The Best Student

One of the worst statements you can make in any given learning situation is, "I know that already." As soon as you utter these words, either out loud, or to yourself, you have just shut down any learning opportunity you might be afforded. We have heard this statement come out of many student's mouths over the years. As soon as I hear the words come out of someone's mouth, I know that their ability to learn has just been impeded.

Ray Kroc once said, "when you're green, you're growing, when you're ripe you rot." I am not fond of the McDonald's food chain, but I must admit that as far as horsemanship goes, this saying is right on. As soon as you close your mind, nothing else can enter.

The best students that we have are the ones who come to lessons open minded about the learning process. This is very tough for adult humans to do. For some reason when we are young, it is easy to come to a learning situation without having to utter the phrase, "I know that already." When we grow into adulthood, the phrase gets thrown around quite a bit.

When we teach clinics we tell people that the only dumb question is the one you failed to ask. But people fail to ask questions all the time, and I think it is because they are afraid of looking dumb. To which I say, get over it. If you want to learn you have to get over the fear of looking stupid, or of asking the wrong question, or of not knowing something.

According to Albert Einstein, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." I cannot tell you now many times I have witnessed people with their horses doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the horse to behave differently, all because their ego gets in the way of saying a very simple four letter word: "help."

Imagine you have just fallen off of a cruise ship by accident. There you are bobbing in the water with the ship sailing away from you into the vast beyond and you don't open your mouth to yell help all because you are afraid of looking bad. This is what many people do with horses. They get injured, then when they heal, they change nothing about the horse or themselves, then they get injured again, then when they heal they still dont change anything, then they get injured again... you get my point.

Change something. Anything, but preferably for the better. Admit that you don't know something and get some help. Isn't that better than expecting a different outcome and getting hurt again?

All Horses Are Bad

Yup, you heard me: All horses are bad. At least, every horse, at some point in their lives, does something unwanted by a human, which can be labelled "bad." Some behaviors are worse than others, but my point is, horses are just trying to survive given what skills they have already learned in their lives, and all humans are just trying to survive with the their own set of skills.

My wife was once offered ten thousand dollars for her very talented and sweet mare Pepper (pictured above standing on a rock at a trail-head.) She politely turned down the offer. The fact of the matter is, Pepper did not come to us the "perfect horse" that she is. She actually came to us knowing very little, and was even afraid of a few things she learned to be afraid of thanks to some human or other. Her nickname at her previous barn was "the bitch." Now Pepper is not a bitch, she was presumably smarter than the people with whom she found herself surrounded at the time, a not uncommon situation for a lot of horses.

There is a saying in horsemanship that the horse either rises or falls to the skill level of the rider/handler. Had my wife sold Pepper to the woman for ten thousand dollars, and had the woman been less skilled than Lorri, perfect Pepper would have fallen to the skill of the other rider. Likewise if the woman who had theoretically bought Pepper were more skilled than Lorri, then Pepper would have risen to the task. That is a testament to how smart horses are and how skilled or not humans are.

The biggest problem with humans is that some of them are lazy. A large number of humans would like to purchase the perfect horse without actually doing any work to either get the horse better or to keep the horse at the skill level where they were when they got it. I have had many people over the years jokingly ask me if I would trade my horse (with whom I have spent countless hours) with their horse, who they just pulled out of the barn for the first time in a year. My answer, of course, is always: "no."

Instead of committing to doing the work, i.e. taking lessons, watching videos, spending some quality time with their horses, making a few mistakes here and there, teaching them to have the appropriate response to pressure, people would rather have someone else do the work for them. When they do acquire a horse that is skilled and handy and safe, things go OK for a while, but then after weeks or months of having the horse, different behaviors pop up that they don't know how to handle. The horse has not changed, but has just come down to the level of the rider. What happens next is all too common. The horse gets the blame for their bad behavior and then is sold down the line to the next person too lazy to commit to doing things in a different manner, and then the horse gets sold again and again and again, and may end up at the kill pen.

So what can people do? First of all, recognize your current skill level and commit to getting it better forever, and secondly, recognize that if you are having problems with a horse, it may not be the horse's fault. Spend some time with that horse and show them what you would like them to do. You might be surprised how intelligent many horses can be, and how easy it can be for them to learn new things.

No matter what discipline you are in, if you need help with your horse, please seek it out someone qualified to help you. There is an internet meme which reads, "Most people don't need a thirty thousand dollar horse. Most people need a thousand dollar horse and thirty thousand dollars worth of lessons." Please do not send a horse down the road to the next home until you are truly sure that the horse you just purchased is not for you. Better still, take someone who knows horse behavior with you to see your next potential riding partner to check them out. The old saying goes, "most horses don't have a future, they only have a past." Let's do something to change that saying - for the horse's sake.

What the Snaffle?

All too frequently when we see folks ride their horses with a snaffle bit, we see them using it incorrectly. This blog looks at the proper and improper fit and use of the snaffle bit.

What is a snaffle? A snaffle is a non-leverage bit. It can have 2 or 3 joined pieces, and comes in many shapes and sizes including: d-Ring, off set d-ring, rubber d, o-ring, French link, loose ring, egg butt, gag, full cheek, smooth wire, twisted wire, straight, curved, thicker, thinner, hollow...jump down turn around pick a bale of cotton. They can be made of all types of metal, copper, brass, stainless, and steel. Which snaffle you choose to use is a personal preference.

Like all bits, a snaffle is meant to fit in the diastema (space) between a horses front teeth (the canines,) and the back teeth (the molars.) A proper fit is essential to having a happy horse and good communication. There is an old saying that a snaffle should be fit in a horse's mouth with either one wrinkle or two in the lips. We suggest to people that they leave the wrinkles out of the equation all together. Rather, find where a wrinkle starts and then back it off just a little. The photo above this blog is a good illustration of a properly fitting snaffle.

As far as function is concerned, the snaffle bit is a lateral device. It is meant to be used in a lateral, or side to side motion, left or right. Proper use and understanding of a direct rein and an indirect rein is essential if one is to use the snaffle in the way it is intended.

A snaffle is not meant to be used the same way that a shank bit is used, which is used in a vertical fashion. A common error folks make with a snaffle is to neck rein with it, usually one handed. (keep in mind that a snaffle can be used with one hand, but it must be used properly and with the idea that either the left or the right rein should be activated at one time.) When someone neck reins with a snaffle, what happens is the person would like to turn to the right, but the horse's nose turns to the left. The horse can and will travel to the right, but it will do so in a physically challenging and inefficient position.

If you are unsure how to use a snaffle properly, it is best to get some basic instruction. Snaffles can hurt horses even though they are often touted as less aggressive. If used improperly they can cut a horse's tongue, injure the bars in the horse's mouth or damage the sensitive tissue on the roof of the horse's mouth. Choose your bit wisely, but use your hands even more wisely.

But My Horse Understands Me!

Perhaps you have seen this person, or perhaps you are this person: A horse is stepping backward out of a trailer. The human who is asking the horse to back out of the trailer is standing, watching the horse back out and the entire time is repeating the word "back, back, back." The horse continues to back out of the trailer and the person thinks that they horse understands the word "back." 

As a natural horsemanship enthusiast, this type of behavior is baffling to me. Because I understand that horses are incapable of discerning speech based human created language, I have never spoken to my horse and assumed that they understand me. It is just phyically impossible for a horse to understand human speech. Their brains are not made that way.

Thanks to researchers, scientists and animal behavior experts, we have a fairly clear understanding of the way horse's brains physically work. Dr. Stephen Peters, a neuro-psychologist, and Martin Black, a well know horse trainer, have written a book called Evidence Based Horsemanship, which I encourage everyone to read. It is a scientific explanation of the way a horse's brain works. For those science nerdy types like me, you will find the science in this book very fascinating. For those of you not so enamored of lengthy physiology-based speech, you might not enjoy it as much. 

As far as language and the horse's brain is concerned, they have this to say:

"The third layer (of the brain,) is the neocortex or cerebral cortex. It makes up most of the human brain. Language, speech, and writing are all possible because of this layer. It’s also where we perform abstract thinking, organize things, categorize ideas, reason and multi-task. The large human neocortex versus the underdeveloped version of the equine is one of the most notable differences between the way humans and horses operate."

Notice that they put the most important part of this paragraph in bold. Notice too that they use the phrase "underdeveloped." It isn't that horses have no neocortex, it's just underdeveloped, meaning their capacity to interpret, understand and react to human language is very limited or close to non-existent. 

This is always the point in the conversation where people say to me, "but he understands me when I say T-rot." You simply cannot convince people who think that their horse understands English that he doesn't, in fact, understand English. And on that note, why does he understand English and not French or Italian or Swahili? Nope, he only understands the English language. What a spectacularly chauvenistic beast.

I like to use the example of traveling to a foreign country where they speak a different language than us. (By the way, Canada is a foreign country, and French is spoken there, so technically you can use Quebec as an example, but only just barely, and only if you don't speak Francais.)

Let's say you are on vacation in Portugal and you need to use the restroom. Shouting at a Portuguese person - who is non-English speaking - is pointless. Pretty soon you will resort to using body language (which is universal by the way,) in order to get your point across. This is the same thing as speaking to a horse using human language. They just don't get it, and so repeating yourself or being so anthropomorphic as to assume they can understand you is not natural, and is not in any way, shape, or form, understanding the true nature of the horse.

So the next time you are tempted to open your mouth to talk to your horse, please remember that if you were in Portugal right now, you'd likely be wetting your pants.

Why What Trainers Say Matters

They say that if you want to study body language all you need to do is watch television with the sound turned off. A similar thing happens with horse training: if you close your eyes and focus on listening to what a person says, you can learn a lot.

I am a firm believer that the language we choose when dealing with horses reflects on a grand scale our inner feelings about them and how they should be treated. If we look at some common words used by many traditional trainers will illustrate my point: "make," "kick," "tell," and the all too common phrase, "show the horse who's boss." These words all indicate force and the general conception that the human is going to get a horse to do something come hell or high-water.

Let's look more closely at the word "make." If I would like you to do something with me and I politely ask you to do it, i.e. "would you please help me pick up this sofa?," that is very different than if I try to make you do it by hitting you with a frying pan. In the first instance I was as polite as possible, in asking you to help me. Hopefully, if I ask nicely enough you will help me, and I will get my sofa moved. If, however, I whack you with a frying pan, you will either help me and hate me for it, or simply refuse to help me at all. If you are a horse like my wife, you will grab the frying pan out of my hand, hit me over the head with it and I still won't have my sofa moved.

We see the frying pan method of horse training happen all the time. Horses, unlike humans, often don't have the ability to say no to someone trying to force them to do something, so they either comply or they can't wait for it to be over.

Some time ago we were at an eventing show when I overheard a trainer yell to a kid competing on her horse, "kick harder, kick harder." In addition to feeling sorry for the girl's horse, I felt sorry for the girl, for being taught by an adult to be so rude and horrible to a prey animal. Young children should be taught kindness and compassion toward animals, not force and coercion. And unfortunately, this attitude is all too common in the world of horses, and particularly when competition is involved. Competition can turn normally nice people into frying pan wielding monsters.

So the next time you are with your horse, or you are taking a lesson from someone, or you are just watching someone else with their horse, pay attention to the words they use, and when you do, realize that the words they choose directly represent the way they view horses in general. And ask yourself if you were a horse, how would you like someone to speak to you?

Discouraged and Dismayed

Several years ago my wife and I arrived at a very much anticipated natural horsemanship clinic with Parelli instructor Dave Ellis. As we turned into the ranch driveway, I heard a big ruckus in the trailer. When we stopped to unload the horses, I discovered that my super horse Sam had pawed so much that he'd caught his foot in the hay bag. He extracted himself thankfully, and averted what could have been a bad situation.

I had noticed his pawing before. He had trailered for years and years just fine, had even been to Pagosa Springs and back with little fanfare. But suddenly, from out of nowhere, for no reason at all as the saying goes, he started to get impatient in the trailer. I had failed to notice that I had been letting him step out of the trailer in an anxious demanding state, and then after that, the negative pattern had been established. I was dismayed to say the least.

Horses are masters at outwitting, frustrating and otherwise convincing predators that they should just give up and call it a day. Let's face it, they have survived as long as they have on this planet by outlasting predators of all shapes and sizes. So when my horse began to have behavior that frustrated me, it was no surprise that I wanted to hang up my spurs and call it a day.But I didn't give up. Not that time at least. I have felt like giving up many times over the years.

Imagine what the world would look like if the best scientists in the world threw up their hands. We wouldn't have medicine to cure us, lights to turn on in the living room and cell phones with which to post photos of our favorite horses! If Einstein had given up on his theory of general relativity because he made too many mistakes, where would we all be? If we all gave up as children when we were trying to walk because it was too hard, none of us would ever stand erect.

Believe me, I get it, horsemanship can be frustrating; it can be challenging and sobering and frightening, sometimes all at the same time. But it can also be very rewarding, particularly if we can push through the discomfort to the other side. If we realize that not every day will be a good one, and that tomorrow is another day, then we ease the pressure we put on ourselves and we will enjoy the journey more.

No one ever said that horsemanship would be easy. A day at the beach - that is easy; a day with a horse will sometimes be hard, so hard that we feel like giving up. I encourage you when you feel like giving up, to take a little break. Go back to doing what you love, but only after you have rested, licked and chewed a little and realized that you are only human. You make mistakes. Your horse makes mistakes. And guess what...that's OK. Put one foot in front of the other, walk out to your horse, say you are sorry for whatever you feel that it is you've done, go grab your halter and dare to make more mistakes, for they are inevitable.  It's the only way forward. Your horse will thank you.