Problem Solving... Part II

Horses play in order to establish dominance in the herd and to learn skills to protect themselves from predators. They are extremely good at outsmarting predators. That’s how they’ve survived for millions of years. Some horses have a stronger survival mode than others. Those who don’t display much in the way of prey behavior are called “kids horses.” Those who are over-the-top with their survival mode are called “problem horses.”

Let’s say our fictional horse is somewhere in the middle. He’s not so concerned about us that we can’t catch him (obviously we’ve done that much in order to bring him into the barn and tie him up) but he’s not so quiet that he’ll stand there and take a nap either.

This is when groundwork becomes crucial. People generally think of groundwork as something that is only done to train young horses, that it consists almost entirely of lunging the horse in circles, and that it has almost nothing to do with riding. If we look at it in that way, then it becomes a matter of “why bother!?! if I’m not starting a green horse then there’s no reason for it.”

Groundwork is NOT lunging.

Groundwork is everything you do with your horse from the moment he notices you. Before you even get to the gate of his pasture, he’s already sized you up and determined whether or not you are a friend or a predator. Every action you make in your body will determine how your horse feels about you, and consequently, how he responds to you.

This seems like a daunting and overwhelming idea. If every time I move, he’s interpreting my actions as either friendly, or threatening, how could we ever get along? How can anyone be so aware of their body so as to consistently reinforce their horse’s view of them as “friend”? It’s not something you master in an hour, day, week, month, year, or decade, and it’s debatable if anyone ever truly can “master” it. If you love horses and want to be successful with them, you need to be continually working on yourself first, and on them second.

Back to our fictional horse: What’s the answer to this problem? This lack of confidence? We need to be aware of how we approach him in the pasture first. When does he notice us, and what does he do about it? Does he look at us, then walk away, does he turn an ear our direction and then pretend we’re not there (“if I can’t see you, you can’t see me”), or does he nicker and come running?

When there is nothing physically connecting you to your horse, you’re left with one thing… the truth.

If your horse walks or runs away when he sees you, he's very clearly telling you that he doesn’t want to be with you, and that’s feedback. If you chase him for it, that’s punishment and it’ll only prove his point; that you’re a predator that can’t be trusted. If he calls out to you and meets you at the gate, you’ve got a good thing going on.

This is where your problems start and where you need to start fixing them. On the ground. If your horse is less than thrilled to see you, then how’s he going to behave when you try to lead him someplace, try to trailer load him, try to ride him? It will carry over to everything you do together.

So start on the ground. But don’t start by lunging him in circles. Lunging has it’s place in training, but most people use it for the wrong reason. The single reason why most people lunge their horse is to tire them out before they get on to ride. This in my opinion, just doesn’t make any sense. You’re not asking the horse to think or understand that you’re the leader in this herd of two, you’re letting him run mindlessly in circles. To the horse, you’re appearing more and more like a predator because you’re chasing him. You’ve also “trapped” him so he can’t get away, and in an emotional horse you’re simply heightening his anxiety. The more you run him around, the stronger he’ll get over time, and the longer it’ll take to wear him out. I’m not sure about you but I’d rather ride a thinking horse than a tired horse any day. A tired horse may still run off, but a thinking horse will have no reason to.

A good rider can ride a bucking horse, but a great rider’s horse never needs to buck.

Start by spending undemanding time with him. Start hanging out in his pasture. If it’s safe to do so, take a good book, and a stool and just hang out. Let him come to you, let him see that not every time you’re around him are you going to be demanding something from him. When you bring him in the barn, spend time brushing him, and rubbing on him just for the sake of making him feel good. Don’t feed him extra treats! Remember, horses aren’t food motivated and he may actually start disrespecting you even more. You want to be the leader, and not just the giant cookie dispenser. Food rewards can have a place in horse training as well, but should be used sparingly, and only once the horse has a high level of respect for you.

Another important thing to do is to see if there is anywhere on his body that he doesn’t want you to touch him.

Be safe! If you can’t safely touch him with your hand, use a tool like a lunge whip, or carrot stick. There’s no reason why you should get hurt doing this.

Don’t punish him if he objects to your touch. Take it as feedback. He’s defensive for a reason and it will only make it worse if you try to punish him for it. Remember, prey animals don’t understand punishment. If he objects, move away from that spot. Approach it, and try to retreat before he responds. That's the key to desensitizing him. He'll learn that every time you touch him, you won't keep bothering him, but that the unwelcome feeling will go away quickly. Eventually he won't react at all because he'll have confidence that you mean him no harm.

Then see if you can push on his body, starting very gently, asking him to move his feet. Will he yield his hindquarters, forehand, will he back up when you press on his nose/chest? How little or how much pressure does it take? Start by pressing on the hair, then his skin, then his muscle, then his bone, until he takes a single step. Then stop and rub him.

If your horse will not yield to you with gentle pressure, you have a problem. How exactly will he respond to riding cues if he does not yield to pressure?

Horses are programmed to fight against pressure. If a cougar jumps on their back they can’t just collapse under the pressure, they fight against it to get it off. If your horse does not respect you, he will not yield to your touch.

Respect is not something you demand but something you earn.

Our unconfident horse needs to learn to respect us. We need to show him first that we are friendly; second, that we can move his body and he cannot move ours. The biggest game horses play is to see who can move who’s feet. If I can move your feet, I’m the dominant horse. If you move my feet, you’re boss. Simple as that. We need to move his feet in an assertive, non-aggressive way. Then thirdly we need to expose him to situations that will bring up his feelings of anxiety, and then thru our leadership skills, show him that no matter where we take him, or what we ask him to do, that we are not going to compromise his safety, his dignity, or use force to make him do something he’s truly upset about. We will lead him thru his fears and he will gain confidence in both himself and in us.

Once our horse is confident in himself, and in us, nervous behaviors like pawing will disappear. Once our horse respects us as his leader, then disrespectful behaviors like biting, and pushing into our space, will disappear.

If you are having a problem with your horse and were hoping I’d list off a bunch of them and a bunch of solutions, you’ve come to the wrong place. What I would most recommend is for you to find someone who understands horses well, who uses natural horsemanship techniques, and ask their advice.

You can even email me (sarah@naturalhorsemanship.ca) your questions if you like, and I’ll do what I can to make suggestions, however unless I can see the horse and see your interactions with them, it is almost impossible to give advice. Find someone that can come out to spend time with you and your horse, and who can then help you work thru the problems you’re facing.

To evaluate whether or not someone really knows horses, I would first ask to see their horses. Watch them interact and see if you notice any behaviors in their horse that says they’re missing something. If their horse is barging into their space, or pawing, or spooks a lot, maybe they haven’t got the information you need. Horses won’t lie, but many people will. So evaluate the horse in order to evaluate the trainer.

In most cases the solution to problems with horses is very simple. Even the most out of control horses will respond to kindness, understanding, and patience. If you lose your temper, get frustrated, angry, or break down into tears, your horse will know you’re not a good leader. True problem solving means being mentally and emotionally fit. If you’re getting to the point of fear or frustration, you need to be mentally and emotionally capable of admitting you don’t know what to do, and seek out someone who does. Don’t blame the horse for acting like a horse, and make sure you don’t start acting like a predator. It takes time and experience to understand horses and be successful with them. It takes time for each horse you meet to decide to trust you, but when he does, there is no place you can’t go together.

Here are some helpful links related to Natural Horsemanship:

www.parelli.com – Parelli USA

www.chrisirwin.com – Chris Irwin, horseman and clinician from Canada

www.joshnichol.com – Josh Nichol, horseman and clinician from Canada

www.jonathanfield.com – Jonathan Field, horseman and clinician who was a Parelli instructor and is now on his own.

www.brannaman.com – Buck Brannaman; one of my favorite horsemen.

www.naturalhorsemanship.ca (my site)

www.todayshorse.com – Some interesting articles

www.westfallhorsemanship.com (Reiner trainers – Stacy Westfall’s most notable –and impressive- accomplishments are: 2003 and 2005 NRHA Open Freestyle Reining Champion-Bridleless, 2006 Tulsa Reining Classic Champion--without a bridle or saddle)

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Problem Solving… Part I

No matter what horse you own, there will come a time when you need to fix a problem. Horses can display a wide range of behaviors that we humans view as being “problems.” This is where the difference between natural horsemanship and “normal” horsemanship really becomes clear.

In natural horsemanship we try to always figure out why the horse is behaving the way he is. A lot of people seem to think that horses do things at random, but that is very rarely the case. Everything your horse does whether it’s in your presence or not, has a reason behind it. You might not know what it is, but I can assure you that he/she does. What can we do about it? In the case where the horse is afraid to stand still, the worst thing we could do is punish him (that’s a predator response and as we noted above, prey animals don’t understand punishment… he’ll think he’s being attacked –and he is- by a predator. It will only make him even more upset and cause the situation to escalate), so we need to identify what he needs to feel safe. He’s lacking confidence in himself, in the situation, and in his human/leader. So we need to develop his confidence. If he were confident that we would never put him in a situation where he could get killed, then he wouldn’t display anxious behaviors.

My approach for problem solving is three-fold. First we identify the problem/behavior we’d like to change, we also figure out why it is happening, then once we know the cause of it we proceed with a series of steps to modify it. It sounds simple, but most people seem to get stuck where they aren’t aware enough to see the problem to begin with, or they don’t know, (or don’t care) why it’s happening. Instead of trying to modify the horse’s behavior they try the bandaid approach. They go out and buy more tools and mechanical devices to stop the horse from displaying that symptom.

You’ll see me use that word, symptom, a lot in my articles. It especially applies to this concept of problem solving. The behaviors in horses that we’d like to change, are not in themselves the problem, the behaviors are the symptom of the problem.

For example:

You bring your horse into the barn and tie them up to be groomed. They can’t stand still. They either move back and forth, or they start to paw.

This is a common situation. What most people do about it is they first yell at the horse to “knock it off”, then they proceed to smack him or otherwise discipline him for pawing. They’ll also often complain to anyone within earshot about this “bad habit” their horse has of pawing.

Given the same situation this is what I see. I see a horse who’s either anxious and needs to move their feet, or a horse who’s becoming impatient because they would rather be doing something else. Since they’re tied up they can’t walk around so they do the next best thing which is swerving back and forth, or paw. This is a horse with a lack of confidence in himself, and a lack of confidence in his human/leader.

Now given that different perspective, it would seem highly inappropriate to punish the horse for behaving in such a way. If he is displaying anxious behaviors, then gGiving him a smack for being afraid will do nothing but make him more afraid. This is what I mean about the bandaid solution. The mentality behind it seems to be “if I punish the bad behavior he’ll stop doing it.” And that doesn’t necessarily work. Like I said, it’s treating the symptom, (in this case pawing) instead of treating the problem. You can perhaps startle the horse by growling at him or otherwise yelling “knock it off” and for a minute he may quit what he’s doing, but it’s not really solving the problem unless you can redirect his attentions to some other task.

Horses are prey animals. Humans are predators. It’s important to remember that, but what does it really mean?

Prey animals are born fearful, anxious, panic driven, and have innate abilities to protect themselves from predators. They’re always on guard, and are highly aware of their surroundings. Their eyes are on the sides of their heads so that they can see all the way behind themselves, as well as above and below, but the downside to that type of vision is they don’t see well directly in front of themselves, nor do they have much in the way of depth perception. Horses are equipped to hear, smell, and see every little change in their environment. They are also designed to run from danger, and if they cannot run, they will fight. They are not particularly food motivated (at least not as much as a dog) because in their natural habitat food is all around them. Grass is everywhere. They don’t care about praise and recognition Horses do not understand punishment. They just don’t care about that. So what does a horse care about? Safety is the most important thing to a prey animal. Comfort is the second most important, and thirdly, they love to play. In play, horses practice the skills they need to outrun, and outfight a predator, they also use play as a determining factor of who is going to be the leader of the herd, and who will be at the bottom of the hierarchy. Horses use their bodies to communicate instead of verbal language. As a prey animal it would be unsafe to make noise that would attract predators.

Another important thing to take note of is that horses are not afraid to get hurt. They are afraid of being killed. This is a big difference. A horse will run through a barbed wire fence and tear up his body in order to avoid being killed by a predator (or perceived threat). People often wonder why a horse will get so upset that it hurts itself thinking it must be stupid to do such a thing, but they don’t understand that the horse is not afraid to get hurt, he’s afraid to die.

Predators operate entirely differently. We are not generally anxiety driven; we can relax and don’t need to be nearly as aware of our surroundings because there’s very few other animals out to eat us. We are very food motivated. Most dog training, for example, relies on supplying treats as rewards for good behavior. Dogs and people get along well because we are both predators. Dogs and humans also like praise and recognition, and we also respond to punishment. We have eyes on the front of our heads so we can see how far away our prey is. We have depth perception. We’re also a highly verbal bunch. Dogs and humans both make a lot of noise to communicate.

This is what makes the horse-human relationship so unique. We’re trying to combine a prey animal with a predator and expect everyone to get along.

Now let’s return to the situation of the horse pawing while being tied up and apply our problem solving formula.

1) What is the problem? He’s pawing, and won’t stand still.

2) Why? (this is crucial!) Because he’s a prey animal and he’s nervous about being restricted in his movement (By tying him up, we are preventing him from running off should a predator appear, understandably, this makes him anxious) OR he’s impatient and doesn’t respect our leadership enough to accept confinement.

You’re probably now wondering what exactly can be done to increase his confidence and/or to prove to him that no matter what situation we place him in, he’s safe and can relax because we’re taking care of things. This is where problem solving becomes difficult. We know he needs confidence, but how? Maybe he’s just fine if we bring another one of his horse buddies in to stand beside him. Maybe he’s fine when he’s being ridden (because he gets to move his feet and has a job to do) and his only problem is standing tied, or maybe he’s a nervous wreck all the time. Without looking at the entire horse, we simply cannot say “this is what you need to do.” Each horse is an individual and needs an individualized approach.

What this horse needs to learn is that it is ok to be in the company of humans and we will not only not kill him, but we are going to protect him. He needs safety, and comfort, and how we give this to him is thru play.

We can learn to play horse games by horse rules, and develop our leadership skills along the way. This is really well outlined in the Parelli program. Now people are often turned off when they hear “play games with your horse” but that’s an entirely different article. I don’t mean that horse training is always fun, that it’s always a “game” but that we can use horse behaviors to our advantage. I would give you some examples here but I highly recommend that you seek out information at the Parelli.com website, and thru a list of other links provided at the bottom of part 2 of this article.

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The Benefits of Natural Horsemanship

When people think of natural horsemanship they think of “whisperers” people who can take an otherwise difficult horse and magically transform it into a quiet, willing partner. That is only part of it. There really is no magic involved. Just plain old common sense.

Firstly we need to define what natural horsemanship is. In it’s most basic form it is simply communication between a horse and a human. It is using what we know of horse behavior and psychology so that the horse learns not to see people as a predator, but as a partner and begins to behave accordingly. People learn to act less like predators, and horses learn to manage their emotions to act less like prey animals and we meet somewhere in the middle. It is a partnership, and a foundation upon which horse and human can succeed in whatever direction they choose to venture.

That is perhaps the point of this article. When people see natural horse trainers, (assuming they don’t dismiss it outright as some folks are apt to do) they see the respect between the two parties, they see the communication, but what they can’t see is the potential. Most folks seem to think that natural horsemanship has nothing to do with whatever discipline they’re competing in. Perhaps it is part of our society that says we need to have results immediately that leads us to believe that if you’re not competing and winning ribbons then you’re wasting your time. There is a lack of patience, a lack of awareness, and a lack of understanding in the horse world and that’s where natural horsemanship is so important. People spend thousands of dollars on “breaking” their horses, and on mechanical devices to try to control them, and to me that just doesn’t make any sense. People say that they don’t have time to become partners with their horse, or time to learn why their horses is out of control, yet they seem to have an abundance of time to do everything else they can think of to try to force that “stupid horse” to obey. They also must have an abundance of time and money to spend being laid up with various injuries that are “that damn horse’s fault.” Then when they reach the end of their patience (although one can hardly call it that) with their particular problem horse, they sell it and begin anew with another.

The problem is very rarely the horse. The problem is almost always in the owner/rider.

If more people would spend half the energy in learning what it is to be a horse, and some very basic skills, everyone involved would benefit, and contrary to popular belief, natural horsemanship does not have to cost a lot of money. The essential tools of the trade are a rope halter, a 12’ lead rope, and a stick/whip (usually either of the “carrot stick” variety from the Parelli program which is quite effective, or a simple longe whip will suffice). These tools can be bought at any local tack store and really aren’t all that much money to invest in one’s own safety.

There is so much more to horses than riding and competing.

Personally I think that the horse world has it backwards; People are learning to compete before they can ride, and they learn to ride before they know anything about horses. Just think for a moment about how many problems you’ve seen in the interactions between horse and human, that could be solved by a little more patience, a willingness to seek out more information, and by simply understanding why the horse is doing whatever its doing.

If you don’t know if natural horsemanship is right for you, ask yourself these questions: Does my horse display undesirable behaviors? For example does your horse do any of the following: pawing, unable to stand still, hard to catch, nipping/biting, tail swishing, teeth grinding, hard to bridle, bumping into you while leading/always in one’s personal space, won’t pick up his feet, tries to kick, buck, rear, bolts, is “lazy”, spooks at everything, etc.

Then I want you to ask yourself something else; have you ever wondered why your horse behaves that way? Have you ever stopped to think that your horse doesn’t have these problems when he’s out in the pasture with his buddies… so what is it about my relationship with my horse that causes him to act like he does?

You cannot effectively control the symptom and think you’ve fixed the problem.

What people fail to realize is that undesirable behaviors in horses are the symptoms of bigger problems. You need to know why the horse is behaving in that particular way and if you don’t know what to do about it then you need to seek out some education. Not find a new tool to force him to stop. That is like putting a bandaid over a gaping wound. It’s ineffective and in the case of horses, you’ll be only postponing the inevitable; a situation in which things get so bad that no tool out there can control them, and finally someone gets hurt. Then of course it is the horse’s fault, because they’re so ill-behaved.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

So many people seem to take for granted that horses act in ways that range from mild to dangerous and think nothing of it, as though this is normal horse-human interaction and it should never be this way. For the sake of our safety and well-being, and for the safety and well-being of our horses, we need to find a better way to understand each other.

This is not a new concept. It has been in existence for as long as people have interacted with horses. There is no reason why people should be hurt or killed by horses.

Natural horsemanship isn’t a discipline. It shouldn’t be a minority movement in the horse world either. It is essentially common sense and should be used by all horse people no matter what discipline you ride and compete in. What it will do is give you the tools and techniques to have a true partnership with your horse. So that you’re not doing things to him, but are doing things with him. So you’re both competing, and so that you don’t have force him and fight with him anymore, because he is a willing partner. Horses should be fun, if all you’re doing is forcing, and fighting it doesn’t take long before you lose the love you have for them, and you lose the fun. Once the fun is replaced by fear, and frustration, most people sell the horse and give up their dreams. If we all took a little bit of time to have even a very basic understanding of what it is to be a horse, and why they do the things they do, all people, all horses and all disciplines would greatly improve.

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