STEADY? OR S How Can We Inspire Horse’s Behavior? POOKY

Story and Photos By Alessandra Deerinck

When riding happens cooperatively with the horse it is definitely enjoyable, but can be a source of fear or upsetting moments, when riders experience situations where they feel they can’t control the equine partner. In these times riders often act in a way that can lead a horse to not trust their behavior, or to not want them on his back.

Common examples of such instances are when the horse spooks or does not want to proceed in the direction we choose. While stopping is a behavioral choice that horses make consciously because they perceived something and became attentive to it, spooking is a reflex, an unconscious response to something moving that surprised the horse. It is actually a behavior that the horse cannot control, and it is different than when a horse purposefully moves abruptly to unseat the rider.

Behavior is the complete expression of any living individual and is highly influenced by genetics, and sensory perception. The genetic traits include instincts and personality, which are subjects that is possible to study and always keep in mind. The sensory perception of a horse or any living being is influenced by the environment, and is also something we can purposefully influence with our behavior. Most importantly, we should always be aware of what the horse that is sharing time with us is perceiving, so we are aware of the same situation and not get surprised if the horse spooks or stops. When a horse stops to observe something, he is becoming attentive to it, and the way we behave can actually inspire him to follow our input if they feel it makes sense, or to unseat us if we push him to it and it does not make sense for him.

There are many ways to influence animal behavior. Individuals who perceive the behavior of another living creature respond with their behavior coupled with the not so evident process called learning, which is the processing and memorizing of information, that can later be expressed in the form of behavior in similar circumstances.

Thinking in terms of cells and molecules, learning produces behavioral changes, through exposure to an instance and the repetition of an action. This process produces in an individual the stimulation of neural cells, which causes the production of new molecules (proteins). These changes at the cellular level determine the new way the individual will behave. This is true for humans and for horses or any other type of living animal.

In order to be cooperative while being with a horse, on the ground or on his back, we have to keep in mind his needs, how deeply our actions reach the horse and how he feels about our behavior. it is very important that communication and understanding between humans and horses really works both ways.

When people get upset and punish horses for not complying with their requests, they might actually be reinforcing the unwanted behaviors with their reaction. If horses do not respond the way we want to our request, they may not have perceived or understood the request. If we want to be successful in our interaction, we should make sure the horse will be able to perceive with his sensory organs our request, which needs to be correlated to what we are asking and to the situation, in a way that the horse understands immediately without having to be trained.

Instead of punishing the horse using force, or letting the horse get away with his behavior, we should change our request in a way that gives our actions the proper form that horses could immediately perceive, understand and will want to consider.

When we start working with a horse, we do it without limiting his movement, and we use food to establish our ranking. The horse has to learn that he can eat when we let him do so, just like the mare teaches her foal when to eat and when not to eat.

Horse can spook when they are under saddle as well as when they are at liberty, It is a reflex, an unconscious response to a movement that surprised the horse.

The Use Of Food During Training

In the equestrian world, the relationship between food and training is one of the most debated. Most professional trainers are against using food during training for many reasons. The most immediate is that the horse can become more interested in food than in the interaction and relationship with its human partner. I think using food during training is of great benefit. First of all, food is a familiar subject for the horse. Many of the interactions that are important in establishing order in a natural horse herd concern grazing rights and therefore land and food. One of the first lessons a foal learns from the mother is when to eat and when not to eat. This lesson, in nature, is vital for survival.

Using food as a reward for training can create problems when it is used without knowing what it means to the horse. The choice of whether or not to use food as a training tool must also be made on the basis of the individual horse. Some horses, like some people, physically lose the ability to control themselves around food, but always choosing not to use food in training eliminates one of the best tools and communication devices a trainer has access to.

In Human Horse Sensing, the first interactions with a horse happen by acting in terms of territory and proximity, with the horse free to move. As we have already said, one of the first things a horse learns from his mother is when he can eat and when it is not possible. Through their life, horses shape each other’s behavior towards sharing space and food. Most of the social interaction revolves around grazing, and it works between horses, but can also work between humans and horses. Horses express their feelings in subtle ways, according to body language, but they can also bite or kick each other if they disagree. This can’t happen between human and horse, so it’s up to us to pay attention to the horse’s behavior and to modulate the distance with him, and our body language so that we don’t get to the kick or the bite, but we can still interact spontaneously with the horse through movement.

Due to his nature, a horse considers another individual a leader if he takes care of leading the horse to food, water and safety. A very important part of Human Horse Sensing is about learning how to best communicate with horses free to move, a state where we actually can see the real behavior and feelings of our horses. If you monitor a horse’s behavior when you give him food from your hand, he can perceive receiving food in two ways, either as a gift or as if he stole the food just because he took it from your hand. In this case, because of the equine natural concept of “pecking order”, people get to be considered lower ranking. When the horse delicately takes food from our hand, he considers it a gift and will see us as a leader. Using this approach horses become more interested in connecting, and performing with us rather than the food itself.

How to turn a difficult situation around by managing the emotions of a horse

Experiencing personally how the emotional state of the horse we ride influences our relationship is very powerful, and the episode I am about to mention gave me a lot to think about in terms of horsemanship, and what I do every day, between training horses, and teaching people how to communicate with them. I had to personally witness an episode of abuse, and had to scratch from a trail class because of how out of hand and dangerous my horse’s behavior was at that time. I was riding Rosalie, and she got really upset because she was witnessing another horse being abused, while being ridden with chains tied on his pasterns in the ring next to us. Even worse, this kind of abuse is an accepted way to act with horses, and it is even taught as a training method. Rosalie became so dangerous for me and others that I dismounted, and decided to abandon the competition. We headed for her corral, because taking her away from the sight of the abused horse was my best resource to make her comfortable. We were also entered in a fun bareback class, that was to start one hour later. Continued...

When we got to our stall, the owner of the horse in the stall next to Rosalie’s was taking care of her horse, and I stopped to talk to her about what happened. This moment gave me the chance to cool down, and process what was happening. The next class I entered was about to start, but I had no desire to do it anymore, because I felt that my horse was not in the adequate state of mind. While talking with my neighbor, I took off Rosalie’s tack, and decided to work her out of the fearful state. We worked with Human Horse Sensing, through sight, touch, and about space, giving her the choice to participate in the action freely. In less than 5 minutes I was able to change her behavior from being scared, to becoming a willing horse. At this moment I slipped the bridle back on her, got on bareback, and headed for the covered arena, where the other competitor in the Fun Class was already waiting. We were handed a dollar bill, which had to remain between our leg and the horse, while riding bareback, and performing whatever the judges would order us to do. It began with “walk your horse”, then turned in “trot”, then “change hand”, and ended with “canter your horse”. Many people were commenting that it seemed almost unreal that I was riding bareback the same horse that a few moments earlier I had to pull from a class, because she was misbehaving, and how she was listening and willing. The other rider lost her dollar bill cantering, and Rosalie and I were handed the blue ribbon for first place. Most of all, we were successful in a class where I thought we had no hope to even participate. Summing it up, we always need to be aware of the situation and the horse’s behavior and perception in order to manage ourselves and the environment, to help the horse be comfortable and behave in a cooperative way with us.

Halting, while riding a horse or working on the ground, should always be the result of a harmonious interaction. If it is the decision of just one, human or horse, it often develops into a conflict. Traditionally, the solution has been to not let the horse “get away” with it. Many of the problems that can develop between a rider and a horse are the result of such actions, where human beings push horses past their limits, often by employing force. As we already mentioned, by forcefully insisting that a horse keeps going to something that concerns him, we establish, and reinforce an unwanted behavioral memory. The unwanted behavior will be often exhibited if the horse gets back in the same place and perceives the same situation. Horses are always ready to learn, and never switch off their memory. When we are interacting with them, they learn from anything, and everything we do. If we look at the reason why they resist our request to go forward, we will find out that, at that time, they are not recognizing us as leaders, and therefore they are taking the position of leading the action. Every attempt to force the horse will convince him, more and more, that we are not to be seen as a leader, because we are asking them to do something against their will. If we employ force, we obtain that the horse fears us, which is different than when he respects us. In any relationship, respect implies listening, being sensitive, and caring for one another. If we employ force, we will have successfully acted as predators, not leaders. This is why, in training and working with Human Horse Sensing, we always aim to develop in the horse an interest for what we are going to do together. If we can establish a harmonious relationship to support our time with a horse, it could even be possible to become a real team with the horse. So, what can we do, when the horse comes to an unharmonious stop? This situation can happen when we are working on the ground or in the saddle and we need to approach it in different ways, to meet the different needs of human and horse, and their real-life situation. All of the actions we recommend are aimed at reestablishing our leadership status by asking the horse to perform something he understands, so he will respond to our request. This will put us back in the position of leadership, without having to resort to force. If we can work on the ground and the horse has freedom of movement, we need to be taking care of having the interest of the horse in the action. We have developed a way to correctly employ food to have the horse interested in the action, by marking with food the territory we are “talking about”.

If we are riding, we should acknowledge what is making our horse stop, and evaluate whether we can help his sensory perception and have the horse understand that the object is not dangerous, or slightly change the direction of our movement, so the horse is momentarily not proceeding towards the concern. When we are past the object of concern we can get back to our track, since the horse will not be perceiving the problem object.

Summing it up, we manage our behavior through making purposeful requests, modulating our communication through the senses of the horse, and presenting the horse with a problem that he would like to solve because he has a real interest in solving it, not because otherwise he would suffer unpleasant consequences. This kind of interaction makes us look like what we ask of the horse is something he has an interest for, and convinces him more and more about the fact that we are leaders worth following. After all, a leader is, simply, someone who makes a request. The response from the recipient of the request is based on the meaning of the communication, how it is carried out and understood. A leader makes requests that get responded to in a way he had planned ahead before making the request, but a true leader is always ready to listen to the response even if it is not what he was seeking. This does not lead to a punishment for the failed execution of the request, which is the modality that many horse trainers use traditionally. In Human Horse Sensing, listening to the feedback from a horse will allow the leader to purposefully change the request, and reach the goal.