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Training Mythunderstandings -- Horse Logic
by Ron Meredith |
Parkersburg, WV, Sept. 1997 -- Good horse training
is boring to watch. It looks like nothing is happening. Many people are impressed by
training methods that are nothing more than a blatant series of attacks on the horse
because they are dramatic to watch. However, physically dominating a horse does not teach
him anything. To train a horse, you must use mental strength, not physical strength.
Training horses starts with understanding how their
minds work. You have to understand what is logical to the horse. The horse's mind does not
work the same way as yours. They do not associate events or a sequence of actions in the
same way we reason that things are related. To train a horse, therefore, you have to
understand how horse logic works and base your training on that.
Horses are prey animals. They are in an undesirable
position in the food chain and they know this. Their eyes are on the outside of their
heads so they can see danger coming from any direction. When we approach a horse, it has
no way of knowing what our actual intent is. It can only observe our actions and make a
decision that it is safe to stay put or safer to flee.
When a large cat approaches a group of gazelles as a
hunter, the whole herd will start running and try to escape until one of them is killed.
Once its hunt has been successful, the cat's tail goes down and its muscles relax. Now it
can pick up its kill and walk directly through the herd and the gazelles will just go on
grazing. The cat's body language has changed from a tense alertness that telegraphs the
message "there is a hunter among us" to a more relaxed, non-threatening posture
that merely says "there is a cat walking among us" and the herd responds
accordingly.
So your first communication task in training is to
get the horse to quietly accept you as a "cat walking in the herd" rather than
as a "cat hunting within the herd." From a horse logical viewpoint, you do not
want to be seen as an attacking predator.
Your next communication task, once the horse has
quietly accepted you into its "herd," is to be the horse in control of the herd.
Stallions do not run their herds. All they are concerned with is who gets the next mare.
The lead mare controls the herd and makes the decisions. She controls the herd through
body language that the other horses clearly understand.
At Meredith Manor, we get a horse to accept us as
part of its "herd" and then we use body language to get and keep its attention
and to establish ourselves as the lead mare. We first use horse body language to play with
the horse, then we use body language to get and keep the horse's attention. Now we can add
body language that creates a corridor of pressures that start to shape the horse's
behavior. We create the desired shapes on the ground, then we transfer the concept of
corridors and shapes into our under saddle work. When done correctly, the entire system is
very logical to the horse. There is no need for physical restraints or physical punishment
and the horse never feels "attacked"
Let me give you an example of how mythunderstandings
about training happen when people substitute human logic for horse logic. When a horse is
scared or upset, it tenses and its head goes up. Human logic says that to create the
desired shape (a lower head carriage), all you have to do is tie the horse's head down
until the horse "understands." However, if the horse is tense because the
training methods were scaring or confusing it, this will only make the problem worse. From
a horse logical standpoint, the tie down is only another threat or attack. If the
trainer's techniques were horse logical in the first place so that the horse remained
relaxed, its head and neck would eventually have the desired shape without the need for
mechanical aids.
People who train by presenting the horse with a task
then punishing the animal in some way when it doesn't "get it" are on the wrong
track. They think they are teaching the horse a lesson. But the horse understands their
"correction" only as an attack, a threat. No real learning takes place. By
fighting with a horse, the only thing you are teaching it is that the biggest, baddest one
wins. You give the horse no clues about how to do things methodically and logically.
It is also important for trainers to realize that
horses do not understand or recognize human feelings. But our human feelings often create
conflicts for us and our horses. If we don't plan our actions ahead when training, our
actions will be guided by feelings and instincts. Since man is a natural predator with an
instinct for combat, the very first thing young males often do when frustrated is to
fight. And the more scared they are, the more willing they are to fight. When people make
a big fuss in front of others, posturing about how they are handling this big, dangerous
horse, very often it is because they are afraid you are going to realize they are not
really in control.
Training is just like swallowing a big ball of
string. It would be impossible to swallow it all at once. But if you eat it an inch at a
time, break the task down into really small bits, it is easy. Getting the horse's
attention is the first bite of the string we call training. Most of the myth-understandings
about training come about because people try to swallow too big a chunk of string. You
must go bit by bit, using a methodical series of actions to get the horse's attention and
direct the horse's attention without threatening or attacking him. Training a horse
involves dominating him mentally, not physically. And you must systematically introduce
new shapes or tasks to him in a way that is logical to the horse according to his
natural instincts rather than your human instincts and logic. |
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