Thinking about NOT Thinking and NOT Training

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...!