Poor Training Leads to More Time Training. A Story

  Quick announcement: 

As some of you may have noticed, I am late with my COVID-19 part 3 post.  This is because I am still in the process of researching and gathering resources for horse owners, so the post isn't ready yet.  It will be posted when I can finish it, but in the meantime, I felt the need for this topic to be discussed too.

  This story popped into my head the other day and I wanted to share it with you.  I think it's important to recognize that retraining and behavioural issues can be avoided with proper, slow training upfront, and while the situation I describe around this particular horse and what we did to help him may not fit for every horse, I hope this gives some of you a new idea about what may help "problem horses' you know.  I will discuss pressure and release more thoroughly in future posts, but for now I hope this gives you an idea of how important it is to be aware of how we can unknowingly pressure a horse into feeling unsafe.

  A few years ago when I was still able to take english riding lessons in my city, one of the barn hands asked for my help.  She had been working there for numerous years, was always very kind and helpful, and very good to the horses.  I had even by that time spent a great deal of time around horses, but was honestly surprised that she had asked for my help.


  She had been spending time with a horse who was known at the barn to be rather nippy, bitey, grumpy, mean, and impatient.  He tossed his head when trying to bridle him, nipped at you when you tightened the girth (or any other time he could really) and almost always had his ears pinned back and looking angry at the world.  This lady was trying to work with him so that he would be better behaved around children and others (even the more experienced adults had troubles handling him).  Who else reading this has or knows a horse who fits this description?  Technically, no horse fits this description as his behaviours were completely normal and only a prey animal's response to too much pressure, pain, and poor training.


  Because of his less desirable behaviours, likely stemming from people being way too rough on his girth and poor training around bridles and accepting a bit, he associated these two things with pain and no one was taking the time to make positive associations with his tack.  His "bad" behaviour continued, and people began to be harsher with him to "control him".  People seem to forget that if you push a horse far enough, if he/she really wants to, a horse could very easily kill you.  But they typically won't because they would rather not fight and really do want to try their best to understand you and want you want from them.  But how many of us can focus on tasks or feel good about ourselves when we are in pain or in a state of anxiety around when are we going to be in pain again?  This might seem obvious to some of you, but I want to reiterate that his poor training is what caused his "bad" behaviour; he is not a bad horse.


  The biggest change I saw in how people interacted with him, is that they held the lead rope right at the buckle where it connects to the halter or even the halter itself when leading him around.  Yes, if he decided to move his head to you to bite you, in this position you could lock your elbow to keep him away or even use it to push against his neck and make him look away, but it's not as helpful as it may seem.  It helps us feel safer than we actually are but it continues to put too much pressure on a horse already screaming for release from it.


  Putting your hands around their face is a stressful thing for many horses.  They are prey animals, and if you observe how predators take down similar animals like zebra and deer, you'll notice that they'll either primarily go for the neck (think wolves) or mouth (think lions).  This feeling of having things pulling on the face and hands close to the mouth all of the time increases anxiety in most horses.  Yes you should be able to handle your horse in such a way that if there's an emergency or medication that needs to be applied somewhere or a bump needs to be checked out, that your horse will let you touch him all over.  However, this takes time, trust, and slow training.  Most horses don't get this slow approach to training, so the trust is never fully built, and making up for it by grabbing onto the horses halter and essentially dragging him around by it does more harm than good and fixes nothing. 


  Eventually the root of his problems were sorted out and his retraining began.  He started to have better associations with the saddle, but the bit took a lot longer.  He no longer got bitey when you were tacking him up, but he still nipped and acted "grumpy" when being led around.  This is when I was asked for help.


  She was working with him in the secondary aisle way of the barn, leading him up and down past the empty stalls trying to get him to be less nippy when working with him on the ground.  She was holding onto the halter a lot, and after asking me to observe her and give her any advice, I took him for a few laps myself to get a better feel for him.  The first time I followed her suggestion of holding the halter so I could protect myself from his head, and he threw it around and tried to bite me a couple of times.  On the way back after I turned him around, I loosened my grip and only held onto the very end of his lead rope.  After the first few steps back he did indeed try to nip my side but a quick movement of my hand and stopping in my tracks to look at him deterred him.  I continued to lead him up and down the aisle and he never tried to nip at me again.  I let him follow behind me at the distance he wanted, and eventually I got him to walk beside me by just letting him come closer when he felt ready to.  Eventually I looped the lead over his neck and tied it to itself making makeshift reins so he wouldn't trip on it (but I could grab him if needed) and didn't hold onto him anymore.  He followed me up and down the aisle many more times without me having to grab the lead to correct him and was more relaxed by the end. 


  He just needed less pressure.  I created a draw by giving him more space, and yes some people may think that having a grumpy nippy horse behind you would be dangerous, and yes he tried to bite me once from behind, but he was just testing what he could and couldn't get away with.  One correction that was not physical was all it took for him to know that I was aware of any tricks he might pull and that he would only get more pressure if he kept it up (yes, looking at a horse is pressure for a horse, and I had stopped right in front of him and locked eyes on him when he tried that little trick). 

 
  Creating a draw is a release of pressure, but one where the horse actively wants to come to or stay with you.  He knew that if he followed me I wouldn't be grabbing his face and I was smart enough of a leader to keep my wits about me and keep his feet moving using draw.  When I turned him around to do another lap, I didn't turn away from him, but did use a little pressure by turning into him so his feet would move first.  I just had to push my personal space bubble into his and he moved.  Horses are very sensitive to space and pressure and i'll go into this topic more in another post.  He got little pressure from me other than that first lap and correction, and by the end of it, while he had his ears pinned back when others tried trotting him before, he followed me at a trot through the barn and seemed more relaxed than when we had started. 


  This did not fix him.  Of course it wouldn't!  It takes time to retrain and if people had taken the proper amount of time to train him to begin with, we wouldn't have had to retrain him and get him to associate people with good things. 


  After this session with him that I treated as just two peeps hanging out and not really a training session, some people who saw or talked to me after were better about not leading by the halter, but some people still refused to let go of their supposed safety net.  Last I saw of him, he still hated being led around by most people, but he still did so much better with those that had a looser hold of his lead rope and who worked with him a lot more.  He trusted those people.


  Inconsistent training and different people leading him in different ways means that there will always be some issues for him, but horses are smart and know if you really get how horses work or not.  He is very well behaved for those people.  They are always watching you, even when you're working with another horse at the barn or in the field.  If you're having troubles with a horse, ask yourself if you're being clear about what you're asking of them, how others are working with them, and if you're putting too much pressure and not enough release. 


  I hope this has been helpful to someone, or at least an interesting story!