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October 28, 2007
This Could be A Kids Best Friend
by Jack Lee
(Featured is Snickers a 9 year old quarterhorse out here at the Rocking G)
Horses and kids make a natural match as friends because of their mutual needs. Kids need to learn early on in life things like responsibility, compassion and respect. A horse requires those things in order to be the kind of animal you will enjoy and appreciate for those many years you may have him. It's also a healthy diversion in this day of video games and overweight teens and especially for kids complaining they never have anything to do!
It's a big responsibility to own a horse, they need a lot of care and training and if you don't understand that when you buy a horse you may be in for a rude awakening! However, just about everybody I have ever known that has owned one has said the rewards more than justified the time and cost.
Kids and horses bond quickly and I think that makes the woork part a lot easier, like the daily chores of mucking out the stall, the twice daily feedings, a little grooming before and after riding, checking their hooves for stones and such. But, the big pay off is in exercising. Exercising is basically just riding and having fun.
Consider that the average horse is a 1000 lbs. plus of muscle and go power! If you don't respect that, well, lets just say trouble is never far away! Most of the time the scrapes and bruises that will result from that lack of respect are just great reminders of what not to do... next time! There's nothing like being thrown from a horse to teach a kid not to push his luck or act stupid. This builds good judgement in a child and a healthy respect for danger. Kids can be big risk takers and a horse can really moderate some of that because riding and dealing with the unexpected makes a kid think about what they are doing. If they learn this lesson well, it can pay big dividends throughout their life, especially when you're not around and they are behind the wheel of a car.
Around this place the kids started riding around age 8, but only after they were duly schooled in caring for the animal and earned the right to ride. By the time they were around 11 they could ride with the best of them...uh, as long as their horse was about 20 years old and docile as a lamb. Parents have to be smart about this stuff you know. (You shouldn't stick a 10-year-old on a crazy Arabian and stay go have fun.) But, in the kids minds they might be as good the bronc riders at the rodeo on that pokey old quarter horse and that's good enough.
Unfortunately the opportunities for kids to grow up around horses is getting rare and it's a shame because we're losing something very valuable in developing character. I guess building character is really what it's all about when it comes to kids and horses. The overall effect of a child bonding with an animal (and it could be most any animal) is caring compassion, patience and responsibility. It just happens that iwith a good horse kids can do things they couldn't with other animals and the challenges they face together just brings out the best in them.
Last summer my grandson had the chance to help me load hay. We took a truck and flat bed trailer to a neighbor's ranch and hand loaded about 60 bails of alfalfa weighing about 80 lbs. each... for the horses. He was 13 at the time and he had not been exposed to any real hard labor, but he got right into the program and when we were about 75% done he was tossing the bails like a cowhand. When we came through town he made me stop at his house to show his Mom what [he] had loaded and we took a picture just so he could remember the moment. He was so proud he didn't want to unload it...least that is what he told me, maybe he was just really tired?
Well, that's another page from life in the country and we will feel eternally grateful for the all work, worry, sweat and... fun!
Posted by Post Scripts at October 28, 2007 10:26 AM