Deserving Respect

Just when I desperately needed to decrease my horsey responsibilities, while my knee rehabs from surgery, what did I do? I added another horse. I tried to talk myself out of it, but the owner threatened to take him to an auction and I couldn't stand that. I did hestitate, waited a number of weeks, hoping she would find a different home for him, but when push comes to shove, I'm probably just a sucker. At any rate, I have a soft spot in my heart for Curlies that haven't been raised well. They are normally such nice horses, so to see one troubled and acting out really gets to me.

So, I now have a new gelding that is a bit pushy, needing some clarity about boundaries and with some dental issues (so I won't ride him until those are resolved) and also with a touch of fear in him. A fearful bully is the worst kind of bully, in my book.

My feeling is that boundary issues comes from humans that don't have a clear idea of what messages they are sending to their horse. If people vacillate between body language of fear and aggression, the horse has no idea how he is supposed to behave, the messages are mixed and confusing. If the message is predominately one of fear, then the horse learns he can push and get relief from whatever is happening at the moment. If the predominate message is one of aggression from the human, he learns escape is the best behavior to cope, and sometimes this takes the form of panic. Those that get mixed messages often behave very unpredicatably.

So, I finally found a good DVD (Chris Irwin's In Hand DVD), that actually shows how subtle communication works between humans and horses. It's one of a series, and I suspect the entire series is worth watching.

This particular video shows how a horse can interpret the most subtle movements of humans. Meanwhile, most humans clamor around like a bull in a China Shop with no idea what messages they are sending. Worse even still is the expectation that the horse ignores these conflicting messages and doesn't react to them. But they are not tractors, they are living, breathing beings with the psyche of a prey animals. Their survival in the wild depends upon noticing subtle movements and shifts, yet humans often treat them as if their natural reactions are inappropriate behavior.

I watched this DVD a few weeks ago, and my first thought was that if the past owners of my troubled Curlies understood even the basics of Chris' body languge teachings, these horses never would have ended up troubled in the first place.

I find myself in the interesting postion, having viewed so many videos and DVDs, including Natural Horsemanship (all the more popular flavors and some less popular ones) plus dressage & sport horse training videos galore. And what has been lacking in each of them is this understanding of body language with the clarity that Chris demonstrates.

One reason why Chris appeals to me is because his goal is to work with a horse and avoid inversion of the frame, which the popular NH trainers do not do. Chris' goal is to avoid inversion in the first place, and keeping the horse relaxed and cooperative. What Chris shows in the DVD is that horse CAN react positively to the physcial message Chris gives them, and they then choose cooperate with Chris without inverting, or going spastic or right-brained, whatever the NH guys want to call it. What these horses choose to do is to accept Chris as the leader and follow respectfully.

It seems so clear to me that avoiding these times of disconnect by clear communication is so far superior to pushing the horse into inversion and a bit of hysteria and then having to reel it back in. What did that prove to the horse other than we aren't speaking his language and perhaps don't deserve to be their leader since we not only allow them to panic but push them into it?

One of the most thought provoking moments on Chris' DVD was a comment he made about "teaching the horse who's boss". I've always gotten chills of disgust when I hear those very words come out of the mouths of local horse people because it normally means "teach the horse he must be subservient and obedient to humans via a heavy hand". But in Chris' world, it means teach the horse that humans can/will be a good leader, offer the horse safety when he's scared, guidance by a positive example of strength & leadership and all without any form of punishment.

The beauty of this DVD is that Chris shows clearly how a tiny shift in his body causes a reaction from the horse he is dealing with. And his example horses are unfamiliar to him, not ones he's already "fixed". It's these tiny shifts that we need to understand and learn to use to our advantage. Even if our horses aren't a problem, I'm sure they would appreciate good, strong leadership from their people.

We don't need to punish our horses to get the behavior we need, but we do need to learn to be the leader they can respect in order for them to offer us respect. This isn't rocket science, but so few people who own horses really have a clear understanding of body language and how horses see us. And we don't deserve respect JUST because we are human. We must earn it. Chris finally has a DVD series that shows just that.

Every movment is a message to our horses. I think we owe it to them to understand what message we are sending their way!

Anyone interested in Chris' DVD series can find them at www.foresthorse.com (US web store) or on Chris's web site, www.chrisirwin.com (Canadian web store).