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Over the course of work we have done with Jaz in the
first 5 months, she has become beautifully halter-trained, and also
very light. She truly understands giving to pressure and that means
we can start working on emotional control exercises. The point of
emotional control work is that we want our horse to become
conditioned to give to pressure no matter is happening “externally”.
So whether in a parade, on the trail, at a show, a super windy day…
no matter what the external stimulus your horse is getting, she has
learned to give and to respond to your cues. You create this safety
and responsiveness by focusing on their emotional level during
through a series of exercises that takes advantage of the mental and
physical aspects to desensitize the horse to fear.
It is critical that your horse really understands
“giving” before you up the ante by asking them to listen and respond
when they are afraid. So make sure that your horse is forward,
consistent, and light for all the linework; stopping and starting
when you ask, as soon as you ask, before you introduce elements of
de-spooking.
Let me quickly mention that basically, de-spooking
and sacking-out are the same idea. Sacking out is a term that’s been
used for years, since it literally began with using grain and other
sacks to de-sensitize a horse to external stimuli. De-spooking is a
term that has become more common, and it really just encompasses the
whole range of emotional control work.
I typically begin de-spooking work with a tarp. I
think many trainers have come to recognize what a great all-around
training aid a tarp can be. The goal of the first exercise is to get
the horse to stand on the tarp. It’s important to begin by making it
very easy for them, so I always start with the tarp folded up pretty
narrow, which the horse perceives as much less of a threat.
I start with the standard change of direction
linework that we have discussed in previous columns. The trick is to
ask the horse for the stop and to change direction, at the furthest
point away from the tarp at first. This will be the most comfortable
for them. And make the tarp narrow enough if they are very fearful,
that they can easily jump over it.
So put your horse on a 12-20 foot lead, and put
the tarp on the ground at the far point from you but that so the
horse will need to go over or near it when you ask her to go in a
circle. Cue the horse to go forward and if the horse balks at the
tarp, keep cuing until it goes near or over the tarp. Then stop the
horse at the farthest point from the tarp. Pause for a minute to
reward the horse, then pick up and ask the horse to change direction
and go over or near the tarp from the other direction.
What typically happens is that the horse will at
first balk, or run around the tarp, jump over it, and then finally
start going over it, by bolting or hopping over it, then slowing to
a more controlled canter, then trot, and then will finally walk over
it.
Your job as the trainer will be to recognize
progress and reward it. First of all, let the horse select the gait
in which to cross the tarp at first. As long as it is going forward,
the speed does not matter. Next always, always, always let the horse
stop and sniff the tarp if she wants to. Horses should be allowed to
smell and paw at the tarp – it will greatly increase their comfort.
You will see signs that the horse’s emotional
level is dropping when you start to notice that the horse is moving
more casually, (rather than being frantic), and certainly if you see
any signs of licking or chewing. Also as the horse stops jumping or
avoiding the tarp and is making more contact when crossing it, you
are making good progress.
As you continue the exercise, you will start
asking the horse to stop and change direction closer and closer to
the tarp each time. So where you begin at the farthest point away,
as you see signs the horse is relaxing, you should then ask the
horse to stop perhaps 15 degrees closer to the tarp, and then when
the horse continues to be relaxed closer to the tarp, another 15
degrees closer. The eventual goal is that that you are asking the
horse for the stop and pause closer and closer, until the horse is
right on top of the tarp, or with any feet touching the tarp while
standing When you have accomplished this, you have completed the
exercise successfully.
Now how long this takes will vary tremendously
with different horses. Jaz was pretty typical. She did some jumping
over it and trying to avoid it at first, but she is does have a
fairly low emotional level about most things and within 15-20
minutes she was standing fully on the tarp pawing at it. In fact
because she did so well, I widened the tarp and did the next
exercise of having her cross a fairly wide expanse of tarp. You
would never want to do this unless you are sure the horse is ready,
but once she had accepted that tarp. She was very nonchalant about
it.
Now I have had horses in training that were so
terrified of the tarp that I needed to start the line work 50 feet
away from where the tarp was on the ground, and then oh so slowly
work them closer and closer to it – and sometimes not all in one
day. It’s the same approach, the change of direction line work
getting closer and closer, but you have to move at the horse’s speed
of acceptance and in the event you have a very emotional horse, you
do not want to push him too hard or fast. Wait for signs of progress
and a lowered emotional state before you move closer to the object,
and stay at that until you see progress. And do not quit the
exercise until you see significant progress.
What is significant progress? Any improvement of
50% or better. So if your horse was high as a kite 50 feet away from
the tarp, and you got him to be relaxed working 25 feet or closer to
the tarp, that is significant progress.
So with Jaz, the first tarp exercise went pretty
much as expected. I then worked her with a plastic bag on a dressage
whip (another common training tool), and for that I got a more
dramatic reaction, though I was not surprised. She was striking out
at it.
Now keep in mind that Jaz was a pasture-bred
horse, she had basically no handling up until I got her last fall.
And similar to the wild mustangs, horses living in enormous pastures
in a herd tend to develop a much stronger fight or flight instinct
than horses which are handled regularly as babies. The difference in
a horse like Jaz though, compared to a wild mustang, is that she has
been bred specifically for a good working attitude, so it’s much
easier to get past the hurdles of that instinct. How it manifested
with Jaz was that she was striking specifically when I started to
work the bag around her head/face. The rest of the body she was
fine, but the bag in the face represented a confrontation to her,
and it was the confrontation that she was reacting to – not the bag
itself. This is just a survival mechanism when they do this
behavior, and it does not mean you have an aggressive or bad horse
in any way. As I have said many times, Jaz has a wonderful
disposition. This is simply an artifact from how she was raised, and
it’s simply something you need to address through training. Babies
are much more prone to it as they have not been gentled, but once
they have, it does go away. I had 75% improvement with Jaz in that
first session alone.
This exercise is simply another one of pressure
and release. I had the plastic bag tied on the end of the stick
(where it looks and sounds scary) and then approached Jaz with it
reaching out from my hand. Now as I say, Jaz was fine with it near
or touching her – except for around her head. So I touched her nose
with it lightly and did not take it away until she quieted (even if
just for a second) or when she stopped striking. I would pull it
away then as her reward, and after a pause, re-apply the pressure of
the bag on her nose until she quieted, the released the pressure.
Now you could have horses that are like this anywhere on their body
– that bag may really scare them. So it would be the same thing
wherever it was, reward them for quieting only, and otherwise
maintain the pressure or contact of the object until they give you a
reason to release. The more you do this, and not just with bags –
with a huge variety of objects over time, the more desensitized your
horse will become to sop many situations. And this also serves as
great safety training for when things happen like a saddle slipping,
or a dog or child running up to a horse.. Anything that helps
transform their reaction from striking or reacting physically, to
quiet acceptance, will really make your horse so much safer overall.
But again – how long this takes will vary depending on the horse so
really try to find that balance of ensuring you have made
significant improvement, without pushing the horse too far.
Once you get these exercises out of the way, you
can move on like we did with Jaz to things like dangling and
covering them with tarps, having them drag tarps, putting tarps
between their legs, working them around baby carriages, balloons,
balls, bicycles, other animals…. While you will never desensitize
them to everything, the more work you do to change their response to
fear from flight or fight mode, to simply “spooking in place” at
worst, the more safe you and your horse will always be.
So get creative, ask friends for help and starting
using pressure and release work to expose your baby horse to
anything you can think of that they may react to. If you have any
questions, please visit us online at www.cwtraining.com. Otherwise,
see you next month when we see how it went sacking Jaz out.
Charles Wilhelm |
