​The Dreadful Shopper

​
By Gaye DeRusso
 
The Dreadful Shopper might be one of your friends or just a random acquaintance, but you have met them. They are always looking for the perfect horse and although it has been 5 years, they still can't find it. They try horses over and over, ask for trials, do vet checks, and get very close but never close the deal. 
 
These people call me all the time. They tell me to call them when I have what they are looking for. When I started this business, I use to  call because I didn't know better, but the  answer was always the same, its close but something was always wrong, wrong breed, wrong age, wrong  color, wrong sex, wrong gait, one foot looks funny, they think its lame on the video, it looked  toward the barn when we rode out, it spooked in place, it did something, it was  always something. 
 
Then at some point if they actually did buy a horse, usually within a year or two they would call me thinking I didn't remember who they were and ask if I could train the horse they bought. I would say sure, I will have an opening in a couple months. Oh no its raining then, oh no that's not good for me. So, it wouldn't work out, and I was very happy it didn't.  
 
Then some time down the road, and usually not very far down the road (less than a year) I would get another call from them. That perfect horse they finally found, well now they wanted to sell it. What? Seriously? All that time and you say the horse is perfect, but you really did not even ride it and now you want to sell it. I didn't even bother to ask why. I just felt bad for the horse every time. 
 
These people will never be happy, they don't even recognize what they are doing. They are looking for perfection and perfection does not exist. No person is perfect, and no horse is perfect. Horses and humans are all a work in progress, so if you won't put in any work and you won't hire a trainer, you will never be happy. Horses are not machines but even machines need maintenance. Yet people expect the horse to do no wrong. The sad part is, many times the horse is just being a horse, but the shopper does not understand horses at all. 
 
If I now get a feel that a person is a shopper, I just stop. There's no point in them wasting my time and no point in me wasting theirs. I know they will never be happy with what I have. When I tell them the truth about the situation they have put themselves in, they will not listen. But what did I expect? They tell me a story like this. They have had 5 horses that were barn sour, and now they are trying to buy the 6th horse, but they don't want one that could get barn sour. I can't help myself and I say it's not the horses, it's what you are doing that is making them barn sour. But no, they won't listen, so I just stop and say sorry, I don't have what you are looking for. 
 
Because every horse I see is a perfect horse with the right person. That's the person who is willing to help the horse, give it care and willing to grow with the horse and have a relationship with such a beautiful animal that lets us climb up on its back and take us on adventures. But that is why I have had such wonderful horses of my own. Because I never looked for anything specific, I just saw horses that could be great and I stepped up to make them great. The horses knew I wasn't perfect, but because they are such great animals, they didn't care and went with me. 
 
So, to all the shoppers out there, I just want to point out, there is no perfect horse.  You are being unrealistic. Enjoy what horses are, not what you expect them to be, before time runs out.