My Leadership Journey With Cooper

Some of you may recognize Cooper from my other posts.  My leadership journey with this big guy has been almost 20 years in the making. And I am still learning, about myself, about him, about my leadership presence in the world and about how profoundly Cooper’s wisdom has impacted my life.

Cooper came to us in spring of 2002 as an unruly 3-year-old. Actually they told us he was 5, and when the vet gave him his checkup, he said no way. Explained a lot about him actually, and so we began our training together.

My partner and I were brand new horse owners. Honestly, we were so green, we had no business owning such a green horse. I shudder when I think of the mistakes we made, the misguided advice we were given in some cases and followed, and just our general ignorance around caring for and training a horse. Add to that, several people advised us to get rid of him. They said he was dangerous and was going to kill somebody. And make no mistake, Cooper was definitely undisciplined, had a bunch of bad habits and was not very respectful. It was a combination that could have turned out badly. But from our perspective, he was part of our family now, and so we stubbornly carried on.

Best. Decision. Ever.

So not being an experienced horse person, I started to educate and train myself, so I could train my horse. At least at the time I thought that’s how it would work. We sent Cooper off for some training to give us a head start. He was only gone a month, but when he came back he had lost about 150 lbs, he looked like the little boy he actually was. I felt awful, cause I thought this was not the way to treat such a young horse. He was more respectful, yes, and he was not abused, but he sure was worked for that month. At that point, I decided he and I would learn together. And so I began riding lessons, and not just for me, but for me to train Cooper.

Taking riding lessons on Cooper was a lesson in determination, perseverance and resilience. Okay, at the time, I called it stubbornness not determination. But determination, I have learned over the years, is an important piece of Cooper’s wisdom.

We took lessons and we did a lot of arena work.  He spooked, he crow hopped and I came off more than once. We did a lot of trail riding, and then we started trailering him to the mountains with us for our annual camping trips. Over the years, he has become my most trusted equine partner. All heart, he never let me down and I would trust him with a toddler on his back.

When he first joined us, I learned a lot and took lessons, thinking that I would be training him. Maybe there were things he learned from me, but I think I have learned far more from him. The first several years I thought I learned about my leadership from the way I influenced Cooper.  Learning to manage my energy, my assertiveness to match his determination. I was given the advice on many occasions that you have to show him that he’s not going to win, that you need to have more staying power than he does so he learns whose boss. He has to learn that he needs to trust you when he is feeling unsettled. That last part is true, he needed to be able to trust me. And I needed to learn to trust him.  Not just under saddle, but as a partner.

The last few years though, I realize, I learned more about my leadership from Cooper in his natural state of being. He has been patiently playing along with me all this time, when he is a master in his own leadership, and has been waiting for me to realize that.

Aside from the riding and horsemanship lessons, Cooper and I have journeyed through some health challenges.  This is where I have learned the most from him. The riding etc was more for my benefit, an effort to satisfy my need to manage his behaviour. When we started dealing with some health issues, I needed to listen to him. This is one very stoic horse. He does not show when he is in pain very frequently, so you need to really observe the subtle changes in his behaviour, his interaction with the other horses, and the effort that he makes with his human herd.

Cooper is a very food motivated horse.  That contributed to some of his health issues, that and our inexperience in dealing with it.  Cooper gained a lot of weight being just on pasture and foundered quite badly. And that created a predisposition to abscesses in his feet. All very painful for him. So once we understood what we needed to do, we started to manage his food and access to the rich pasture, along with appropriate vet and farrier care. We continued to exercise him and ride him when it wouldn’t aggravate his conditions, and just spend time with him. Part of the food management meant that he was limited to a smaller pen, especially in the spring, and when he was out, he wore a grazing halter.  A grazing halter looks almost like a muzzle, it limits the amount of food he can grab at one time, so it slows his eating down significantly. And helps control his weight. He didn’t get to go out with his grazing halter on for long periods of time, cause I would come home to find him knee deep in the greenest grass and his halter hanging from a fence post or floating in the dugout.

So here’s an example of how determined this horse is. As I said, I had Cooper in a smaller pen, along with one of his herd mates.  I try not to separate him completely, because horses as herd animals need to be with their community as part of their overall well-being. Anyway, he was in the small pen which had been grazed down almost to the dirt. We had a small man-gate that just had a heavy chain across it at the entrance.  So I came around the end of the garage one day just in time to see Cooper buckle to his knees, flip the chain over his neck with his head, and then proceed to scooch on his belly far enough so he could stand up on the other side. I was literally stunned into silence. Now Cooper is not a small horse.  He is about 16 hands and at the time he was probably about 1300 pounds. Watching a 1300 lb horse limbo under a chain gate to get to a small patch of green grass certainly reinforced in my mind how determined this big guy is. And then when I yelled at him, he just looked at me and sighed as if to say, “Shit, she caught me”, and you guessed it, went back into the pen the way he got out. I laugh every time I think about it. Needless to say, we found a different way to secure the gate.

Over the years, I have watched this guy deal with acute discomfort, overcome it, carry on with being who he is, and in the process he has taught me a lot about living in the moment. He has struggled through some serious discomfort. But he does not carry that with him. He manages his energy as he needs to when he is in pain, he rests, he lays down, sometimes he keeps to himself because he can’t move as quickly to get out of the way of the other horses. And when he is not in pain, he plays with Whiskey, my other gelding, he grazes with Dara his constant companion, he travels all over the pasture, when I would rather he stay close to the house. He does restrict or limit himself based on the memory of discomfort. He releases that and lives in the present.

Cooper is now 23 years old and has a disease called Cushings. The disease is starting to progress, and his quality of life is deteriorating.  Not gonna lie, there are tears as I write this, and it feels like a final tribute to my amazing partner. I will not have Cooper with me for much longer in the physical sense, but his spirit and wisdom will be with me for the rest of my life.
​
Thank you Cooper for sharing your life with me. I am so grateful for the years of love, wisdom and partnership. ​