>   I'm sorry Laura, but I'm a little sick of Bob's advise,
 > and don't plan to ask another question in this echo again.
 > I have not ONCE claimed to know horses. However, I HAVE
 > a willingness to learn, both from friends and books. I guess
 > I'm just a wee bit tired of "get an expert to do it". I
 > "thought" I had stumbled upon an INTERNATIONAL Equus echo,
 > but I think I'm mistaken. I'll just leave it on the BBS
 > for now, and surf the net for my info. I don't
 > have the time to play games. I know people who train horses.
 > I'm well aware of the advise my children will need.
 
Jim,
 
I see where you are coming from -- if I remember right, you made the point 
earlier in this discussion that if you are going to learn about training 
horses, you have to take the plunge and train your first horse sometime.  
That's true up to a point.
 
On the other hand, working with horses is not like cooking.  If you mess up 
with baking a cake, no real harm is done, but if you mess up training a 
horse, the horse may end up with bad habits that eventually result in 
somebody washing their hands of the problem horse and putting him down.
 
I hear what you are saying about having trained dogs.  However, training a 
horse is not the same, and your experience and expectations you've acquired 
when working with dogs may in fact be a liability when working with horses.  
To go back to my cooking example -- knowing how to grill a steak is great, 
but if you want to take up baking, it won't do you any good to swagger into 
the kitchen saying how great you are with a barbecue.  The skills needed are 
different.
 
And I don't think people are out of line to tell you that by choosing to 
train a filly for your first horse, you're trying to do something difficult.  
It's like starting to learn to bake by making an angel food cake, which even 
professional bakers find difficult.  But again, it's not so bad to plunge in 
on a hard project with cooking, since if you fail you can just throw out the 
ingredients and start over again.
 
You say you are willing to learn, but you don't seem very willing to listen 
to the answers people give you.  You also say you don't have time to play 
games.  Training horses takes a lot of patience 
-- it's not a pastime for guys in a hurry.   Real horsepeople know 
that learning how to train horses properly takes a lifetime, and they don't 
blow off advice just because it isn't what they wanted to hear
 
Go surf the net all you want to, but I have to warn you -- the folks on 
rec.equestrian are probably going to tell you the same thing Bob has, and 
many of them are not going to be as polite about it as he has.
 
--- Opus-CBCS 1.73a
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