Scared Pony

We had a visitor here for a few weeks we were training. Pretty little thing but a skeerdy cat. Not really a cat she was a pony but she was scared. Just about everything bothered her. We had to teach her to just settle down. Just remain calm because jumping and running is not the right thing to do. It's okay to twitch but not jump kick and run. You have to breathe in and think.

Thinking is the key. You have to think you are going to be okay. That the human girl will be expecting us to be brave horse's is just something we keep in the back of our heads. She knows we know how to act.

But storms are scary things for little pony's who have not had someone to hold them and tell them it's going to be all right. Little pony's who have been left out in the pasture alone can get scared and not know what to do. So they brought us that pony.

We stood still and she stood still. When things were going to be scary me and my horse, The Pretty Boy, stood on each side of her to show her we were there to take care of her. If we saw storm clouds coming, real storm clouds not just dark clouds, we made sure we took the little pony to our safe place.

A safe place doesn't even have to be a real place but we have one of those. Our old barn is our safe place. We can be just anywhere and go to our safe place in our minds. That was a little hard to explain to the little pony.

We told her to just think about the pasture full of green grass and the pond full of water with our tummy's full of grain. But then the thunder would come and she could not fit that loud noise into her green pasture with the pretty pond and a tummy full of grain. And then when the storm was closer and there was lightening before the thunder well that was just two things to frighten that little pony.

What to do what to do. My Pretty Boy said she was just going to have to learn how to think her way past it. I said that she couldn't think when she was so scared she was shaking. So we took her into our big red barn and asked the House Mouse what we could do to comfort the little pony.

The House Mouse said what she did was go into her small nest with it's fluffy floor and try to be asleep before the loudness got started good. Well it was too late for us to do that and then we felt bad that we had woken the House Mouse up out of her hidey hole. But she said not to worry everything would be fine. She said we could sing songs or listen to music.

What music?, we asked her. There is no music. Oh yes there is if you listen you can hear it. The sound of the rain is very hard to hear way down here in the bottom of the barn so you have to really concentrate. Then when you can hear it you tap your finger. Pretty soon you are tapping your toes too and the thunder is your foot hitting the drums!

Oh what a wonderful idea we will start a band and we can practice when it is raining so we have something to do.

The House Mouse said that is exactly the right thing to do. You have to think everything will be fine that you have time to practice your music or play your game or take a nap or whatever it is that you want to do that will make you not think about the storm outside. She said that the human people have games that they play while sitting in the storm shelter and sometimes they don't even come out when the storm is over because they have not finished their game.

There are a lot of things to do when a storm is approaching so that before it gets here we are ready for it. We decide where we want to be and what we want to be doing then we are ready.

By the time the pretty little pony went home she was much better about being scared. Of course there will be times she forgets she is a brave girl but they will get less and less as she gets older. And now that she has skills she can teach them to the chickens and the goats at her house. Maybe she can even find a barn cat to talk to when storms come so that she doesn't get scared. As long as she has someone/something else to think about then that is less time she has to think about what is scaring her.