Learning from our mistakes

Anyone who professionally works in the horse industry, specifically in rehabilitation, will know that the hard work, stress and sleepless nights often lie with the difficulty of rehabilitating the owner and not the horse itself.

There seems to be a general consensus that because we as owners typically do the very best for our horses, that our very best is what’s right for said horse. Unfortunately, no one human has ever had the luxury of never making a mistake. Mistakes and failure is something I think a lot of people beat themselves up about but in reality, we need to fail once or twice in order to learn from those mistakes and do better next time. This doesn’t solely apply to keeping horses but with anything we do in life.

I will always be the very first to admit that we have made our fair share of mistakes before we knew about the benefits of keeping horses barefoot and on a Paddock Paradise. Infact, that is something we are very open about. When we own horses and are responsible for another living breathing creature, having an ego, being unwilling to listen or learn, and never being able to admit to a mistake can be the difference between said creature’s life or death. You may think that statement is exaggerated, but there are countless horses dying every day because we as owners are constantly in this ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ mindset and refuse to see what’s right in front of us.

I am not doubting for one second that the majority of horse owners aren’t going out of their way to do the things they think will help their horses, betters their lives or makes them happy. I am however saying that each and every owner needs to be willing to learn and never stop learning, regardless of how long you’ve owned horses or how long you’ve been doing things a certain way. Our horses get absolutely zero say in how they live their lives and realistically, we control every single thing they do right down to how they ‘horse’. We owe our horses a healthy, happy life and we should be striving to provide them with nothing short of that, even if it means changing the way we do things.