Touching Animal Souls

This was a frustrating lesson for me.  I get it.  But it would be so much easier to be holier than thou. To be right.   Actually for me, with animals, the lesson is digestible. Problem is I just realised it has application with humans. Aaargh. So what is the lesson? When i learn about something it becomes a part of my frame of reference. If I truly want to use the lesson and be bigger than the story I cannot use the lesson to judge another.  For example. I learn that when our horse friend Tonic is agitated his top lip quivers. So I take this story and make it a law for all horses.  😴(sound effect is the buzzer in a quiz show that says _ wrong answer) We know that there are many signs that can be generalised for a species. For horses a high head, flicking tail,pawing the ground, hard eyes are a few. However we need to look and feel in every moment rather than just see the sign and make the judgement. Are we feeling the horse's state of being or ticking boxes. Th...

At our animal training workshop on Saturday I was amazed.  In the workshop I begin by establishing that all are familiar with the terms positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment.  I find that if we don't establish this, confusion reigns. So this is where we begin.  On Saturday my students really battled. I considered what was wrong and for a while was pretty perplexed.  I usually whizz through this section without a hitch.  And the students were pretty clever people.   Then I got it. This is one of the first workshops I have presented to the informàl training sector and more to the point, they were English-speaking.  Most other audiences have been foreign or had substantial numbers of Afrikaans and African language participants. So why is this significant? I was presenting in English. Significant because we English speakers have a uniquely evolving language that is filled with associations. The essence of language is so o...

Because I truly do not know how you manage to keep motivated.  How do you stay focussed and sit down all day.  How do you wake up in the morning and know you are heading to a desk.  You must be made of much better stuff than me. On days where I need to catch up on administration tasks and spend all day in the office, if I try and fit in a few minutes here and there to connect with the animals.  Just came back from a moment just like this.  An hour ago I was heavy lidded and dragging on the end of my enthusiasm to get my monthly report done.  I stepped out to spend some time with the incredible Zulu and Kelpie, and I feel enlivened again.  I am so so so so grateful to have these connections in my life.  Thank you thank you thank you!!!