Thoughts on horsemanship

"Only recently have we begun to understand that animals really do have intelligence. Gradually, new perceptions of animals are coming to the fore. Newsweek Magazine in a May 1988 cover story entitled "How Smart Are Animals?" reported that:

'Creatures as different as pigeons and primates are dazzling scientists with their capacity for thought. Comparative psychologists have gone from wondering whether apes can comprehend symbols to detailing the ways in which they acquire and use them. Others scientists are documenting similar abilities in sea mammals. Still others are finding that birds can form abstract concepts. The news isn't just that animals can master many of the tasks experimenters design for them, however. There's a growing sense that many creatures - from free ranging monkeys to domestic dogs - know things on their own that are as interesting as anything we can teach them.'

Recognizing that horses are individual personalities with individual mental and emotional responses to the world opens us to a new way of perceiving animal intelligence and therefore of influencing behavior. For instance, knowing whether a horse is a slow or a fast learner allows the trainer to choose the most appropriate teaching method. Not only does an intelligent horse need less repetition than a duller one, too much repetition often bores the clever horse, and he will think up ways of 'amusing' himself (sometimes by resistance) that his trainer will probably not find equally entertaining.

Understanding our horses doesn't mean we become 'permissive' or that we don't use firmness and discipline when required. It means rather that we open the door to cooperation rather than confrontation, an attitude that leads to successful performance so much more quickly, easily and joyfully than does domination through fear or submission. Such a humane viewpoint often has the unexpected side effect of enriching our whole lives."

"Getting in TTouch" by Linda Tellington-Jones

Thoughts on horsemanship

I recently got a copy of "True Horsemanship Through Feel" by Bill Dorrance and I am loving it. This new addition to my (sizable) library has made me think that I should expand my "Gems from Alois" posts to include other notable quotations. So here we go, my first entry in "Thoughts on Horsemanship."

Misuse of the Lead Rope

"I disapprove of jerking or snapping that lead rope because the horse doesn't have an opportunity to feel of you if you do that. That valuable connection with the horse is lost between pulls when a person gets to sort of jerking on that rope for one reason or another. And that sort of jerking motion is usually connected to emotion in a person that isn't the best. We could call that frustration. When a person is acting like this, a horse doesn't have a chance to get with them, because the feel being offered isn't there long enough to have any good meaning for him. His guesswork and self-preservation will start to figure into things because that jerking will kind of upset him mentally. It comes so quick and fast. The horse can't be sure what it means when a person's feel is excessive and then gets replaced with a full release, and then comes in there again so sharp and so fast, over and over again. I've seen people do this. Some people might think by doing this they're getting something accomplished, but the horse isn't set up to understand what he's supposed to do in response to a feel like this. He isn't geared for this in his thinking.

We want things to be real clear between a horse and the person handling him. We want to stay away from any mix-up for the horse concerning force or fear, so your feel must be applied in a way that he can understand, without any part of force or fear coming in there. Some people might need some time to think over this subject and I'm in hopes they do, because this is so important to the horse. It's also real important to the person's future with any horse.

...Those releases that are part of any jerking of the horse's mouth or head just encourage more of the thing that person doesn't want. This type of handling is very confusing for the horse. And, of course, a person who does this is confused about things from the horse's point of view. There's a need for concern in this, because too much of this activity can lead to resentment or fear in the horse, which is usually the cause of dangerous and unreliable behavior in those horses. It's unnecessary and avoidable. If people could remember that any jerking on the horse just erodes whatever confidence he might have had in the human before that, I'm in hopes they'll be willing to try something more fitting to him."

"True Horsemanship Through Feel"
-Bill Dorrance