Because horses are prey animals, they can be pretty fearful when faced with new or unusual objects in their environment. Since we are always working our horses them to improve their confidence, I brought a large blue exercise ball to the farm this week for Sonny and the other horses to play with but as soon as I took it out of my car, I discovered it was a horse eating object.
Horse eating objects come in all sizes and shapes. My first horse, Max, thought that any large piece of road equipment was a horse eating object. That made sense to me since things like bulldozers are large and noisy and can be pretty intimidating. But the first time he had an abscess and the vet told me to soak his foot in Epson salts twice a day, I discovered that he also thought buckets were horse eating objects. Apparently buckets were innocuous items when hung in stables as containers for food and water but the minute you put one on the floor and asked Max to put his foot in it, a bucket definitely because a horse eating object.
Max was an easy going horse. He never gave the vet any trouble and would stand quietly even when the vet was putting a tube up his nose and then down his throat to deliver medicine directly to his stomach. So I was taken completely by surprise at his reaction to having his foot soaked in a bucket. It took three of us to hold him still enough to get the foot into the water in the bucket and he would not, under any circumstances, put his foot down onto the bottom of the bucket. We tried wider buckets, shallower buckets, buckets made from different materials but it just didn’t matter. He just was not putting his foot down into any horse eating bucket. Needless to say, our attempts to soak his foot were only marginally successful and I learned an important lesson about working with horses as a result. Even the most commonplace item can be become a horse eating object in the mind of your horse, eliciting a sudden, fearful reaction as he tries to escape from its clutches.
This is why we try to expose the horses at the rescue to a variety everyday objects that could be misconstrued as horse eating objects. Consider plastic grocery bags. It is not unusual to see bags on the side of the road or tangled in bushes or trees in the woods, but caught by a breeze, a plastic bag can be a noisy, floating object that could scare any unsuspecting horse. Desensitizing our horses to plastic bags makes them braver and more dependable on trail rides.
Some horses are more naturally fearful than others but my horse Sonny is pretty confident around most common items. The first time I put a plastic bag on the end of my training stick he didn’t worry about it at all. I was able to swing it around his head and rub him all over his body and his only reaction was to push his nose into my pocket looking for a treat. Yet the same bag on the stick caused Meredith’s horse Beau to immediately retreat to the end of his 12 foot lead line snorting loudly.
The key to desensitizing a horse to any unfamiliar or scary object is to use approach and retreat. Allowing the horse to approach the object rather than trying to bring the object to the horse reduces fear and engages the horse’s natural curiosity. A good way to do this is to carry or push the object in front of you while leading the horse. That way the horse is following the scary object rather than being chased by it. Eventually curiosity takes over and the horse will approach it on his own.
So what happened when I took the blue exercise ball out of my car on Friday? I planned to use the ball in the riding ring and thought the easiest way to get it there would be to dribble it down the driveway like a basketball. Every time the ball hit the blacktop it produced a resounding twang. Sonny was still finishing his breakfast in the round pen and he never even raised his head to see what was causing the unusual sound but Beau, who was 100 yards away in the front pasture came immediately to attention at the first bounce and stood riveted at the fence the entire time I dribbled the ball toward the riding ring. The closer I got to him, the more nervous he looked and when I was about 20 yards away, he finally took off running, head high and tail flagged out behind him.
Sonny was predictably more confident. Although he flinched away from the ball when I first held it out to him, he didn’t try to run away from it and before long, I had him picking treats up from the top of the ball and pushing it ahead of him when he walked. While Sonny and I were playing with the ball, it caught the attention of all of the horses in the field adjacent to the riding ring. Pretty soon Sonny and I had an audience as their natural curiosity drew then toward the funny blue object on the other side of the fence. As long as I kept the ball moving away from where they were standing, they were fine but as soon as the ball rolled in their direction, they backed off snorting and throwing their heads up in the air.
After 15 minutes of playing with the ball, Sonny and I moved onto other exercises and the ball rolled off into a corner of the ring where it stayed for the rest of our session. Most of horses quickly lost interest and drifted off to graze, but I could see that Beau was continuing to keep an eye on the ball and whenever it moved slightly in the wind, he would snort and retreat a few steps to maintain his safe distance. Clearly Beau sees the ball as a horse eating object but I am seeing some potential for using the ball to reduce his fear and improve his confidence.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Bagging It
As it sometimes happens when you are working around horses, Meredith, one of our most faithful volunteers, got hurt a few weeks ago. She was helping to move round bales of hay into one of the fields for the horses when her foot was caught between a bale and a round bale holder, fracturing a bone. As a result, she had her leg in a cast up to the knee and was on crutches, making it really difficult for her to get around. Being a determined (and I must say tough) woman, Meredith has continued to help where she can at the rescue but she hasn’t been able to do much with her horse Beau for the past few weeks, so I have been playing with him.
Meredith’s horse, Beau, has been at the rescue since he was a youngster and he is now a big guy. While he is a friendly and people oriented horse who loves attention and treats, he is not very confident and can run right over you when he is scared. I learned that lesson first hand last summer and ended up momentarily directly underneath him after he knocked me to the ground. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt and the episode gave me so insight into how to behave around a horse with Beau’s lack of confidence.
The lack of confidence in a horse can manifest itself in a lot of ways. Being prey animals, horses are instinctively focused on their own safety and when pressured their first reaction may be, “I’m outa here!” An unconfident horse may throw its head up in the air, wring or violently swish its tail, snort, show white around it eyes and generally act agitated. But it may also simply freeze up and retreat inside of itself, going to its “happy place” to escape from pressure and then, finally when the pressure gets to be unbearable, explode into action, kicking or striking out. You will often hear people referring to an unconfident horse as either crazy or unpredictable.
Since Meredith has been out of action, I decided it would be a good time to see if I could help Beau become a little more confident. Beau’s personality or Horsenality™ in Parelli Natural Horsemanship™ lingo is “right brain”. What that means is that he tends to be more fear driven than dominant and he shows both ‘introvert’ (tense, hesitant, timid) and ‘extrovert’ (high headed, bracy, over-reactive) behaviors when you work with him.
When working with an unconfident horse, one of the most important things you can do to gain his confidence is to play the Friendly Game™. The goal of the Friendly Game™ is to build trust with the horse. Being prey animals, horses are naturally skeptical because in the wild, they can end up as someone’s lunch. We humans are predators and we often act like predators even when we don’t mean to. The Friendly Game™ is a way of demonstrating non-predatory behavior to the horse. By using rhythmic, repetitive motions and approach and retreat, we can help desensitize a horse to a lot of the thing that are just naturally scary.
I’d played the Friendly Game™ before with Beau by tossing a rope across his back and touching him all over. Beau is pretty good about being touched and doesn’t tense up when petted or rubbed with your hands but he doesn’t like anything being tossed at him and he isn’t too sure about the stick and string we use as a training tool. A good way to help a horse become more confident with something scary is to keep the scary object in front of you while leading the horse. Because the scary thing is moving away and the horse is following it rather than being chased by it, natural curiosity will eventually overcome fear and the horse will begin to approach and investigate. So I decided the best way to help Beau stop worrying about the stick and string was to lead him while I repeatedly beat the ground in front of me with the string. I had Beau on a 12 foot lead line and when I started walking while striking the ground with the string, almost all 12 feet played out of my hand before Beau began to walk behind me. I just kept walking and hitting the ground, not paying any attention to Beau who was dragging along behind me. After walking for a few minutes, I began to feel some slack in the rope, as Beau came up to investigate. When he did, I stopped walking but kept beating the rope on the ground. At first, it was had for Beau to stop and stand still, but eventually, he could stand quite close to me while I slapped the ground with the string.
Over our next few sessions, I played several versions of the Friendly Game™, tossing the lead line over Beau’s head, twirling the string above my head, beating the ground with the stick and pretty soon, Beau was standing quietly no matter what I did, soft eyed and head down. Then I decided to up the ante and introduce a plastic bag into the mix.
I’m not sure what it is about plastic bags but they can send a lot of animals into frenzy. I have a cat, one of my three live-in, household predators, who is absolutely terrified of plastic bags. When he was a kitten, he got himself tangled up with the string holding a mostly deflated Mylar balloon and found himself being chased around the house by a noisy “balloon monster”. To this day the sound of a plastic bag sends him scooting from the room. With horses, the problem may be more visual than sound driven but I have found that waving a white grocery bag around can send a lot of horses running for the hills.
When I pulled the plastic back out of my pocket and tied it to the end of my training stick, Beau immediately came to attention. Throwing his head up and snorting, he retreated to the end of his 12 foot lead line and then, wild-eyed, stood facing the bag. I know a little about horse body language but I didn’t have to be an expert to read his expression. It screamed, “OMG! What in the world is that and how can I get as far away as possible?”
Ignoring Beau’s obvious plastic bag angst, I turned away from him and waving the bag in front of me, started to walk. Snorting like a freight train, Beau dragged along behind me. I kept walking until the tension on the rope slackened just a bit and then I stopped walking, dropped the bag to the ground and waited. Beau eyes were riveted on the white plastic blob and he was beathing hard but he made no attempt to pull away and after a few minutes, he relaxed enough so that his head came down and he exhaled a big sigh of relief (I’m sure at not being eaten by that horse eating bag!). I praised Beau extravagantly and then picked the bag up and started again. After about 15 minutes, Beau was able to stand quietly at a distance of 3 or 4 feet from the frightening bag and I figured that he had about all he was going to take for his first grocery bag encounter so I stuffed the bag back into my pocket and fed him a treat. Eventually, I hope to be able to rub Beau all over his body with the bag without having him tense up. It may take a few more, horse-bag encounters but given the good progress he’s already made, I am sure Beau will get there in due time.
I’m really sorry that Meredith hurt her leg, but I have been having a good time playing with Beau. Mere is now in a walking cast and I’m sure she will be back in the saddle soon. I’m hoping that Beau’s adventures in bag land will give him a leg up in becoming a happier and more confident partner for her return.
Meredith’s horse, Beau, has been at the rescue since he was a youngster and he is now a big guy. While he is a friendly and people oriented horse who loves attention and treats, he is not very confident and can run right over you when he is scared. I learned that lesson first hand last summer and ended up momentarily directly underneath him after he knocked me to the ground. Fortunately I wasn’t hurt and the episode gave me so insight into how to behave around a horse with Beau’s lack of confidence.
The lack of confidence in a horse can manifest itself in a lot of ways. Being prey animals, horses are instinctively focused on their own safety and when pressured their first reaction may be, “I’m outa here!” An unconfident horse may throw its head up in the air, wring or violently swish its tail, snort, show white around it eyes and generally act agitated. But it may also simply freeze up and retreat inside of itself, going to its “happy place” to escape from pressure and then, finally when the pressure gets to be unbearable, explode into action, kicking or striking out. You will often hear people referring to an unconfident horse as either crazy or unpredictable.
Since Meredith has been out of action, I decided it would be a good time to see if I could help Beau become a little more confident. Beau’s personality or Horsenality™ in Parelli Natural Horsemanship™ lingo is “right brain”. What that means is that he tends to be more fear driven than dominant and he shows both ‘introvert’ (tense, hesitant, timid) and ‘extrovert’ (high headed, bracy, over-reactive) behaviors when you work with him.
When working with an unconfident horse, one of the most important things you can do to gain his confidence is to play the Friendly Game™. The goal of the Friendly Game™ is to build trust with the horse. Being prey animals, horses are naturally skeptical because in the wild, they can end up as someone’s lunch. We humans are predators and we often act like predators even when we don’t mean to. The Friendly Game™ is a way of demonstrating non-predatory behavior to the horse. By using rhythmic, repetitive motions and approach and retreat, we can help desensitize a horse to a lot of the thing that are just naturally scary.
I’d played the Friendly Game™ before with Beau by tossing a rope across his back and touching him all over. Beau is pretty good about being touched and doesn’t tense up when petted or rubbed with your hands but he doesn’t like anything being tossed at him and he isn’t too sure about the stick and string we use as a training tool. A good way to help a horse become more confident with something scary is to keep the scary object in front of you while leading the horse. Because the scary thing is moving away and the horse is following it rather than being chased by it, natural curiosity will eventually overcome fear and the horse will begin to approach and investigate. So I decided the best way to help Beau stop worrying about the stick and string was to lead him while I repeatedly beat the ground in front of me with the string. I had Beau on a 12 foot lead line and when I started walking while striking the ground with the string, almost all 12 feet played out of my hand before Beau began to walk behind me. I just kept walking and hitting the ground, not paying any attention to Beau who was dragging along behind me. After walking for a few minutes, I began to feel some slack in the rope, as Beau came up to investigate. When he did, I stopped walking but kept beating the rope on the ground. At first, it was had for Beau to stop and stand still, but eventually, he could stand quite close to me while I slapped the ground with the string.
Over our next few sessions, I played several versions of the Friendly Game™, tossing the lead line over Beau’s head, twirling the string above my head, beating the ground with the stick and pretty soon, Beau was standing quietly no matter what I did, soft eyed and head down. Then I decided to up the ante and introduce a plastic bag into the mix.
I’m not sure what it is about plastic bags but they can send a lot of animals into frenzy. I have a cat, one of my three live-in, household predators, who is absolutely terrified of plastic bags. When he was a kitten, he got himself tangled up with the string holding a mostly deflated Mylar balloon and found himself being chased around the house by a noisy “balloon monster”. To this day the sound of a plastic bag sends him scooting from the room. With horses, the problem may be more visual than sound driven but I have found that waving a white grocery bag around can send a lot of horses running for the hills.
When I pulled the plastic back out of my pocket and tied it to the end of my training stick, Beau immediately came to attention. Throwing his head up and snorting, he retreated to the end of his 12 foot lead line and then, wild-eyed, stood facing the bag. I know a little about horse body language but I didn’t have to be an expert to read his expression. It screamed, “OMG! What in the world is that and how can I get as far away as possible?”
Ignoring Beau’s obvious plastic bag angst, I turned away from him and waving the bag in front of me, started to walk. Snorting like a freight train, Beau dragged along behind me. I kept walking until the tension on the rope slackened just a bit and then I stopped walking, dropped the bag to the ground and waited. Beau eyes were riveted on the white plastic blob and he was beathing hard but he made no attempt to pull away and after a few minutes, he relaxed enough so that his head came down and he exhaled a big sigh of relief (I’m sure at not being eaten by that horse eating bag!). I praised Beau extravagantly and then picked the bag up and started again. After about 15 minutes, Beau was able to stand quietly at a distance of 3 or 4 feet from the frightening bag and I figured that he had about all he was going to take for his first grocery bag encounter so I stuffed the bag back into my pocket and fed him a treat. Eventually, I hope to be able to rub Beau all over his body with the bag without having him tense up. It may take a few more, horse-bag encounters but given the good progress he’s already made, I am sure Beau will get there in due time.
I’m really sorry that Meredith hurt her leg, but I have been having a good time playing with Beau. Mere is now in a walking cast and I’m sure she will be back in the saddle soon. I’m hoping that Beau’s adventures in bag land will give him a leg up in becoming a happier and more confident partner for her return.
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