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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 |
