05/26/2024
WHY LIBERTY SHOULD COME FIRST WHEN STARTING YOUR HORSE
Most people start training their horse by putting a halter on them and teaching them to yield to physical touch or driving pressure. The horse learns that he must yield to the human because he cannot escape the touch or pressure. Trying to escape just increases the pressure, causing fear and sometimes pain. As the horse becomes obedient, they may take off the halter and ask the horse to stay with them at “liberty,” a liberty of conditioned responses.
I have come to believe that starting the human-horse relationship and basic schooling at true liberty is a safer, less stressful approach for horse and human. By true liberty, I mean allowing the horse to choose to stay away from us, or leave us without an adverse consequence, while rewarding their choice to come to us and stay with us with praise, delight and reward. The horse learns that humans are the source of comfort, safety, fun and rewards and learning each other’s boundaries and body language together replaces most “training.”
Taking this path is not only safer and less stressful, it allows horse and human to learn more about who we and they are as our trust in each other deepens. Trust, freely given, is priceless and the joy of jointly enjoyed play beats any ribbons or trophies.
In November of 2023, I acquired two feral Paso Fino c**ts (Amadeo and Antares). While both were wild, Amadeo is playful and yearns for connection. Antares, at age 3, had stepped up to becoming herd stallion when the adult stallion was removed from his herd. He is responsible to his core, sure of who he is. Protecting the herd is what matters to him and he could not see the value in a human, other than the hay we delivered. Since both would scoot away from my approach or touch, I got to test my theory on how to build a relationship with these two horses.
Sharing Territory To Develop Bond and Trust
Since I could not approach them, I first had to earn their trust so they would approach me. I did that by putting a small amount of alfalfa in a small trough in front of a chair that I sat in on the opposite side of their paddock trough of Bermuda hay. Alfalfa was more appealing to the c**ts than Bermuda so they fairly quickly came over to my trough, at first ducking in and out to grab a bite, then realizing I wasn’t trying to trap them, staying long enough to eat the alfalfa. Next, I let my hand drape on the edge of the trough with the alfalfa piled near it so, as they ate, they ended up grazing my hand, which did not try to trap them. As they relaxed, I let my hand gently graze their head, trying to leave faster than they could retreat from my touch. As they realized my hand did not hurt or threaten them, they allowed me to scratch gently and discovered that their ears were itchy and my scratch felt good. I did this for a month, by which time, I could approach them standing and they would allow me to rub and scratch their heads and upper neck, still leaving if I tried to approach behind their withers.
CASE STUDY 1: AMADEO
Mirroring and the Code of Conduct to Ask for Movement
After a month of sharing territory with Amadeo, and with him as yet unwilling for me to approach or touch him behind his withers, I asked him to follow me in the Mirroring Video that follows: https://youtu.be/AhRi33B8ptw?si=1Vxs5SlAXQlWuZx1. There is no “training” that has occurred prior to this clip. Following, mirroring and matching steps are innate behaviors he practiced from birth in his wild herd. Another innate behavior is something Carolyn Resnick calls the Code of Conduct: horses follow one who leaves, and move away from one who approaches with the intention that they move. Amadeo following me when I invited him is part one of the Code of Conduct and you can see an example of part two of the Code of Conduct about 2 minutes after he started following me, when I walk toward Amadeo’s hind quarters and he steps his hind end away from me. Then I walk toward his head, and he steps his shoulders around. Humans call it teaching the horse to disengage his hindquarters and yield his forehand, but I think Carolyn has it right. This is innate behavior, not training and he organizes his body and movements to keep himself in balance without my interference.
Everything you see in this video is an innate behavior. All I did was to invite him to follow me, do short, slow movements, praise and reward Amadeo as he tried to imitate me, gave him time to think about it, then did a bit more. He went from following me, to starting to mirror me within minutes, from easy forward motion and turns to stopping, backing and going sideways with me in a few minutes more, ending with me showing him how to touch objects with his nose (by touching them, then pointing to them with my hand). You can see how closely he observes my body language and how he tries to approximate it.
The advantage to this approach is that if Amadeo did not understand what I was doing (as in my stepping my feet sideways or pointing my hand at objects), he simply watched and followed me. Since I put no pressure on him to do the thing he did not understand, he thought it over as we walked together and the next time he saw me do that movement, he experimented with trying something. In response to my crossing my feet, he gave me a single cross over of his hooves. I stopped, praised and rewarded that effort and went back to easy following. You can see him realize that I am asking him to mirror my foot movement about 4 minutes into the video as he starts to cross his feet with mine. You can see a similar progression of observation, consideration and try as I demonstrated “touching” objects with my hand, suggesting that he touch them with his nose by placing a carrot coin on them.
I used physical pressure just once in this session, touching his cheek as I walked toward him, asking him to yield for the first time to physical pressure. Since I was also walking toward him, he understood the light pressure and stepped his front hooves over and I praised and rewarded that one or two steps. Nothing in this session frightened the c**t and at no time did I insist that he do something he did not understand. This kept him engaged and curious, trying to figure me out and accomplishing it brilliantly!
We did 2 months of this kind of liberty, during which he became comfortable with my touch all over his body and fluid at walking, turning, stopping, backing and going sideways with me, matching steps with me, following my body language at liberty. Playing with scratching his itchy face, I discovered that his front two baby teeth were stuck and his adult teeth could not grow in so he needed dental work ASAP. That meant he needed to tolerate a halter and being led. That led to me presenting the halter to him, sliding it on and asking him to follow me on line.
Adding Halter and Lead Line and Using it Without Physical Pressure
I presented the halter by asking him to “touch” it, something he understood and was happy to do. I followed that by asking him for “halter please,” sticking his nose into the nose piece of the halter. He had no concerns or hesitation about doing so. Knowing that pulling on the horse’s head will trigger resistance, my goal was to never take the slack out of the lead line. I wanted Amadeo to follow my feel, the same feel I had used at liberty. If you want softness in your horse, you must offer softness. Here is a video of the first time I haltered and led him with a lead line. You can see the results. I was frankly astonished at how easily he accepted the halter and followed the lead line but it is logical. From his perspective, nothing had changed. The lead line connected us, but did not coerce or confine him. https://youtu.be/bQtLzKkY2vI?si=KN_XR64tcX1l-gFS
CASE STUDY 2: ANTARES
Trust Must be Earned BEFORE Any of this Works
Antares was far more skeptical about my safety and value than Amadeo. In that first video, you can see him approach us as I played with Amadeo, curious as to what we are doing, partially mirroring us, and you can also see that if I approached him, he left. It has taken Antares 6 months to discover that he can start to trust me. Why did it take so long?
I Needed to Understand His Body Language and Consent
I started out being oblivious about how Antares felt about my approach and touch. I used alfalfa and then supplements as a draw to entice the c**ts to tolerate my approach, touch and grooming at liberty, on the theory that they would leave if I was doing too much, too quickly. Amadeo quickly decided he loved my attention so that was fine. Antares was conflicted: he was drawn by the food, but found my approach and touch aversive. He stayed for the food, but did not trust me. Lucinda Baker texted me and asked why I was not using “Horse Speak” with the c**ts and I took first a couple of her webinars and then had her out to give us a clinic on it.
Horse Speak Consenting to or Blocking Approach
Horses tell other horses if their approach is welcome or not by the placement of the front hoof nearest the one approaching. If that front hoof is back, the approach is welcome. If that front hoof is put forward, the approach is blocked. Although I have had horses for over 60 years, I vaguely assumed that hoof placement was random, rather than a specific request to approach or stay away. I was wrong. Antares had been telling me to give him space and I had been ignoring him. He would tolerate it as long as he could, then leave. We were stuck in that pattern until Horse Speak was explained to me. Once I recognized his request to not approach, I stood quietly, averted my core and focus and breathed in place. The first time it took 5 minutes before Antares blew out, looked at me, stepped that near fore back and toward me, putting his body within range of my hand. I had found the key to being able to approach him with his consent.
Consent is Moment to Moment
The next breakthrough with Antares came with my recognition that if Antares felt good about my touch, he leaned into it. I would start scratching him, he would lean into me and all would be well and then he would leave. It dawned on me that before he left, Antares had stopped leaning into my scratch. When he stopped leaning into my scratch, I would remove my fingers by an inch and pause, waiting for him to decide what he wanted. Increasingly, after at first a minute or two, then seconds, he would generally lean back into my touch, no longer needing to leave. This was a huge realization for me and the breakthrough that Antares needed to trust me and other humans. Within a few sessions, he started coming to me when I arrived, following me and asking to play and leaving off his herd mates during pasture turnouts to hang out with us.
Activities Must be Something the Horse Understands and Enjoys
While Antares now wants to be with me, he has far stronger views on what is interesting than Amadeo. If I want to do something with Amadeo, he is all in, just for the sheer joy of my attention. One game I used to develop balanced drive and draw is “Go and Come.” In this game, one person asks the horse “Are you Ready?,” then moves toward the horse, asking the horse to Go, while the second person backs away and asks the horse to Come. Amadeo loves this game, especially when the people are widely separated and he can toss his head, buck and canter from one person to the next.
Antares does not appreciate Go and Come. Draw is fine, drive is…. Unsuitable? He is inclined to think if a person asks him to leave, he should certainly leave, and then disconnect from playing with you. The last time we played this game with him, he did one round at perhaps a 15 foot separation, then left us for 5 minutes before he returned. We switched games to companion walking, with stopping and rewarding frequently and he was happy again. “Halter please” became a fun game because he got to steadily eat alfalfa after putting his nose into the nose piece of the halter and letting me tie it, only having to lift his nose for me to remove the halter, or put his nose back in when I asked for “halter please.” Mind you, I have yet to try to hold or lead him with that halter. His trust is not yet that deep. After he had finished his alfalfa, he grabbed the feed bucket in his teeth and I promptly told him “good grab bowl” and gave him a cookie. That instantly became a favorite trick. As he became animated, he started tossing the bucket and I arranged to take it from him and said “good give me bowl” and gave him another cookie. As I alternated the requests with another person, he quickly understood he was to grab the bowl or give it to the person who asked for it. This was the first time that it occurred to Antares that humans could be a source of play and fun. His eyes became bright and he would have played that game forever. That too, was another breakthrough moment in our relationship, a slender string of connection that, together with others, will build into an unbreakable bond.
Conclusion
Why should true Liberty come first when starting your c**t? Because only through free choice at liberty can you discover who and what your horse truly is, what interests him, and what he needs from you to blossom rather than be crushed. In the process, you will grow, learning to see deeper, not just into your horse, but into yourself, to feel for each other at a level you cannot achieve by “training” your horse. Both you and your horse will discover things about yourselves and each other in liberty that you did not think possible before and you will both grow closer in the process. And if all that “woo” does not speak to you, once you start your “training,” you will discover you have a willing partner who trusts and understands you and picks things up faster than you could ever have imagined.
I just discovered that Amadeo’s baby teeth have not dropped out so he needs some dental work. The vet is coming March 4 so I needed to halter train my c**t f...
