GoodHorsemanship Blog

How Horses Communicate, Part Two - The Rest of the Horse

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:14:41 GMT

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an
instant?”

- Henry David Thoreau

It's important when reading the horse's body language to look at the horse as a whole, and not just at individual pieces, to try and sort out what the horse is saying. A cocked leg can indicate a relaxed horse, but it can also indicate a tight, worried horse who feels no other option but to ready himself to kick you. His overall posture and individual body parts give us the clues to hear what he's saying. Horses aren't going to learn how to vocalize in a way we can understand, or communicate back to them; it's up to us to learn how to understand his way, and work from there. Putting the responsibility back on people to be the ones that change can be hard for some people's egos, but there-in lies a great place to grow as a person, and develop the compassion and ability to truly see things from another's perspective.

Postural stance and way of moving can indicate the horse’s inner state.
Loose muscles, steady footfalls, neck and head held near wither height are all
indicative of a relaxed horse. Tight muscles, jerky movements, elevated head
and neck all signal a horse prepared to flee or fight. Horses will also arc
their bodies towards or away others (both horse and human), depending on if
they choose to challenge or defer to perceived conflict.

The tail is not generally used alone to communicate, but its
use is effective as it can change the outline of the horse dramatically; the
general outline of the horse can convey a message to others, even at great
distance. In general, the higher the horse’s tail, the greater his state of
arousal. Conversely, a clamped tail generally indicates fear or submission, and
the wise horseman notices the presence or absence of the former when preparing
to mount young colts for the first time. The movement of the tail, such as
slashing, is also used to signal annoyance and irritation, or is performed by
the horse when asked to execute a particularly challenging movement under
saddle. Tail signals are also handy for the horse that can’t readily see his
herd mates ears, such as when grazing behind him. And who doesn’t understand the
meaning of a tail held high on a galloping horse freshly turned out to pasture
on a frosty morning.

Horses will lift both front and hind legs in threat
displays, during play, or just before striking or kicking in acts of
self-defense or aggression. Foreleg threats or strikes are often seen when two
new horses meet, and one does not wish the other to get any closer. Pawing the
ground can shatter ice on drinking water sources, reveal snow-buried grass or
be a sign of frustration in a horse that cannot get what he wants (freedom,
food, access to other horses etc.) Stomping the ground with a hind leg can be a
signal of annoyance, a threat display, or can be used to remove biting insects
from the hindquarters.

Horses spend more time deferring to threats from
other horses than they do in actual physical conflict. Signals of submission
and appeasement are subtle, and not as noticeable to an untrained handler as overt
threats of aggression or acts of defensive behaviour are. Horses would
generally prefer to avoid injury and conserve energy, a trait which is often
unnoticed by humans. True acts of offensive aggression against humans are rare,
and most defensive attacks are born of fear that the horse has for the human or his
actions. Please carefully read this paragraph again.

As master communicators in the use of body language, horses
are more than proficient at reading the body language of others too – whether predator
or fellow prey. What people project on the outside is often not congruent with what they feel on the inside. Signs of body tension, fear, anger, or intent to capture are alarming to an animal whose survival depends on noticing subtle signals in both his herd mates and the predators who stalk him - whether two or
four legged. Numerous studies have shown that feelings such as fear are easily
transmitted to the horse by the human, even when one puts on a “brave face” and
tries to act unafraid.

Although we do use body language, vocalization is the
primary form of communication employed by humans. Vocalization offers humans
the unique opportunity as a species to say one thing, while they feel or mean another.
In general, ,mankind’s ability to read the messages conveyed solely through body language
has been dulled, as has his awareness of the messages he conveys to others through his own body language. Our link to the animal world is also much weaker than it was in the past, when humans had daily, necessary encounters with animals; a shift from rural-to-urban living
has removed many people from such encounters entirely. The phenomenon of
anthropomorphism - giving human characteristics to non-humans - has also skewed how many people perceive the horse, his requirements, and his behavior. In the worse case scenario, this may promote poor welfare, poor training expectations or unnatural, highly-managed living conditions for the horse.

Most horse owners in Canada have horses solely for pleasure or recreation, and spend few hours simply observing them to learn how they communicate. Without question, the majority of my workload entails clearing up communication confusion between horse and human. I joke that my job title is "Horse-Human Conflict Resolution Co-ordinator", but there is truth to it. If you want to get better in your horsemanship, and don't have opportunity to be around horses, there is still a way: put on your junior scientist hat, pull up a chair, open your mind, and observe horses interacting with each other and with people on Youtube. But before you do, go back to the whole "vocalization offers humans the unique opportunity as a species to say one thing, while they feel or mean another..." thought, and turn off the volume. An emotional song or verbal dialogue as soundtrack might just influence you to hear and believe one thing, while simply seeing would show you another.

How Horses Communicate, Part One - The Front of the Horse

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:42:10 GMT

Before we can begin talking about learning theory, I think
it’s most important that people understand how horses communicate. In my
Horsemanship 101 clinic it’s the first thing I try to show people. Although
learning how to read horse behavior from a blog positing is probably about as
effective as learning how to become an Olympic athlete by watching Youtube,
perhaps this will give you some things to look out for the next chance you have
to observe horses.

Horses are a prey animal that travels within a herd. To
avoid attracting a predator’s attention, most of their intra-species
communication is through body language. This system of communication is so
effective, studies have shown that a herd’s behaviour can be harmonized up to
98% of the time. Understanding the multitude of bold moves and subtle nuances
that combine to communicate feeling, intent, greetings, threats, orders,
requests, submission and more is in itself a lifetime of study.

The ears are perhaps the single most important body part
used in communication. Their position indicates where the horse is focusing his
attention during surveillance, his mood, alertness level, pain, whether or not
he is deferring to another horse, and even the severity of an attack. The ears
can also move and point independently, specifically when the horse’s focus is
on two different objects or his mind has two opposing thoughts. In groups of
horses, the front runners will usually position their ears forward, while those
in the rear position theirs backwards, essentially ensuring the widest range of
surveillance for herd safety.

The horse’s eye reveals more subtle information on his inner
state, but the information it provides, combined with other body signals, is
valid nonetheless. A white-rimmed eye in an otherwise normally coloured eye
denotes fear. Wrinkles above the eye suggest tension, worry or stress. An
unblinking eye belonging to a horse who isn’t moving his feet is indicative of
a horse frozen in fear, and often precedes what owners describe as an
“explosion, from out of nowhere”. Dull, unseeing eyes can indicate pain, illness
or a horse who has withdrawn inside himself to avoid too much applied pressure.

Mouth movements, such as the retracting of lips to bare
teeth and gums can signify threat or intent to bite. Foals will also retract
their lips and making a snapping motion with their mouths to signal submission
to older horses. Much can also be told by the level of tension in and around
the horse’s eyes, lips, chin and mouth – fear, anger, tension, conflict,
confusion. An often argued interpretation of a particular body signal, the
“lick and chew” mouth action, offers opposing beliefs – some camps argue it signals
the horse has “learned something”, while
others contend it is a sign of submission or is a conflict behaviour. I think
that much like a human sigh of relief, it can signal a release of tension
following a stressful event or experience. Droopy lips generally indicate a
relaxed horse. Nose contortions, combined with lip movements, can indicate attempts
to mutually groom or apprehend objects just out of reach. Their prehensile
action can also indicate if you have hit upon a particularly itchy spot on the
horse. Flared nostrils can indicate high levels of arousal – either in fear or
in play. The peculiar looking actions of the flehmen response (elevated head,
rolling of the eyes, rotation of the ears, eversion of the upper lip, flicking
of the tongue) indicates a horse attempting to gather more olfactory
information on another’s urine or feces or when they encounter novel smells or
tastes. It can also indicate abdominal discomfort, usually associated with
colic.

The position the horse holds his head and neck can signal a
wide range of messages and intent: neck arched in response to threats, neck
flexed during approach by others, bowing the head when two stallions approach
one another, elevating the head during fear, arousal, threatening gestures,
expressions of alarm or aggression or the snaking of head and neck by a
stallion to herd mares. Head thrusts can signal aggressive threats between
horses and if ignored can quickly escalate to a lunge or a charge. A nudge is
an attention-seeking movement to initiate movement or mutual grooming in
another horse, or human.

Up next, Part Two - The Rest of the Horse

Bumper-Sticker Horsemanship

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:59:54 GMT

I’ve gone through phases in my horsemanship journey that many people do when learning. In the beginning,I took everything the master clinicians and horsemen said to be gospel. Why
wouldn’t I? They could do things with their horses I couldn’t fathom doing. But
as I learned more, I started to see more, and thankfully, question what some
trainers were doing and why. Which lead me to start to research the big
questions, “Why” and “How”.  I’ve always been a bit of a junior
scientist. The Why’s and How’s and What For’s of the world fascinate me. How do
they get their horses to do those things? Why do some horses respond one way to
some of the techniques, but other horses respond differently? Why do
so-and-so’s horses look like robots, or have their ears pinned? Which leads us
to the really important question, HOW does the horse feel about the person’s
training approach? Some trainers can get their horse to perform amazing feats,
but at what cost to the horse and his relationship with the trainer? Knowing
the answers to those things started to matter to me.

Part of it was born out of a frustration with what felt was “bumper-sticker” horsemanship – clinicians
(and their students), spouting off captivating one-liners, building entire
training programs around catch phrases, or mystic buzzwords, and then applying
techniques based on those bumper-stickers that were to be applied to ALL horses,
no matter their past experiences, environmental considerations, innate
qualities, or general mood of the day. So, being a junior scientist…I sought
out some science. I bought heavy (and expensive!) textbooks, and started
studying research papers on horse behaviour, and learning theory, and
neuroanatomy and the cognitive abilities of the horse. And I compared that to
the anecdotal and empirical knowledge I had already gathered – some of it good,
and some of it, well, you know. And I started to look at different techniques,
and professed wisdom, and question the use of both.

Don’t get me wrong. Many of the one-liners offer great insight into what it takes to be a really good
horseman. I collect good horsemanship quotes, and find them inspiring or
thought-provoking, and have them sprinkled about my website. But basing training
on a series of one-liners, or handed-down tradition without questioning if it
is the right way to approach things, just wasn’t working for me anymore. I
wanted to know the facts, ma’am and just the facts. And I wanted to know why
some techniques I was taught to do just didn’t feel right. Now, before you
start thinking I’m a marshmallow who wants to sing Kumbaya with my horses while
they decide if they want me to ride them or not, don’t worry...I’m not. Horses
are large, reactive prey animals with fast reflexes and a quick-twitch response
to flee, freeze or fight when they feel in danger. Horses need to behave a
certain way, with reliable responses, because our life literally depends on it
when we work with and ride them. I’m a stickler for safety, both the horse’s
and my own, but I feel that if we are going to use horses for transportation,
recreation or just for the pure pleasure of their company, we must treat them
fairly. After all, they didn’t volunteer for this gig – they were conscripted.  ”If
you are going to teach a horse something and have a good relationship, you
don't make him learn it - you let him learn it.” ~Ray Hunt . Oops, a one-liner.
But it’s a good one. You can let an animal learn something, or you can make him
– but there will be a difference in how he feels about you. I guarantee it. And
how will you know if your approach is one that is fair to the horse? As Ray
also said, “The horse will teach you if you‘ll listen.”

So maybe you’ll stay with me awhile, and I’ll blog again soon about some of what I’ve learned about
the science of behaviour, training and learning. After all, aren't we all in
this for the love of the horse? ”You feel and listen to the horse. The
experience of the results of his response helps you understand for the next time.”
~Tom Dorrance

A Herd of Two

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:33:41 GMT

When Concorde first came home he wasn’t entirely convinced
that I wasn’t going to eat him. Why I would want to eat a wiry little chestnut
Arab gelding is beyond me, but you couldn’t tell him that. “Frenetic” is the perfect word to describe Concorde. He’s fast, and reactive, and he holds his breath and stops blinking (and
thinking) at the drop of a hat (or a leaf blowing , or the cat walking, or the sun shining…) Almost everything I did with him was cause for suspicion and fear – he plain didn’t trust me to keep him
safe. But for all his nervousness, he’s a really good little horse, with a big heart and he just wants to do whatever it is that makes you happy, even if he’s terrified while he’s doing it.

Concorde found no comfort with me for quite a while. He was easily “made” to do things, but drop
that lead rope, or loosen the reins and he would high tail it (no pun) the other
direction. He wasn’t with me, physically or mentally, because he wanted to be,
but because he couldn’t escape me. Concorde had a great life, with a wonderful owner, before he came home with me, but he can be a tricky horse to read. And spooky, fearful and suspicious horses can
be challenging and frustrating to work with.

So I worked on developing his trust in me, and his confidence with himself. And that took a L-O-N-G time, from a human’s perspective. There were times I second guessed my decision to buy him as a
lesson horse. But the more I worked with him, the more he started to trust me,
the more his confidence started to grow, the more I grew to love him –and there
was no way I could part with him. Dang!

It’s a pretty cool thing to develop a connection with a horse, especially if it hasn’t been an easy connection to forge. Those ones that are a little harder to reach seem to make the bond that much stronger, and
sweeter.

I had to take Concorde to the vet yesterday for an ultrasound. He injured his check ligament, and it looks like it will be OK with some rehabilitative exercise, which is great. But even greater is how my little
red horse did with the whole ordeal. He hopped on the bus, stood tied calmly to the trailer at the vet’s, walked from the bright sunlight into their dark, scary building, had his legs clipped in a strange
wash rack, and had his leg ultrasounded while three people stood by watching. He was a trooper! I tied him back to the trailer after he was done, and waited on a bench for my student Julie to
have her horse looked at before we hauled home. And then I heard it… “WHINNNNNNNNNNNNY!!!!
WHINNNNNNNNY!!!!” Thinking he was calling for Demi, Julie’s horse and Concorde’s 1300lb girlfriend, I approached the trailer and came into his sight. He saw me, nickered, and calmed down instantly. He had been calling for me. I untied him, went back to the bench and sat down, holding onto his lead rope. He cocked his leg, dropped his head and relaxed. Just me and him in our safe little herd of two.

A Herd of Two

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:33:31 GMT

Winter pictures from Claudia

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 11:39:59 GMT

Beautiful photos taken by The Fantastic Claudia. No words necessary - isn't that a nice change from my usual posts? ;)

Blackbird Jekyl and Blackbird Hyde: Don’t blink, or you might miss it

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 12:36:29 GMT

So Blackbird has this glitch that I’ve never seen before. He only does it when
humans are present - trust me, I’ve stalked him from afar just to make sure
it’s not a neurological issue. But when I’m around, and the pressure of what is
happening is too great for him, he gets a certain “look” – his left eye will
not blink at all and will have a white ring around it, and his right eye will
blink normally. When horses are stressed or scared blinking slows or stops;
when they are more relaxed they blink more. Fearful horses get a wrinkly,
non-blinking eye, and non-fearful horses have a relaxed blinking eye. But
usually a horse displays either one state or another – not both at the same
time.

Below is a still photo example of what I mean. I took this the day after Blackbird
arrived, from 40 ft away while he ate hay in his pen. Remember it took him 7
months to feel safe with me just being around? So this scenario certainly felt
like pressure to him! See his white-ringed left eye, and his normal right eye?
Even look at his mouth tension – tight on the left and loose on the right,
which is consistent with the mental states on both sides. It might help you to
hold a piece of paper up to the screen to split his head down the middle and
only look at one side at a time.

When Blackbird is in this state (I call it his Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde face) he
displays some odd, but very consistent behaviour: If you work with him on his
left side he will exhibit 100% pure frozen-in-place fear. If you work with him
on his right he will be 100% confident and dominant – even to the point of sometimes
displaying challenging or threatening behaviour towards me. Switch sides and
the behaviour switches, instantly. Just so you don’t think I’m pushing
Blackbird too fast, let me stress that “pressure” can be a shockingly small
thing like asking him to go forward while he is loose in the arena, at a walk,
with just a small lifting of the energy in my body (no ropes, no stick, no
noise, just my energy) when I’m behind his drive line. Or it can be him loose
in an arena with the other horses on a rainy day, letting off some steam, and I
just pick up my lariat, or a plastic bag from 165 ft away, without even
thinking of “applying” it to him.

Now I believe that when horses are fearful and frozen you need to go really slow with them.
Too much pressure on that horse and you’ve got an explosive
fearful horse in pure self-preservation mode. What
they need is time to think. If they are fearful and hyperkinetic, making them
stand still will only make matters worse - you need to channel that energy and
redirect it until they can come back to you mentally. On the flip side, horses that
are confident and low energy need a strategy to encourage movement, and horses that
are confident and exuberant need to have that energy channeled (and that’s when
some really cool and beautiful things can happen!). So as I’ve been restarting
Blackbird from the ground up I’ve been trying to deal with the horse that shows
up: going slow on his left fearful side, and being more robust in my asking and
directing on his dominant right. Is it working? Should I be switching him from
one side to the other during a session, or should I stick with only one side? I
don’t know the answer to that yet and only time will tell…

Guitar Hero Horsemanship

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 11:20:38 GMT

“The problem with natural horsemanship people – no one can do anything with their horse but them. I want to be able to hand my horse to someone who can’t ride and say “Get on. Put your leg here, put your hand here, cluck and he’ll spin.” Now THAT’s a trained horse!”

I’m taking guitar lessons right now. OK, I’ve had one - but I’m committed. I got a guitar for my birthday and I’m trading guitar lessons for horsemanship lessons with my friend and student Kris, who is a musician. I LOVE the guitar, almost as much as I love the Scots for their delightful accent and tasty whisky. I hope to be able to pluck out a few tunes round the campfire at some of the clinics I’m attending later this year. Don’t worry, I won’t sing, unless I’ve had a glass of Laphroaig, in which case RUN FOR THE HILLS!

I’m not taking Guitar Hero lessons, and not just because Kris doesn’t offer them. If you aren’t familiar with Guitar Hero it’s a video game; you push different coloured buttons on the plastic simulated guitar as the chords of the song are revealed to you on the TV screen. Push them correctly and a song belts out of the speakers, and presumably you win the game. Don’t get me wrong – it takes incredible manual dexterity, reflexes and eye-hand coordination to be good at Guitar Hero. But I don’t think it takes a lot of feel.

The guitar, like the horse, is a bit more “alive” than the plastic simulated guitar. Push the red button on the simulated one and it makes a noise that’s the same whether you push it lightly or push it hard. Guitar strings are a little trickier. They require a lot of feel, and offer more responses, depending on how you strum, pluck or bang them. Can both the game and the instrument make a song? I guess that’s in the ear of the beholder.

The quote at the beginning was part of a discussion I had with a well-known horse trainer. I agree that horses need buttons. Your horse needs to know that when you look this way, he needs to head that way, or when your rhythm changes he should canter or when you stop riding you should both come to a stop - all things that take feel, and connection, not just button pushing. That’s the kind of music I want to make with my horse.

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night...

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:58:45 GMT

...take these broken wings and learn to fly"

Painted Chief Blackbird and I have been on a steep learning curve since he came home
exactly two years ago. January 22, 2009 I hauled him from where he was living
on the island. I basically bought him sight unseen, on the recommendation of my
good friend Stef who had started him under saddle for a previous owner. Maybe
not the best way to buy a horse, but Stef spoke highly of him and that meant a
lot to me. And let’s face it, his being fancy looking didn’t hurt either. I had
read Stef’s training log of the three months he was with her, saw the pics she
took as he developed mentally and physically, and liked what I saw. So I bought
his tobiano hide for 22 cents a pound.

When I went to pick him up he was a skinny, black and white whirling dervish circling at
the end of the lead rope. My first impression was that he had a big heart, and
was strong-minded, in a good way. The cash deal went through in a matter of minutes;
I quickly loaded him up, and raced off to catch the return ferry home. Sure I
saw the warning signs – an unhappy/fearful horse, uncomfortable being with the
latest owner who was holding him, same owner pretty happy to see him gone, but
I still felt compelled to help him out of the place where he was. Damn
nurturing gene! Little did I know…

I got him home and settled, and quickly realized what I had added to my herd – a horse
who was reactive, highly explosive, dangerous, and terrified of ropes on or
near him, being saddled, being touched, and being near people in general. Not
what I had signed up for! If I hadn’t seen the pics and read his training log I
wouldn’t have believed it was the same horse. So I tried my best to help him. I
started back where I thought was the beginning – accept being touched,
desensitization to pads, ropes, saddles etc, humans above, humans in the
saddle. But the more I did, the worse he got. In hindsight I hadn’t really
started at the beginning - instead I was assuming all he “knew” and was working
from that point forward. Did I just lose you? Bear with me. He wasn’t afraid of
all those things – he was afraid of me. Of me touching him, being close to him,
saddling him, flagging him, riding him. “Desensitizing” him to all the things I thought he was afraid of wasn’t doing a lick of good. At the end of a session I’d take the halter off out in the field, and he was gone without a look back. You gotta love feedback!

Now I’m known for being hard on myself – it’s a skill I’m trying to get worse at. So to
my credit I did do the right thing; I stopped doing what I was doing. Because
‘if it ain’t working, try something new’, I say. OK, so maybe I didn’t learn
right away. Maybe I only stopped after our fourth ride when he panicked because my saddle string touched his side, causing him to explode into a volley of bucks, all of which eventually launched
me into the metal support struts that hold up the arena. Ouch! It was bucking
like I’ve never ridden before – the pure, blind, self-preservation bucks of a
terrified horse.

So I just let him be... I didn’t do anything with him, other than feed him, groom him,
and change his blankets etc for 7 months. And finally one day, after 7 months
had passed, Blackbird came to me, seeking attention. 7 months of me not asking
anything of him, or doing anything to him and he finally built up the courage
to move close to me and give me a nuzzle.

I’ve seen trainers try and “prove” to terrified horses that they aren’t
going to hurt them, but only with a lot of sweat and kicked up dust. I’ve seen
horses forcefully laid down “to help them through their fears”, and watched
them give up their will to live. It always felt wrong to me – forced surrender,
trying to make the horse trust. If my husband had tried to make me trust him
like that, we wouldn’t be married. Ultimately, sometime after his original
training with Stef, Blackbird was betrayed, and “making” him trust me (with my
good intentions) wasn’t going to change that.

Horses are a precocial species – they hit the ground running, and their
survival requires them to learn things often after only one experience. We
humans are altricial – we are born wholly dependent on our parents for
survival, and we’re a little slow on the uptake - being the bumbling predators
that we are. No one’s going to eat us if we make a mistake. So we repeatedly
make the same mistake more than once. Horses on the other hand, often learn
things once for good or for bad. Scare them with a tarp and the fear could be in there for a while. Bag them in the teeth with the bit and make them hard to bridle. Have a one-time big wreck that
the horse associates with you or repeatedly betray them, whether you realize it
or not, and you could be the proud owner of a horse that doesn’t trust you down
to their core.

Whether you “see” that level of mistrust or not depends on you and your
level of feel for the horse. I’ve seen plenty of horses that don’t trust their
owners, but are very obedient. Some of those horses belonged to big name
trainers or high-level riders. Of course we need obedience from the horse, but don’t we want our horses to trust us too?

So I tried, with all my heart, to make Blackbird trust me, starting from
where we were when he arrived, but what he really needed was for me to go back
to the very beginning and reset our whole dynamic. A wise man once said, “This
horse isn’t afraid because I haven’t yet betrayed her trust, and I don’t intend
to.” And since you’ve stuck with me this far, I’ll share with you what we’ve
done. We’ve started back at the beginning. In my eyes Blackbird is now an
unhandled, wild mustang that’s never been touched or roped or led or ridden by
a human. We’re working forward from that assumption. Our first recent session
was with him loose in the arena and I worked on getting him comfortable with
the difference between me driving him forward without fear, and having him hook
on to me, with confidence. All with very little “pressure”, and lots and lots
of feel. Lots! No dust, no sweat, no running him out of breath until his only
option was to face me. From there we progressed to him switching eyes with me
in front of him – a seemingly simple task that means a lot to an animal who
feels his survival depends on not having me in his blind spot! There were some
big moments of release and understanding for Blackbird, which were fantastic,
but the best part? The best part was his reaction and expression when I turned
him back out with the herd. Instead of joining them, he turned to watch me go
and kept watching me for all of the 165 feet it took me to walk the length the
arena. No fear, just interest and curiosity. Now THAT’S feedback, folks!

So if you are interested, stay tuned and I’ll keep you posted on our progress. I haven’t yet betrayed him and I don’t intend to.

I never make mistakes...once I thought I did, but I was wrong

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:53:56 GMT

So I was reading Mark Rashid’s book, “Whole Heart, Whole Horse” and had just gotten through Chapter 1, called “Mistakes”. If you haven’t read the book, the chapter relays various stories where a mistake was made. One story is about a young Mark learning to ground-drive a colt, with some near disastrous results. At the end of the story the Old Man, as Mark calls his mentor in the story, pretty well sums Mark’s experience up by stating, “…because if you learned something,then it wasn’t a mistake.” Hmmm. Mark then goes on to talk about how in his experience, people who accept mistakes as part of life seem to make fewer overall, while those who strive to not make a single mistake often end up having the most problems.

Of course this got me to thinking about My Big Horse Mistake, and my flat-out refusal to learn from it, accept it and move forward. I’m not going to tell you what it was, but let’s just say that it really wasn’t that bad (at least that’s what my friend Stef tells me). Rather than learning from it, I allowed it to colour
everything I did with the horse in question. The guilt of making the mistake became all I could think about, and we reached a standstill in our progress together. I prophesized future equine catastrophes, predicted lifelong behavioral issues and even let The Mistake trickle over into how I handled other horses. It was the proverbial dead albatross I carried with me for the last few months (my people are tenacious, if nothing else).

But then I read the above chapter, and it struck a chord with me, as these things often do. So I started working through what I had learned from The Mistake - and learn plenty I did – which shifted things. I changed my perspective on how I saw the event, and when I changed my perspective, The Mistake changed. It became not a mistake, but A Lesson, and an opportunity. Most importantly, I needed to change how I treated myself in this situation. Instead of being my own worst critic I needed to have a little compassion and understanding for myself – which isn’t always easy. Maybe you’re like me and you can be your own worst enemy …but those beliefs and attitudes won’t help your progress through life. Not if you want to grow. After all, if the horse makes “a mistake” I don’t mentally beat them up for it. But why do we do it to ourselves?

So we’ve taken this opportunity and we’re running with it, Disco Pants and me. We’re back on track, he seems to have forgotten or forgiven me and we’re riding forward, together. Lesson gratefully learned.

“There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to
reach the places we've chosen to go.” ~ Richard Bach

Trust me, I’m gonna MAKE you overcome your fears!

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:31:14 GMT

I’ll admit it; I’ve been guilty of taking the above strategy and trying to apply it to fearful horses.
I think lots of people are, without even being aware they are doing it. With good intentions we use pressure to try and “show” the horse that we can be trusted. “If I can make him get in the trailer, he’ll see that he can survive and he’ll trust me more!” I don’t think horses see it that way. How often do you see horses applying this strategy to each other? Do you ever see Dobbin, standing behind nervous young Nugget, biting his butt in increasing phases every time he looks away in fear from a creek they need to cross? What you are more likely to see is horses approaching and retreating from things that scare them. Think about it.


And think about this…If you were deathly afraid of snakes (Hi Mum) and I told you that I was
going to help you overcome your fear of snakes, how would you feel about our relationship
if I took the following approaches to your fear?

1. How about if I “flooded” you with snakes? If I took fistfuls of snakes and told you “Trust me!!
And stay STILL! I’m going to help you overcome this fear by rubbing these snakes up and down your arms until you can RELAX and trust my leadership! Come on!! I LOOVE you!! Of course you can trust me! Let’s make a game of it…” Or, what if I took a HUGE boa constrictor and held it out to you, just until you touched it. “Go on, TOUCH IT! Just once! Touch it! Come on!!! Touch it or I’ll touch you with this stick and string!! Do it! Hurry up…!”

2. Or how about I leave a couple of snakes in your house and hope you get used to it in your own time. I could tie them to the banister, wrap them around the lamps, and put them between your bed sheets. Like my brother Clay did to “help” my mother, but that’s another story…

3. Or, you could just forget me and my snake-fear alleviation program, and avoid snakes for the rest of your life. You could stick to the pavement, stay away from dry grass and avoid turning
on the TV lest you see a legless critter, slithering across the screen.

4. Now how would you feel if instead I took you by the hand and showed you a snake, from 20 ft away? 20 ft is too close? Oh, sorry. How bout 50 ft away? Is that better? Good. “Now let’s just look at that snake. He can’t touch us. He doesn’t even know we’re here. What’s that? You’d like to get a little closer…? Sure, we can move up closer if you like. Oooh, he’s kinda pretty, for a snake. Now what do you say to leaving and checking out that snake in a minute or two, say at about the 38 ft distance? No, no…if you’re afraid we won’t push it. We’ll do what you are comfortable with. Oh? You think you could look at him from a closer distance if I held your hand and stood between you and snake? Sure we can do that!”


So what I’ve just described are a few methods of training, horses or humans, and one effective, but not very practical coping strategy.


In order they are:

1. Flooding, and pressure and release – techniques using “pressure”. In the case of flooding, rubbing you with snakes. Or pressure and release - using pressure and threatening to whack you with a stick and string in order to have you move closer or acknowledge your fear, the snake. When you do I will release the pressure. Aren’t I sweet?

2. Habituation – where I leave the snake in the room with you until you just get used to it.

3. The coping strategy – plain, old avoidance. Avoid the snake, at all costs. Not very practical, or confidence building for that matter. Eventually your world will become pretty small, avoiding all the things you are afraid of.

4. Approach and retreat – or systematic desensitization. Recognizing and acknowledging the threshold where fear takes over for you, and then retreating away. Systematically approaching the snake and retreating away again until your fear is diminished or eliminated.

Thanks for sticking with me through the snake analogy. I like analogies, and snakes. But I hear some of you asking questions as to how these strategies apply to horses, and that’s great. I love questions.

1.Doesn’t the technique of using increasing pressure and/or flooding work to get the horse over its fears? For some horses, sure it does. And for some horses it does not. But how do you think it leaves the horse feeling about the human? How would you feel if someone used pressure or flooding to make you overcome your fears? Would you respect them? Trust them? Or just feel dominated and powerless?

2. Habituation can work to diminish fears. All animals habituate to new “scary” things in their environment. But what if during our habituation training that snake under the bed sheets moves at the wrong time, or that tarp you carefully anchored down in your horse’s field gets picked up by the wind and wraps around his legs, just as he was getting used to it? Habituation certainly has its place in teaching the horse, but this isn’t it.

3.And avoiding the situation? Sure, it works. But it’s limiting and not very empowering.

4.Could we instead try approach and retreat to allow our horse to be less fearful of things, in a way that instills trust, rather than breaks trust? Would it leave a different taste in your mouth if your teacher respected your fears, and helped you advance at a pace you were comfortable with?

It’s certainly something to think about.