Articles

Humans and horses share a common attribute, they both subscribe to the same principles of basic behavior. Although the horse is an animal of prey, the actions associated with it's thought processes are essentially identical. Humans arrogantly reserve the word “emotion” for themselves, dismissing animals as creatures devoid of emotionally motivated actions. How egotistical we are.

Horses and Humans both require management of their state of mind, state management. Essentially we are in one of two states of mind at any given time, we are either in a state of reaction, or a state of control. Most horse training professionals or “horse breakers”, sensitize the horse so it is in a constant state of reaction. Reaction to cues, reaction to pain, reaction to pressure, reaction, reaction, reaction. Now Vets are prescribing Prozac for horses, we have created nervous wrecks. To relax, horses need to feel in control. That is not to say they need to control the rider/owner to relax, but they constantly need to think in a way that gives them “peace of mind”. Humans are the same way.

Micro management is the absolute worst training you can undertake with a horse. The more a horse is allowed to take responsibility for it's actions, and feel in control, the more calm and reliable the horse will be. By giving clear commands to the horse and then creating a training situation where the horse “works it out”, the eventual outcome is a well balanced animal feeling at home in foreign surroundings. Because we don't have the ability to easily communicate and be understood by equines, we force them to accept things and actions around them that we know to be safe. The reason we know this is that by communication with our peers or some other sort of knowledge base, we have reasoned that the thing, situation, or action will not cause us harm.

In only one week of training 1 hour twice a day, morning and night, a horse can and will completely change it's attitude towards you, and it's general disposition. When allowed to think things through itself, the horse will start to condition the responses it makes to a more thinking than reacting outcome. A horse will quickly learn to manage it's state, to be in control of the same emotions that dictate the only response is “Get out of here”! How long do you think parents give babies to learn to walk? If you said “they get the kids to keep on trying until they walk perfectly”, you would be exactly right, that's why most people in the world walk. Parents have the patience to allow their young child to fall over time and time again, each time helping them to their feet and encourage them to try again. More than that, they usually reward the try even though it's not perfect, the babies usually stumble and stagger much to the parents delight, because, the parent knows that eventually, as the baby keeps practicing, its balance system will be conditioned to keep the child steady on it's feet, without even thinking about it, what a concept!!! Reward the try and don't expect perfection immediately with your horse either.

When we talk about training a horse, especially the starting process, what we are doing is teaching the horse to manage it's emotions. Traditional horse breakers do this by linking pain to a reaction that is a normal part of an equines makeup. The worst part of this technique, is that even though the horse complies, it's emotional state is unchanged, and in most cases made worse, it's the micro management system again. So what these breakers teach horses to be is nervous disasters waiting to blow up at the first opportunity, with little trust in people or it's surroundings, exactly the opposite of what we want. The more responsibility a horse is given, the more relaxed the horse will become. Whether a person or a horse, being in control of the moment is a comforting feeling, and the rewards of having a horse that is relaxed and responsive, with calm obedience to the slightest request from it's rider, cannot be overstated. The wonderful feeling of trotting or loping down a peaceful country road or bush track, on a loose rein, with the horse calm and smooth, both rider and horse relaxed, is a treat few riders have or know how to get. The fact is, in a few short weeks, with the right tools, some long rides and dedicated training repeated again and again, this scenario is very achievable. With the constant “Micro Management” of the horse, riders don't have time to really enjoy the ride either, so a lose, lose outcome is the result.

When starting a young, untrained horse, the Buddy System has major benefits. In the formative hours when the untrained horse is first controlled, and by controlled I mean required to do other than it's normal life actions, eating, moving in any direction it chooses, and interacting with other horses, another fully trained coach horse nearby measurably speeds up the process. I have a question for you. What would you rather do, go to a totally foreign country by yourself, or with a seasoned traveler who knows the area backwards? The answer is a no-brainer, yet conventional training methods seldom use this technique. From the first ride in the arena, to the first and subsequent rides out on the trail, a buddy horse calms the student horse, and because of the relaxation learning comes easier and faster. As part of the instinctive herd behavior horses feed emotionally from other horses nearby, and they have an elaborate communication system to alert each other to threats whether perceived or actual. Conversely, the same communication works in calming nervous or inexperienced horses when a seasoned and calm horse is nearby.



There are three types of instinctive responses that are important to how we understand equine stress and stress management: Number 1 is the instant “Fight-or-Flight” response, number 2 the longer-term General Adaptation Syndrome, and number 3, mental exhaustion. The first is a basic survival instinct, while the second is a long-term effect of exposure to ongoing stress, the third is where many difficult to rectify problems appear, actually, these three mechanisms can be part of the same stress response – we will initially look at them separately, and then show how they can fit together. Some early equine clinicians, especially in Australia, ratified the existence of the now well-known fight-or-flight response. Their work showed that when an animal experiences or perceives a threat, it quickly releases hormones that help it to survive. These hormones help it run faster and fight harder. They increase heart rate and blood pressure, delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to power important muscles. They increase sweating in an effort to cool these muscles, and help them stay efficient. They divert blood away from the skin to the body core, reducing blood loss due to injury, and as well as this, these hormones focus attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this significantly improves a horses ability to survive life-threatening events. Unfortunately, this mobilization of the body for survival also has negative consequences. In this state, horses are excitable, anxious, jumpy and irritable. This reduces their ability to work effectively at even the most mundane task. With trembling body and a pounding heart, they can find it difficult to execute well known skills previously learned through repetition. The intensity of their focus on survival interferes with their ability to make judgments based on what we would consider logical thought. Horses become more accident-prone and less able to make good decisions, fences are run through, gates knocked down, and people injured and killed in the process. It is easy to think that this fight-or-flight, or adrenaline response is only triggered by obviously life-threatening danger. On the contrary, recent research shows that horses experience the fight-or-flight response when simply encountering something unexpected. The situation does not have to be dramatic: People experience this response when frustrated or interrupted, or when they experience a situation that is new or in some way challenging. This hormonal, fight-or-flight response is a normal part of everyday life for a horse, and a part of everyday stress, although often with an intensity that is so low that we do not notice it. There are very few situations in a horses domestic life where this response is useful. Most situations benefit from a calm, rational, controlled and socially sensitive approach.


The general adaptation syndrome.
When observing different diseases and injuries to a horse, it was noted that although different, they seemed to cause the same symptoms. It has been determined that a general response occurs when the horses body reacts to a major stimulus. While the Fight-or-Flight response works in the very short term, the General Adaptation Syndrome operates in response to a horses longer-term exposure to the stress. Horses appear to react in three distinct stages when pushed to extremes.

Stage one, the Alarm Phase. The initial reaction to the cause of the stress.

Stage two is the Resistance Phase. The resistance to the induced stress increased as the animal adapts to, and copes with, it. This phase lasts for as long as the individual horse can support this heightened resistance.

Stage three is the Exhaustion Phase. Finally, once the horses resistance is exhausted, they enter the Exhaustion Phase, and resistance declines substantially. This is the stage that causes most concern and perplexes training professionals.

During World War II studies were focused on bomber pilots. Once they had completed a few missions over enemy territory, these pilots usually settled down and performed well. After many missions however, pilot fatigue would set in as they began to show “neurotic manifestations”. These same “neurotic manifestations” show in horses trained harshly, they go through a phase where all is well and the horse performs flawlessly, then the performance starts to decline and the horse develops undesirable traits as a result.
 
In the human business environment, this exhaustion is described as Executive Stress or Burnout. A classic example is Wall Street trading floor. Life on a stock trading floor is stressful, but traders learn to adapt to the daily stress's of quickly making major financial decisions, and of winning and losing large sums of money. All too often these stresses increase and fatigue starts to set in. At the same time, as traders become successful and earn more and more money, their financial motivation to succeed can diminish. Ultimately, many traders experience burnout.


 

STRESS, A MATTER OF JUDGEMENT
In becoming stressed, people/animals must make two main judgments: firstly they must feel threatened by the situation, and secondly they must doubt that their capabilities and resources are sufficient to meet the threat.
In dealing with horses exclusively, how stressed they feel depends on how much damage they think the situation can do them, and how closely their resources meet the demands of the situation. This sense of threat is not necessarily physical. It may, for example, involve perceived threats to their herd standing by the mere pinning of an ear.
 Just as with real threats to our survival, these perceived threats trigger the hormonal fight-or-flight response, with all of its negative consequences. If these observations are noted, you can understand that mental stress due to ongoing painful stimulation (harsh bits, spurs etc) triggers the fight-or-flight response, and if that stress is sustained for a long period of time, the end result can be exhaustion and burnout, with the common symptoms of bad behavior, unpredictable actions, and unpleasant riding experiences.

All these problems are avoidable by conscious application of sound training strategies that deal with long term viability rather than short term gain. Financial and time constraints largely preclude training commensurate with long term calm obedience from equines. Instead, people are looking for “quick fixes”, as fast and cheaply as possible, and more than that, they usually don't want to be part of the process, but would rather let the “trainer” do it, and not understand the techniques used to alter the horses demeanor or learn skills to continue the process when the horse is back home with the owner.


As already discussed, horses will respond to painful stimulus with desirable outcomes initially, but the ongoing application of painful stimulus results in SORRY BROKE horses. In a book on bitting I read recently, the company also sold the “advanced design” tie downs people would need once these bits were used. The horse raises it's head in an effort to alleviate the pain of the bit only to be restrained by the hold down or tie down. Where does it end, the horse will eventually enter the Exhaustion Phase of stress, and produce all types of undesirable traits, and ultimately be labeled a bad horse by the very same people that caused the problems in the first place.

Whilst discussing the head position of horses, it is worthy to note that horses will hold their head higher when moving at a speed greater than a walk because they see best when their nose angle is about 30 degrees from the horizontal, any departure from this angle is an ocular compromise. Unfortunately, this head angle is not the best load carrying geometry for a horse. Given that nature never intended a horse to carry weight on it's back, the best position for increased weight carrying capacity is with the head held in a low position to bring the hind legs in under the animal, and tension the muscles in the top line of the back.