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~ Pam Brown

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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.

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

 

Copyright © 08/13/15 Lynn S. Larson
Copyright © 03/18/2018 Lynn S. Larson 

Are you looking for something more in your riding?  Something that really connects the inside and the outside? Sometimes a hands on experience can do a lot to clarify something written.
I've studied horse and human anatomy for twenty five years.  I started with Centered Riding and that is solidly based upon how bodies work and how brains process information.  I know Alexander, Feldenkrais, Trigger Point, myofascial, Ortho-bionomy, how to develop resistance training programs, and more recently I am incorporating concepts from Body-Mind-Centering.  I've done yoga for more than forty years, studied (and used) the chakra and meridian systems for over twenty.  Sometimes I don't go into theory because in the middle of a lesson it would detract from the practical learning of how to ride, but I do clinics where I share this information along with how to incorporate it into your training program.  And if you really don't mind listening to me yak forever, I can easily do that during a lesson, too.  It's just most folks want to ride!  

 

Copyright © 11/30/17 - present Lynn S. Larson
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