Being a trailblazer had both upsides and downsides.
The biggest positive was that she never fell into any kind of trap of wanting to be able to do it all and know it all at once. She simply had to follow a try-as-you-go path of discovery.
When her clients find her though, it usually is because they are experiencing problems with their horses. This leads us to discuss how Jumy’s approach to dealing with horse guardians who may be using tools on their horses that she doesn’t necessarily agree with.
Her assumption is that the guardian loves their horse. She never wants to shame them or make the feel guilty about their choice of tool. Rather she lets them draw their own conclusions.
In her words:
If I teach the horse to walk, trot, reverse, counter, stop using only voice commands, do you think the owner would not use those voice commands riding? And then what do they need the bit for? It will then be their idea to go bitless.
She does draw the line at the use of spurs, but it’s her reasoning as to why that’s the most interesting to me.
In another similarity to the dog world, there is a lot of emphasis on ruling out pain (through for example a bad-fitting saddle) as a contributing factor to behavioral issues.
So what about the differences? With the horse being a prey animal and the dog being a predator, Jumy explains how that affects the required rate of reinforcement.
Then there is natural horsemanship. Jumy explains her views on that and how horses who are trained with that method can mentally shut down.
Naturally I ask about her dogs who live at the stables and are allowed to free roam. Funnily enough they chill most of the time, unless they are breaking up horse fights or they decide to come along on a hack with the horses, that is.
Finally Jumy explains her criteria for canceling a session with a horse when she isn’t in the right mindset herself, and what the alternatives are, such as adapting the type of the session to her energy levels.
