Making different mistakes

[glenatron]

One of our most important skills is the ability to learn from our mistakes, so we can at least vary our mistake itinerary. After reading Kathleen Lindley's book (which is excellent, and I heartily recommend) and watching her at work on Saturday I had a few new ideas, or useful reinforcements to my existing ideas, about how to help Zorro get over the Hedge...of DOOM. And by "over" I mean "near" of course- we have no plans for jumping it, or at least I have none, and given his feelings on it I doubt Zorro would be keen to leap it on some crazy moonwards escapade.

The first thing I made sure I was doing was approaching the hedge with no preconceptions at all about Zorro's reactions- I realised that he could easily be flipping out on that side of the school at least in part because I was expecting him to. Horses are amazingly subtle in their reading of body language so any tiny cue that we subconsciously give is likely to be very obvious to them. Instead I was focussing on visualising us walking happily along the side without anyone getting flustered.

Secondly I was concentrating on breathing, keeping mine regular, deep and even. This is really useful in the saddle where it seems to be a cue that horses pick up on very easily and deep breathing helps you to focus and stay aware of your body and your surroundings.

Thirdly I realised I had been inconsistent with him in the way we treated the hedge by moving him away from it when he got anxious and then using approach and retreat to try to get us close to it and get him accustomed to being near it. Bad idea. What that taught him is if he jumped up and down by the hedge he could get a break from regular work and maybe have a mouthful of food. To be a good leader in equine terms I realised my attitude should have been more "I know that you're worried but I say it's safe and I'm in charge here so deal with it" rather than "oh no, poor pony, are you all right?" All that did as far as he was concerned was reinforce that the hedge was a danger and something that he was correct to be afraid about.

On Sunday we did some good and fairly soft work that got us able to move quite happily around the hedge-free side of the school so today I figured we could confront the lions and tigers and bears that inhabit the holly bushes by adopting the strategy that all imaginary monsters hate most and simply ignoring them. Easier for me than for Zorro, but although he got his energy up and tried to hide behind me as we approached the side of the school, with me keeping position by him and being very steady and measured we managed to walk most of the way along without panicking. This was apparently easier to do with me on his left than on his right, but after a bit of scurrying around he was mostly able to do both most of the way along. He was still trying to drop his shoulder on me and having to be shoved away as he did, but he went along the side and he survived. After a few good runs sleepsy_mouse came over and we paused for a minute and talked about what we were doing and what a good and clever horse I had.

Then we went to do one more walk along the side to reinforce what we had already done and half way along a sparrow moved in the bushes making a tiny rustling sound. Zorro, realising he now had a gallery to play to, went ballistic; galloping flat out away until he hit the end of the line, rearing, bucking and generally showing off the kind of movements that are only approved of in the High School. This was where my consistency plan came in - I just kept walking along, kept him moving so that there was no relaxation or benefit to him while he was making a fuss, and did what I could to ignore him.

It's not always easy to ignore half a ton of furious equine trying to go at full gallop on the other end of a 12' line, but we managed to get from all-out rampage to a big stomping trot and finally to a very energetic walk in circles around me. I managed to extend the circles into ovals so that Zorro was walking along the fence line for a few steps before circling away and once we had worked that up to a few metres we called it a day.

I think that he was settling to the idea it wasn't fatal to be near the hedge, I'm fairly sure that he preferred me not reacting to him flinging himself around to me reacting to it, I'm hoping that tomorrow he will be better, having had a bit of time for latent learning to kick in.

It may seem excessive to get so involved in the fact we can't go on one side of the school when we could just do normal schooling in the rest of it if we wanted, but for me what it's saying is that he doesn't trust in my leadership enough to believe I will keep him safe. Once we find a way to get over that I think we will have a real bond that will give him confidence in me, give me confidence in him (and in myself) and make our lives together run a whole lot smoother.

Comments

[penella22.livejournal.com]

I think you're right on. Horses need us to be leaders, and overindulging their sensitivities in an attempt to be understanding and considerate of them can sometimes backfire on us because they do learn to just make even more of a fuss. Darn prey animals, always being so perceptive!!!

And I agree, once you guys get over this hedge of doom thing, I think you're going to go places much faster because he will trust you to be his leader.

[spirithorse21.livejournal.com]

I think you're very correct it working this problem out. It asserts your leadership role. And it will help him if there are any other scary encounters elsewhere. If he can't trust you to lead him in a zone that he is fairly confident about, how would he react in a new situation that makes him uncomfortable? Keep up the good work!

I agree that approach and retreat does not always work. It is a place to start, but sometime, one must simply be assertive and say (calmly) "No, we're doing it this way because I said so, and because I know it's safe." A horse needs a leader, and the horse is usually not the best choice in a leader.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

It was one of the things that came up in the clinic was that one of the people had a very anxious horse and Kathleen was saying that basically the horse probably thought he was in charge cos he was allowed to be a leader back home and now he was in unfamilliar territory he was getting very anxious because he felt he still needed to be in charge and he didn't know what to do.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I think maybe approach and retreat is good for something that the horse is bothered by that you control- so it's pretty good for getting accustomed to saddles or whatever else, but maybe it's not so great for bigger stuff...

[spirithorse21.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the reaction. Is the horse truly terrified? Then it should work for a bit. But after a while, you and the horse will have to leave that comfort zone, and that takes a strong leader and more force, so to speak.

But I do think it's a good starting point. Example as follows
Horse:OMG! THAT PUDDLE WILL EAT ME! AND YOU TOO!
Rider: No, it won't. let's get closer.
Horse:BUT IT'S GONNA EAT ME!
Rider: No, you can do it.
Horse: Ok, i'll get closer, but if does anything strange, we're out of here.

Horse proceeds to get closer, but still wary of puddle.

Rider: It's ok if we don't walk through it this time, but see, it didn't eat you.
Horse: SIGH. Ok. I lived.

And another time, you could insist on going through the puddle, because now horse realizes that the puddle does not jump up and eat horses.

[gemmabowles.livejournal.com]

:D *relives many a conversation such as this with horses*

[oifonly.livejournal.com]

yeah, I've always found the "I'm not bovvered...face? Bovvered?" approach works very well. As you said, how you breathe can really help. I've often got the impression they can feel a bit silly at over-reacting to something if you've then completely ignored it. Heh.

[penella22.livejournal.com]

I think approach and retreat takes a certain finesse. I think its easy when using it as a tactic with your horse to get too indulgent, and not be assertive enough. I know that happens to me sometimes. But when I watch more skillful people such as professional NH trainers use it...they are very assertive, but also just emotionally neutral. They aren't going to great lengths to reassure the horse; that's kinda the whole point. They stay neutral whether the horse freaks out and throws a huge whopping tantrum, or walks by said scary object calm as can be. But that's also part of the point, is not being intimidated, flustered, or in any way different emotionally when the horse freaks out. They just kinda set up a rhythm of approach and retreat and in parelli they say 'nose, neck, maybe the feet' meaning if you can get the horse to sniff something, then it's ok to ask for his neck. if he'll put his neck over something, then maybe he's ready to trust his feet over it or by it. So the horse sets the pace, the timetable. But the trainer sets the goal.

But horse tantrums are intimidating, and its easy for owners to not want to set them off cuz we're worried we'll get kicked or trampled, etc. And that leads to us playing approach and retreat in a much less assertive way...

It makes sense to me that in a situation like that, the horse will do better with a more assertive method. Because I think what it boils down to more than what method blah blah blah...its our body language and vital signs straight up. Horses have amazingly good hearing. they are aware of our how fast our heart beats, and how often we breathe. They know when we're scared. And they're masters of reading body language. Glad this clinic helped you work on being more assertive with Zorro...

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Well it's a fine balance with him- if I get confrontational with him he'll be very ready to take the fight right back to me and he has a weight advantage in that circumstance of about 400 kilos. I'm pretty good at not getting emotional when I'm handling him, though- I'm (probably misguidedly) not really afraid of him and it takes a lot to make me annoyed or frustrated so I can be patient with him when he needs it, it's just a question of finding the approach that makes things easiest for him.

Yesterday, with Supervisor Joe in the school (Joe going ahead at first, then following, then just watching) we were able to walk right along the side of the school in both directions without getting flustered or het up at all, so that was definitely a step in the right direction. Hopefully once it stops raining and the school stops being a swamp we'll be able to get past it on our own. Apparently we've got some days before it's likely to stop raining. Go british summer.