The Introduction

My name is Jordana Wilde, and I am a student at Brigham Young University Idaho, studying Animal Sciences.

This semester I had the opportunity to be in a class called "Advanced Animal Handling and Behaviors", a class designed to teach students how to train horses. But not your typical 'run the horse into the ground until they submit to your will' kind of training. We studied the principles of Pat Parelli, the "World's laziest horse-man" as he was once voted- a great horse man who has come to understand the way horses think, feel, respond and learn. The purpose of this class was to learn and apply these principles when training horses, because by doing so, you and your horse will actually build a relationship of trust, your horse will be willing to do whatever you ask, and both of you will be able to gain confidence.

I was assigned to work (or rather, play) with one of the school horses- a recently donated horse named Buckwheat- a big ol' buckskin who, as I would quickly come to find out, has a mind of his own. Unfortunately, not long into the second half of the semester, he experienced an injury on an already imperfect foot, so for the last part, I've been playing with Jewel- an energetic little bay mare. It's been quite the experience- bitter sweet- some of the best moments of this semester, and some of the worst, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world!