The most thought provoking question I have ever been asked related to training horses was “how do you know what to do?” I had just watched my student walk into the pasture to halter her horse and lead her into the arena. I had come to the lesson prepared with a week long plan for her to work on. As I was about to begin the lesson she posed the question as to how I know what methods to use as all horses, people and situations are different. At first I didn’t know how to answer the question, which then caused me to dig deep within myself to find the answer. Was it years of studying? The endless hours of repetition? Had I developed an intuitive understanding of the horses/peoples needs? Certainly it was a combination of all of those things. However I realized it was more than that and that those answers would not serve my clients in the moment. I thought a long time on that question. How exactly did I know? I thought back to my observation of my student with her mare in the pasture before the lesson.
First: While haltering her horse, the mare bumped her with her shoulder and tried to walk off.
Second: When they arrived at the gate the mare crowded her space again and pushed passed the woman as they walked through.
Lastly: Once my student had the gate closed the mare then proceeded to drag her into the arena.
My week long plan had been to get the mare to be able to back in a soft, respectful and willing manner. We would accomplish this through specific tasks such as: backing up in response to wiggling the lead rope, by pushing on the horse’s nose and lastly by asking her to back through a gate. Again I pondered how I knew that those exercises would help and how could I explain it so that my students would know what to do? After much reflection I realized that the consistent theme to how I problem solve with horses is to observe the unwanted patterns and then we teach them the opposite. I had recognized that my student’s mare had too much forward energy. So if that horse’s pattern was too much forward energy, the solution was to have her put more effort into backing up. That was an easy problem that had a simple solution. Other problems can be harder to identify but by doing your best to identify the root cause of the issue and then teaching the opposite to the horse, you will be able to solve a myriad of behavioral issues relatively quickly.
Here are some other examples:
1) Pattern – My horse is constantly leaning to the left.
Solution – Teach him to lean to the right on purpose. By teaching him to lean to the right you will cause him to find balance.
2) Pattern – My horse is too fast. This again a case of too much forward energy.
Solution – Teach him to back up. When he goes faster than the pace you requested, ask him to stop and back up. When he is able to back respectfully you can then allow him to move forward again. Once the horse realizes that every time he has too much forward energy he has to back up he will begin to self regulate the speed.
3) Pattern – My horse spooks at everything.
Solution – Teach him not to be scared of every thing you can thing of, desensitize him to everything.
4) Pattern – My horse is dull in response to all of my requests.
Solution – Teach him to be more sensitive to your most subtle cues and your levels of communication will develop greatly.
The tricky part can be identifying the pattern and knowing how to teach the opposite. However, that knowledge can help you to identify in basic terms what you’re trying to fix and allow you think of your own solution.
So go out have fun with your horse, observe some patterns and teach the opposite!