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Since childhood, I have loved nature and animals. Animals are Earth’s creatures. They are sacred to me. They are my favorite companions and my best friends. I love nonverbal communication. I love to gently touch Zum on his soft nose as I look into his feisty eyes. As I gallop Huszar through the sandy wash, I love to feel the wind rushing past my ears. I love to watch the heavens open up in the sky as I ride Kamar, softly petting his neck. I love silence in nature with my animals. Silence is the return to the origin of life. Surrounded by beauty and silence, the soul can soar!

I hold the whip with the plastic bag tied to the end of it only to communicate my intentions to Zum. I never hit Zum with the whip. When you hit a horse with anything, you teach him that he can be hit and live through it. It teaches the horse nothing constructive at all. It is abusive and the horse will hate people for doing it to him. I don’t nag Zum with the whip. Nagging a horse teaches him that the whip means nothing and is no threat at all. If Zum doesn’t listen to my kiss cue, the most I would ever use a whip is a tap on his hip to ask him to move forward.

Zum needs me to spend lots of training time with him on a lungeline. I use a long whip with a plastic bag taped to the end of the whip in one hand and a long rope tied to Zum in my other hand. If I want him to run to the right, I lift the long rope in my right hand and drive him with the whip/plastic bag in my left hand. I send Zum forward with my kiss sound. He may want to rear, buck and kick at first. I keep him moving in a circle, holding him with the long rope. I don’t let the rope get too long. The longer the lungeline, the further away Zum is from me and the less chance I have of controlling Zum.

I have a miniature spotted donkey named Prince Clover. He brays in the morning to let me know that he is ready for his breakfast. He is also an alarm. He brays if there is a coyote, a strange dog or a snake in the vicinity. He protects my back yard in Phoenix. He won’t let anyone pick up his feet but me. He stands patiently as I sit on the ground and pick up one foot at a time to trim and file his tiny feet. Afterwards, he is always rewarded with a treat!

Whenever I ride Huszar or Kamar and pony Zum out into the desert or mountains, I always give my horses peaceful time to stop and graze on the green grass on the trail. This lets the horses know that I want them to enjoy themselves too! When I encourage my horses to have fun on the trail, they will always want to get into the trailer and go for adventures with me! Of course, I also need to teach my horses that grabbing for grass while I am riding them or ponying them is not acceptable. So my horses need to learn that exercising is not a good time for eating. They learn to trust that I will always reward them for good behavior on the trail with leisure time for grazing.

I always attend the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show at Westworld in February. This year, I asked the Arabian horse owners questions about Zum. The first question I asked is: ‘When can I ride Zum on the trail?’ They told me that Arabian horses develop slower than other horses. Arabian colts are not fully grown until they are four years old. They recommended that I do lots of training with Zum but wait until he is four years old before riding him out on trails. I also asked: ‘Why is Zum eating Kamar’s tail?’ They said a colt often eats his mother’s tail. So I guess when Kamar lets Zum eat his tail, Kamar is saying that he has decided to be Zum’s surrogate mother! They suggested that I put hot sauce on Kamar’s tail to prevent Zum from eating the tail. Later, I tried this out and it definitely works!

My neighbor near Cave Creek, Arizona, had great advice for me. She recommended that I don’t desensitize Zum excessively so he has no feeling for anything, not even me. She is right. I want to keep my colt interested in me! Zum’s breeder recently told me that when I become Zum’s ‘person,’ Zum will do anything for me. I feel so excited that someday I will prove to Zum that he can trust me and that I am worthy of being his ‘person.’ I feel that Zum already knows that I would do anything for him.

Zum has a habit of throwing his head in the air. I am going to have to teach him to relax his head. I will start by using both my hands to position Zum’s head, wait for Zum to relax and then release my hands. I want him to get comfortable with his head being handled. The request-response-release pattern is being etched in his brain. When he raises his head, I touch the top of his head. When he brings his head down, I remove my hand and praise him. I also can ask Zum to bring his head to the side towards me. I hold his head there until he relaxes and then let his nose go. I do this as many times as it takes until he leaves his head where I put it. I also pet between his eyes. When he relaxes, I take my hand away. I can stroke over one eye and over one ear. Take my hand away. If Zum raises his head, I calmly ask him to drop his head. I never scold Zum or jerk on his halter or lead rope. I can use props, resting them all one at a time on his head, rewarding Zum for keeping his head down. I can put the hackamore on his head, rewarding him when he doesn’t throw his head up out of my reach This process takes lots of repetition! The reason each of these lessons work is his reward!

I have a friend that lives in Cave Creek, Arizona and she helps find good homes for animals that are rescued from people in the area whose animals get confiscated for neglect. She also trains Mustangs and finds good homes for them. I asked her advice. What is the best way to get Zum into the two-horse trailer? She suggested that I put alfalfa inside the trailer as temptation for Zum. I tried this and guess what? It worked like a charm! Now Zum loads and unloads into the two-horse trailer easily. I always bring an extra bucket of alfalfa so I can load him when Huszar, Zum and I come back from a trail ride!

Yesterday, I went to the Spanish Market in Santa Fe. I especially love the Contemporary Art of this Festival. I am so impressed at how friendly and talkative all the sculptors, woodworkers, jewelers, painters and craftspeople were with me. One artist told me a legend about the Alligator Man. His version of this Colombian legend is about a man who lives by a river to spy on beautiful women and decides to take a witch’s potion to become an alligator. I was curious about this legend so I researched the Alligator Man Festival and read another story about a storekeeper who fell in love with a woman who was the daughter of a rice seller. This rice seller prohibited the storekeeper from approaching his daughter. The daughter had a habit of bathing in a river. With the desire of kissing her, the storekeeper went into the river to search for her and turned into an alligator. For days, he repeated the same routine, turning into an alligator to be with his beloved. They finally fled together to the deep of the river to be together. How romantic! And how lovely that a country has turned this Alligator Man into an icon! To me, this legend is about a man who loves beauty, femininity, nature and creatures of the earth!