Horse Sense for People. Monty Roberts

of Join-Up I am engaging in a dialogue with the horse in exactly the same way I hold a conversation with a person. Our conversation creates that basis of trust. I carefully observe the horse as I work with it, assessing its responses to me and the environment it is now in.

      We often make false assumptions about people and horses; it is our nature. I have done it in the past and from time to time still do. This story is a reminder of just how wrong we can be and how important it is to make correct and unbiased assessments of people and situations. Our ability to read other people’s body language is innate, but sometimes we can even get that wrong. This incident has led me to a greater understanding of the depth of the bond I make with the horse. This experience has brought home to me how deep maternal instincts run in most mammalian species. To my personal knowledge this is the first interaction of its kind. To think that this adult female horse as wild as a deer could so quickly adopt me and move to protect me was overwhelming. It would have surprised me greatly if a domestic mare had reacted in such a fashion. I now realize that it is more likely for the wild one to express this phenomenon because she is so much more acutely aware of the dangers in nature. Subsequent to the incident I have been much more confident when discussing interspecies communication than I was before. This mustang mare proved to me beyond any shadow of a doubt that there is a close interspecies connection most people have failed to observe or experience.

      I received a call one day from a lady who had just adopted a mustang mare from the Bureau of Land Management. The mare had a foal at her side, which was not uncommon. The owner had heard about my methods and wanted her mare started by me. She felt strongly that my nontraumatic approach would enhance the genuine qualities of the mustang, causing her to be an excellent riding animal for herself and her family.

      This was the first mustang I had started since those early days of working with them in Salinas. I advised this lady that she should wait until the foal was six or seven months old and then wean it. Once the mare had settled down, she could bring her to the farm.

      They duly arrived. The trailer was backed up to the round pen and out of it charged the wildest animal I have ever seen in my life. I soon learned that she had gone through the adoption program and had just been turned out in a corral. Her only interaction with humans was when they fed and watered her. It was a daunting experience to watch this mustang from the small viewing platform. She was frantically trying to climb out and kept herself as far away as possible from our side of the pen.

      Eventually I entered the pen to begin to work with her. I went through my procedure, sending her away, which is the first step, and she responded quite well. She gave me the signs I was looking for and was very demonstrative. After about forty-five minutes I could touch her. We were making excellent progress. By the two-hour mark, I had a halter on her and was leading her around. I could pick up her front feet, but when I tried to pick up her back ones, she resisted furiously by kicking. Mustangs are often paranoid when it comes to handling their hind legs and I felt certain that a few days of work would increase her trust in me so that this problem would go away. I decided not to force that issue.

      Sean, my assistant, brought in the saddle, bridle and pad, placing them in the center of the round pen. While he was doing this, the mare was hovering really close to me at the south side of the pen. Sean left to the north, closing the solid wooden gate behind him.

      I left the south side of the pen and started to walk toward the equipment, leaving the mare just to the right of me. She was facing north toward the door. I took about two steps from the south wall and she left me like a rocket. Running as fast as she could, she crashed into the saddle on the ground and started ripping it to shreds with her teeth. Pawing and kicking, she tore at the saddle. It was as if I had brought a lion into the middle of the pen. I felt she thought she was cornered and had to fight this predator for her life. I stood frozen in my tracks near the south wall of the pen. The air was filled with bits and pieces as they flew off the saddle. The effect was terrifying and I must admit at that moment I thought I was next on the menu.

      I started moving around to my right, staying as close as I could to the wall. I moved along as smoothly and rapidly as possible. I had recently had extensive back surgery, so jumping out of the round pen was not an option. I managed to get about halfway round. I saw Sean was standing on the viewing platform near the gate, watching me and at that moment the mare broke away from the saddle and ran straight at me.

      My heart almost stopped. I was scared to death. I crouched down against the base of the wall and decided that the best way to take her on was to ball up in a fetal position covering my head. She was coming and having seen what she had done to the saddle, I knew it was not going to be pretty. I could sense that Sean had jumped down from his perch into the pen right by the gate. I don’t think he was too anxious to get near her either, but the mere fact that he came into the pen said a lot for his courage.

      As I was balled up there on the ground, I saw out of the corner of my eye her nose was right against the wall in front of me. She had not attacked me. Her hind feet were brushing against my toes. It was very strange because she was almost in a U shape, wrapping herself around me, her tail against the wall on one side and her nose the other.

      I stayed balled up there for a while and Sean was out of sight. I saw her look over her shoulder directly at the saddle. As her head came off the wall to view the saddle she pinned her ears flat back and bared her teeth. As she looked back toward me her ears came forward and her mouth was closed. I called out to Sean. “Wait, wait, don’t come forward now.” Luckily she had not seen him as her attention was fixed on the saddle and me. He stopped in his tracks, frozen by my urgent command and stood up against the wall. The mare then made another dive for the saddle, attacking the remaining larger pieces. Like a whirlwind, she suddenly deserted this deadly enemy and resumed her protective stance around me.

      I realized that this mare was adopting me. She had joined-up with me so intensely that in her mind I deserved the same protection as her foal. She was guarding me from this deadly predator that had come into our world. She was still lactating and the warm milk began to drip onto my legs.

      Sean moved into the center of the pen and gathered up the shredded remnants that had been a saddle, retreated and closed the gate behind him. Once the potential danger was removed, the mare walked away from me. I got up, stroked her head and walked around the pen with her. Sean went for another saddle and returned to the pen. This time I kept her on a lead while putting the pad, saddle and bridle on.

      Sean came in later and rode her with no trouble, finishing up in just over two and a half hours. The owner actually rode the mare within two weeks and was extremely pleased. Later reports reached me that this mare became a wonderful animal for both this lady and her daughter. It was the first mustang she had adopted and this experience was so positive that she became president of a mustang association.

      Several times she invited me to come to adoption events and start mustangs, which I was delighted to do. She felt that they had a better chance of being successfully adopted if they were already “joined-up.”

      The bizarre behavior described in this story has never reoccurred with me, nor have I heard of it happening to anybody else. While the occurrence may have been unusual, her desire to protect me amplified the potential for close human-to-horse attachment. The mare’s body language was there for me to read, but I was confused by the speed of events and perceived only the aggression with which she attacked the saddle. It took me a long time to realize that this was the act of a mother to protect what she now considered to be her family. I had not before realized the depth of bonding that Join-Up creates. In the mare’s mind I was to be protected from all danger and that included a possible attack from what she perceived to be “the deadly saddle.”

      Surely one of the most important jobs a parent has to do is to protect the child from any kind of threat. This must be a deeply instinctual trait imbedded in the brains of all mammals. This mare exemplified the extent to which a mother will go to protect what she perceives to be her maternal responsibility.

      A human being (predominantly a fight animal) will quite often act out in violence even when it is not in his best interest. I feel that most traditional horsemen would have stood their ground to this mare and wherever possible would have struck her, feeling it was