enlightened horsemanship through touch

I think the answer might be twofold:

1. To help us on our way to being better horsemen. But there is another answer, and I don’t like that one as much:

2. To build horsemanship “cultures,” and in so doing, line the pockets of the founders of the schools of horsemanship which spawn these cultures.

Whenever I explore a new form of horsemanship, the first thing I do is look at how much equipment is necessary to do the work. Being somewhat spazzy, I usually end up smacking myself in the face with whips and slashing myself to smithereens with ropes. Both the devotees and the clinicians always tell me that, with time and practice I will be able to use these tools for their intended purpose rather than for self-inflicted grievous bodily harm.

Natural tools for Natural Culture??

Ever since a good old boy farrier lost his patience with my nervous Palomino quarter horse gelding and slapped him in the ribs with a rasp, I’ve been very interested in barefoot farriery. I had to be, because there was no way that knuckle-dragger was going near my horses again, and what I saw of local farriers’ work did not impress me. I don’t mean to make out like I’m a hoof expert. Oh no far from it. Or that I disapprove of shoeing horses. I don’t. I have as good a grasp as anybody of the interior hoof mechanism and the exterior hoof anatomy, and I can spot a crappy shoeing job from a mile away.

After scrabbling around for someone to put shoes on my horse and finding no one I’d trust, shoes were pulled and Mother Nature’s horse shoes (the natural hooves) were allowed to do the job she designed them for. I was very lucky that another boarder at the stables located Anne Buteau, the lovely and very patient woman who now trims Maira’s hooves every five weeks. Anne is a hoof care instructor for the Association for the Advancement of Natural Horse Care Practices. Under her care, my horses’ feet have become healthy, tough, and able to withstand the rigors of fox hunting and trail riding. After a couple of years’ good fortune with barefoot and healthy horses, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to shoeing, but that’s not the subject of this post.

While Anne trims Maira’s feet, we often chat about horses and the different ways people expect their horses to behave for the farrier. When Maira first came to me in October of 2007, she was unable to lift her feet for more than a few seconds without fearing for her balance. Slamming a foot down was not an act of disobedience, but her effort to stay balanced. Horses, like people seem to prefer standing in balance. Raising and holding a leg off the ground is not a natural movement for them, and it’s only natural that it takes some practice to perfect. I have seen owners “get after” their horses for failing to stand stock still with a foot raised. I have seen farriers do worse things to horses than that guy did to my Palomino. After taking care of the pre-farriery basics every horse owner should do to ensure a safe experience for the horse and the farrier, it has been surprisingly easy to help Maira stand for trimming, and thus to be a thoughtful farriery client.

Most of what we ought to do to prepare our horses for the visit from the farrier/trimmer amounts to common good manners.

• First, I always make sure the horse is brushed and that I apply fly spray so that Maira will not be tempted to kick at a fly and accidentally take Anne out. Or swish her tail in Anne’s face. It’s basic good manners.

• More in the good manners department is to clean the exterior hoof wall, wipe off the fetlocks, and pick out the horse’s feet carefully so you don’t add that task to the long list of things your farrier has to do. I don’t hose them off, because it’s harder to rasp and file wet hoof than dry. Also, it’s nice to tie your horse’s tail up so that your farrier does not have to dodge it as she does the hind feet.

• I always have someone present to hold the horse for the farrier. I think it’s really rude to ask your farrier to hold your horse and do their job at the same time. Having a horse trimmed in cross-ties is fine if he’s an old hand at standing in balance for long periods without interaction with his front end. But not all horses are. A halter and a short lead can provide just enough stimulation and contact to keep your horse occupied. Having his head free will also allow him to use his neck and head to balance himself better, hopefully cutting down on those slam-downs.

If a horse needs it, there are many things you can do to help your horse stay in balance and behave quietly while getting a trim while you are there. I consider myself a part of the farriery team, and my trimmer considers me a thoughtful client.

Sometimes basic preparation is not enough, and you need to take a careful look at the reasons your horse is snatching his foot away, losing his balance, dropping his head, etc. Most often, it comes down to trying to maintain balance. Here’s what I have done to begin helping Maira stand quietly for the trimmer:

• Stroking with the TTouch Wand Since Maira appears to have little awareness of her hind legs and feet when anxious, and trimming time is anxiety time, I use the Tellington TTouch® wand on her legs to both calm her and bring her awareness to her legs. Research has shown that moderately firm stroking with the wand from throatlatch to hoof has a calming effect. Regular stroking with the wand (wanding) helps increase a horse’s awareness of her body. During trimming, wanding her legs had the effect of “grounding” Maira, of connecting her feet to the ground, and focusing her attention on her front legs while her hind feet were being trimmed, and vice versa. Distraction via focus! This was the first TTouch tool I used on her, and the first time I did it, it cut trimming time almost in half. I can’t say how it cut Anne’s frustration, but I know she left smiling, whereas the previous time, she was frowning and stiff from wrangling with Maira’s legs.

• Hoof Tapping According to Linda Tellington-Jones, Maira’s hind legs have poor neurological connection and she lacks significant awareness of her hind legs and feet, both proprioceptively and in space. Part of my “befriending the farrier” campaign will be to do daily hoof tapping. With the ball end of the wand, I will tap firmly all around Maira’s coronary band and hoof walls. I would like to remind her that her hooves are there. I would like to remind her how her hooves feel when someone touches them. I would like her to know that she doesn’t have to lift her feet every time someone touches her feet.

• Leg Circles and Other TTouches for the Leg Another tool in my Farrier’s Friend Toolbox is the Leg Circle. Increasing Maria’s balance and proprioception by lifting her legs about 8″ off the ground, and circling them in each direction a few times, and then placing them down gently, will help accustom her to having to lift and hold her legs up, and to learn to keep her balance while doing so. Octopus TTouch is also very useful for increasing horse’s perception of their legs, and it seems to feel very good, too.

• Back Lifts Teaching Maira to lift and engage her back will both strengthen her and enable her to steady herself during trimming.

More common sense good manners to put you on the farrier’s friend list: During the shoeing/trimming, I stand at Maira’s head, with a lead. I hold a few treats hidden in my pocket for random dire moments. I carry a fly whisk and swish away the flies so that she won’t be tempted to, and I keep Maira’s head up and straight ahead.  If I do TTouch ear work and TTouch her face, neck and head, and throw in some hair slides on her mane and forelock, I can use this time for communication and bonding. Granted, this means I can’t jabber mindlessly with the trimmer. But since I’m her new best friend, she often takes me out to lunch, and we can chat there.

Today in the TTEAM Training, it was time to round up our assessments of our horses. We discussed how to effect the necessary changes and encourage beneficial qualities in our horses. We spent a warm and breezy afternoon in the arena figuring out how to use some of the Tellington TTouch® ridden work in the Playground for Higher Learning, experimenting with TTEAM equipment, and getting sunburned.

After examining Maira thoroughly, Linda’s pronouncement confirmed some of my suspicions, but when she threw in everything but the kitchen sink, the diagnosis got a little alarming. I’ve got a lot of work to do.

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Greetings from a Tellington TTouch® training!

For folks who’ve never made it to a training,  I thought I’d fill you in.

Pam Woolley, rider, trainer, equine professional and TTEAM Practitioner III, who calls TTouch, “the best kept secret” in the horse world, hosts an annual training at her boarding facility, Brook Hill Farm, in Middleburg, Virginia. After hosting training weeks for several chilly springtimes in a row, Pam has things running smoothly for the twenty-some participants and auditors who come to Middleburg to learn TTouch from the source, Linda Tellington-Jones.

Nestled in spring-green, rolling hills of Piedmont, Virginia and lavishly dotted with dogwood blossoms, the stone barns at Brook Hill Farm provide a snug haven for horses arriving by trailer from around the country. Pam’s capable staff see to it that owners can return to their hotels at night secure in the knowledge that their horses are safe and well cared for. I left Maira snoozing happily in the corner stall of a U-shaped barn that looks like and old-fashioned movie set, with her new neighbors: the other horses who will be our “training subjects” throughout the week.

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It’s been 11 days since I fell and injured my ribs, among other things. I can’t help thinking there’s something wrong with a set of ribs that can’t at least start to feel better in that span of time.

More whining, and some TTouch®

Today I read an article that basically hobbled my brain, preventing me from thinking about anything else until I worked out my feelings about it.

The author of the piece makes some assertions about the relationship between horses and their people that no logical mind can dismiss. However his tone, a sort of, “these are the cold, hard facts for all you hairy-neck-nuzzlers–face up to them!” renders even the most obvious “facts” difficult for the horse-loving heart to accept.

His conclusions appear to result from a utilitarian distillation of natural horsemanship based on equine ethology, in which all relationships (horse-horse and horse-human) are based on dominance hierarchies:

 

“People and horses don’t “bond in friendship”; all respect emanates from fear… Bonding, as so many are so fond of “saying and doing,” is really “shackles, imprisonment and captivity” for horses. The concept of friendship doesn’t exist between horse and human…not as humans would like it to be.

The author of this article, Mr. Blazer, issues a sharp rebuke to anyone even remotely guilty of anthropomorphism, or of receiving or orchestrating human benefit from contact with horses. NARHA and EAGALA, beware: Mr. Blazer wishes you to know that you and your clients are deluding yourselves. What we perceive as friendship or bonding, he says, is merely respect based on fear.

I looked high and low to find data to support any kind of qualification to Mr. Blazer’s assertions. What I found was that most all discussion of the human-horse bond is skewed toward quantifying the obvious benefits for humans, while little is ever said about possible effects on the horse, or evidence thereof. I am eager to investigate this topic beyond the standard boundaries of evolutionary benefits of domestication. If you have relevant information, please post it here.

In natural horsemanship circles, we hear a lot about respect: how to get it; how to keep it; how to use it to our advantage in riding and training. But who knew that once we have won it, that’s all we really get? And equally important, once won, the horse who has bestowed it benefits not at all?

For horses, respect emanates from fear…. of pain In the herd, when a horse misbehaves, he gets a kick or a bite; he quickly learns to respect another’s space and position in the herd. The pain is what behaviorist call a “re-inforcer”, and the horse learns that the behavior immediately before the pain was “not acceptable.”

While it is an accurate reflection of equine ethology, Mr. Blazer’s comments on negative reinforcers and learning no longer represent current thought and practice in animal training, which has historically followed the trajectory of human behavioral psychology. Behaviorism, in the style of B.F. Skinner, is out of fashion because psychologists have learned a great deal about how and why people learn–the intersection of intellect and emotion which drives learning.

Similarly, we have learned a lot about how horses respond to training. The application of dominance and negative-reinforcement horse training has fallen out of favor with good reason. You have only to look at the catch phrases of some of the most popular trainers around the world for evidence of this: Pat Parelli’s “Love, Language, and Leadership” and Linda Tellington-Jones, “The Touch That Teaches.” In stark contrast, we have the old cowboy way:

An example is the throwing of a horse to the ground—often done by “horse whispers[sic].” Or the tying of a horse’s head to his tail. The horse suffers no pain unless he struggles, and he learns he can eliminate the pain by calm compliance. Other forms of restraint also work…such as tying a horse’s front leg up, or hobbling both hind legs.

Progressive horse trainers have learned that equine learning via this kind of brute Behaviorism is less effective because, on balance, the equine brain is an emotional brain, rather than a conditioned response brain.

This “emotional brain” is inherent in the psychology of the prey animal. Fear, for example, has a prominent evolutionary purpose, providing the horse with a trigger mechanism for survival. Using the fight or flight response, the negative reinforcer, may “train” your horse to fear you, to respect you, and even to do as you command, but it will impede your horse’s learning and his ability to bond with you.

A good equine partner may not in fact be a “trained” horse, but one who is able to respond to changing demands rather than to perform invariable and automatic reactions.

In response to Mr. Blazer, I offer this:
While we cannot quantify or describe the emotional benefits a horse derives from contact with humans, it behooves us to assume the existence for their potential.
Horse are perfect at being horses,” says Evelyn Hanggi, PhD of the Equine Research Foundation, and as such they should be treated accordingly.” If we interact with our horses with dignity, kindness, and positive reinforcement, allowing them the space to think and understand what it is we are asking of them, they will learn, and a bond will form.

No bondage necessary.

For more information on equine learning, visit these sites:
What is Behaviorism?
www.equineresearch.org
Testing Equine Intelligence
Equine Smarts
The Changing Status of Animals and Human-Animal Bonds

TTouch® Practitioner-In-Training, TTouch thyself!

This was the message from Linda Tellington-Jones as I moaned in a undignified way into her ear through the telephone.

To be honest, I was so disoriented after my accident that it did not even occur to me that I might help myself in any way at all until my friends and family insisted that I go to the doctor, which I waited three days to do.

Apparently horse people can be quite stubborn about brushing off the effects of falls. My doctor told me a joke of sorts.
Doc: “How do you know when a horseback rider has really been hurt in a fall?”
Kim: “I don’t know, doctor. Can I have that shot now?”
Doc: “When the horseback rider doesn’t have a pulse.”
Kim: “Why, what do you mean, doctor?”
Doc: “If a horseback rider has a pulse, he doesn’t consider himself to be hurt.” That’s why we never see ‘em in here. They only get the ‘hurt’ ones at the county morgue. OK, bend over, this might sting a little.”

I guess there’s a lesson in this for me. It wasn’t a matter of playing tough, but of staying present with my body.
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and I ache in the places where I used to play…

When I first heard that line in the Leonard Cohen tune, The Tower of Song, I giggled a bit. After all, Mr. Cohen is upwards of seventy years old, I thought smugly, preening my forty-seven-year-old self.

Then God said, “Ha!,” and made me ache in all my places!
Last week I made an ill-advised decision on horseback and received a face full of dirt as my reward. “That’s nothing new,” you say, “I fall off all the time!” And like me you may even have broken a couple of ribs, bruised one entire side of your body, damaged subcutaneous nerves in your thigh, and nearly dislocated your shoulder, as I did. But this is about me!

As I sit, stand, lie, wander (whatever hurts less), my thighs tingling with the regeneration of those damaged nerves, able to take only the shallowest of breaths, wishing I had just bounced like I did all those years ago, I have the opportunity to examine the circumstances surrounding my accident, and to consider my options for preventing a reoccurrence.

Riding accidents happen both in a flash and in slow motion. As we take flight, we have the peculiar combination of acute awareness of our impending doom and no clue at all how it’s going to play out. The minute we hit the dirt (and after we catch our breath), we wonder, “How the heck did that happen?” yet we know. We know. We play the whole scene back in our minds in slow-mo, in our dreams, in the recounting to friends and the EMTs.

Usually you can chalk it up to a series of errors.
Not this time.

I think maybe all horse people have at least one extra risk-taking gene. I have two. This tendency toward a lack of good judgment diametrically opposes my efforts to be a more mindful person. In all areas of my life, the “risk-taking override” often kicks in when I should stop and take a moment to step out of automatic pilot, to exit “doing mode” and enter “being mode” to connect more deeply with the present moment.

My dust-eating face plant is a prime example, and one from which I want to extract every lesson I can.

I remind myself of Henry David Thoreau’s comments on this subject:

“I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit… The thought of some work will run in my head, and I am not where my body is; I am out of my senses… What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?”

I have a young horse. A four-year-old Morgan/Percheron cross, not quite finished growing. Still a little “downhill.” Read more…

…from Hawaii last February.

Unless you have had the misfortune to become ill onboard an airplane, or witness the illness of a nearby passenger, you may not be aware of the large number of medical emergencies that occur at 35,000 feet. Airlines are not required to report them.

Here’s what happened to me:

On a sleepy flight from Hawaii to San Francisco, I was disturbed by a minor kerfuffle in the aisle a couple of seats behind me. It was evident that there was a very sick passenger because the flight attendants began running around looking fraught, wringing their hands, and fiddling with oxygen tanks (so not necessary). The plane sported the standard FAA-required medical kit, including an automated external cardiac defibrillator, a non-working stethoscope, a thermometer, and a blood pressure cuff (useless without the stethoscope). They also had aspirin and acetaminophen.

I don’t necessarily feel it’s the airline’s responsibility to be a flying ER, and provided the equipment they have onboard actually functions and attendants know how to use it, they have a good chance of caring for most onboard illnesses. Additionally, several major airlines have established contacts on the ground to guide them through the process of caring for a sick passenger and getting that passenger to the hospital once landed. In the case of my flight from Hawaii to San Francisco, flight attendants resembled Keystone Kops more than trained professionals. No apparent contact with doctors on the ground was made.

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