{"id":1265,"date":"2019-01-29T12:59:40","date_gmt":"2019-01-29T19:59:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/?p=1736"},"modified":"2019-02-21T13:07:40","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T20:07:40","slug":"dealing-with-troublesome-horses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/2019\/01\/29\/dealing-with-troublesome-horses\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with Troublesome Horses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jack was a bit of a nightmare.\u00a0 <em>Whirlwind<\/em> might have been a better name for him.\u00a0 Whenever I went to catch a horse, he&#8217;d come blasting around at near light speed, right into the middle of the herd.\u00a0 Horses would scatter.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">I was never certain if he was protecting the herd from me or if he was just a devil in disguise; determined to stir things up to make my day less than pleasurable.\u00a0 I&#8217;m aware that would be anthropomorphism but his apparent deviousness was certainly cause for <\/span>skepticism<span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So then, what was really going on?\u00a0 I certainly didn&#8217;t want to continue with the headache of trying to catch a horse with the energetic explosion that Jack brought with him.\u00a0 Well, the stars aligned one day and Jack&#8217;s owner let me know he was for sale and wanted me to do some work with him.\u00a0 I was happy to oblige, knowing that Jack needed some help. And I certainly wanted to rid myself of the catching issues.<\/p>\n<p>Although horses generally get along and we seldom have problems putting them all together, occasionally one stands out that either causes trouble in the herd or for us.\u00a0 As herd leaders, it&#8217;s our job to fix that.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s start with some theory.\u00a0 If you&#8217;ve read my other articles, you know that stressors horses experience can fall into one of the three following categories:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Physical Stress &#8211; they&#8217;re tired, thirsty, hungry or sore in some spot.\u00a0 This is the easiest stress to attend to and we&#8217;re generally good at recognizing when a horse is <em>off.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Physical injuries can be obvious.<\/li>\n<li>Predator Stress &#8211; their anxiety is heightened because of an unknown threat (a movement in the trees or a scary thing in the arena corner) OR a known threat (they spot a mountain lion).\u00a0 Note that predator stress in some domestic horses is synonymous with training.\u00a0 We can change that, though, by becoming leaders and adopting a positive VS submissive training style.<\/li>\n<li>Herd Stress &#8211; the subject of this article.\u00a0 Read on!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>A Lot of Value in a Little Bit of Knowledge<\/h2>\n<p>I have learned that the struggles folks have with horses are most effectively remedied with some knowledge about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>how a horse thinks and perceives his environment,<\/li>\n<li>how a horse realizes and manifests anxiety and<\/li>\n<li>how to assist with his mental state in a positive and enduring way.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Without these essential understandings, we fall prey to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>frustration and discouragement<\/li>\n<li>taking actions based on personification or the <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/the-false-consensus-effect-in-the-horse-world\/\">False Consensus Effect<\/a><\/li>\n<li>resorting to <em>methods<\/em> that we have read or have been taught. For example, having someone <em>buck your horse out<\/em>, punishing him when he <em>misbehaves<\/em>, forcing him to <em>submit<\/em>, working him until he&#8217;s exhausted or lunging him for 30 minutes before they ride so he doesn&#8217;t buck.\u00a0 These are also referred to as <em>band-aid fixes, <\/em>because they deal with the symptom instead of the cause.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1748\" src=\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/20170603_170059-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"horse conversation\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>The problem is that there is a lot of &#8220;what to do&#8221; out there, but very little knowledge in the &#8220;why&#8221;.\u00a0 Honestly, knowledge and experience will always triumph over quick fixes and shiny marketing tactics. I&#8217;m certain that, at some level, we all know that.<\/p>\n<p>Most methods deal only with the horse&#8217;s <em>physical state<\/em> without a definitive connection to addressing his <em>mental state<\/em>.\u00a0 They deal with the horse&#8217;s <em>actions<\/em> as a result of unaddressed anxiety.\u00a0 As leaders, though, it&#8217;s our job to help the horse deal with the <em>cause of the anxiety. <\/em>This way he&#8217;ll have a <em>positive <\/em>mechanism to deal with anxiety whenever he experiences it: whether with us or in the herd.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s use a human parallel to illustrate:\u00a0 We manage an office.\u00a0 For whatever reason, we continually task our employees with difficult jobs that are pushing their abilities &#8211; perhaps above their training or education level.\u00a0 Soon, we notice they begin to show signs of stress including irritability, angry outbursts and even resigning.\u00a0 If our solution to this is to give them harder work so they&#8217;re too exhausted to think about the task at hand, we&#8217;re thinking the same as many <em>methods<\/em> used to deal with horses.\u00a0 As responsible leaders, instead we look at ways of <em>eliminating the causes<\/em> of stress instead of\u00a0<em>dealing with the effects<\/em> of it. In our office situation, we could consider sending our employees for educational upgrades and instituting workflow management programs.<\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #a78b5f; padding: 10px; color: #ffffff;\">\n<h2>Pause for Thought<\/h2>\n<p>Have you ever seen a horse with a red flag on his\/her tail on a trail ride?\u00a0 You&#8217;re seeing a horse that hasn&#8217;t been shown a way to deal with herd stress yet.<\/p>\n<p>When a horse pins it&#8217;s ears or moves to kick another horse, the answer isn&#8217;t to punish them for that.\u00a0 Contrary to popular belief, a horse cannot know <em>right or wrong<\/em>.\u00a0 Those are based on moral judgments, which horses are incapable of.\u00a0 We might be fooled into thinking we can teach them that, but they&#8217;re only learning that specific actions result in punishment from humans.\u00a0 They lack the ability to understand <em>why<\/em>.\u00a0 After all, they&#8217;re just doing what horses do.<\/p>\n<p>The resolution comes when our horse understands that we&#8217;re the leader and it&#8217;s our job to take care of other horses in our herd space, not his.\u00a0 But that&#8217;s a whole other article!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-1746\" src=\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/20150619_083809-1024x341.jpg\" alt=\"horses in pasture herd\" width=\"625\" height=\"208\" \/><\/h2>\n<h2>It&#8217;s about Anxiety<\/h2>\n<p>Do a quick search on &#8220;anxiety disorder&#8221;.\u00a0 You&#8217;ll see symptoms including: always in a bad mood, terrified of being judged, panic attacks, constant worrying and inability to concentrate.\u00a0 Those symptoms are for people, but they apply to any sentient creature, including your horse.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1751\" src=\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/DSC_0100-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"horses in pasture herd\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>Horses are very social and are exceptionally relational animals. What that means is that their perceptions, understandings, actions and responses are based on interactions with others, and their herd.\u00a0 Herd stress <i>is<\/i> anxiety and is not unlike the stress people experience in social situations. How would you feel moving to a new city where you don&#8217;t know anyone? Starting a new job where you have little experience?\u00a0 Being a teen and switching schools halfway through the term?\u00a0 Feeling claustrophobic in large crowds?\u00a0 Having to work with someone you disliked?\u00a0 Have you ever had a room-mate that you couldn&#8217;t get along with?<\/p>\n<p>Except for the small percentage of their life that we&#8217;re working or riding them, horses spend the majority of their time in the company of other horses.\u00a0 <em>That forms the biggest part of their life.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Sometimes I don&#8217;t think we realize just how important their daily life affects their mental health; it can be easy to put our horse back in the pasture or barn after riding without considering what environment they&#8217;re going back to.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #993300;\">If you haven&#8217;t spent a full day with horses in a pasture as an observational or intergral part of the herd, I highly recommend it.\u00a0 You&#8217;ll learn an incredible amount about these animals.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Some Real Life Examples<\/h2>\n<p>Sometimes the problems are obvious. I had a horse in for training once that I put out with my herd. I get the feeling that, in a previous home, he was denied the opportunity to associate with other horses. The first thing he did \u2013 which he repeated more than once &#8211; was go trotting smack into the middle of the herd, as if to say, \u201cHere I am! We&#8217;re all buddies, right? Right!?!?\u201d This is about as socially acceptable as a person walking into a pub, barging into a group of strangers clearly engaged in their own stories, and taking over the conversation. Some would be amused, others offended. It just doesn&#8217;t work! It didn&#8217;t for this poor guy, either. My gelding, Spud, is the <i>herd protector\u00a0<\/i>and he quickly put a run on this guy with a bite in the butt. Over time this boy found his place in the herd and developed some social skills.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1747\" src=\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/20170408_141728-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"horses at rest\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>Other situations are not so obvious. I trained a horse once that was purchased by a young couple that didn&#8217;t know a heck of a lot about horses, but they were super people and really wanted the best for this mare. Well, they found a place to board her and she was put in a paddock with several other horses. Not long after that, I received a call. \u201cThis mare we bought can&#8217;t focus at all and we don&#8217;t even want to get on her!\u201d They had trained with me a bit and I asked what they were doing with her in groundwork. They said that she couldn&#8217;t keep her attention off the paddock she&#8217;d been placed in. Right away I asked about how she was getting along with the horses in that paddock. They told me that she and another horse were not friendly. Things became clear at that point. The mare was experiencing some elevated herd stress as a result of a negative social situation. She couldn&#8217;t take her mind off of that; a situation exacerbated with the outdoor arena in plain sight of her stressful paddock. I suggested that they try her in a different paddock. The problems ceased.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t to say that we always have to move a horse if they&#8217;re not getting along. As much as that might be a solution, it isn&#8217;t practical for most people, including myself.\u00a0 All my horses are together; their ability to get along is, in part, due to what I&#8217;ve taught them. There are functional, proactive solutions we can take to help them.<\/p>\n<h2>What to do?<\/h2>\n<p>We&#8217;ve touched on this in previous articles, but you&#8217;ll recall that when a horse experiences anxiety beyond what he can handle, he will respond instinctively by fleeing, freezing or fighting. These are normal actions for a prey animal to take.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing this, our job is two-fold:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>To teach our horse an effective way of dealing with anxiety;<\/li>\n<li>To teach our horse to deal with a level of pressure above what he is experiencing in the herd.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>We will then realize two significant benefits:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The horse will realize that, with us as a leader, it&#8217;s our job to deal with anxiety, not his, and that in our presence he doesn&#8217;t have to worry;<\/li>\n<li>His confidence with handling a higher level of pressure will alter his herd behavior: those stresses that <em>pushed him over the edge<\/em> previously will no longer do so.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div style=\"background-color: #2e4053; padding: 10px; color: #ffffff;\">\n<h2 style=\"color: #ffffff;\">A Personal Story<\/h2>\n<p>My wild ex-stallion, Zeus, is a perfect example of positive change. When I first brought him home, he had NO desire to have anything to do with the other horses in the herd. He did not walk up to them to investigate. He was terrified and defensive. When he inadvertently wandered too close, he&#8217;d be chased out. The stress he was experiencing in the herd had much to do with his feeling alienated. The horses did not see him as another horse; his energy was too primal&#8230;too foreign.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1439\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1439\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-1439\" src=\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/DSC_0485-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"scott and zeus\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1439\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scott and his wildie, Zeus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When he first arrived, I had to feed him separately. He lacked the courage to eat in line with the others. Recently I saw him eating between the herd&#8217;s top two. For Zeus to be between them shows not only that he&#8217;s accepted, but that he now possesses the confident energy required to be accepted. This change came with his confidence in engaging with the others.<\/p>\n<p>That confidence was developed primarily through our work together. He now seeks me in the pasture and engages in play with me.\u00a0 He takes great delight in looking me in the eye; something he refused to do for a long time.\u00a0 I&#8217;m really tickled and enjoy my time with him.<\/p>\n<p>What he learned from me: how to release tension when facing of unknown or threatening things.\u00a0Including people and other horses.\u00a0 It&#8217;s changed his life.\u00a0 Literally.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To get started on the path to helping our horse manage stress issues, here&#8217;s an itemized list of what you&#8217;ll need:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Yourself.<\/li>\n<li>A horse.<\/li>\n<li>A halter.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1563\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1563\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1563\" src=\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Capture-1-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1563\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This horse is quite advanced in handling pressure. When I move the tarps, he releases and balances as a response.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Pretty short list, isn&#8217;t it?\u00a0 Note our list doesn&#8217;t have supplements, chemicals or tools.\u00a0 This might be a bit uncomfortable for some because it means assuming responsibility instead of assigning it to a purchased product.\u00a0 We all know how hard that is, and I get it.\u00a0 We don&#8217;t want to fail.<\/p>\n<p>However, the best part about our style is that there is no way to fail.\u00a0 We&#8217;ll focus on a proactive enduring solution based on an understanding of <em>horses<\/em> together with some relationship building with your own horse.\u00a0 When he or she learns that you have their best interest in mind, their <em>try<\/em> will increase and stress will decrease.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what you need to do.\u00a0 In your schedule, slot in some regular time to work with your horse.\u00a0 Once or twice a week is plenty.\u00a0 Sessions don&#8217;t have to be long.\u00a0 You&#8217;ll work initially on two things:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Identifying what pressure level your horse can handle, and<\/li>\n<li>Teaching him something he&#8217;s never been taught: how to release tension and focus under pressure.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>This is the quickest way to build his confidence.\u00a0 Most folks are surprised at how effective this is &#8211; but it make sense doesn&#8217;t it?\u00a0 We&#8217;re tackling the problem at it&#8217;s root.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, which will vary depending on the horse, we work at introducing pressures in many different ways: rhythmic, random, different items to create pressure, pressure from different places, pressures on and off his body.\u00a0 The sky&#8217;s the limit here.\u00a0 There will be 4 constants throughout his\/her\u00a0 training:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>You.\u00a0 The horse will follow your energy.\u00a0 If you apply pressure with anger or force, you&#8217;re teaching your horse to be angry or forceful under pressure (they&#8217;re born followers, remember?).\u00a0 You&#8217;ll learn to project <em>calm<\/em> to give your horse something to mimic.<\/li>\n<li>Your horse&#8217;s response.\u00a0 You&#8217;ll always be asking him to release tension and follow your focus.<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;ll take care to work just underneath the limit of what your horse can handle while retaining focus.<\/li>\n<li>We&#8217;ll never leave our horse to <em>figure it out on his own<\/em> &#8211; it&#8217;s so much faster, enduring and trust based if we are the teachers.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Eventually what you&#8217;ll see is that your horse &#8211; on his own &#8211; will release tension when under pressure.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll find I have many articles on leadership, focus and teaching horses to handle pressure.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/\">You can read them here.<\/a>\u00a0 There are many videos on my website that will help as well.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><span style=\"color: #800000;\">We don&#8217;t throw first time skydivers out of airplanes &#8211; over and over and over &#8211; hoping they&#8217;ll figure it out, so we&#8217;re not going to do this with our horse.<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1749\" src=\"http:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/20170928_080535-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"horses at play\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>That said, it&#8217;s not wise to go out and start flapping tarps around a horse, or tying things to the saddle and sending him off &#8211; with the expectation he&#8217;ll figure it out on his own.\u00a0 It&#8217;s tempting to think that might be working, but it isn&#8217;t addressing the root issue.\u00a0 Our horse will only figure out that he&#8217;s not going to die from that specific item (at least some will) but he&#8217;ll have <em>learned<\/em> nothing.<\/p>\n<p>What he needs to learn is a connection between pressure\/stress and releasing tension and focusing.\u00a0 In short, he needs to learn that pressure <em>means<\/em> releasing tension.\u00a0 He&#8217;ll only learn that with our assistance because it&#8217;s an association a horse is incapable of making on his own.\u00a0 He also needs to learn that our leadership is the key to removal of his stress &#8211; after all, we want to be confident on his back, right?<\/p>\n<p>There is an art to asking a horse to release and focus.\u00a0 There is knowledge and feel behind what <em>release<\/em> is.\u00a0 It&#8217;s an easy art to learn and with some practice you&#8217;ll be an expert.\u00a0 These are things that I teach in every single clinic.\u00a0 They&#8217;re really hard to convey in words\u00a0 because they involve developing your energy, feel and empathy in the moment.\u00a0 Plan to attend one of my clinics &#8211; I love nothing more than sharing your excitement and progress as you develop a confident, athletic horse.\u00a0 One that will excel in whatever your discipline or riding interest may be.<\/p>\n<h2>To sum it up.<\/h2>\n<p>As leaders, we can teach our horses to deal with anxiety caused by other horses or their environment.\u00a0 \u00a0What they learn is to release tension under pressure and focus or follow our direction and energy.\u00a0 Throughout this, they build confidence and an ability to deal with high levels of pressure.\u00a0 Thus, their herd problems decrease or disappear entirely, while at the same time their trust in you increases exponentially.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\">We&#8217;ve got an offer available now until February 15, 2019 &#8211; for any Progressive Horsemanship clinic you reserve a spot in, you&#8217;ll get a Progressive ONLINE session absolutely free.\u00a0 Check it out at<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazinghorsecountry.com\/pages\/offers\">amazinghorsecountry.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Scott Phillips<\/p>\n<p>January 2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As leaders, we can teach our horses to deal with anxiety caused by other horses or their environment.\u00a0 \u00a0What they learn is to release tension under pressure and focus or follow our direction and energy.\u00a0 Throughout this, they build confidence and an ability to deal with high levels of pressure.\u00a0 Thus, their herd problems decrease or disappear entirely, while at the same time their trust in you increases exponentially.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/articles.amazinghorsecountry.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}