Sorry I haven't updated lately. I have been riding Desi almost daily. Its going REALLY good. I really have her moving off my leg and she is figuring out what outside aides are. Its going GREAT!! She is really settling into her job and feeling more and more solid with every ride.
Can I vent/blog about power and responsibility for a minute? One of the main reasons I have been away is because of a frustrating client. When/if you send your horse to a trainer, have a lesson, participate in a clinic, read a training book, whatever you do to learn and you get that WONDERFUL "ah hah" moment with your horse...... what do you after that? I have recently found people to be like kids with a new toy. They push a button on the toy and something REALLY cool happens so they keep pushing and pushing and pushing it until the toy breaks or the batteries run out. I have found that inexperienced and advanced riders/handlers/owners are just like little kids. They see this neat thing that their horse does and instead of loving it and adding it to the daily ritual or using it responsibly they show friends, over do it, get rough, and abuse it until it doesn't work anymore. So when a horse respects you, gets soft when asked, and moves from minimal pressure what kind of responsibility comes with that new "power"? How do you teach this kind of sense?
Thoughts? Experiences? Do you have a self check to make sure you aren't asking too much of your horse?
Sorry to have such a different post. If you want I can move it to another message board. Thanks for letting me vent though!
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7 comments:
I hear what you are saying! I am not sure how to go about teaching responsibility/sense like that to someone, though. I'm sure I am guilty of the same thing to some extent, although I try to be cognizant and responsible and reasonable in what I ask or expect from a horse. Let me think some more...
Lets be honest...most people do NOT have a natural feel for training. They have to be 'trained' to train. I'm not sure what exactly your client is doing, but I know how easy it is to have that 'ah ha!' moment while in a lesson and then go home and try as I might, I cannot recreate it!
Could it be that this person is just trying to recreate that same feeling and is overdoing the attempts? Maybe they just need a 'plan' for how to react when something isn't working - ie. go back to something you know you can achieve and then work back to the harder lesson.
oh, and feel free to vent!
I think this is a perfectly acceptable spot to discuss this. In fact, reading your post made me feel guilty as charged. There have been times when Gayle will say something in a lesson or show us something and Pro responds incredibly. And then I'm on my own and he's being bad and I'm like "let's push that button again" except I don't get it quite right or I ask at the wrong time or just do it so much over the course of the ride that instead of responding happily Pro gets pissed.
I think maybe what you should try to explain to the rider is the timing of WHEN to use the tool. Because every tool/aid has a correct moment, when it will work, and an incorrect moment, where you just screw up the horse/yourself. So if you explain to the client that you only push the button when X, Y, and Z are in place and that doing it when X, Y, and D are going on instead will mess up the cue, they might figure out that the cool, magic button is not some equine version of the Staples "Easy" button?
That assumes that the client wants to learn and do it correctly, not show it off like a new trick.
Thank you for the comments so far. I really don't want to give details but what if the issue isn't messing up the button. What if they understand how to execute the command but then dont' think before using it, don't consider what they are asking of their horse, or are just inconsiderate?
To me, there is a LOT of pressure that I put on myself. I love the feeling of riding/working with a horse that trusts me, gives me his feet, and does what/when I ask of it. However, I also constantly double check myself. While I believe and teach tollerance in the horses that I encounter.....there IS a point where I don't blame them for kicking/biting/leaving their owners.
Example:
Horse doesn't pick up his feet at all, kicks at handler.
I teach horse to willing pick up all feet and hold them until I ask them to put them back down.
I show owner, tell owner how to do it, etc.
I supervise practice. They both grasp the idea and are getting along. Owner LOVES this new "button" and "power" and picks hooves 5 times as much in one day than ANY normal owner.
Sadly with a LOT of owners.....my next thought is....Ok, what number of hoof pick ups is this horse's limit? When is this horse going to say enough is enough..I have done what you asked and you wont' STOP??
I love the Staple's Easy button reference I think I'll use that in the speach that this client is going to get on Saturday.
Needless to say....these horses will NOT be the "softest" that I have ever sent home. I can't in good conscience send them home completely respecting people with someone that isn't going to respect them back.
"When is this horse going to say enough is enough..I have done what you asked and you wont' STOP??"
Well - on one hand, you want the horse to do what you ask every single time, right? On the other hand, there is a breaking point for everything and everyone. I think this point would largely depend on the horse's personality and the difficulty of the question being asked.
Also, remind clients that they should have a point and a purpose in everything everything they ask the horse to do...
I'm assuming your client's problem isn't with picking the horse's feet up 100 times, because there I'd think the effort involved for the human is at least as much as for the horse and they'd stop themselves once the novelty wore off.
I've been thinking about it and I think maybe there are 2 sorts of behaviors you train into horses. Ones that the horse has a right to get annoyed about, and ones it doesn't.
So for instance in the "right to get annoyed" category would be accepting the bit. Every horse should willingly accept the bit to get bridled. But if the rider insists on taking the bridle off and on 10 times per riding just to show off or test the horse, the horse has an excuse to not keep accepting it nicely.
However, if it's something like "trot off softly when I ask" then I don't care if I ask the horse to trot off softly 100 times in a ride, it doesn't get to stop doing it after time #10 because it's tired of it. But if I ask for a soft trot, it gives me a soft trot, and I immediately haul it back to the walk and ask again, then it becomes rational for the horse to stop trotting off softly.
I think perhaps you just have to explain to the rider how training works. You ask for something, if you get it, the ONLY way to reward the horse is to stop asking. If you ask and the horse does it and you then immediately ask again, then you're actually teaching the horse that the previously trained behavior is incorrect, because it gave the correct behavior and is still being asked so the horse will get confused and unlearn the behavior. It's not really an intuitive thing for a lot of people and I think you can probably have a good, productive conversation about your philosophy behind training and the idea behind how aides work. Hopefully this owner just has a hole in their understanding and doesn't just not care. If they don't care then yeah, send the horse home less sensitive. It's the kinder thing to do for both of them.
More Desi pictures!!! :)
Interesting...I agree with Andrea that some things are non-negotiables, and should be repeated as many times as necessary (though still keeping things like the horse's attention span, etc. in mind). Other things, maybe "tricks" and such, shouldn't be overused.
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