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May. 29th, 2005 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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electroweak asked me a question about the provenance of horse training methods. I went to answer him and unfortunately my reply exceeded the allowable comment length. Because I fear editing like J. K. Rowling fears editing, I've posted it here...A perhaps foolish question: How much of this training methodology is modern, and how much dates back to the colonial period or earlier?
I honestly don't have a good answer for that.
The methods themselves have probably been around as long as there have been people trying to get horses to do stuff, though, as with so many other things, they've had to compete with the quick, wrong way of doing things. Back when more people had horses and horses were less pet-like and more livestock-like, fewer people were interested in getting less-force-driven results from their horses. Now that people usually only have one or two horses and plan to spend lifetimes with them, there's more interest in actually getting along with one's horse so that there's a functioning dialogue there.
The stuff I do is currently being popularized by a variety of clinicians who preach the gospel (with minor modifications) to audiences and, despite the fact that these clinics have something of a medicine-show feel, the clinicians actually communicate some valuable stuff. I'm particularly fond of watching Pat Parelli work. I don't much like listening to the patter (I've heard it before) but the guy is really, really good with horses and watching him work with a horse is educational as all hell. Part of the reason I'm impressed with him is that I'm still getting information out of watching him work a horse. There are layers to what he does, layers that I could not see when I first started watching because I couldn't see that far. Now that I know, really know the obvious stuff, I can see more depth to the work. I think that's a telling point -- the fact that, as I get better, I can see more stuff in his work -- more subtletly, more finesse, better timing. I like the fact that his work continues to offer me more things to see as I improve at seeing things, if that makes any sense. It's rewarding in a fractal sort of way.
The reason there are training methods at all is that force doesn't work very well with horses. Horses are bigger, stronger, and faster than people are... and as soon as they find that out (which they will the first time or two they panic about being forced and get away from you) things go south in a hurry. Best not to let things GET to a force situation.
Fortunately for people, horses have some traits, inherently, that make them pretty easy to work with. First off, horses are herd animals with a structured hierarchy. Second, horses communicate primarily through posture and suggestion. Finally, horses do not mind not-being-in-charge but they want SOMEONE to be in charge.
These things are part of the nature of horses. It's how they are wired inside. Failure to pay attention to these things is a recipe for unhappiness.
I said that horses are herd animals with a pretty solid herd structure. I'm not kidding. In any herd, there is a top horse, a second horse, a third horse, a fourth horse, and so on down to the bottom of the heap. In a field, all the horses know where they stand relative to all the other horses. Seriously. They do. If you add a new horse, things are unsettled for three or four days until all the horses figure out where the new horse fits in the group, but then everyone knows where everyone else is again.
Mostly, settling who is where in the herd structure takes place without contact or physical violence. In fact, horses communicate peacefully even in situations that you would think there would be physical unpleasantness. Say that Taku has her head in a bucket of grain. (Horses really like grain. A lot.) It's her grain and she's eating it, outside of the field, by herself. Now, if Elklin came over to Taku's bucket of grain, you might think there would be a fight as Taku tried to defend her grain from Elklin. You would be dead wrong. Elklin would come over, lay her ears back, snake her head out, and shove her nose in Taku's bucket. Taku would just pick up her head and back out of the way. She would not try to take the bucket back from Elklin, even though she really likes grain a lot and even though she knows it was *her* grain to start with. Elklin is top horse and Taku is not. If Elklin wants the grain, Taku will let her take it, every time. Most of the time, there's no actual contact and no physical violence in these confrontations. It's all posture -- horses notice and respond to posture really well -- and the higher-level horse always offers the lower horse a no-contact posture dialogue first before resorting to physical violence. In the above example, Elklin would NEVER come over and just start whaling on Taku to get her to leave without first offering Taku the chance to leave peacefully. Always, always, the higher horse will offer the lower horse a no-contact demand and wait for that to be responded to or ignored. IF the lower horse ignores the no-contact demand, then the higher horse would indeed escalate to violent contact like biting or kicking... but the no-contact "peaceful" option is always offered first. Always. It's less effort for everyone involved. Don't MAKE me come over there...
Body language is the vast bulk of horse communication even though you might think, from watching Seabiscuit or Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmaron that horses primarily communicate by whinneying. The movies are wrong. Real horses don't "talk" even a third as much as horses in the movies do. Most of their communication is nonverbal and involves posture... but since horse faces aren't terribly expressive (not like people faces), most folks have to spend some time learning to read horse body language. It's not intuitive but it is damn helpful so that you have some idea about what your horse is thinking and feeling. Besides, if you don't think spending an hour or two watching horses in a field is a good way to pass an afternoon, what are you doing messing with horses in the first place?.
Anyway. The third thing that's important is that when Elklin shoves Taku out of the way, Taku does not get mad. Horses do not NEED to be in charge. Most horses are okay with not being in charge as long as they're clear on who IS in charge and on their status in the command structure. This comes from the herd thing and it helps make horse-human relationships possible. Somebody has to be in charge. If it's not them, that's okay, but there needs to be SOMEONE in charge. If they do not feel that you are sufficiently in charge, they will BE in charge. (The horse being in charge is not good because of the bigger, stronger, faster thing.)
Convincing the horse that you are in charge isn't a matter of force because force is not where humans can win. Humans are way too puny to win with force against a horse and trying only leads to heartache and, usually, injuries. The way you win is to use posture and suggestion, same as horses do with each other. Start on the ground, as it's easier and safer. If your posture and suggestion are ignored, as is usual when you start, you swing the end of the lead rope a bit, until it makes a whirring sound. If your horse is still ignoring you, you move the whirring rope nearer the horse. If your horse is still ignoring you, you slow the rope down first and then gently whap the horse on the butt with with the end of your lead rope. This isn't a very hard whap. It doesn't raise a welt or even sting very much -- it's just a "Hey, I'm taking to you!" sort of a whap. The part that's difficult for most people is that, to make this work, you HAVE to use posture and suggestion first, every time. You have to be like a horse. You OFFER the no-contact demand and you escalate the same way, every time, before you start with the whapping, every time. You are trying to be like
Over time (usually this starts in ten or fifteen minutes), your horse will start to do what you ask before you really get to the whapping portion of the program. Obviously, you QUIT ASKING as soon as you get what you want. This is VERY IMPORTANT. This is more important than you think it is. (This is, in point of fact, more important than you think it is now that I've emphasized its importance and me saying this will not help you realize the importance. If you spend any time at all working with horses, you will eventually get a handle on how important this is and wish like hell you'd figured it out earlier or paid more attention to the people telling you it was important.) If the horse responds the moment your hand first twitches the tail of the lead rope, that's all you have to do. Eventually, your cues can fade to near-invisible, so that you are working entirely on posture and suggestion. You will get better results with less work and your horse will be happier, too. How cool is that? (And yes, the skills you build on the ground with your horse, including teaching your horse that your posture and suggestion are valuable indicators of what you are going to do, translate to skills you can use while riding the horse. It's astonishing how easily ground work skills translate to stuff you can use while riding the horse.)
