The buddy-sour horse is something almost every horse owner who owns more than one horse will likely face at some time. The affliction is nothing more than the reluctance of a horse to leave his best friend, to go somewhere he doesn't feel safe. Horses are herd animals, natural born followers that are always looking for a good leader to take care of them. So, that "buddy-sour" reluctance is due to the fact that the horse feels safest with other horses. Equine magazines regularly feature articles with sage advice on how to cure the buddy sour horse. Unfortunately, every one I've seen approaches the problem from the human's point of view. Even the suggestion that there is a "problem" is a uniquely human perspective. We humans are a tool-making species and we love to make tools and fix things that are broken. There is nothing wrong with that. It's what makes us human. But, to be effective with horses we need to take a different tack and look at things from the horse's perspective. Horses are perfect just the way they are and their behavior is never wrong. Let me repeat that - the horse is always right. Whatever they are doing in any situation is exactly what they think they should be doing. Therefore, there is nothing to fix. The horse might require help overcoming an emotional obstacle so that he can better get along with humans, but that is not to say he is broken or defective. There is nothing wrong with the horse. The buddy sour horse is simply looking after his own interests in the best way he knows how.

On a recent camping trip with our horses, I learned just how effective it can be to avoid the human tendency to jump in and fix problems. A buddy sour horse was kept in one twelve by twelve corral and his buddy, who happened also to be his mother, was in a separate corral about fifty yards away. The poor horse was coming unglued, trotting back and forth along one end of the corral raising dust and carving a deep rut in the dirt. He'd stop only to call out in a terrified whinny and wait anxiously for a reply. Whether or not one came, he'd immediately resume pacing and sweating.

The young girl who owned the horse had brought him to the horse rescue in a last ditch attempt to get this problem solved. She was at her wits end, and though she loved the horse, she was afraid she'd have to get rid of him if she couldn't change this behavior. We placed her and the horse in our mentor program and began working with the two of them. For several weeks we taught them groundwork and natural horsemanship and worked at helping the horse learn to relax away from his buddy. (Notice that we approached the problem like humans. We grabbed our tools and "commenced to fixing".) During those weeks the two buddy-sour horses had been entirely separated. The gelding was at the stables and his mother at her home pasture. Of course, we humans thought we were making some terrific progress with all our fancy groundwork and natural horsemanship techniques. And, to be honest, it did help, but the real turnaround for the horse had little, if anything, to do with our "training". When we unloaded him at the camp corrals, it looked as if we'd done nothing at all. He was still as buddy sour as ever.

Now, I am pretty sure that any horse trainers who read this will entertain all sorts of criticisms. Everyone has opinions and a preference for their own particular tools. We wouldn't be human if we didn't. But, it's not about fixing the horse. In this particular instance it was about helping the horse understand that the safest place in the world to be was right next to his owner. It was about helping the horse feel that he would rather be with his human than anywhere else in the world.

So, we didn't have to train him, we only had to change his mind.

The rest of us, whose horses weren't buddy sour, headed out on a trail ride. We left the young girl with her horse and one simple assignment - just hang out with him. Actually, that was my wife's idea - I was still too busy digging through my "toolbox". My wife gave her the instructions - don't do anything, just be with your horse. So, the girl pulled up a camp chair next to her horse's corral and sat down with her schoolwork. She did have one more instruction and that was to pet her horse whenever he came over to her. She was to do nothing more - not try to get his attention, not try to distract him, not punish him for pacing or calling out. She was to just let him be and pet him when he came to her. She hung out and did her homework.

Four hours later, the rest of us returned from our trail ride. The girl sat by her horse's pen. He was quiet and calm. Occasionally he'd reach through the bars to sniff at the schoolbooks on his owner's lap. He was not the quivering mass of frightened horse flesh he was when we left.

To test him out, she haltered him and took him for a walk around a short trail in the woods behind the campground. She started by walking directly towards his buddy's pen. She allowed the two buddies to see and sniff each other and then she walked away. The buddy-sour horse walked away from his buddy with no problem whatsoever - no calling, no struggle, not even a glance back. He followed his human willingly and quietly - directly into a trail into the woods.

The horse changed his mind, on his own, without any struggle to fix him on the part of the human. He picked a replacement buddy. He chose the human over another horse. All the human did was sit with him and provide him a safe, alternative place of support. It worked wonderfully, because he arrived at the solution himself. Our idea became his idea - no training involved.

Did I know this was going to happen? Hardly - I had no clue that it would work so well. I'm human, too. I like to get in there and "fix" these horses. My ego gets a lot of gratification from that. But, the horse doesn't need "fixing". He only needs a safe place to be. Perhaps that is true for all of us.