The top photo is an actual photo of me at about 15/16 years old on my poor old Arabian gelding, Farley. I was taught to ride super handsy and hyper flex my horses, fixating entirely on his head position and trying to micromanage that as I forced him behind the vertical for what was a “pretty” way of going on the circuit I showed on.
The bottom is one of my favourite photos of Milo and I. My riding has changed a lot over the years, as have my views on horse care and training.
The second photo is the FOREWARD from my new book, The Other Side of Horsemanship. It really sums up the journey I’ve taken to get to where I am today.
I have not gotten here unscathed. There’s been deeply emotional wounds and a lot of guilt and regret. It’s required me to come to terms with some sad realities and harsh truths, things that have been very hard to sit with.
But, overall, looking at how my relationships with my horses have benefitted and how much safer I’ve become as a rider and horse person, it was undoubtedly worth it.
I hope to help others to stray from the paths of harshness they may be on, hopefully sooner than I was able to. I want them to not have as many years of riding and loving horses robbed to them by industry traditions of misinformation.
I’m really committed to trying to change the status quo in the community and hope that in sharing my experience, I can help more people to feel comfortable and empowered in sitting with difficult emotions and sharing their truth.
Many of us have made grave mistakes that have negatively impacted the well-being of horses we love, but most of us go into it with good intentions, following instructions outlined to us by self-proclaimed experts.
It isn’t fair that so many of us are left to grapple with these difficult emotions alone or made to feel that our horses’ unwanted behaviour is entirely reflective of us as riders when it’s an industry wide issue and something we were taught to participate in from day 1 around horses.
Making mistakes doesn’t make you a bad horse person. It’s how you grow and learn from said mistakes that matters.
It’s hard to not make harmful mistakes when we’re existing in an industry where so many of these mistakes are normalized to the point of being viewed as normal training or care.
We need to be more gentle with ourselves while still being committed to changing the industry for the better.
If you’re interested in checking out my new book, you can do so at these links:
Amazon Canada: The Other Side Of Horsemanship: My Journey of Unlearning Cruelty & Healing Trauma https://a.co/d/gO2OaZa
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3TFCdEs
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-other-side-of-horsemanship-shelby-dennis/1142683583?ean=9780228885641
It’ll be rolling out to more bookstores over the next 4-8 weeks as well!
Also, I’ve moved my Tumblr blog over to a new main blog @sdequus
