaning when you apply it to animals that can LOOK like they are okay with something, but have really just tucked their feelings deep down inside in the interest of dealing with whatever has been presented to them. My gelding Lewis is one such horse.
Lewis is a bit protective of his hind end. He does not kick or offer to do anything untoward, but there is a tension back there and it becomes very obvious when you take a feel of his tail. Today he felt particularly grabby about it, and after asking some questions around that it was obvious his answer was "if we can just pretend it's not a problem, that would be ideal".
When a horse is struggling with something, the lesson sticks (no pun intended) much better if they come up with the solution themselves. Lewis was pretty intent on keeping his tail clutched and tight which has ramifications all the way up his spine. If HE could find the release in his tail without me interfering, that is a much better answer than me messing with him directly.
So I found a relatively smooth stick, lifted his tail head slightly and placed it carefully before letting go. Sure enough, the tension in his tail trapped the stick underneath. It felt funny and he hu**ed up a bit and shuffled a few steps before deciding this, too, was something he could just deal with.
What Lewis needed to figure out on his own was that he controlled the awkward sensation of having something stuck up his bum. If he simply relaxed his tail, the stick would drop out and the feeling would go away.
It took about 10 minutes before he discovered this was possible. He shifted around quite a bit during that time, not in frenzy but just looking for a comfortable position. I let him sit for a couple of minutes after he released the stick the first time before putting it back and letting him work at it again. The second time took about four minutes, culminating in a full body release that led to a more relaxed body posture overall, a deep breath and some thoughtful chewing.
Lewis definitely needs his donkey time: he will absorb crude handling and being hustled if he must, and he very easily could fall into the category of "horses that are okay but not okay" if he was allowed to. While he is on the high end in terms of amount of time he needs to think through things, most of us spend our time more focused on doing than what happens between the doings, to the detriment of our horses.
There is much value in the time where it looks like nothing is happening.
