Shepherd Farm

Did you ever read the book by Spencer Johnson entitled Who Moved My Cheese?  It is an ingenious little book about adapting to change in your life.  It offers advice about the inevitability of change and the significant opportunity that change offers us if we are open enough and centered enough to embrace it.  The book offers snippets of advice like — “Change Happens,” “Adapt to Change Quickly,” and “Be Ready to Quickly Change Again and Again.”

Have you ever noticed how good (most) horses are at having their cheese moved?  We had a mare who had been on our farm for 6 years.  She had her same pasturemates and stall buddy, and she ate her hay and grain at about the same time every day.  She sunned herself on the same hill, groomed her friends, and nuzzled the cat about the same way every day.  Then one day, we decided that this lovely mare needed a job and that she would go to a trainer to be put under saddle for dressage.

So we took our mare off the farm that she had known her entire life and brought her to training.  Her whole world changed in an instant.  At the end of the short trailer ride, our mare found herself in a large training barn with many other horses.  She had different pasturemates, a different stall buddy, different food, and an entirely different schedule.  She was no longer lazing in the sun and grooming her yearling friend, but rather was learning to lunge with leg wraps and to accept a saddle and a rider.  For our sweet mare, someone had clearly moved her cheese.  But, in a matter of days, she adapted beautifully.  She embraced the change.  She appeared to love her new job and the added attention that came with her new life.

I thought about my mare the other day when I got a new and very challenging case assignment at work that will require that I learn a new sector of an industry and travel more than I have been.  Change.  Not complete change — just some change.   Hopefully, I will embrace the change with the same determination and grace that my mare showed. 

I also thought about how often we, as “owners,” change an animal’s circumstances completely – we adopt out a dog to a new home, move a horse to a new boarding facility, take on a new barn cat.  For all these creatures, they are experiencing complete change.  And without exception, they all show themsleves to be good students of Spencer Johnson.