VOLUME 5 PROTECTIVE BEHAVIOR
PROTECTIVE BEHAVIOR.....
Protective behavior in horses involves a number of different actions, which are; biting, kicking, bucking , rearing, striking, and charging, I would dare to say that most of us have seen at least one of these behaviors from our own horse or someone else's horse. These behaviors are present almost as soon as a foal can stand. I 've heard many stories of the foal that kicked someone, bit someone, struck someone, reared on a leadrope with someone , well you get the picture. Surfice to say that horses employ these movements and actions when they feel treatened in some way. Many times we can not see the fear or threat they feel and therefore misconstrue what these behaviors are telling us. But make no mistake about it, from a horse's viewpoint they are afraid at the moment they employ them.
So in training or our daily interaction with horses its important not to anthropomorphize these actions. Wow big word.... which means "to ascribe human form or attributes to a being or thing not human". For example.....I heard a story about a gal who was trying to teach her horse to go swimming in water. Through several attempts and with another horse who liked to go in the water,( ahhh... social behavior!) she finally got her horse to go in. He did pretty well so they ( her horse and the other horse with their riders headed back to the shore ). She decided to try it again and when she did the horse refused to go in and started to back up rapidly. He wanted no part of that water. She remembered she had some carrots so she pulled them out and was able to get him back in using the carrots. Her reaction to his reaction was " when he went in with the carrot I knew he was just saying screw you I'm not going in again." instead of what she intially thought which was he was scared. She decide he was thinking like a person "screw you" which is in no way the way the horse was thinking. It actually was a perfect example of how knowing the different behavior horse's have and in a training situation changing from one behavior to another to get the desired response. In this situation, the horse was afraid, he didn't want to go in the water. Period. Protective behavior or fear/flight (which we will cover next time). But when she introduced the carrot it went to ingestive behavior, which for this particular horse was stronger than the fear. And was therefore able to get the desired response.
So what constitutes a situation in a horse's life that will exhibit one of these actions. Is discomfort akin to feeling fear or a need to protect themselves from a horse's viewpoint ? Think about it........ For example, you are training a horse that has had lots of training and you are now trying a new level of collection ,..say at the trot . The horse tries to comply but as he travels along the rail he keeps kicking out with his hindleg periodically kicking the wall. What is the horse saying.... what is his behavior saying from a horse's viewpoint ??? Is he mad at you.? which I think would be most people's assumption, but that would be anthropomorphizing wouldn't it. If the horse is kicking which is a protective behavior , then isn't the horse expressing some knid of need to protect itself.
Perhaps to us discomfort does not equal a need to protect ourselves but to a horse it would make sense that if they are uncomfortable or uneasy then there is a need to protect themselves. From a nature standpoint it would make sense that any kind of discomfort could lead to a threat to their survival. So to preserve comfort means survival to loose that status quo threatens it. For example.if a horse has a sore leg and can't run to safety he could end up a victim to a predator, or a laceration near the eye hurts (uncomfortable) and cuts down on vision, again makes the horse vunerable .
So now the fun part! Observation..... Start observing horse's displaying protective behavior. Kicking, biting, rearing, bucking, striking......Analyze everything . that is going on... see if you can ascribe a horse's attributes to what is going on. Is it evident they are scared, or uncomfortable (mentally or physically) . Next think about what behavior could be used to change the situation in the horse's mind, therefore making his mind available for learning??? The better you get at these two things, one seeing the cause for protective behavior and two coming up with a plan to switch to another behavior the better your training ( and easier) process will be.
"Reposted from first volume for reference"
The Training Matrix Introduction
Welcome to Bailey's Tips. The first installment of many that will hopefully help you with the training of horse and rider in the everyday interaction with the horse.
From the years 1966-1998 I have taught thousands of riding seminars and clinics which have varied through all disciplines of horsemanship. From this extremely diversified background I have developed two, time proven rules:
1) Before designing a learning program or agenda for a riding student, you must make an assessment of the mental and physical capabilities of each rider. This procedure will be accomplished by a set of interview questions, manual dexterity test, short-term, mid-term and long term memory test, sensory test (sight, sound, touch) and a wide variety of physical exercises to test the body.
2) Before designing a training program for the horse, the entire body must be assessed. The conformation will be checked and red flags placed in areas of physical weakness. These weak areas will be appraised in regards to how long and difficult it will be to make them strong. While making this appraisal realize there will be mental affects as well. Once the body is assessed then establish what job it is that the horse is supposed to do. The next step will be to build a program of exercise to reconstruct the body. Once the horse starts this program you can start analyzing the mental abilities of the horse.
To have a succesful win/win educational program you must teach according to the individual and avoid fitting each rider into a "perfect" equitation mold. As my late father who was involved in heavy equipment would say "Operate the machine according to its design rather thatn the job the operator wants to achieve. If you don't operate according to design the machine will simply break". Accidents in riding often occur when social pressure say "do it" and the body says "no". An example of this is, the rider has a dust allergy and breathing has been difficult. Oxygen has been inadequate in the bloodstream so you have lactic acid build up. This build up takes elasticity from the muscle, ligament and tendon. The peer group wants to canter but the rider is too rigid to follow the motion of the horse. The result would be the rider falling off at the canter. This is an extremely important point for any teacher/trainer: Only do what is reasonable for the mind to understand and the body to perform. The most rapid progress or instant gratification comes when you repeat the basic principles of riding often enough to make them innate.
So....this all sounds good but how do you go about it? First this is a tall order so it must be apporached in some kind of systematic way. I have developed what I call the training matrix. It is an easy way to start to determine the four components of a person and a horse in any kind of interaction. See the diagram below:
| Mental Rider | Mental Horse |
| Physical Rider | Physical Horse |
