Bozo's Carrots

Forming an opinion

An unlikely source of a horsey thought: Douglas Adams of the ”Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” fame:

“[Horses] have always understood a great deal more than they let on. It is difficult to be sat on all day, every day, by some other creature, without forming an opinion about them. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to sit all day, every day, on top of another creature, and not have the slightest thought about them whatsoever.” - Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

Which reminds me of something else I heard last week: that “horses will often “test” you after 3 months” i.e. they will start to “misbehave” and try to become the “top horse” over you.

It got me thinking – is this true? It’s certainly a phenomenon I am familiar with: a few months after I first got Bozo, he started showing behaviors that weren’t there at the start – like being more resistive to the rein. However, I am now wondering whether the “testing” began a long time before that – from my very first interaction with him – and that his “misbehavior” was more the result of a conclusive opinion he formed about me.

I think horses start to figure you out, and figure out your patterns of behavior while interacting with them, from the very first moment. A horse knows when you are confident in what you are asking him, and when you are not. And when you are consistent in how you handle him, and when you are not; and – tied with that – when you are truly aware of what he is doing and thinking, and when you are off with the fairies, thinking that you are acting the “top horse” just cause you happen to be sitting on his back. In the end I think a horse gets to know you, as the sum of your behavior, long before you formed anything but the most general opinion of him, like “he is a sweet horse, but he spooks easily”.

The misbehavior results when the horse identifies where you are inconsistent in how you interact with him, and when you don’t provide the required leadership. He then makes the decision that he is the leader, and he gets more upset with you getting in the way of him doing what he thinks is necessary for him. For example, you ask him to go left, while he wants to go right because there’s something for him to check out in that direction. In his mind, you don’t have any authority to tell him what to do, so he bucks. You might be able to bully him in the end into going the way you want, but, unless you understand where you have lost his trust in your leadership, he will only do things grudgingly and under duress.

It’s not always easy to see where exactly you’ve gone wrong, because quite often the roots of a problem under the saddle go all the way to the very basics of ground handling. For example, if he feels like an uncontrollable yo-yo on the end of the lead rope, and pulls you every which way, as you try to lead him from point A to point B – the chances are that he isn’t going to be listening to you when you ask him to go somewhere under saddle. You may not mind his lack of attention on the ground, but you get upset at his resistance when you ride him; but to him – you are inconsistent. Either you are the leader, or he is. It doesn’t make a difference whether you are on the ground or in the saddle.

Another example of inconsistency (one that I personally suffer from and only recently been getting on top of) can happen when you are unsure of what exactly you are looking for from him. You may want him to do a hind-quarter yield, but as you try to bend his neck around and apply your leg, the neck is stiff, and though he moves his hindquarters away he also crabs sideways with his shoulder. You kinda gotten what you wanted – the hindquarters did move! – but in fact, all he did was resist you and moved as part of his resistance. It wasn’t a hindquarter yield at all. If you decide then that it was good enough – you probably lost a large part of his attention on you as his leader, because he successfully resisted and you gave way.

(When I made this mistake with Becky and then moved on to another exercise, Becky stared rearing and bucking. I jumped off her, used another exercise on the ground – one I was more confident in – to “retrieve” her attention on me, and got back on: it was like riding a different horse – not a problem or buck in sight! And all it amounted to the loss of leadership through my lack of specific knowledge of what I was looking for, and hence a lack of consistency in what and how I was asking of Becky.)

So, by the time the first 3 months of your new relationship with a horse are up (which, if you see your horse once or twice per week for a couple hours at a time, gives the horse a good look at your entire “range” of patterns of interaction with him), the “testing” is well over. What you see is the result. And I can say from personal experience that it is not always encouraging.

The good news, that I found out to be true, is that, unlike humans for whom the first-formed opinion is the one that is the hardest to change, horses are quite willing to change their opinions and respond differently if we interact with them differently. So when I started figuring out where there were holes in my leadership – on the ground and in the saddle – Becky's behavior, and her opinion, changed.

---

I would love to hear of your thoughts and experiences. Have you had a horse with whom you began to "struggle" a short while after you bought him/her? Or, conversely, has your relationship improved as you became a stronger leader and helped bring consistency into your horse's life?

C + D = F

Focus – it’s one of the main keys to successful communication with a horse. For me, focus means two things: a clear goal – a clear picture in my head of what it is I am trying to accomplish with Becky - and determination in my mind to get to that goal. The first clause is important as it helps me to avoid sending conflicting signals to Becky. If I know exactly what I am looking for from her, I am, hopefully, more able to convey that to her in a consistent manner and more able to recognize and reward her tries in that direction. The second clause is really what makes the goal that I set significant for Becky. It’s that nebulous will-power, confidence and mental strength that Becky recognizes as something worthy to listen to. If consistency and clarity of my requests is what initiates and maintains communication between us, then that mental strength on my part is what changes my approach from “pretty please Becky, would you find the time in your day to try this?” to “ok Becky, this is what I’d like you to try.” From begging to assertive.

Ultimately, the lack of that determination translates into a lessening of the clarity of the goal and the consistency with which I request Becky to listen to it. So, really, these two components are very much connected. Together though, they translate into what Becky understands as effective leadership on my part; something that gives her confidence in me, and confidence in herself to try and follow my requests.

Now, did I tell you that Becky is a very dominant mare?

She is very clear in her goals and very determined to get there, too. That’s why she is the top mare in her paddock-herd! So, it takes a lot of determination on my part to convince her to put aside her goals and follow my lead.

It’s a funny thing, but I find that this determination cannot be faked. It comes from a deep belief within me that I know what I want (for us both) and that we will get there. Just telling it to myself, without really believing it deep inside, rarely works - Becky can usually tell that my determination is half-hearted at best (now there’s an oxymoron!) I either don’t believe in the goal that I set, or I don’t really believe that I have the skills or the will to convince Becky to set aside her own thoughts and listen to me. And this is when trouble usually happens for us: when my weak ideas come up against her stronger ones, which makes her display her determination, which usually comes in a series of bucks, hops, rears, etc.

You’d be surprised just how used I am to those displays!

But sometimes that determination comes from unusual sources…

A few weeks back, I was working on the canter under the guidance of Marina. I was just recovering from some gastro bug, so I was tired and sore and, to add to the pain, it was a very cold and drizzly day. The sort of day when both Becky and I ask each other, “what on earth are we doing out here in this weather?”

I asked Becky to go on a circle at a canter; Becky had other ideas which she expressed by putting her head down and half-bucking half-hopping in the direction that she wanted to go. And I just thought, “I am soooo bloody sick of this. I am not in the mood for this today. We are going my way and that’s the end of it.” Apparently, the way these thoughts actually translated into actions was by me just setting my body and my rein in the direction that I wanted to go, and calmly (not aggressively or punishingly) pushing her on with my legs… and Becky followed. First circle wasn’t gracious on her part, but the subsequent ones were better and better as she tuned more into my determination and gained confidence in my leadership. As Marina put it, she had no chance of winning that argument against me and she respected that.

But sometimes that determination disappears (particularly if it’s not fed by a more permanent and less volatile fuel than frustration!)

Last Sunday I returned to the canter work in the arena, while Becky’s paddock-mates were grazing just nearby. Of course, every time Becky went around the circle that I put her on, she would come to a spot where she saw her friends, and her goal became to go towards them. So, what did she do? Same thing: put her breaks on and try to veer off in the direction of her friends. Of course I got in the way of that with my reins and seat, which set her off shaking her head and hopping, but, this time, my inner belief in being able to convince her to listen to me just wasn’t there. Every time we came up to that spot, a little voice inside me squeaked “shiiiiiit… here we go again… not sure I can do this… how do I do this?”… And Becky knew it! It translated into my seat, into the stiffness in my body, into inability to maintain any sort of rhythm. Becky knew that all she had to do was ramp up her own acrobatic display of her intentions (which she did, nearly dumping me out of the saddle) and I would give up (which I did!)

So I went back to working at the trot in which I was far more confident and hence able to overcome her thoughts of being with her friends without any dramas. In the end, we finished on a good note, by achieving a more rhythmical and freer trot than before.

As far as canter goes, well, back to the drawing board. Obviously I need more sessions with Marina in order to gain that confidence within myself (as well as the skills in my seat) before I achieve the required level of determination to change some of Becky’s strongest thoughts.

So, the formula for the key to successful communication with the horse is: Clarity and Consistency + Determination = Focus, but, in the words of Ross Jacobs, “it is simple, but it ain’t easy”.

The Pelvic Pendulum – a key to a good trail ride

First of all, I’d like to say a thank you to Cynthia Cooper for her kind words in her June’s newsletter regarding this blog. I’d also like to recommend her website http://www.naturalhorseworld.com, which is full of great articles on all aspects of horse care and training, using methods that are as closely linked to a horse’s natural environment as possible. There’s some great food for thought there.

OK, back to my adventures with Becky now.

It’s good to know that what I previously wrote in this blog on re-discovering our ability to go out on a trail ride (see Unbearable Lightness of Not Caring) did not end up biting me in the ass!

Since that blog-entry we’ve gone out on a very successful jaunt. Becky was quite calm all of the way and, though looking left and right, was mostly content to follow the pace I asked for.

Marina has given me a great tool to use that I think has been instrumental in keeping myself focused and consistent, which obviously translated itself into stronger leadership for Becky: I am talking about feeling and setting the length and the rhythm of her steps with my seat.

Until now, it seems that I was sitting slightly to the back of the lowest point in the saddle. As Marina repositioned me, so that my tailbone was right at the deepest point of the saddle (which, believe me, I did not realize it wasn’t until now), I could begin to feel Becky’s steps through my whole pelvis and lower waist area. Previously, the main contact point that I was feeling Becky through were my thighs, and I felt her movement through them in a right-forward, left-forward motion. But now, I could truly feel my whole pelvis and lower waist moving backwards and forwards with her steps.

Now, we’ve all seen good riders have this slight movement of the pelvis as the horse moves. What I didn’t realize is that that movement could act as a metronome for your horse! Instead of allowing Becky to move me, I could set a rhythm within myself, as if I was a pendulum, and encourage her to match my rhythm. The faster the backwards/forwards movement – the faster her steps; the longer the movement from back to front of my “pelvic pendulum” – the longer should her steps be.

Any falling out of that rhythm on Becky’s part could be corrected with legs (if she went slower or took shorter steps), or reins (if she sped up)

It’s a hell of a lot harder to do than it sounds. The problem was that if Becky moved in a rhythm contradictory to what I set in my mind, my body tended to follow her, and it was very difficult to mentally separate what I intended my rhythm be, and what it actually turned out to be. But once I did get the hang of it, I started catching any deviations from the metronome the moment the incorrect step happened, and could quickly correct it (and because I was quick to notice, the corrections usually needed only be slight)

So how did this help us out on the trail ride?

When we went out, I basically told Becky “we are going forward at this rhythm” and I started the metronome in my head and in my body. This gave us both a great point of focus and consistency in the following ways:

• keeping in the rhythm was a specific and clear job for Becky to do which helped to keep her attention on me;
• Any time she deviated from the rhythm, I was there to “catch” her and correct her immediately, because I felt the change in her steps so much clearer. This showed her that I was on the ball and that I was clear and consistent in my requests, which translated into stronger leadership on my part.
• Keeping the rhythm in my head, and concentrating on Becky following it, served to calm my own nerves! I didn’t have time to get nervous about the potentially scary places on the road and worry about what would happen there. For example, going past a paddock with other horses in it normally caused me to worry about Becky’s reaction if the horses started running along the fence-line parallel to us. Usually that resulted in me losing my concentration on Becky or starting to micro-manage her every step, both of which completely disrupted my overall focus, weakened my leadership and allowed her to take more interest in those horses.
  
  This time, though, those horses were hardly noticed!

In the end of the trail ride, I could even get Becky to slow down or speed up her steps just by slowing or speeding up my own movements. How cool!

I’ve still got a lot of work to do of course, encouraging Becky to be more in tune with me. It is particularly difficult to get her to lengthen her steps in response to my movement, as it is harder for me to judge the length of the pelvic “swing” than the speed, and hence I struggle to give her a consistent long-stepped rhythm to follow. But, practice will make perfect and, best of all, we can practice this out on the trail!

Happy riding everyone!

Sympathy

To me, the concept of a successful relationship between the horse and rider is one where the rider is perceived as the leader of the partnership; where the horse is content to follow the rider’s direction and focus because he understands what is being asked, and because those requests come with a consistency and a sense of certainty that the horse needs to be able to trust them with his life.

That’s a pretty tough assignment for both sides.

Humans aren’t the most consistent, nor self-assured creatures at the best of times, and when that consistency and assuredness is required in an area that we are neither born, nor bred, nor raised in – in fact in an area that is foreign to us as a species… well, it’s daunting to say the least.

It’s even more daunting for a horse to put his life in the hands of someone who neither understands the rules, nor speaks the language of the horse’s world. In fact, that is totally against his nature – pure and simple. And it speaks volumes of their ability to adapt and not go insane or homicidally violent on regular basis, when we tell them that they should put up with us and do as we say, when what we say makes no sense to them.

But we do have one huge advantage that can help us breach the barrier: due to our evolved cognitive abilities, we are in a better position to learn and understand their point of view than they are to learn ours. We can be sympathetic, whereas they can only learn to adapt to being around humans and to the demands that they don’t understand. And we can freely choose to change our ways in communicating with them, instead of them being unhappily forced to adapt to us.