I'd love to get your opinion.
I normally agree with Warwick Schiller but today I don't. He came up with a creative idea about how to fix horses who always want to be in front in a group during a trail ride. (Baasha) I admit, I laughed, he's a funny guy.
Watch the video and see if you agree with my reasons that his solution will or will not work. I'll give my analysis afterwards.
I must say, in a perfect world, this would work! I don't live there.
Please let me know (in the comments) what you think, or how you'd modify it to work. I am asking out of a lifelong struggle with Baasha, I'd appreciate help because I assume most of the responsibility for the problem lies in my own behavior (which I will explain in the follow-up).
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I've been reading A Blake's blog about calming signals and it's funny how Mag gives them to me, but never my husband. Of course Mag would never have to ask my husband to slow down/be more polite/use smaller language, my husband never asks anything of him.
But could it be that Schiller misinterprets a calming signal in the video below? He assesses the horse as purposefully blocking him out.
In a way he proves the concept of calming signals that horses give us. He's had it happen enough that he knew the horse would stare the opposite direction when he changed position.
In the first video, a couple commenters said, "I wish I had a few friends who would help me do that, but I don't."
Right - many of us don't have that. There are the lucky ones though, who have >2 expert riders to go out with to teach things, and who are all committed to an individual's needs, and willing to sacrifice their riding day for assistance. This situation does exist. Somewhere.
What are calming signals? I'm just figuring this out.
Horses know that we behave like horses at times. If they look at something intently, we usually do too, we trust that they might have seen danger, and they trust that we received the message. Are calming signals horses "tricking" us to distract us from our plans with them, after they've learned we normally stop what we're doing and take a look at what they alert at?
This concept is important for me because my horse Baasha would touch my chest with his nose upon bridling. He was asking for a respite. Just wait a moment. Of course, Baasha. I always did what he wanted. He was happy to carry me anywhere I wished (downtown Seattle, photos to come).
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Mag touches my arm with his nose, saying "Wait." OK I will wait, just a few seconds, cuz we actually have work to do. I think in that moment the horse fantasizes, "Do I have any choice in what is happening?"
Of course they can't foresee things. But they can utilize behaviors that seem to affect ours. Like, slow down, stop, breathe. Then "Hi, let's go!"
Even Parelli said in a video I saw years ago, how crucial it is that we greet our horses properly. That we do not just walk up and halter them. We should say hello first. Ask them if they want to go with us. Yay, Parelli.
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I really like WS, he sympathizes with horses' anxiety, having learned from his wife what panic attacks feel like.
I hope to hear from your experiences with anxiety in horses or in ourselves.
Horses who need to be first in the group are showing an insecurity of being left behind. The front is the safe place, where those ones relax. I hope to learn how to deal with this, with the help of my blogging friends.
I look forward to your ideas.
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7 comments:
This guy is on a Quarter Horse. Things are different with them. I think that with a higher strung horse, like an Arabian, this technique may make him anxious. Also, if you can get enough horses to ride with you--we don't always have trails that it is easy to turn a horse around as another passes. I can't see it working on narrow, wooded trails. What about hills? It just isn't practical.
We just helped a friend with her high-strung National Show Horse. All last summer, she wouldn't tolerate another horse in front of her. We decided we would work on the problem this year. She clicker trains her horse, like us. In just one session, by clicking and treating her when she let my horse pass and take the lead, her whole attitude changed. Instead of trying to bolt past us, she follows along, happily. I think we were able to show her that following is a good place to be, too. We have been doing it at a walk and trot. She has been perfect since that day. Soon, we are going to add cantering.
To me, it is short of miraculous. Her horse was a really bad case. Today, for the first time, she followed 2 horses at a trot--on the way home!
Judi, high-strung NSH? Is there any other type? *lol* The most magnificent horse in our show barn was a chestnut NSH named Annie's Song. She was always on fire - one time fell down under the other horses in the 4-horse trailer and just rode that way to the show. Her brave owner would fight her in the ring and she'd rear up, the girl would fall to the dirt and jump up smiling, "I'm OK!" What a horse. I inherited a burgundy wool cooler from her in 1999, it came to Germany with me, it's precious to me, I use it on Mag. Annie's Song was brilliant when she was on, but really hard to manage. I have never met another NSH, but in my mind they are all magnificent and terrible! Like Anglo Arabs, I've never seen any other type.
Judi, 1. Enough horses. 2. The right trails, right. Those are prerequisites to the goal, but I had further ideas in mind (those too). Like I said, perfect world! It annoys me when Clinton Anderson says, "I just use the trail the same way I use an arena! With serpentines and voltes and slalom and backing up..." I'm like, "What kind of trails do you have?!"
I hate to make this about breed temperaments though. WS works with hotbloods too, all over the world. I hope you're wrong, but you're probably right.
So many times in my life I've heard training tips aimed at horses whose reward is to rest or stand still, where for some horses, standing still is not a reward at all. I don't know if you've been reading here lately but I recently begged S2 for her secret to getting her horse to not grab grass as she rides him/leads him on trail. She said, "I took him to a field, and as soon as he tried to graze, I asked him to trot. And again and again." *SIGH* I see how that could work for a horse who thinks standing still is a reward. But I'd never seen a horse like hers, he never thinks about taking a bite to eat unless he's home in his paddock. She can sit in a chair in a lush pasture and he will just stand there, it doesn't cross his mind. Respect!
I like clicker training, and I'm really bad at it. My donkey targets reliably, and laughs at my horse who cannot. I need professional help with clicker training. I'm impressed you taught this lesson with clickers. I'd love to hear the details.
You are in luck--I blogged about it. Here is my blog: http://trailhorseadventures-judi.blogspot.com/
It is Bella's New Challenge and the 2 blogs after that. I haven't known many NSH's, but Bella fits what you describe. She has come a long way in the year that we have ridden with her. Shari, her owner, credits the clicker training for making the difference. She was able to get through to Bella and show her what she wanted.
Standing still would be no reward for Bella--allowing her to move is. In fact, this summer, that is one of our goals--to convince Bella that standing still is a good thing. With clicker training, that is a very achievable goal.
I played around with a clicker with one of a previous horse, and with my dog and cat. I got Cole as an unridden 4-year-old, and I decided to do all of his training with a clicker. It worked remarkably, so now I am very sold on it. Few people, other than my sister, will even consider it--even when they see my marvelous results with clicker. Shari, Bella's owner, was one of the few who I convinced to try it.
Thanks for sharing those videos and food for thought. He verbalized some things I've been feeling for a while, like going back and forth between responsive/anxious and relaxed/dull. Gabbrielle is at one extreme of responsive and anxious. She can do some amazing tricks during ground work, but I have to wait a loooooooong time for her to come down. I won't let trainers work with Rock anymore because the first thing they want to do is make him respond faster, which makes him anxious, and I prefer a relaxed horse who takes a few seconds to respond over anything else. Of course, perfection is best, but we don't know when that day will come.
I also rarely do ground work anymore simply because I have a limited reserve of energy. I'm always in a race to trail ride before my body falls apart and forces me back into bed. But I'm sure if I run into trouble, I'll go back to doing ground work.
My Arabs get anxious when they are in front on trail rides. Perhaps they think they will be the first to be attacked, or its too stressful for them to be on the lookout. Maybe I can get myself and the other riders to ride backwards when my horse is in front so she'll think she's in back? Just kidding. It does take some level of confidence for a horse to want to lead, but I know that always having to lead can be just as annoying as always having to follow. Ideally, horses should stay where you put them.
I may have missed it, but how does one teach an anxious horse cognitive therapy to calm itself down? I'm guessing he's saying do a lot of ground work in a safe environment where the horse can relax while being desensitized. I do like that he admitted that we can't desensitize to specific situations like bring an arena filled with people in bleachers to the horse or a jumbo jet to his wife to practice on before the real life event.
As far as turning the head away, I trained my horses to turn their heads away from me when I am delivering food. I won't give it to them if they are going to snatch it out of my hands or arms, so they know they have to turn their heads away from me in order for me to release the food. Although they do look at me during schooling, so they haven't generalized the situation. I have one trainer who always wanted both eyes and ears on her during short line ground work. If the horse looked away, it got it's rope yanked. I think it's just whatever behavior you expect and train for.
NM, I watched carefully for the answer to the problem of teaching a horse to calm itself down and he doesn't directly answer (as usual in his videos, where he'll talk about a problem and then sort of skip the solution!). I think he was saying that we have to do sensitizing and desensitizing ground work, a lot.
In Baasha's case, needing to be in the lead was a symptom of extreme herd-boundness. He knew the group could not leave him if he was leading them, so he took the risk of first to be eaten.
It's hard to say with the horse needing to be in the front. There are some great trails out there to practice that theory - but there are a lot that are "single file only please!" I have not done much trail riding because I don't like trailering out places by myself and I live on a highway that goes 55mph+ so I really have no desire to take my horses off property in hand or under saddle... however, I always ride alone because there is nobody else to ride with when you own your own property.
I, too, think of "Annie" when NSH's are mentioned. She was so gorgeous! And challenging. 🙂
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