Heron Pond Farm

10/19/2023

Sunrise yesterday morning 💗💓🌸

06/24/2023

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06/17/2023

03/27/2023

Rocky is back at HPF and ready to get to doing what he does best!! Teach kids how to ride!! He recently scored at 75% + 74% at a LPSDC Virtual Show winning one class and narrowly missing 1st in the other!! He’s an excellent boy! Call 360-821-1623 to set up lessons! Located in Port Townsend, Washington

03/25/2023

Your horse is not giving you a hard time, he is having a hard time.

When we shift our mindset about the behavior of our horses from that of negativity (he's being bad, being ignorant, being stupid) to difficulty (he doesn't understand, he's physically unable, he's anxious, he's confused), we're able to break the cycle of punishing the behavior and instead start helping our horses overcome their struggle.
This can, and should be applied to even the smallest of tasks such as:
Standing square - physical discomfort and/or imbalance, regardless of whether it stems from the body or feet, could make this seemingly simple task impossible for the horse.
Haltering - Pain in the poll, dental issues, tension, pinched nerves or discomfort anywhere around the head/neck could make even wearing a halter painful.
Picking up feet - Again, any imbalances or dysfunction in the body could make it seem like your horse "doesn't like" having their feet picked up/held up, but in reality the horse either physically can't offer you the foot at all, or for more than a few seconds.
Grooming - Biting, shying, pinning ears while grooming are clear indications of discomfort in the body, and can even be warning signs for ulcers.

We've said it before and we will say it again, regardless of how simple of an ask you believe it to be, every answer your horse gives you is the right one. That doesn't mean it's the answer that you want, but it's the answer you need in order to help your horse, and most of the time it's a pain issue, not a training issue.

Not to mention, letting a horse "buck it out/sacking out" is in no way a form of training. It is dangerous, it is abusive, it is as far from training as bicycles are to F1 racing. With social media full of abusers "training" horses by flooding them and calling it desensitizing, to jumping on a horse nowhere near ready for a rider and causing the horse to panic and risk injuring itself and the rider, we as an industry need to call out the BS.

02/10/2023

Horses can’t think like people and that’s okay.

They don’t have the brain anatomy to understand complex human concepts like respect and even if they did — respect as humans views it varies from culture to culture. They cannot possibly begin to understand respect as we define it and it’s unreasonable to expect them to do so.

They can’t willfully recall the past or look into the future like humans can. They do have excellent memories and can retain information but need certain stimuli to trigger previous memories rather than being able to freely recall the past or plot for events in the future. Since they are flight animals, living in the moment is much more advantageous to them.

Why must they need to have similar cognition to humans to be viewed as intelligent animals deserving of our respect?

Why can’t we appreciate them for the creatures they are and learn something from their level of presentness and sensitivity?

It is okay that they can’t think like us. It requires more adaptability on our part and asks us to leave aside the preconceived notions we carry in human society.

Humanizing horses enables us in our lack of desire to adapt for the sake of the horse but it’s damaging to the horses.

When we misrepresent their brain capacity and ability to understand human concepts, we cause harm by allowing people to rationalize high levels of punishment on the basis that the horse can understand how they’re “wronging” their human and is doing it intentionally.

So, we need to stop doing that because we are lying to ourselves to secure our own comfort at the expense of our horses.

The studies on equine brain anatomy and cognition tell us a very clear story.

Our horses’ capacity to learn from trial and error and be taught skills that us humans view to be “manners” or “respect” speaks for their ability to learn but we need to take ownership on our perception of horse behaviour and how it colours our view of them.

Human perception is not everything.

We can be wrong and are frequently.

Equine behavioural science helps to hold us more accountable by seeking to define what is the horses’ perception rather than allowing human bias to run the show. While bias can still exist, there’s more accountability in this than anecdotes.

Horses don’t think like us.

They shouldn’t have to.

02/07/2023