So I began to hurry.

And the more I hurried, the more Willie screamed at me to slow down. If I hurried anything, Willie would regress and things would slow down by at least 10x the amount they would’ve otherwise progressed. We would accomplish one training task, only for another 5 issues to appear in need of care.

Looking back, I know there are better ways I could’ve done certain things. But I’ve tried to have compassion for myself, knowing that I was doing the best I could given my level of knowledge at the time and the pressures I was under (more on this later). One example was with the lay down.

Previously, I have taught the lay down by using ropes. Which, IF used appropriately, causes minimal stress to the horse and prepares them for giving to pressures around their legs, which is a very useful tool (especially if your horse ever winds up caught in a fence). But with Willie, I decided to try a new method, advocated by my friend and fellow trainer, Ariana Sakaris, in which you teach the horse to assume the position he naturally takes before laying down (a kind of head down, back feet tucked under like a mountain goat, front foot propped kind of position).

But Willie would assume this position and hold it for minutes at a time without giving in and laying down (which had a lot to do with him resisting such a vulnerable position). Especially using this method, the lay down was not something I could force to happen.

“Here’s the catch: As soon as I gave up the expectation of a timeline regarding him laying down, or him even laying down altogether, he did it! “

Here’s how it happened: After an unsuccessful session, I released him and walked out of the roundpen. He immediately laid down and rolled. Click and treat, treats, and more treats! I changed my approach. Now I would let him loose at the beginning of each session. He would sniff around and start to lay down on his own. Click and treat. Eventually he got more comfortable laying down with me near him and I was able to then re-introduce the cue and pair it with the behavior.

There are several examples of this type of lesson throughout his case study, but this one was particularly powerful for me. When I went back to Colorado, I took time to really build the basics with Willie and dove into more positive reinforcement training, which turned out to be a total game changer for him and really led to his total transformation.

Behind the Scenes

In my 24th year, I took a deep look at the business I had created. Business was booming–Or so it appeared. I had reached 100,000 followers on Facebook with over 15 million hits on my videos. I was being asked to teach and perform around the world. I made 2 major magazine covers, COWGIRL and HORSE & RIDER. I appeared on a television show on Animal Planet with Dr. Jeff. Everyone was asking how I had managed to accomplish so much at 24. But what they didn’t see was the the behind the scenes struggles. I still didn’t have any stable form of revenue. Organization within the company was a mess. Systems were nonexistent–We operated out of survival 99% of the time. I had invested thousands of dollars into an online platform that failed. I was spreading myself thin and fading away from giving so much of myself away with no time to recover (I was on camera or teaching every day for a long time…And I’m the highest level introvert you can fathom). I was losing sight of why I had undertaken all of this in the first place; The vision that had kept me alive for so many years. Years of overwork and strain were finally taking their toll.