10 minute read
Consistent and Reliable Impressions
Maintaining a CONSISTENT and RELIABLE impression
is a central communicative skill to be successful with horses.
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Story & Photo By Alessandra Deerinck
Being successful with horses happens when we can truly cooperate, and our interaction has no delay. It is a relationship that enables human and horse to execute without being submissive and the leader can be a leader of leaders.
People and horses base their behavior on percep�on,
the process by which living individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions to give meaning to what surrounds them. The selection, organization, and interpretation of perceptions can differ among individuals and definitely across animal species. The image of the world that is perceived is what is behaviorally important, and sometime can be different from reality because it is influenced by the individual, the target and the situation at the time it happens. Every individual, human or equine, has a different attitude, experience, expectations, reasons and interests for a situation that he perceives. The target of the perception can be new or known, moving, making sounds, having a scent or taste. The dynamics of the situation being perceived can be also new or known and have social implications.
When we are relating to horses, an important part is always being aware of the various parts of the interaction, because all of it will build memories that inevitably affect the future time we spend together. Equines never switch off their senses, or the consideration for other’s behavior. This awareness, that horses have consistently, causes us to always influence their behavior, even when we are not meaning to do so. Once horses perceive our behavior, we have no more power to change the communication we sent, but while we are with them, we have the possibility to influence their perception. What we can do is manage the situation and the target of the horse’s perception to allow him to get more positive sensory impressions that can make our interaction cooperative. The traits of an individual personality influence perceptive selection and we cannot change them instantaneously, but we can still work to have positive experiences together. Motivation drives the selection of objects that would fulfill a horse’s needs at the moment it happens, as well as past experiences also affect the perceptual selection. External factors such as size, intensity, contrast, motion and repetition would cause a horse to select a certain object and become attentive to it. When horses become attentive, they deepen their perception and we can help them do so and look like a desirable partner. Traditionally, the interaction between man and horse happens through training, but the trained responses always coexist with other behavioral components such as instincts, experience, and emotions, that can originate dangerous behavior when the horse does not comply with our trained request, or we get in a conflictual interaction. This is the time when people as well as horses can experience insecurity and fear, which can lead to sad consequences and even bring the relationship to an end.
A very strong point became apparent to me when I saw that in the interaction with horses we can spontaneously, but purposefully modulate our behavior in terms of movement in order to communicate with a horse. This is the reason why I shifted from just training a horse for an action to deepening the details about the communication and interacting spontaneously through movement. Horses have a natural, instinctual response to movement, and people do too. If something approaches us, we tend to move away from it, and this is even more the case if we are surprised by it. If something goes away from us, we tend to follow it, whether just with our eyes, or our movement, and it is even more true when it is something of interest or concern. These are the rules about movement that we can apply when we work with horses to establish a silent dialogue, that has a social meaning natural for the equine species, and that people can learn in order to modulate the content of their spontaneous communication to the horse. When horses are perceptually alerted, they would likely ignore a trained cue that still is a movement but most of the time it has no physical correlation to the momentary situation. What I observed is that even when they are alerted, horses could still choose to respond to a communication that they understood instinctually and, most importantly, that is relevant to the situation at the time it happens. What’s important for being successful in reaching the horse and sending a message he understands, is knowing the instinctual behavior of equines and focusing on the physics of behavior and communication (not verbal!).
Perception is a process that originates memories, and we all know that consistent positive experiences in relating to another individual build our consideration of him in a way that we will be more likely to trust him in a future interaction. This is true for horses too, but we need to keep in mind that how we behave at the time is also very important and will definitely influence our interaction. Horses are prey animals, and show to trust other individuals by letting them approach when they perceive the individual’s behavior is worth their trust. Their feelings are a combination between memories of the individual, if they had previous interactions and his behavior displayed at the time. This is where consistency of positive interactions can give us a chance to be trusted by a horse. When a horse moves away while we are going towards him, we need to stop approaching, so we are letting him know we understand that he is not trusting us, but we also need to keep pursuing our goal to approach him by giving him reasons to trust us in the immediate future. Stopping when the horse moves away can actually inspire the horse to want to come close to us, and if this happens, we would be telling the horse we are trusting him.
If we consistently behave in a way that horses immediately understand, while riding or on the ground, we are able to act as a team with them, and build a stronger relationship between us. Most importantly we leave coercion out of the interaction, in fact in any group of individuals a true leader (not a boss!) appears to be such from the way he behaves. When horses experience a pleasant interaction, they may seek social time with humans, even when it involves the practice of an equestrian discipline where the actions are often about things that horses do not naturally understand.
Horses relate to each other in terms of movement that is always relevant to the situation and time. Looking at the interaction in terms of the physics of motion, we can purposefully modulate our communication by the direction and the energy of our movements. Energy is not intended as a mental entity. We can physically modulate it by controlling the combination between our body mass,
Motivation drives the selection of objects that would fulfill a horse’s needs at the moment it happens. The horse will choose to push the ball because we showed him that there was carrots in the box under the ball.
direction and speed at which we move. The way a horse and a human being move under each other influence has implications in the values of the social relationship, but it is necessary to not humanize the communication and know how our movement physically influences the horse.
It is a known and accepted fact that the dimensions of the space, and the surrounding circumstances have an effect on the horse’s behavior. Both of these instances are very important when we interact with a horse. We also know that when horses go back to a situation or space where they displayed a certain behavior, are likely to display it again, because of their sensory perception of the surrounding causes them to behave in the same manner. When horses communicate between them, the meaning of their movement has a purpose that is related with the position of the individual they are addressing, and they use their gaze in a very expressive manner. Having experimented with modulating the communication through sight when interacting with a horse, I found differences in doing so side by side, or from where they can see me with both eyes. When we are asking a horse to execute a request, and the horse can see us with both eyes, we are the focus of his attention. Horses interpret behavior, including intent, mood, motivation, confidence, awareness, and when the horse is complying, he will move in the direction where we are orienting our body, and his actions will reflect the energy displayed in our movement that is expressing the request. When being side by side, human and horse are in each other’s field of vision, but not the object of each other’s attention. The action of human and horse side by side is in sync when the relationship between them is cooperative, and I think that even when we are riding the same can happen, but through touch instead of sight. Being conscious about how we use statics in horsemanship is of great help while riding and using the sense of touch when we are sitting on the horse’s back. The horse perceives us, and responds to how we move while we sit on his back. It happens by how the horse perceives the direction of any pressure we apply, the muscle tension, and how we orient our own body in relation to the surrounding area.
While riding and using the sense of touch, the horse perceives us, the direction of any pressure we apply, the muscle tension, and how we orient our own body in relation to the surrounding area.
For the horse, the communication through movement does not change when free to move, or under saddle, or confined in a stall, however, being tied, in a confined space or under saddle, would definitely put a physical constraint in his ability to express communication. Because of his prey animal nature, a horse that cannot move, and put distance between himself and other entities, often does not feel safe, and can become dangerous for people to be around. The same can happen when we ride and try to move a horse towards something that he is concerned about and is trying to avoid. When we are in the saddle a horse is trusting us to occupy part of his own space and if we insist and force the horse to approach something that concerns him, he can decide that we should no longer be trusted to be in the saddle.
Applying physics in horsemanship can be done efficiently, but only if we add the most important element, which is the fact that human beings and horses are live social creatures of different species, and each have control of their own actions.
When we relate to others, what we put into it, we get out of it. It becomes our social reputation.
It is important that when we are with horses, we can give them a positive perception by behaving consistently in all types of situations. Inconsistency leads to uncertainty and stress. Horses perform best when their environments are predictable. If our reactions are unpredictable or if we give conflicting directions, horses will not trust us and will become unwilling, or even afraid to approach us.
We ask for consistency in performance from horses and they should be able to expect consistent support from us as well. Flexible consistency is one of the best ways to support our horses. When you are consistent, horses see you as dependable and reliable. Likewise, success in reaching goals depends on remaining committed to a course of action, but always aware of the evolving situation. We can do so by looking for feedback from the horse’s behavior in response to our actions and remaining flexible, but never forceful about the method to achieve our goals.
When the horse is complying, he will move in the direction where we are orienting our body, and his actions will reflect the energy displayed in our movement that is expressing the request.
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