The Importance of Doing the Unexpected

Before I began studying Parelli Natural Horsemanship I never thought much about the fact that I was a predator or that my beloved first horse, Max, was a prey animal. In fact the very term predator, rather than evoking in my mind the natural image of lion or a wolf, carried instead the negative connotations associated with that sub-human group of people who prey on those who can’t defend themselves, children, animals and the elderly. As a result, I seldom critically examined the effect of my own behavior on my horse. That’s not to say I was completely ignorant about how I influenced the people and animals around me. Years of working in the chemical industry managing people had taught me that the only behavior I could predictably change was my own and that the fastest way to rescue a situation that was falling apart around me was to shift what I was doing that was contributing to the mayhem.
Still, it was quite an eye opener for me when I first heard Pat Parelli talk about horse behavior as prey animal behavior and I began thinking about my relationship with horses in terms of a ‘predator – prey animal’ relationship. Suddenly everything I did when I was with my current horse became more significant. I started paying more attention to how the little, everyday things I did without thinking, like walking directly up to Sonny in his pasture or entering his stall without waiting for his permission or grooming the front of his chest between his front legs seemed to annoy him. Often his reactions weren’t large, perhaps only the turning away of his head or a swish of his tail, but the reactions were definitely there, signaling to me that the predator in my nature was emerging, affecting the development of our partnership. As a result, I have tried over the past several years to become more conscious of my behavior when I am working with horses and to act less predictably like a predator.
Being conscious of my predatory behavior has really helped me at the horse rescue where some of our horses come from situations of neglect or abuse. This spring the rescue took in three horses from a serious neglect situation. The horses had been left in a field without food and water and were in poor physical condition when they arrived. One was so significantly compromised that despite everything we could do, she had to be euthanized, but the others came to Greener Pastures in the hope that good care and good pasture could restore their health.
I had been in Florida when the horses were rescued and when I returned, the director, Elena DiSilvestro, asked if I could evaluate them. One, a Welsh pony mix, had behavior problems and the other, a quarter horse son of Zip’s Chocolate Chip, was very difficult to catch.
The first time I saw the quarter horse, Chip, he was standing in a stall. He was a tall, thin bay with a white blaze, a dull, muddy coat and a listless look in his eye. Standing at his stall door, I tried to look past his shabby appearance for the potential that must be hidden in this well bred gelding. When I opened his door, Chip turned his head away from me and retreated into the far corner of the stall. Although he was a good sized horse, he gave the impression of trying to make himself as small as possible. Realizing that just by standing there I was putting a lot of pressure on the horse, I opened the stall door as wide as it would go and turned away from Chip. After what seemed like an eternity, Chip stepped toward the fresh hay piled in the corner and began to eat. When I offered him the back of my hand, he looked nervously in my direction but couldn’t seem to bring himself to smell or touch it. Because he seemed so hesitant to make contact, I tracked the rescue’s director to get some additional background on Chip.
“Well,” Elena told me, “we don’t have a lot of information. I know that he’s 8 years old and broken to ride. I was told that he was actually used for one of the local college equestrian teams at one point, but beyond that, I only know what we’ve seen since he’s been here. He seems very apprehensive around people and he’s very hard to catch.”
Armed with that information I returned to Chip’s stall. This time he didn’t retreat when I opened the door so I snapped a lead line on his halter and led him out of the corral and onto the grass to graze. In the sunlight he looked a little less shabby but no less apprehensive. When I kissed to him after a few moments to get him to step forward he actually leaped sideways at the sound.
“Wow,” I thought to myself. “This guy is really sensitive. I better make our friendly game is solid.”
While Chip grazed, I started to brush the dried mud out of his coat. Noticing that he flinched whenever I touched him suddenly, I slowed my approach way down. I showed him the brushes and used long, soft strokes. I softly asked him to yield his head and his hindquarters. Even the slightest pressure caused him to freeze and look away from me. I quickly realized that convincing Chip I wasn’t like all the other humans he’d met was essential but it was not going to be easy.
My chance came the next day. Chip was out in the lower pasture by the river and when I entered the pasture he immediately turned and walked away. I paid no attention to him, wandering from one horse to the next, offering the back of my hand and stopping to give each horse a good scratch. I could see that Chip was watching me as I walked around, but I made no attempt to move purposefully in his direction. Before long, he was standing on the far side of a horse I was petting. Reaching my arm under the horse’s chin, I asked him to yield his front end and change sides. This put me between Chip and the horse I had been petting. Chip didn’t move. Without looking at him, I held out the back of my hand and waited until I felt whiskers tickle my skin. We had contact.
Normally at this point with any other horse, I would probably have tried to press my advantage, but I didn’t want Chip to think I was like other humans so I just walked away from him and continued to make my rounds of the herd. I was concentrating on pulling some tangles out of Beau’s mane when I caught a glimpse of Chip out of the corner of my eye. He had taken several steps in my direction and was now standing less than an arm’s length away. When I reached over to scratch his withers he didn’t pull away, so I moved to his side and began to rub his neck with the rope halter in my hand. Chip was standing stock still but his eyes were wide open and he wasn’t blinking. He looked to me like he might bolt at any second. I continued to rub his neck slowly, taking deep, slow breaths at the same time. After what seemed like an eternity, he started to blink and his head lowered a couple of inches. I stopped rubbing and waited. He signed. When I touched his neck again, he turned his head toward me ever so slightly and I was able to slip the halter over his nose.
I was anxious to begin playing with Chip so I started to turn and lead him toward the gate but then a thought came to me. I bet this is exactly what Chip expected me to do. Probably every time a human put a halter on him, he was taken out of his field and put to work. So I untied the halter, rubbed him on the neck, offered him and cookie and when he took it, I walked away. Reaching the gate, I turned to look at Chip. He had been standing facing away from the gate when I left him. He was still standing in the same position but he had craned his neck around and was watching me as I opened the gate and left the pasture.
I walked to the tack room and went in to hang up the halter and lead line. While inside, I picked up some lines that had fallen to the floor and generally tidied things up. It was several minutes before I left the building but when I stepped outside, I saw Chip standing in the same position that I had last seen him, head craned around looking toward the spot where I had disappeared a few minutes earlier. It was as if he was still trying to figure out what had just happened.
Somewhere in Chip’s past, he’d developed some serious trust issues with humans. I don’t know exactly what happened but I suspect that with his sensitive nature, he’d been worked too hard or pushed through thresholds before he was ready. I was determined not to let that happen to him again, at least not while I had anything to say about it and walking away from him had been the first step. For the next few weeks, I continued to play the catching game with Chip, often only taking him for a walk to a good patch of grass outside of his pasture and sometimes not doing anything at all with him after he caught me. I practiced doing the unexpected with Chip and it paid off. Chip slowly relaxed and became easier for other volunteers to catch and handle. Eventually the director of our rescue found Chip a good home as a companion horse and while I was sad to see him leave, I knew it was best for him. At his new home, there would be no pressure on him to perform and he could live out his life just being a horse.
The relationship we can build with a horse can be a beautiful thing but it also can be very fragile. Without meaning to we can damage that relationship simply by being ourselves and that is why understanding a horse’s nature as a prey animal and our own as a predator is so very important. With each new horse at the rescue that touches my life, I am reminded of the tremendous advantage that we human predators have because we are conscious of the choices we make. Every interaction with a new horse is a chance for me to live out my number one responsibility to act less like a predator and more like a partner. And every time I make that conscious choice, I am making the world a better place for horses and humans alike.