Asking the right questions…

Across the internet I see horse trainers that have hung out their personal shingle with the answers to your “horse problems”. Some are selling books, some have DVD sets, videos, special halters, lead ropes in various lengths, tie rings, special harnesses, bridles, bits, saddles, bareback pads, sticks, wands and whips, and some market training packages containing "all" you need to answer your questions and solve your problems. It’s all about what you might add to your tack box of solutions. We are a culture of people looking for quick fixes and instant answers. Answers… that’s what we search for. Would a different saddle fix the problem? A new bit? Or maybe NO bit?

Some of these trainers have developed an almost cultish following, and some have created a marketing machine that has literally swept North America (possibly the world!) with its ability to tap into what horse people seem to want most often, and offer it for sale. What is it that horse people seem to want the most? Pure and simple, it is a formula to solve problems, a rote pattern to follow in order to find that illusive bit of indefinable attitude that we seem to have labeled “respect. In short, these marketing geniuses are selling Respect-In-A-Box that can be delivered to your door or mailbox.

“Respect” has taken on an almost mystical meaning. Like some unattainable, un-measurable aspect of our relationship with our animals. It’s what always seems to be missing when horse does something that displeases a human. What’s wrong with that horse? It doesn’t have enough RESPECT. But what is that really? Do we want the horse to just stay out of our space? Do what we ask? And what does “do what we ask” really mean? Comply without question? Not express any opinions? Never resist or evade?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being critical of those that market their goods and services. What I’m suggesting is that before looking for an answer, perhaps the move valuable place to start is by asking the right questions.

Animals have been depersonalized by science and by the food industry. Unfortunately, that depersonalization seems to have carried over into other aspects of our lives with animals. At the risk of being accused of relentless sentimentality, I’ll say that animals have personalities, feelings, emotions, preferences, and reasons for doing what they do. Of course, many scientists argue that animals don’t live in a world complete with emotions, but they have also been unable to prove that animals are devoid of emotions. Certainly anyone that has spent any time with horses knows that they form emotional attachments with offspring and also unrelated horses and even other species at times.

At any rate, before buying that next quick fix or subscribing to a trainer with “answers”, I think it would be useful to ask a few questions first.

Culture Clash

If I were to discover that I have a long lost second cousin from a distant land who I was going to have the chance to meet, I would certainly try to find out about my cousin’s culture and what would make him comfortable in my home. I’m not suggesting that if I found out he loves to eat goat’s eyes as a bedtime snack that I would run out looking for a goat’s eye’s supplier and learn how to prepare them, but I wouldn’t disrespect that preference, but I would politely explain it’s not readily available in US grocery stores!

The first question I’m proposing is that we try to understand the other “culture” and what makes the other individual comfortable. I venture to say that being treated roughly is not the answer to what makes a horse comfortable. And what might WE be doing that brings out poor behavior in our horses? Do we use aggressive body language (we are predators, after all) that pushes them away when we want them to come closer? Do we get in front of their movement on the ground forcing them to face us instead of move forward on the lunge or round pen and then wonder why they are being so obstinant?

Who's the Boss?

This brings me back to the age old question of dominance and treating a horse the way other horses would treat him. This is the justification that so many people use and perhaps the polite way of saying they intend to use “punishment” in training horses).

I don’t want a horse to treat ME like I’m a another horse, and seems like we’d be pretty silly to think they can’t tell the difference between a human and another horse OR to assume that they can’t develop the emotional control to refrain from hurting us. That whole idea is ridiculous to me – it comes from humans who think they are “thinking like a horse” while putting limitations on the horse’s ability to comprehend… I don’t believe the answer is to “think like a horse”, but to understand how they learn and try to understand a bit more about their emotional lives. That insight is what will help us communicate with horses more effectively, not assuming the horse has limitations.

The hierarchy in a herd can shift and the hierarchy isn’t consistent across the board. What I mean is that a horse that is #4 in the pecking order in one situation might be #2 or even #1 in a subset of that herd. And certain personalities are challengers, looking for their chance to move up the ranks. It’s not like #1 is always #1 in all cases for the lifetime of the herd, horses can move up and down the ranks. Nothing in the horse world (or dare I say in any “world”) is so static, the nature of life is a non-static environment. Expectation that life is static is bound to result in disappointment. Some horses with more dominant personalities are going to see a dominating (with violence) human as one that horse might defer to *today*. But only the battle was lost, not the war. I don’t want my relationship with my horses to be a *war*. Logically, I don’t want any horse seeing me as a potential higher ranking mare that could be displaced in the ranks with a good opportunistic bite or kick!

Learned Helplessness

Now, if a human is diligent enough with beatings, they can create a creature that adopts an emotional state that psychologists have labeled “Learned Helplessness”. This is a condition in which a human being or an animal has learned to act or behave helpless in a particular situation, even when it has the power to change its unpleasant or even harmful circumstance. Battered women who refuse to leave their husbands are often considered in this state of clinical depression. In a twisted way, I think this is what the cowboys were after that coined the term “breaking” a horse. They wanted to “break” the horse’s ability to fight back and convince the horse it had no choice. Again, this doesn’t fit with my idea of a relationship, but it does come closer to guaranteeing a subservient attitude, if that is what a person values more than creating a partnership with her horse.

Asking Questions

I think much of the answer to most human/horse conflicts is not around what are the answers, but rather, did the human ask the right questions?

So, what are those questions? Beyond understanding the horse, his culture, and his emotional life, I think we need to look at our horses and ask what WE want and need from them. It’s not about if these things are possible, these questions are purely about what drives us as a human to want to have a horse in our lives. It’s not about the horse we may already have, just pure and simple, what do WE want?

Do we want a friend? A partner? A slave? A creature that behaves as consistently as a machine? Or do we enjoy the interaction? The unpredictable nature of horses? Do we want to commune with nature? Do we like the surprise of what they might teach us or of uncovering how they look at the world? Do we want a horse that will make us shine in the show ring? Do we want one that can be competitive in some particular area? And of these things we want from our horse, how are those things prioritized? Is the show ring success more important than all else? Or is the partnership top priority and any show successes just icing on the cake?

Once those questions have been asked, the next set are about if the horse in our lives is capable of offering what we want. If a person really wants a horse so consistent that it behaves like a machine, then few horses really will fit this “role". After all, horses are not machines. Certainly anything inexperienced and young is less likely to meet that expectation. Also any personality with much of an opinion isn’t a good fit.

Why does this matter? Because there isn’t really such a thing as a quick fix in the horse world, there are gimmicks and lots of things to buy, lots of ways to spend money that may or may not help, but no real quick fix. Sometimes we just have to figure out if what we want is reasonable to expect, or if we need to rethink what we want or rethink if the horse we have is able to meet our expectations. We need to understand we can't squish a squre peg into a round hold, nor should we want to. At a minimum, by asking a few questions first, we might know what we’re trying to fix, or if it’s even possible to fix it. After all, odds are the “problem” horse probably doesn’t think he’s the problem, he probably feels the human is the problem. Odds are, I would agree.