Games People Play

According to Wikipedi: "Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships is a 1964 bestselling book by psychiatrist Dr. Eric Berne. Since its publication it has sold more than five million copies The book describes both functional and dysfunctional social interactions."

 It goes on to say: "The second half of the book catalogues a series of "games" in which people interact through a patterned and predictable series of "transactions" which are superficially plausible (that is, they may appear normal to bystanders or even to the people involved), but which actually conceal motivations, include private significance to the parties involved, and lead to a well-defined predictable outcome, usually counterproductive."
I have this book. I have been the bearer of some of these games people play over the years. Not fun! And what about you? Was it with your horse?

Horses love to play games. They also love to get their riders to play games. Clinton Anderson says that if prey animals (referring to horses) didn't learn to out fox us predators (humans), they wouldn't exist.  So true.

I noticed recently a situation where someone was trying to get their horse to stand in front of a mounting block and the horse kept walking past it. The rider would walk the horse around and place the horse back at the mounting block.

This went on for a few times.

I made the remark that something else had to be done to get the horse to willingly stand there and the rider said: "yes or else it becomes a game".

We have to be careful not to have our corrections turn into a game for the horse or they will have a very different meaning than what we intended. This is another form of 'games people play' that we don't want either.

As some readers have noticed, I get inspiration for my articles from real life situations. I think they bring more meaning to them. And as my students know, I have several famous sayings - one of them being "I feel an article coming on..." :)  Thanks to Tammy for this inspiration.

Putting my spin on training philosophy - 1 game at a time!

Reinersue

@KISS Reiners