This is part two of my thoughts on managing expectations. Of course, the only expectations we can control are our own, we can't really control others expectations, but we can work toward modifying them.
Horse expectations are normally those "in the now", meaning they are about where we are going now, and how we are getting there, NOW. Not about what things will be like once we get there. That's why when your horse is tired after a day at a show and doesn't want to get on that trailer - he's not thinking about his nice stall with fresh hay, clean bedding, and dinner at the end of a two hour trailer ride. He's thinking about how he's tired NOW and doesn't feel like getting back into his box on wheels.
Humans think in terms of the future and the space/time continuum, not horses.
So, getting back to the idea that humans created a horse's expectations… Horses pretty much have a good, bad or indifferent view of things around them. That evaluation is based on experience. They tend to repeat behaviors that nets something they value, they tend to try to avoid things that are unpleasant. Horses are the ultimate non confrontational wimp when it comes to facing what is unpleasant. I'm not saying they give in easily, but they will avoid confrontation if allowed to, by leaving and finding something to occupy their time that is more pleasant. The fight comes into play if they are not allowed to avoid what is unpleasant. If their fear is strong enough, they will behave as if they are fighting for their lives, because in fact, that is probably how it feels to them.
Fighting isn't really natural to horses. In the wild, they fight (other than in play) in few situations, all of them when they are threatened. Stallions fight to protect their herd from a predator, if fleeing isn’t an option. Or he will fight an interloper stallion to keep from losing his mares. Mares will stand up to a predator to save a foal that is to small or weak to flee, but her first choice is always to run first, stand her ground second. It's the exception, not the rule that inspires fight rather than flight.
Then along came humans. Sometimes we have a talent for bringing out the worst in horses. Let’s say I want that horse to load in a trailer and the horse is determined not to. MY expectation is that they horse get in that trailer and does not defy my wishes. The horse's expectations is that getting in a trailer is a bad thing at the moment. And the more I push the horse and make it uncomfortable for the horse around that trailer, the more I confirm his notion, because bad things ARE happening right now!
If the horse had any doubt, I’ve just erased them by upping the pressure. And now I'm scratching my head wondering why the horse is so stubborn? How clever is that? Not very.
We have two expectations at play here, one being the flip side of the other. The human wants one thing and the horse wants something else entirely. Often what the horse wants is nothing specific besides NOT doing what is being asked. He’s not necessarily being stubborn or bull headed, he has his reasons, which us humans may never really understand, but his reality is that he doesn’t want to get in that trailer and his expectation is that it’s not a pleasant place to be at the moment.
Often it seems that the outcome of these conflicts of interest (horse vs human) hinges upon who has the stronger will, who is going to back down first, and who is more determined. If the horse is really frightened, my money is on the horse. If the horse is merely bothered by something but not terrified, he can probably be convinced to do as he’s being told, but did he learn something positive from the experience? Probably not.
We don’t always know what triggers the horse's expectations. But it is probably based on past experience, regardless of if humans are aware of the cause or not. Some horses appears to have a needle phobia or fear of fly spray or paste wormer and they react at the very sight of a shot, spray bottle or worming tube. They have a reason, the needle may feel like the bite of a horse fly and he remembers the pain of that experience. Who knows? It doesn’t matter why, it only matters that he is anticipating something unpleasant.
Dealing with a horse's expectations takes as long as it takes. If the horse and human have conflicting expectations, and the human insists and wins this little battle, was the horse’s expectation changed for the better or merely reinforced or strengthened?
The best, most successful way to modify a horse's expectations is by rewarding behavior we want and ignoring everything else. The reason is that to punish a horse who already has a distasteful or fearful experience only strengthens his resolve that something is bad or should be feared. Now the catch to rewarding what we want is that we have to set the horse up to give us what we want. Humans all too often focus on what we don't want instead.
Ideally we want to manage both our own expectations and that of the horse as well. We don’t want to get stuck thinking about time or being late or any agenda other than giving the horse a chance to modify his expectations. Again, it takes as long as it takes.
The problem with forcing a human view point upon the horse is that we can't always know how that horse will internalize pressure or force, even if we consider it insignificant. After all, who are we to decide what is insignificant to the horse? What we can be sure of is that we have contributed to a memory of something unpleasant. Unpleasant memories cause angst on both the physical and emotional level. So the next time the horse is confronted with the same situation, he may have a physical and/or psychological reaction and the anticipation may feel worse than the actual situation that inspired the memory.
For example, when i was a kid, my family dentist has this idea that children shouldn't need any pain killer to fill cavities. So, he would just drill away and would only numb my tooth if I wiggled too much. Crying didn’t phase him, only wiggling did but I also had a healthy fear of him piercing my cheek or tongue, so I did try to hold still. What did I learn from that (other than Dentists are Barbadians)? I learned to anticipate pain. And the angst that I felt at the mere suggestion of a dental appointment was much greater and lasted much longer than the actual process of filling a cavity. AND at the time of the appointment, I didn't even know there was a cavity to fill. But that didn't stop my heart from racing and the tears from flowing.
As another an example of conflicting expectations, my pony, Etude hates bathes. I have no idea why, but from the day he arrived, I've noticed that the sound of running water made him jump, even simply filling his water bucket will cause him to put some distance between himself and running water.
His angst about hoses was so deeply entrenched that although under normal circumstances he leads well, when I headed toward the water nozzle for his first after workout rinse, he suddenly screeched to a halt and let me know he had no intention of cooperating if I was going toward that faucet. To make it even more surprising, this is summer in the deep south, so for most horses, a cool shower is a good thing, but not to Etude.
So, my options were to reinforce his expectations that this was NOT going to be a good time had by all, OR I could manage his expectations by working toward changing his view of showers from something bad to something not so bad, and over time, hopefully, to neutral or that it's something good.
When there is a built in emotional response to an event (real or imagined) rational thinking isn't going to help. It didn't matter to me one iota that my mom told me I needed to go to the dentist and that without dental care, I might lose all of my teeth. Seriously, to a 6 year old with a vivid memory of a dental drill, being toothless sounded like a great alternative! If I had no teeth then I would have no reason to suffer trips to the dentist, AND as an added benefit, I would rake in the bucks from the tooth fairy. (-; Nor can I expect Etude to see how a nice shower on a hot day would be a nice thing.
No amount of force, even the tiniest bit, was going to change Etude's mind. He had no interest in getting wet, regardless of the heat. Even the tiniest suggestion of force would reinforce his notion that water is a bad thing. My goal is to manage his expectations, not support his idea that bad things happen near running water.
Instead of force, I simply went back to the basic principle of rewarding what I want and ignore what I don't want. There is no payoff in focusing on what we don't want. I didn't belabor the idea of bath time because there was no profit in that either. I discovered Etude's thresh hold of tolerance, meaning how close could I get the hose to him before he moved away, and used that as the starting point. With his favorite goody in my treat bag, I bridged the act of standing still in the presence of running water near his thresh hold until his focus moved to anticipating the next treat instead of anticipating the horrors of a bath.
This is important - in effect, I've switched his focus from bad things to good things. I NEED that change in mind set in order for him to come around to my way of thinking (that baths are good!). It's all about where the horse's mind is, not where he is physically. If his mind isn't willing to get on that horse trailer or cross that culvert, his body won't be willing to take that next step either.
This is just the starting point and it's not just a matter of changing the focus, I'm after an attitude shift. If the expectation is deep rooted or strongly fear based, it can take some time to get to a permanent attitude shift, BUT it can be done.
With Etude, it was a relatively quick fix, gradually, he became willing to let me wet down his chest, neck and shoulders, with a bridge signal telling him exactly what I wanted, while I ignored any fuss. Since I'm after a long term attitude adjustment on this topic, I didn’t need to give him a full blown bath, I only needed to make a positive change that day. Since, I've made it a habit to give him a quick rinse after every training session, regardless of if he broke a sweat or not. After 2 short bath sessions he would let me hose down his quarters. After the third, he was willing to escort me to the water faucet to turn it on. After the forth, he decided that I could hose down the inside of his back legs, which didn't thrill him (based on is posture and lifting his back feet) but he did not leave. The shift to my way of thinking isn't complete, but it's well on it's way.
I could have accomplished the same thing with a bit of pressure, after all, I have a long hose and a spray nozzle adds some distance as well. How far can a pony back up? How many times can he turn in a circle before he decided it's easier to submit? Won't he eventually grow tired of the dance and just hold still?
Yes, probably so. But again, I'm after acceptance, trust, and building a partnership, not just submission. I want him to trust in me and our relationship, not just tolerate my behavior.
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