Tag Archives: horse trainers

No Pain – Lots of Gain!

We hear a lot about fear-based horse training. We don’t hear much about how bodywork can raise a horse’s fear threshold if done without regard to his/her feelings.

It’s very common for horses to be afraid of bodywork, especially if they have received fear-based training or a number of unpleasant veterinary procedures. Of course, veterinary procedures and surgeries are often non-negotiable. When I have a procedure personally, I can only imagine what that feels like to the horse who doesn’t understand why it’s being done to him or her.

The number of horses who have huge built in resistance is astronomical, and also some of those horses have shut down emotionally to be able to tolerate what has been done to them. Just look at the overflowing horse shelters. A huge number of these horses have arrived at the shelter abused, malnourished and neglected. Many come in afraid of the farrier, the vet, being caught, needles, lifting their hooves, being ridden – the list is endless. They may be in a lot of pain as well. They have an elaborate network of resistances holding them together, yet they are fragile, reactive or shut down, stuck in their flight/fright/freeze mode. In order to receive basic veterinary and farrier care, some may need to be sedated.

The inquiry phase of bodywork.

If you come to one of those horses with intrusive bodywork techniques, and that horse isn’t happy to see you, don’t take it personally. I see many of these horses who are overly cautious about what I might do to them. How do I work with them, relax them? First of all, I work on being as unthreatening as I possibly can be. And I don’t mean acting like I’m unthreatening, I mean really being unthreatening. I check in with myself – where are my resistances? Where might a horse pick up something that makes them nervous? I make sure I’m centered, that I’m not distracted, that I am just being. I have had a lot of practice doing this, but I think it’s practice worth investing in. Just be, chat with the horse a little. Lay your hand in front of the withers and talk softly. You may need to touch sore spots just to get information, but that part can wait until the horse is more relaxed.

As horse people, we can make countless decisions for our horses. One decision we can make is to hire only people who will treat our horse kindly. Of course, we need to have vets doing things that are unpleasant, as those procedures are designed to save lives. Vets are fundamentally kind, in my opinion. They are not the subject of this article.

If your horse is continually miserable or reactive during a visit from any practitioner, it may be worthwhile to re-evaluate that professional relationship.

If it takes me half a session to get a horse relaxed enough to accept and absorb the work I’m doing, I want to look at the whole picture. Is the horse in a lot of pain? What is the horse’s trauma history? Who else works with this horse and how?

Some horses have received so much abuse that they need a lot of work emotionally and psychically. They may be in their forever home, but their trauma is very deep rooted and challenging to change. Hopefully, owners will invest in this rehabilitative process. Some horses may be enduring ongoing veterinary treatments that are stressing them out.

I worked consistently with a horse who would get better after the session but the next week, would be angry and upset again. I learned later that she was being abused by a trainer in the time in between. It is similar  to when a child is being continually abused in the home, and gets better with various programs offered at school. But the child can’t move forward in development and remains in a holding pattern because the parental abuse brings the child right back to the origin of the problem, reinforcing it as other positive influences are trying to heal it. This is the agony of all child protective services as well.

I cannot move forward with the healing work if the animal is going to go back into the abusive situation.

Sometimes I find that the owner isn’t aware of what other professionals are doing with their horses.

Finding the right professionals requires moving out of our comfort zone sometimes, where we are not expecting pain to be part of the healing process unless it is a veterinary procedure. Humans are accustomed to expecting pain – even exercise programs are designed around the “no pain – no gain” principle. When bodybuilders come for a human bodywork session, very often they want to push against me with brute force when I ask for an isometric exercise. I will then ask them to just “think it.” This can be a new concept to those who are accustomed to leaving the gym like limp noodles.

There is a time and place for everything. The work at the gym is exercise. I break it down this way – bodywork, stretching and then exercise. The bodywork should prepare or rehabilitate the body without expecting anything of it and allow it to self-correct. The stretching keeps muscles and fascia supple so the body doesn’t seize up when it gets to the exercise part. The exercise keeps the body moving, encourages circulation and therefore nourishes the blood supply and all the organs, soft tissue and structure. It’s best to have all three, but if the body is injured and can’t exercise, then the other two must be employed before we can expect more from the body. We must give the body the right information to set it on its path for healing.

If the bodywork is too vigorous and sets the individual back, then it will take days to recover from it. Many people don’t know if the bodywork their animal is receiving is doing any good, but they keep paying for it because others at the barn are using the same person. It’s a routine, sort of like getting the teeth floated, vaccinations or using the same trainer. In their minds, if they continue to do it, they are doing a good thing for their horse. Or there is peer pressure and they may be afraid to change. Important information about healthy options needs to be made available.

Bodywork that causes beings to go into recoil and not want to engage is not allowing the body to find its own self-corrective response. Why is this important? Because when we engage the self-corrective response, ask the body which way it likes to go, what’s its preference, it comes forward and there is life and change in its response. Otherwise, the body is not a participant. It’s plain and simple. The body is being “done to” rather than engaged with.

A lot of people think of bodywork as a “spa” treatment only, unaware of the vast therapeutic benefits of a good session. A session should encompass mental and spirit well-being as well as deep musculoskeletal, fascia and visceral. I say “spirit” well-being instead of spiritual because I don’t mean it to be a religious experience, I mean that we are working with the very unique, individual spirit of the animal, on a level it can absorb and embrace.

Fortunately, awareness of animals’ voices is increasing. There are fewer people thumping on horses without regard to how they are receiving therapeutic work and more people eager to take the time to really be with the horse for however short time they have to make a difference. Without burning bridges, it’s up to us to build a team of worthwhile professionals who reflect the goals we have for our equines.

What changes should you look for in your horse during or after a bodywork session?

Certified Equine Body Balance Practitioner Kelly Reed works intuitively and gently to achieve full relaxation and engagement.

• In most cases, the horse should have better flexibility after the session, the tissue moving under the skin fluidly, topline relaxed.
• The limbs and joints should move better, and in cases of lameness, the horse should stride better if not be free of signs of lameness. These are individual cases.
• The horse should have improved respiration.
• Any horse should have a softer or brighter look in his/her eye and be less worried, if he/she was a worried one before. The horse should be more engaged.
• A horse who is immobile due to stall rest or laminitis will have some tissue changes and perhaps improvement in small movement.
• Organic changes will also result in relaxation, dropping of tension, better overall movement; in some cases, better digestion, greater energy.

Horses Take the World Stage

The Tokyo Olympics 2021 pentathlon event, which involves participants who are proficient in fencing, freestyle swimming, equestrian show jumping, pistol shooting and cross-country running, resulted in mishaps and angry, abusive people at the equestrian segment. Why is that?

Getty image

The course, up to 1.20 m, flooded the equine and other media, and some Olympic medalists say that the reason the horses balked at jumps, reared, and dumped their riders in the competition was because they only had 20 minutes to “get to know” their riders before performing. These are horses that are well schooled, provided especially for this event and riders select horses from a random draw. The people riding are also not necessarily good riders – one article said that some don’t even know how to do a rising trot! They may be excellent at swimming, fencing, pistol shooting, but not at the riding part, which would then indicate that they can’t manage a horse well under normal circumstances but particularly when it goes into stress mode.

The whole event is stressful, let’s face it. That horses can and do perform under such conditions is quite phenomenal.

Horses don’t think as humans do. The coach who punched a horse and instructed her rider to whip the horse was obviously completely out of line, pulled along by anger and frustration. While the horse napped, the rider was seen hitting and kicking the horse. As he neared the fence, the coach leaned over and struck him with her fist. The horse wasn’t doing well physically to begin with or he wouldn’t have been trying to sleep.

Many complained about horses’ performance overall. Other horses resisted the jumps too. But the horse is always right. So whatever was going on here started with the humans and their lack of understanding and concern for the horses’ needs.

Basically the absence of a relationship built with the horse over a longer period of time, plus disregard for the horse and rider’s mental well being, contributed to the breakdown in the first place. Physical violence added to that created chaos, and that chaos rippled through the horsie-verse like a bolt of lightning. Shared consciousness. We’re outta here. The horses bonded in a universally panicked response. Some held their ground and did okay. But too many horses who weren’t smacked around responded with resistance and fear.

Once that chaos and fear zoomed through the other horses, they reverted to their herd instinct. I have a mental image of them all running from the arena together. That didn’t happen of course because there is a cast of thousands in that arena managing the horses.

These are horses who have no relationship with their riders. They are ridden by many different riders in preparation for this event and considered “schoolmasters.” But to go through an event at this high level of stress, they need the relationship. When things get scary it’s not enough to simply know how to ride, you need to know the way that animal thinks, moves, it’s preferences, what frightens it, know it deep down so that you can set up the best possible outcome. If introducing a horse to new things, it’s best if he has a familiar, much loved person to help him or her through it all.

Horses don’t think like humans, they don’t have a pre-frontal cortex like we do, so we can figure out how to pay bills and how to write articles about horses, etc. But what they do have is a motor cortex, and the motor cortex allows them to learn patterns and behaviors. They learn good ones just as easily as bad ones. They have the ability to form deep relationships. But they are going to operate instinctively if frightened, and in some cases forget everything they know in an instant.

They will be able to recover from upset much easier if they and their person are bonded, fused in a way that may not be visible to the outside casual observer. When I watched some of the really bonded Olympic pairs, such as Charlotte DeJardin and her new horse, I feel that they enjoy each other. Some others are operating on automatic.

This is not to say that all horses need their special person all the time. There are some people who can come into the presence of a horse they don’t know and the horse is immediately comforted and there is no question. The horse wants an immediate bond, without the preparation of years. Some trainers have this ability to infuse confidence in a horse right away. Even in these cases, the riding relationship is different than the on-the-ground relationship. The horse may not want the person he has just met to climb on his back, in spite of feeling happy in their presence.

I have ridden horses on endurance rides whom I didn’t know, but was fortunate enough to ride them the night before, brush and play with them a little bit, and everything turned out alright. I was also riding alongside the owner so she could advise me as to how to manage her, her preferences, how much contact, etc. I was acutely aware of how the horse moved differently from my own, and but relied on my general knowledge for that part of the journey. By the end of the ride, I always wanted to buy the horse (not for sale!), because we had had such a great time together.

Keep in mind this is over 50 or so miles, about 6-10 hours in the saddle, not a short stint in an Olympic arena that involves maybe 5-10 minutes of connection! Plus the stress level is way down on the meter. We were riding to win a t-shirt, not an Olympic gold medal.

I’m so glad to hear that the German Olympic federation has called for a rule change to address the excessive demands on the horse-rider teams.

The fact that so many horses lost their cookies at this event affirms their strength in numbers, their wonderful herd instinct that can sometimes  get them into trouble. They also exposed some human cruelty and ego. In this case, horses took the world stage, if not the medals. Well done, horses!

 

Where does our love of horses come from?

Continue reading Where does our love of horses come from?

Horse Loss and Love

It’s a rainy day as I write this. A rainy day in New Mexico is generally cause for celebration. The state squeaks out 13.85 inches average rainfall per year.

Continue reading Horse Loss and Love

Nurturing the “Seeking Mechanism” in Horses

The “seeking mechanism” is a part of most mammals, according to neuroscientist and psychobiologist Jaak Panksepp, author of the book and concept, Affective Neuroscience, the study of  the neural mechanisms of emotion. For the sake of understanding our horses, it is a huge part of what makes us interesting to them. Curiosity about food, what we’re doing, what we might do with them, can help nurture and define our training process.

In nature, horses will seek different types of grasses, seek shelter, water, companionship, safety. Those are basic needs. How do we engage their interest? Is it always with a cookie, or can we engage them in other ways?

At the same time horses spend all day doing repetitive actions, such as moving each other off food, or space, and so that may seem very dull and uninteresting to us. They are moving each other for their health, and to find out what the other horse might be eating that might be more tasty. And that brings us back to the seeking mechanism. With their noses to the ground, they are seeking new plants, smells and experiences.

This type of natural foraging isn’t something we can provide much of in the west. Our grasses get eaten and take awhile to grow back since we have limited rainfall. But when rainfall occurs, grass pops up overnight, and the horses’ excitement about those new shoots is noticeable.

Here are some ways we can foster curiosity in the horse and get him interested in what we might have to offer:

  1. Take an interest in what your horse is interested in. This may not be easy to do if you’ve got limited time, but it can make a huge difference to how the horse views you and how relaxed he feels in your presence.

When you think about other humans, it’s difficult to be in the presence of someone who has no interest in what you’re interested in. In this way, horses are a lot like us.

Jicarita Peak ride, 12,000 feet elevation

2. Change things around. Ride somewhere different, do some of your schooling on the trail or down the road in someone else’s arena. My horses always loved the trail, though I know all horses don’t. I took them everywhere, all over our state and three adjacent states, riding new trails.

 

 

Take the focus off the horse. Kids get so immersed in what they’re doing, horses can often find them fascinating. In order to be more interesting, sometimes I’ll take a piece of tack to repair and sit with the horses, so I’m fully engaged with something other than the horse. In this photo, Kaiden is playing with one of his toys, and Patches wants to be a part of it.  Little did I know at the time that building a fort would be an activity of interest for my young mare, Jazzie.

 

 

 

4. Introduce something new. While my mares are not very interested in toys, my geldings have always enjoyed big exercise balls. You can see the different responses of these four…

Little Gizmo
Fearless Khami
Patches showing off

 

 

 

 

Zuzka is not thrilled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Add laughter to your day.  I’ve had some funny experiences with laughter and horses.  Once in a clinic, we had a very shut down horse who thought humans only wanted him to do things, so he simply went through the motions like a robot. We changed things up and brought him into the arena while we were doing a human energetic exercise. People began laughing as they practiced being horses and played with the idea of moving each other around. This horse Tank was so curious about the people laughing that he came to hang out with us so he could be part of the fun. This changed everything for him. From thereon he began to have fun and got very engaged with each person who worked with him.

Tank wants to be part of the fun

Jaak Panksepp did a lot of research on varying topics, but one I love is the research on laughter in non-human animals. He researched primates, dogs, and rats, but no horses. While I have no clinical research, I think it would be fun to see if horses emit sounds like laughter, and will laugh with us. Certainly sometimes their expressions suggest that they do!

(c) Susan Smith, Horses at Liberty Foundation Training, Equine Body Balance (TM)

Please see my

Events for information on upcoming clinics and workshops. 2018 calendar is developing! Workshops scheduled for Santa Fe, Florida, Wisconsin and Oregon!

Tank joining the group

 

 

 

What? No more riding?

Many people have expressed to me great sadness over not being able to ride a beloved horse anymore. In many cases, it’s not just that they want to ride, they want to ride their own horse, whom they have spent countless hours riding, who is no longer rideable for health or other reasons.IMG_0240

Continue reading What? No more riding?

The spectrum for horse and human

There is a spectrum from 0 – 100+ or maybe more in terms of engagement and levels of interaction for horse and human.

Oliver_Tina2016
Oliver takes a really long time to come over to Tina to get treats.

Continue reading The spectrum for horse and human

Do you have your horse’s vote?

What if, every presidential hopeful had to go into the corral with a few horses? America could stand outside the corral and tally up the results. Which types of horses would gravitate to what people? Would some candidates be left off to the side?

Continue reading Do you have your horse’s vote?

Build a horse bridge from “the way we’ve always done things” to true liberty

Lately, I have been suggesting people go back to the traditional “the way we’ve always done it” training and see if they see a difference in the way their horse responds. Does she like it or not?

IMG_0797 Continue reading Build a horse bridge from “the way we’ve always done things” to true liberty

The great unknown of rescue horses

Everyone who has taken on a rescue horse, or a horse from families who have passed them on, or a horse they have purchased, but then found the horse really is a rescue – experience the great unknown.

Cathy_Ambertalking Continue reading The great unknown of rescue horses