I haven't been able to "hang out" with my horses for the past few days since we were in Boulder over the weekend.  It didn't stop me from thinking about them, though.  This new way of looking at horses, about what "work" is and about how I think about them. 

It's also about NOT thinking.  For example, not going out to the pasture with an attitude of "you are going to do this, one way or another".  That thought changed in to, "Hi, how are you today?  Want to hang out with me? Would you like a scratch somewhere?"  At first I couldn't imagine that a simple change of agenda would make a difference, but it has.  Somehow they sense that I'm not pushing myself or my ideas on them anymore (not as much anyway).  How do I know this?  They are calmer, they react to me differently by not being afraid, they accept things more easily and when I do want something to happen, it does. 

For example, at feeding time each horse has a rubber tub where I feed them grain.  They get fed in a certain order (no surprise there), but every now and then Luna tries to assert herself, or gets too hungry to wait her turn and messes up the order.  Sometimes she just gets confused.  In any case, it wrecks havoc on feeding time and in the past I've gotten really frustrated with her.  I yell, get assertive (because you are supposed to be assertive, especially when they get uppity) and wave my arms a lot.  Then she gets more freaked out and overreacts too.  It ends up being dangerous and all the horses get riled up.  I decided to start asking her to go to her tub in a calm voice, and she does.  So far, even when she gets confused or seems to want to butt in to another horse's feed tub, I just tell her to go to her tub. 




Luna - "Cause havoc at feeding time? Who ME?"


It seems obvious or silly somehow that this didn't occur to me before.  Maybe it's occurred to other people out there.  The problem is that people learn about horses from other people who "know" horses.  They do what those people do, and often don't check to see if what they are told is really working.  It reminds me of the ranch I worked at.  The property manager was a "horse person".  She had several horses that she used to compete with.  She was the authority and whatever she did, my boss did.  My boss was the barn manager and she was inexperienced with horses when she first started there.  Most of what she learned came from the property manager, I'll call her Pam.  If the horses were running too fast through the trees in the pasture, Pam would yell loudly "Quit!" or something to that effect.  There was absolutely no way to get to the horses and make them stop doing anything.  But she did it, so the barn manager Mary did it.  Every now and then the maintenance guy would stop by, and he would yell too because he heard everyone else yelling.  No one EVER noticed that the horses never stopped running when they were yelled at.  It had zero effect on their behavior, and in reality may have encouraged them to keep running. 

Bella with her winter eyelashes

I'm guilty of doing things like this too.  If I respected a horseman, I copied them.  I copied what they said and how they said it.  Later on I began to be more observant, and noticed that in most cases yelling at a horse had little effect, yet I would still do it at times.  When you yell, scream, get upset and lose it, it scares the horse and he won't trust you as much.  If you are yelling just because you are supposed to, it means even less.  Next time you are working your horse and you feel you should use a loud voice (do you yell when they paw the ground at the tie rail? Do they stop pawing?)  does it have the desired effect?
Granted, I sometimes see farriers use the loud voice technique to great effect.  I think this is because they are men and have that deep imposing voice and know how to use it.  Like when your dad yelled at you as a kid.  He does it once, very loud and very imposing, and the horse stops whatever it's doing. 

In any case, it's worth it not to get sucked in to that mode of communicating.  I used to think that people expected me to carry on and yell and "get after" horse that did something wrong.  Some people do, but that's because they don't know any better and they are following what they've seen other horse people do.  Next time you get the urge to yell at your horse, try asking first.  If they are doing something irritating like pawing at the tie rail, ignore it.  The more you carry on and yell at them to stop, the more they do it (trust me).  The best thing to do is to not untie them until they stop pawing and other wise ignore it.

Geez, I wrote a lot considering nothing happened much this week...!

Last night I watched a movie on OWN, a documentary called "One Lucky Elephant".  It's about a circus owner's search to find a place for his performing elephant to retire.  He bought the elephant as a baby and had someone else "break" her, and then built a circus around her.  It was even named after her.  You get the sense that he really loves this elephant and she loves him back.  There is another handler named Raul, who feeds and trains Flora also.  They show him working with her and it was appallingly obvious to me that he talked down to her.  His commands were harsh and demanding.  The tricks he asked her to do looked painful to watch. 

As I watched the movie, many things became painfully obvious.  How they interacted with the elephant is very similar to things we do to horses.  Horse training (and elephant training as well) are about putting out the fire, not encouraging it.  It's about dominance and making the horse submissive.  Yes, the techniques for that have gotten much gentler over the years, which is generally good, but they are still about dominating the animal, not allowing the animal to be itself.  They have to be what you want them to be.  I will try not to give everything away, but there is a part at the end that describes how baby elephants are trained.  The techniques are all old cowboy training methods (tying up a leg, making them lie down, etc.) and it was hard to watch!  It upset me.  Then the elephant's owner admitted that he didn't like the way the trainer was breaking his "baby", but "that's how it's done, and they have to learn to behave a certain way if they are going to be around people". 

I can't fault this man for thinking that way because I have said the same thing!  The problem is, if you aren't told that there's another way, then you can only do what you are told is "the" way.  Some will argue that you shouldn't accept these things, that you should stand up, etc. etc.  It's not so cut and dried, however. The horse industry is INUNDATED with horse training videos, each one saying that their "method" is better, more gentle, different than the last.  In truth, 98% of them use traditional training theories as their "method".  Some clinicians give credit to the old-timers that taught them, others pretend like they came up with it all on their own.  None of it is really new, and none of it is based on positive reward except clicker training, and only empowering the horse  gives the them a voice and a choice. 

If anyone spends the time to really study each "method" (I don't think most people do, they find a training "guru" and only pay homage to that person) it can take years to sort out what's really going on.  Once I learned about positive vs negative reinforcement it was easy to see that all traditional training methods use negative reinforcement.  That is, "if you don't do this I am going to increase the pressure on you somehow until you do it".  When the horse acts correctly, the punishment stops. The Punishment can be poking them with a finger, using your stick to tap-tap-tap harder and harder, anything irritating or annoying, etc.  They use reward sparingly (the "reward", we are told, is that we stop annoying the horse or whacking it).  Sounds like the way my little brother tried to get what he wanted: "I won't stop punching you until you give me your candy!"

The thing is, most people really don't want to hurt an animal. I believe that Flora's owner, David, truly loved her and she loved him too.  But the way she was trained and worked was so demeaning that it made her angry, I think.  After Flora's retirement a woman came with Raul to visit her. This woman was completely enamored of her, thought she was so beautiful and really wanted to connect with her but sensed that Flora didn't like her. Even so, they rode her and then the woman got off onto a tree branch, and Flora wrapped her trunk around the woman and beat her against the tree.  The woman fell or was thrown to the ground.  She had very serious multiple injuries and was hospitalized.  The interesting part, the part that perhaps we all understand, is what the lady said afterwards, "I didn't feel any pain.  I didn't feel anything but heartbreak."  Wow.  The owner of the elephant sanctuary, Carol Buckley, said that Flora was good example of "All that can go wrong with the best of intentions".   It reminds me of that cartoon of the Abominable Snowman, how he would pick up Daffy Duck or whoever and squeeze the life out of him while saying "I promise to love you and keep you and hold you tight forever and ever!"  Meanwhile, Daffy Duck was dying in his hands.  We love our animals to death, sometimes smothering them and not really understanding them.

Even though we love our animals and try to act with the best of intentions, things that we don't think twice about can also be harmful.  I think that many horse trainers, Clinton Anderson included, don't think that they are doing any harm.  They are taught that you must be brutal or the animal will get the upper hand!  They are dangerous and they can really hurt you and this is what justifies how horses (and other animals) are trained.  While it is true that animals can be dangerous, I tend to think that the way we try to completely control them makes them fight back more than they would otherwise. Other things, like separating babies from mamas before they are really ready, keeping a social animals apart from those of thier kind and other practices are more subtly harmful.  Many people never question what they are taught, or like me, they question it internally and search for another way on their own, while trying to fit in with everyone else.  It took me many long years to find the answer, and now I need the courage to be that way.  Horse society will look down on me, but a few choice souls will understand.

It's time we give the horse a chance, give him the choice to hang out with us and interact, or not.  We have been so sure he's dangerous we haven't looked to see if that's true.  I believe that horses are made dangerous by people, just like elephants.  They get fed up with our "holier than thou" attitude and fight back.  What if we gave them the chance to show us what they can really do, and how wonderful and trustworthy they really are?  I have found the courage to look at horses in a new way (for me), and not let others opinions sway me anymore.  I hope that whoever reads this will take a chance and do the same...  and maybe we  can make a true "horse-man-ship".

What they REALLY want to do...

Visit the website for "One Lucky Elephant"

http://oneluckyelephant.com/

Or the website for Ahali Elephants where Flora now lives:

http://www.africanelephants.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=1

It's been a few weeks of my empowered horses experiment and things are going well.  Let me explain: I wrote a letter to Imke Spilker, the woman who wrote Empowered Horses.  I told her that I liked the book but after reading it, although I completely agreed with everything she said, I was now very lost.  What do I do with my horses now?  I mean what do we do together?  I had this very profound realization that everything I had previously learned about horses meant nothing.  The rug had been pulled out from under me completely. 

She wrote back, which pleased and surprised me.  She told me that the feelings I had were not only valid, but the first step towards empowerment.  She said that the horses "needed this (my) emptiness, in order to actively express themselves".  That this would give me time to find out what it's like on the other side.  They need to figure out that I have cleared my mind of the past and that the future will be different, that it will include their input. 

I understood what she meant and I also understood that horse people are just as empowered, in her view, as horses are.  We simply need to listen to the horses and ask them what we can do to help them.  This is very difficult for me, as you might imagine.  Yet it's also compelling and secretly what I've always wanted to do. 

So I've stopped all formal training, period. I may go to them with a halter and/or a whip, but I have tried a few different things (yeah, I know, not exactly "doing nothing") like going for a walk and letting the horse lead.  Just scratching them and hanging out with them is also a favorite.  Today I went out about 45 minutes before feeding time and Angel latched on to me.  That doesn't happen very often, so I went into my training pen and she followed, of her own accord.  She had no halter but I had my whip.  I stood like I was lunging and she began to circle me of her own accord, staying a perfect distance away.  I worked on the circling exercise (she doesn't call it that) from the book, encouraging Angel to move her inside hind leg further beneath her body.  We moved at a walk, slowly, on both sides.  At the end she was very affectionate, which she usually is not. She stayed close with me while I went to the others.

Angel, before her evening shower...

I went through the paddock and did the same little exercise with each one, all without a halter (except for Luna, who was nervous - I'll explain later) and all with the others right there.  I only did this little exercise for a few circles each direction.  I was slow, gentle, encouraging but not pushing. 
It felt very different working this way.  The horses all seemed to "get it", to understand that I was changed and was trying to help them.  Am I dreaming that they were complicit or was I trying to fit my old way of working into the new way - was I cheating by asking them for something?  In reality they were completely free (no halter, except Luna) to NOT do.  In fact, Bella opted for dinner and a long hug rather than work.  So I stopped asking immediately. 

Here's the thing - as soon as the horses sensed that I was not going to force the issue (before today, even) and "make" them do things, they freely spoke up.  They haven't been afraid to let me know what they want.  Today I worked with them unhaltered and amongst the other horses, usually a situation that encourages them to ignore you.  But they didn't.   

Tequila, always peeking from the back!

As for Luna, she tends to get tense when I have trained her in the past (due to my own  mistakes), so when she saw me with the whip, she didn't trust my intentions.  I made the decision to use the halter and do the exercise with her so that we could start fresh. Seems counter intuitive, but that was how I chose to approach it. I wanted to let her know my intentions had changed and our "work" would be different.  She seemed more relaxed afterwards, so I count it as a positive exchange. 

Tonight I watched a documentary on OWN called "One Lucky Elephant".  Everything in that movie feeds in to what I have just learned and reinforces to  me that I am doing the right thing. More on that tomorrow)  I need to let go even more, though, let go of "doing" and concentrate on being there, among them.    I feel that they can sense my intentions (or any one's, for that matter) and know that I have changed somehow.  I am now the one waiting, listening, with (hopefully) a beginner's mind and it's the horses' turn to take over and train me.  

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