Dr Miller What
to do with those spooky horses
This last spring I took the leap and got fly predators
from Spalding Labs and, as an added perk and delightful
development, also went ahead and got the free
book
Understanding the Ancient Secrets of the Horse's Mind
by Robert M. Miller, DVM -- this is the fellow who did the
imprint training ages ago.
This book is a little
gem! There are several handy concepts in here. The one that is near and dear to my heart is 'what do to
with an idiot horse?'
Of course, that's not his words! His words
are: Desensitization to Frightening Stimuli.
And if, like me, you have a horse that can't seem to walk
and chew gum at the same time, this is great news.
While I'd always been aware of how quickly horses can
associate danger with just about anything, I'd never really
heard much about how to undo this. It seems like you
can change this quite quickly, too, if you do it
right.
It turns out I was using more of the 2nd technique he
refers to -- Progressive Desensitization, but I have to
say, I really want to give the 1st technique Habituation a shot.
Progressive Desensitization - the old fashioned way!
One of the places I was at had a nice trail through the
woods off of a meadow so of course I wanted to take my new
horse out for a stroll.
HAHAHA!
First we had to go down the lane and then down the hill
and then "O MY GOD!!!! THE WEEDS ARE TOUCHING
ME!" (Off the track thoroughbred...)
With this technique, we started out with rather small
circles up by the barn door. When those circles were
calm, I would bulge the circle a little way towards THE
DANGER ZONE - a little closer, a little less, a little
more, etc, until I could get a slightly bigger
bulging CALM circle a little bit closer to THE DANGER ZONE.
Eventually we got to the top of the small hill.
Eventually we got to the bottom of the small hill.
Eventually we went down the lane a little way and into the
meadow. Eventually there was a small circle in the
meadow. Then a large one. Then, (o thank God!)
she decided I wasn't such an idiot and we just went down
the trail.
I think it took a month.
So patience is really important here. Patience and
making sure nothing awful happens in the middle of any of
this. If something 'awful' happens, it's 'Go Back To
Start' and now go even slower.
The key is that the horse always feels they are safe and
can escape if need be - the alarm bells never get
rung. Too loudly anyway. It's like you go
towards the edge, step back, go towards the edge, step
back. Eventually the distance you are covering is no
big deal and you can edge closer still. Some day, you
get to the edge.
Habituation
This technique, while really enticing, requires some
special consideration. It relies upon a process called
flooding, in which, basically, you amp up the scary thing and
keep the horse safe until it figures out it's safe and the
scary thing isn't scary and it puts the (previously) scary
thing in the category of boring. You are intentionally
ringing the alarm bell -- rather loudly, until the horse hits
an overload point and turns it off.
It's quick, and that's the beauty of it.
The downside? If in the middle of the flooding the
horse becomes 'injured' in some way (like say you were on the
horse's back and lost your balance and the saddle bridged or
slid or something, or if you used your leg strongly even) this
will confirm to the horse the thing is seriously scary
(because it just attacked him from way over there) and you are
screwed. (You don't want this.)
So you need to think this one through and have a really
solid game plan. (The book has a much better description
of how to do this. My little overview above is only
that!)
One of the things I like about this book is that he calls
out the elephants in the room! And one of the ones
he calls out is how people inadvertently habituate horses to
be scared of things.
This is, sadly, how my problem child became a problem
child. She spooked and the trainer walked her away from
the spooky thing and got off before going through the whole
'It's not spooky' process -- which is key to either of these
techniques. And what's bad about that is that once a
horse learns spooking is an effective way to get someone off
its back, it's like the kid in the grocery store. It can
amp up.
The 'new' idea here is to use the quick learning skills of
the horse to habituate them into accepting the scary thing, as
opposed to confirming in their mind it is indeed scary.
You get it over and done with.
More info
There's more info about this book on Dr. Miller's site: http://www.robertmmiller.com/naho.html
4. The Secret
of Rapid Desensitization: The horse is more quickly
desensitized to frightening stimuli than any other animal. Why
is a flight-oriented creature so quickly desensitized to
frightening but harmless stimuli? If this weren’t so, horses
would spend all their time running and there would be no time
to eat, drink, rest, or reproduce. So horses, in nature, must
quickly learn to ignore basically frightening but harmless
things such as tumbleweeds, thunder, quail and other
herbivorous prey species, such as bison, antelope, or deer.
Once they learn, they never forget.
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My all time favorite on behavior modification is the
book Don't Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training
by Karen Pryor. She has another one, too: Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals
In the first book, she gives 8 forms of behavior
modification and the upside and downside of each of
them. Sometimes the 'less advanced' techniques are
useful, if only because they get the job done when nothing
else has worked. (And then maybe you do mop up...)
I can also recommend a few other books based upon 'Horse
Psychology' if you will.
and there's a few more ... (coffee's calling!!!)
Well, have a look at this and let me know what you think!
L
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