For some reason, some of us are so sure we are right in any given situation, we are willing to go “down with the ship” to make our point. As a young man, I wore my Mom out with my arguing. Finally, my Dad gave me a choice, stop arguing or move out. I chose to work on the arguing, and started to keep my frustration inside. Only later in life did I realize I wasn t as smart as I thought I was. Some young people however, can t stop.

Sometimes, an arguer has more problems than just “knowing” they are right all of the time. A common diagnosis today for the “arguer” is known as “Oppositional Defiant Disorder.” One in ten young people suffer from this disorder. Its causes are largely unknown, but it is often accompanied with ADD or ADHD. A young person suffering from this ailment cannot be reasoned with, it is impossible! Talking just doesn t work, nor does punishment… why? Because you are punishing them for something that in their mind isn t wrong. They really see themselves in the right and the as victim, therefore, the punishment only makes them more rebellious and or angry.

We have a young man at Arivaca Boys Ranch that I will call John (not real name.) John is convinced that he was brought to the ranch unjustly. He admits he has had problems and that he needs to work on things (he focuses mostly on behaviors like staying out after curfew, smoking, and lying.) He knows however, that his problems can be best fixed at home, with family and friends, and not at a ranch with strangers. Many a staff member has had his ear bent for an hour or more about the unjustness of John s presence at the ranch, and all the “reasons” he can work out his problems at home. Any effort the help him understand the reason his parents sent him to the ranch fall on deaf ears. In fact, the counter arguments create frustration and anger because they are perceived to be so “off base” by John. John becomes a broken record, going around and around with his reasoning and attempts to be understood. After an hour, the ranch staffer  knows exactly why John s parents brought him to Arivaca Boys Ranch - they were at the end of their wits trying to help their son.

So how do you help John when reasoning and communication DON T WORK?

Equine Therapy… a powerful tool.

I selected a particularly stubborn and difficult horse and explained to John that I had found the perfect horse for him. I wanted him to work with this horse for a couple of days and eventually train her as part of our program. The horses name was “Jamakamecrazy.”  He was excited to have an assignment and loved the name! We call her Jamaka for short and sometimes Crazy.

The two hour  exercise is spread over two days and is called flagging. We put a plastic bag on the end of a three foot stick and enter a small stall with the horse. The horse s natural instinct is to keep her rear towards the enemy. In this case the enemy is me and the scary bag on the end of my stick. As I shake the stick, the plastic bag scares the horse who looks for escape. She paces around the stall and at times even kicks at me and my bag. John watches this for several minutes and exclaims, “I not getting in there with that crazy horse, she ll kill me.”

I ask John what he sees. “I see a horse that wants to escape.” I ask, “Why does she want to escape?” “Because she is scared of you” he replies. “But I am not going to hurt her, I want to help her.” John says, “She obviously doesn t know that, she believes otherwise. She might kill you if you aren t careful.” “But I am not going to hurt her. In fact, I am the one who offers her safety and peace.” “Well, she doesn t believe that for a second, she wants away from you.” “John, tell her I won t hurt her… make her understand I am her friend.” I continue to shake the bag in her direction and she is about ready to scale the fence trying to get out of the stall.

“You know what, you are as crazy as she is if you think she is gonna believe that.” “John, trade places with me and convince her we won t hurt her.” “No way, I ain t getting in there with her.”

In a few minutes something starts to happen. Each time I quit shaking the bag, the horse turns to face me to see what is going on. As she faces me, I quickly drop the end of the stick the bag was attached to, toward the ground. As she looks back to the fence to find a way out, I start shaking the bag again. After a couple repetitions of this exercise, she figures out that if she looks at me the bag will go away. Eventually, she starts to turn in my direction and face me, and the bag disappears behind me. If she starts to move away from me the bag (the monster) appears again! In about 10 minutes I am able to pet her and comfort her with soft words. If she turns away, out comes the “monster.”

At this point I convince John to take my place. He is a little nervous, but sees the horse is not pacing and being crazy, so he risks entering the stall. He picks up where I left off, duplicating the process I have started. At one point he is petting the horse and I ask him to step away from her. He takes two big steps back. She just stares at him. “Now,” I say, “lift the flag to the side of her.” As he does, the mare steps two steps towards him not towards the outer fence. “Oh my gosh, did you see that!” he says, “she is coming to me.” “Why?” I ask.

“I don t know.” “It s because you are the safety zone, the escape from the monster bag.”

We continue for another 15 minutes. By then the mare is following him around the stall, calm as can be. “Now, tomorrow John, I want you to repeat the process and get her to lay her head on your shoulder like your girlfriend.” “You gotta be kidding, that will never happen,” he replies. “You watch and see,” I say.

Sure enough, the next day within 20 minutes Jamakamecrazy is following him around and laying her head on his shoulder. John is ecstatic. His emotions are overwhelmed. He cannot believe that this horse has gone from wanting to kill him to wanting to be with him. He won t stop talking about it, the miracle of change he witnessed. He decides to rename the mare to something more appropriate for his new best friend. “Sure, go ahead and pick a name for her.”

“John,” I ventured, “in another month you will be riding this horse in those hills. She will be your willing partner. She will look to you for leadership and safety. She will trust you, even when her brain tells her to be afraid and run. How can this be?” John can t answer the question– yet.

“John, I want you to think about the process we experienced the last two days. This horse is you, she is your twin sister. She didn t trust anyone, and she knew the truth about everything. But something changed, why? I want to you write me a few paragraphs about what you saw and felt, and more importantly, what do you think the whole experience had to do with you and your relationship with your parents? Will you do that for me?” He said he will…

I will forward his response when I get it…

Now this is Equine Therapy!

John’s response:

  If I were the horse, and my parents were me, the flag would be rules and restrictions. I don’t like the feeling of being held back or contained. I like to be free. To choose what I want to do and not be restricted. I realize now that if I want more freedom, I need to gain trust. If I begin to be trustworthy and show that I have integrity, my parents will lower the flag and release the pressure. I will be trusted by my parents and as a result, I will have more freedom.

Taking a break

On Tuesday Ian and Nick joined Mike as Mavericks. To mark the occasion, we took our first overnighter with horses. Other than the cold, it was a fun experience. Thanks to Ian for staying up all night to keep the fire burning.

And thanks to Luke for cooking the steaks. Yum!

Ian after night of Camp Fire Monitoring

Nick & Miss Virginia

Nick has been working with a 4 year old Arabian mare that has turned out to be incredibly calm and lovable. Nick has spent a lot of time with her. She responds very positively towards him, calmly following him–wanting to be with him. One characteristic of Miss Virginia, however, is that she is very sensitive to Nick’s emotions. When Nick has a bad day, Miss Virginia has a bad day. In the round pen, as Nick works with this mare, she tunes in to his emotions and her response is magnified many fold. On one particularly frustrating day, as Nick was lunging the mare, he threw down his rope and “stormed” out of the round pen. Miss Virginia just kept running, around and around, as if Nick was still pushing her. His energy was still pushing her even after he was physically gone. She is that attached to him.

Last week we had a lesson on horse grooming. Each of the boys brought his horse down to the “newly installed” wash mats. The mats are large, black, and lie flat on the ground. To a horse they must look like a huge pit ready to swallow them up. Nick was waiting his turn with Miss Virginia. As they started to approach the mats, Miss Virginia decided she didn’t want anything to do with that huge “hole” in the ground. She got nervous and started to fidget. Nick got after her and she returned his discipline with more nervousness. He returned her fidgeting with more discipline which eventually led to frustration. Of course, the more frustrated Nick felt, the more nervous Miss Virginia became. The cycle had started.

I called over to Nick to help him recognize the cycle of frustration. He caught it and started to calm himself down, hoping to calm the horse. Slowly Miss Virginia started to calm. As they approached the mat, Miss Virginia backed away. (I might add that the previous horse walked onto the mat with no fear at all. So, at this point Nick was a little disappointed in his horse.) As they came within 3 feet of the mat, Miss Virginia just dug in her heels and wouldn’t move one step closer. The tug of war started, the cuss words flowed, the frustration accelerated with both of them. Nick was ready to give up…. After all… “this stupid horse *&#!*…!” I stopped the war and had them back away for a few minutes to calm down. Nick didn’t want to continue—he had had it for the day. I convinced him to relax again and get Miss Virginia to do the same. (Nick understands well that he can calm the horse by calming himself.) We had a little time before dinner, so I suggested we just try to get her to place just one hoof on the mat. Kind of a game. Nick decided to go along with it. Again, as he neared the mat, Miss Virginia started to pull back. Nick again got frustrated. I asked, “Nick, why are you getting mad?” He replied, “Because she won’t come, it is sooo frustrating.” I asked, “Why is it frustrating? Are you in a hurry or something?” ‘It just is,” he replied. I responded, “Listen, Nick … we are not in a hurry. We have time to work with her. She is scared. Look at that mat, do know what she sees? She sees a great big pit that falls into nowhere. In fact, she believes there are vampires in the bottom of that pit.” (The boys have all been reading the Twilight series about vampires.) “So let’s review what is going on. Here you are, someone she trusts and loves, telling her to step into this pit of vampires that are going to kill her. She looks at you as her big brother and is confused. She wonders, why would you do this to me?” “Nick, here is your ‘little sister,’ totally scared and you are trying to get her into the pit. Are you going to do that by yelling at her—by pulling her in?” He stopped and looked at her for a moment. Then he went up to her and started to calm her and tell her, “Everything is all right.” His whole approached changed from frustration to caring and concern. “It’s OK Miss Virginia, nothing is going to hurt you. You can trust me.”

Nick started to ask her to move one foot at a time, just an inch forward. When she did, he would stop and comfort her and try to convince her that there was nothing to fear. They moved one inch at a time, closer and closer to the mat. Well, I started to get a little impatient myself, it was getting closer to dinner time and the other boys were finishing up chores and gathering at the kitchen. “Nick, let me help a little,” I said as I stepped behind the mare to apply a little pressure towards the mat. She immediately started to lift her head in fear and back away from the mat in response to my interference. “Ron, just let me do it, your scaring her. I think my way is better for her.” Nick signals me to back off. Oooohkkkay… what is this? The boy is teaching me! Nick continues, “You have to patient with her. You can’t push her. It’s has to be her idea, she has to feel safe.” I backed right off, and decided if it took all night, that was all right. Well, it took about 45 minutes for her to finally get one foot on the corner of the mat. It was getting dark and we needed to join the rest so I suggested we call it a success, one foot on the corner, end on a good note, and pick up from there tomorrow. I had to practically drag away one of the most impatient boys I have ever seen. (Remember, he wanted to quit earlier. Now he wouldn’t stop.) As we walked to join the rest of the group at dinner, I suggested that on Monday he set a goal to get Miss Virginia to put two feet on the mat. It might take a week to get all the way on the mat, and that was OK. He should make just small steps, small goals, in order to avoid the frustration of falling short of “too big of a goal.”

I left the next morning to return to the city for a couple of days. You can imagine my excitement when I got an MMS message on my phone Monday afternoon (his next attempt.) The staff had sent me a picture (on my phone.) There stood Nick and Miss Virginia, all six feet in the middle of the mat. And of course a huge smile on Nick’s face. When I returned to the ranch, I asked Nick what he learned from the experience. I really expected a comment about patience, or about not getting angry and keeping himself and the mare calm. Or, even something about small goals. Nick surprised me a little with the following: (I asked him if he would write his comments.)

“On Saturday, January 17th I had an amazing experience with my horse, Miss Virginia. Basically I was trying to wash her, but she didn’t want to step on the black mats that were set out because to her it was extremely frightening. It ended up taking her an hour to place one foot on the mat. To you, that may seem like nothing. But to me, it’s a life changing experience. I realized that in this analogy, I was the horse and the mat was Arivaca Boys Ranch. I want to try out the Arivaca Boys Ranch so bad, but I’m scared to death. I don’t know what the other side entails. But the truth is there is nothing but good benefits that come out of stepping on the mat. But taking that step will change your life, and Arivaca is all about taking those small steps into a better life.”

“It is all about taking small steps to a better life!” Thank you, Miss Virginia for providing both Nick and I a great experience to learn more about ourselves, and about life.

Arivaca Boys Ranch – “Building men Of Integrity… One Horse At A Time!”