Teaching horses to speak through word boards, an experiment:)
Thought for the day: stop resisting what the horse offers, even if you didn’t want it- flow with it, and balance it
The quickest way to brace a horse against you is to resist them
The fastest way to soften a horse is to flow with them, and show them balance within their resistance
Nothing can resist flow-
And nothing wants to resist flow, because it’s the nature of life itself
❤️
Inconvenienced
Kathleen Beckham
Years ago, I had a baby horse, and when he was about 18 months old, I had the opportunity to have an equine chiropractor work on him. He was wiggly and squirrelly, and I apologized to the chiropractor for that. “That’s okay,” she said, “Little babies haven’t learned how to be inconvenienced yet.”
That was big for me. So big. “Inconvenienced.” I hadn’t thought of that before, but it was the perfect word for it. We don’t want our horse to tolerate being hurt, or being treated unfairly, but he dang sure needs to be able to be inconvenienced.
From that day forward, “being inconvenienced” became a more thoughtful part of my horse work. I started to see some of the “issues” students were having with their horses as having to do with the horse’s inability to be “inconvenienced” without becoming very anxious. I also saw the stress that some of my students experienced when they knew they were going to inconvenience their horses. It turned out it was, indeed, a “thing.”
The ability to be inconvenienced and be resilient about it, it’s a skill. It’s a skill for people, it’s a skill in dogs, and it’s a skill in horses. It’s a skill that needs to be purposefully taught, and then carefully developed and expanded over time. It should be part of any training process for horses, because it’s something that they don’t necessarily come “from the factory” with, and it’s something they really need to succeed in the human world we insist they live in.
For a horse, “being inconvenienced” can be things like being asked to work while other horses are eating, standing tied, not being fed first, being turned out or brought in a “non-preferred” order, standing next to strange horses and not being allowed to socialize, having their feet picked up, going down the trail while other horses speed by, having veterinary work done, getting in a trailer or other small space, not being allowed to graze while working… I think you get the picture. Once I started thinking about my horse being “inconvenienced,” I saw it everywhere. Gosh, a LOT of a horse’s life in the human world is inconvenience. I also started to see how much stress a horse who had not learned to be resilient about being inconvenienced could experience.
It’s not always possible to remove the inconveniences in our horses’ lives, and I’m not sure that’s the way to go anyway. A horse who is resilient about being inconvenienced develops many other positive qualities because of his ability to be inconvenienced. He learns to self-soothe, he learns to think before he reacts. He learns patience and he learns to be flexible. He learns not to get stuck in patterns and expectations. He learns to be softer and more thoughtful. He learns to be calmer and quieter.
A horse who develops the ability to be inconvenienced as a principle of his training/life is less likely to be herdbound, gate sour or barn sour. They’re more likely to trailer load easily, to tie quietly and to learn whatever we are trying to teach them. It’s kind of the “secret sauce” of horse training, if you know about it.
Being inconvenienced might start very small. The first time one of our youngsters is inconvenienced might be the first time we have him on a lead rope and he wants to go left and I want to go right. Or he wants to eat grass and I want to take him for a walk or take him over to get his feet trimmed. So it might start very small at first. But I’m aware of it. I’m aware of when he’s inconvenienced, and I’m aware of how much inconvenience he’s able to take, for his stage of development. I am carefully and thoughtfully, methodically building his “fitness” to be inconvenienced.
Those little, fleeting inconveniences will turn into bigger ones eventually, like being left outside or in the barn by himself, or standing tied to the trailer all day, or working in the rain, or working while the farm is being fed. Those are much bigger inconveniences than being asked to turn left when you want to turn right. A working horse, or a horse we want to be able to take places and do things with, he’s really got to be able to be inconvenienced. That makes him much safer and more fun to be with.
Being inconvenienced is also about a horse being practiced at changing his mind. So he can practice thinking about one thing (“I want to go sniff that horse over there”) and change what he’s thinking about (“Hey horse, let’s go over here, away from that horse, and do a stop/back/bring our front end around.”). To do that, we have to be able to decipher what our horse is thinking about, and then become proficient at causing him to change his thoughts. Horses who can’t change their thoughts do not deal with inconvenience very well, while horses who are good at changing their thoughts will be much better at being inconvenienced.
This is different from “desensitization,” and it’s not about getting the horse “shut down. It’s not about hurting him, or flooding him, or setting him up to fail. It is literally about building the horse’s mental flexibility, by degrees. It’s methodical and progressive. It’s sometimes a delicate balance, and it can be something that takes some awareness and skill on the human’s part. It’s no different than building a horse’s physical fitness and abilities, it’s about choosing the right size steps for that horse’s fitness level.
A horse whose ability to be inconvenienced has been well-developed will be quieter, less anxious, less ulcery, and more physically and mentally balanced. They will have more brain-space available for things of our choosing.
This ability to be inconvenienced, it’s a gift to the horse. It’s a gift to him, so he doesn’t have to suffer the unnecessary stress and anxiety caused by his lack of mental flexibility. Done mindfully, it doesn’t have to be scary or dangerous. And done earlier, it’s easier. And older horse who has never been inconvenienced, that’s going to be more difficult than a younger horse with no preconceived ideas about things.
At the end of the day, this is a practical thing. We choose to have our horses live in our human world, so if they can be inconvenienced, that makes living in our world a lot easier for them. It’s a gift, not a burden to them.
Coming soon... The Attention Course: an online learning opportunity that will help you get, keep and direct your horse’s attention (thought), and in the process, become worthy of it. This is part of being inconvenienced, because it is not always convenient for our horse to pay attention to us (or for us to have to ask for his attention). If you’d like to be eligible for a discount on The Attention Course when it goes live soon, sign up for your discount here: https://www.ethosequine.com/courses
His eye is about halfway healed ❤️ I have never seen a horse actually seem to ask for his eye medicine before. He’s only nine months old, but comes up to me and stands with me at liberty until I put it in. I have been using the word “medicine” as well as doing some face targeting on the med tube but haven’t needed a halter yet. I will try to grab a video of it soon.
He’s becoming much calmer and more friendly now that he’s been weaned for about 3 weeks. It seems like he’s finally coming into his own personality instead of feeling like he has to just follow his mom everywhere.
I’m interested in how this translates to the buttons ❤️
"We are all just walking each other home."
If you are ever beating yourself up for the way you have treated your horse in the past, read this.
Then read it again.
I work *really* hard on this.
The horse world is so divided, and in some ways, I think it’s a good thing: it usually happens because we are so passionate about doing right by the horse.
But ironically, we care so much about horses that we sometimes actually become uncaring towards humans.
I have found this sometimes in myself. I watch a training video, see a method I might not use, an opinion I might not be behind, and I can feel myself getting judgmental or defensive, sometimes for absolutely no reason.
I remind myself, there may be an amazing reason for this that is beyond my skill level to understand right now. There may be a key here to unlocking things you’ve never experienced or been able to do, feel, or understand, with horses.
I heard an analogy once in a speech. The speaker drew a large circle on a flip board and said, this is the sum of all information, all knowledge, feelings, dimensions, spirituality, and beings, in all of the universe in all of time.
He then drew a tiny circle inside of it, and said, this is the part of all of that, that I know and understand.
He asked, is it *theoretically possible* that other ideas, methods, God, dimensions, etc., may exist in this vast world that I don’t know or understand? Of course it is.
I try to remember, I’m just in that tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny circle, one thousandth of one millionth of one percent of all knowledge. I have grown to really enjoy alternate opinions, methods, and ideas. I love the horse world for its extremes of opinions and diversity.
“We are all just walking each other home.”
Since getting the new board and weaning Strijder, progress has been s-l-o-w.
I’m not sure if it’s the extreme and record breaking Texas heat, less consistency, or a million other things.
Unfortunately, while I don’t talk about my personal life on here, it is exceptionally busy. I work full-time as a first responder, I am in school, on call, plus have a side business, family, and the house and property to take care of. Just life stuff we all deal with.
I can get work with two horses a day at best. Usually for 30 minutes at most per horse.
Sometimes I set a timer🤷♀️
So the extreme time limitations don’t help.
Unfortunately, the buttons with a large animal or livestock animal, is quite a lot different from one inside the house. There is quite literally about 1-5% of the time spent with the buttons compared with a house-based learner, and that’s on a good day.
There are therefore 95-99% fewer opportunities to model, to introduce new words, and infinitely less space to add words and concepts with the board size and mobility limitations. There’s also a major limitation that I can’t leave buttons out due to rain, such as placing a button for a few weeks by their grain, gate, or tack.
I also struggle with finding things that motivate the horses to communicate. Dogs so often want to play! And interact! And eat! And go outside! And be petted! And have friends! And go to the car! There are Smells and Toys and Other Toys™ and Sounds and Parks and Cats! A huge vocabulary comes quickly.
While horses quite often would like to just graze and well… graze lol.
This especially comes as a challenge when I am intentionally not clicker training the buttons. This might be a perspective I shift, I’m not sure.
When I started this a few months ago I honestly thought it would be easier than this 😊
Just an interesting puzzle to work out.
It’s definitely worth it. ❤️
Poor guy is not in a great mood… of course I wouldn’t be either if I tore half my eyelid off🙄🤦♀️
So we just had an easy day today of working on deworming. I used applesauce in an old dewormer syringe and will do the same for a few more days. He has been dewormed several times, but it’s not as seamless as I would like.
Funny enough, he isn’t much a fan of applesauce. Maybe I can make some sweet feed into a slurry 🤣
I did video it if anyone is interested! Mostly to watch for myself but I'm happy to edit and share
This is a really good way of thinking about "problem" behaviors or things we just can't quite seem to get changed, in our horses, but also in ourselves
No exceptions 😉
This poor little guy severely lacerated his eyelid today… Unfortunately I don’t know on what, although I went through the pasture removing everything I thought could possibly have done it🤦♀️
Took me all day and multiple vets contacted before we were able to get it sewed up. Thankfully, his eye was undamaged, and everything should heal hopefully with minimal scarring.
Unfortunately I was going to work with him and the buttons today and thought I would have something awesome to share with y’all tonight but instead I have a $500 vet bill🤣
We’ll see if he feels up to using his buttons soon. In the vein of , I may even add a “medicine” button, as I need to put ointment in his eye now twice a day for up to two weeks.
Picture is of him while I am standing in a tree for absolutely no good reason. I have pictures of his eye but definitely don’t want to subject you to that!
With temps reaching 105+ both this and next week it’s been a challenge to either work with the horses either very early or very late to avoid as much of the heat as we can.
They’re not as motivated to use the buttons and I can’t blame them!
I still do the best I can though. Ailsa is coming along with her self carriage and movement. It’s hard to believe just a month or two ago she had no concept of roundness or forward and down. 
“Your boundary need not be an angry electric fence that shocks those who touch it.
It can be a consistent light around you that announces:
'I will be treated sacredly.'"
-Jaiya John
BOUNDARIES ARE A PRACTICE…
They don’t work if we don’t practice them.
And the best time to practice them is when we don’t need them.
The horse will always mirror the regard we have for our own boundaries.
If we lack spatial awareness, if we don’t establish good habits and patterns around our personal bubble, that will be mirrored in the horse.
Boundaries are not fixed, but fluid.
They depend on what we need moment to moment, and will shift according to the horse’s state, as well.
Communicating expectations beforehand, ‘Sometimes I am going to need this much space,’ is paramount in any relationship.
“I always imagined I would write a book, if only a small one, that would carry one away, into a realm that could not be measured or even remembered.
I imagined a lot of things. That I would shine. That I’d be good. I’d dwell bareheaded on a summit turning a wheel that would turn the earth and undetected, amongst the clouds, I would have some influence, be of some avail.”
-Patti Smith
There is something within many of us that has us longing to be thought special. Unique among other horse(wo)men.
I’ll see an online teacher post about a common horsemanship issue and how it can be helped. The problem and usual solution will be given in a clear cut, straightforward directive. Rather than say, “Thank you! I’ll work on (or try) that!” the comments thread invariably fills with people who want to be different.
"My horse is a Mustang. Or, an Arabian. Or, he was once abused. Or, I have a particular illness or injury that prevents me from trying this..." In other words, I will require something very out-of-the-ordinary, to help my horse.
Rather than try a time-honoured fix, we seemingly want ourselves and our horses to somehow not fit into any known pattern or mold. We will list all the ways that our partnership will not be helped by this advice… because we yearn to be heard, instead.
We will get so caught up in a minute, manmade concept that we don’t see the bigger picture, the real source of the problem, as seen by our horses. We can become so distracted by looking for little ways to be unique that we cannot see the forest for the trees. This is not a practical help to our equine friends.
It doesn’t really matter the breed of our horses, which bits we prefer or avoid, our discipline of choice, our pet observations about what makes our horse-human partnerships distinctive. Individualistic. Idiosyncratic. Quirky. Eccentric. Isolated. Singular. Special.
While we are all different, to a degree, it might surprise many of us to learn how much our horses are the same. Equus has survived for centuries by being who he, or she, is. By relying on rules of survival that have not changed for millennia, the species has kept body and soul together, despite mankind’s needs.
Our horses will have different energy levels, boldness, friendliness and inherent fears, yes. Knowing these will help us communicate with them and will go far in keeping us safe. But no matter how many little hairs we split, the fact remains that there are universal truths when it comes to knowing and handling horses!
When it comes to wants and needs, most horses are surprisingly alike. It becomes evermore apparent, the more horses one gets to know, to build relationship with and ultimately, to train them to serve willingly and without doing them harm.
It’s become so common, should one suggest more movement, or rough fodder, or herd turnout, that people will say, “Not my horse! He doesn’t like or need those things.” Wrong. Your particular horse has just got in the habit of surviving within our manmade idea of equine society. He has become socialized to fit in, to not make waves.
Horses, especially, will choose the devil they know to the devil they don’t. They’re not so very different from us, that way.
When I see or hear a professional giving sound, proven advice online, I don’t immediately think that my horse is different. I don’t try to keep the story alive that we are special, or that he was once abused, or that he doesn’t like what other horses do. Instead, let's go through the mental exercise of noting which parts of this expert's advice might be a help to us… because almost always, there is a golden nugget of truth in what a longstanding professional horse(wo)man shares.
If I need help with a problem that has long stumped me, it might be a real boon to try something new, something I haven’t thought of, or tried before.
Hard as this is to swallow, our innate need to keep ourselves—and our stories—special, can get in the way of furthering our progress.
Drilled some holes in the board today so I can bungee it onto the table or platform that I use. If you watch some of the videos, you see me grabbing at the board because Ailsa’s primary goal in life is to flip it with her nose into the next county🤦♀️
I had no idea making a board would be this much of a production when I started this 🤣
Current board:
Leg, belly, butt, yes, scratches, and brushing.
Top line is nouns/body parts.
Center is concepts.
Bottom is verbs/actions
I don’t know that the horses care about English syntax, but it helps me keep track of things 🤣
Next buttons will be “all done” and adding back “love you” I think, though I have been considering changing “love you” to “happy,” because I think that’s possibly a better or more accurate concept, although both can be a bit hard to tell with horses.
I already have nixed the folding table idea🤦♀️
Partly because I am lazy, but partly because I think I am going to try to create something more sturdy and long-term I can leave in the horses’ pasture.
This way they can get used to it as part of their environment, much like how dogs and cats have the board in their home. I think that was part of why the board was so successful when I had it on the water trough in their pasture.
Unfortunately, that trough is now being used in another paddock… for… crazy enough… water🤣
I’m going to try to put something together with pallets this weekend to avoid paying for three extra water troughs… Wish me luck 🤣
New board and old board….. major difference, as you can see!
While I really liked the Fluent Pet tiles, adding buttons in a non-linear pattern was just not going to work for a portable board that needed to be geometrical and easily movable.
I also liked the Hunger 4 Words mats, but they ended up having the buttons too close together for horses, understandably… as they’re not meant… for horses🤣
I’ve already been considering the possibility of making some sort of folding board that is easier to move then this one, but that will be down the road😊
Almost there!!
Contemplating ideas for a good base now. I was thinking of making a sort of table out of sawhorses to make it movable.
I loved my huge plastic water trough, but it was just not portable to go into the arena or other places
It’s time to get this guy a pedestal! I taught him to step on this random brick in his field, and now whenever I walk past it, he steps on it and looks at me, even though it’s now broken, and he has to carefully arrange his feet to fit🤣
More button content coming soon! I thought I was going to finish the board last night but found out I had just slightly the wrong hole saw size. The new one should be coming tonight and fingers crossed the board functional by tomorrow❤️
I love this perspective — an extremely positive way of seeing something that may have initially brought up negative emotions.
One way I like to evaluate opinions, thoughts, and perspectives is on the very initial gut reaction they make me feel — is it overall hopeful, positive, making me feel “light” inside, or like a relief (like we want our horses to feel)?
Or is it putting more confusion, frustration, or even hopelessness into the situation (I will not or cannot be good enough, my horse hates this or hates me, etc)?
This particular quote by TRTmethod is a good way of feeling extremely positive and even hopeful about potentially frustrating situations with your horse.
Like Warwick Schiller's Attuned Horsemanship says — you are the best person to train your horse ❤️
All will be well.
When we feel like our horse is "misbehaving" or "difficult," what we may actually be experiencing is a lack of understanding of their needs and preferences.
By observing and listening to our horses with openness and curiosity, we can learn to read their signals more effectively.
Unsolved issues with our horse can actually act as a roadmap for further exploration and learning.
This is a really good perspective on the concept of consent in horse care that I am seeing more lately. ❤️
Because horses (or any animal) cannot understand all of the ramifications of a decision, we can never actually have true informed consent from them.
In the end, we are still responsible for making the best decisions for them possible, even sometimes with the kindest thing possible being overriding their “no.”
However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make sure they are prepared for unpleasant experiences as well as *reasonably* possible.
Basically, the same responsibility that gives us the necessity to sometimes override their no also gives us the same necessity to make sure they are prepared for it as reasonably well as we can do at the time ❤️
I love this photo of Mercedes and me. It was the first clicker training session we filmed. I can see Mercedes’ body language, she was not sure what was going on and I was naively confident it would all go well.
It was a bright new clicker training world back then.
I’m very lightly touching her shoulder to reassure her, but we are training with food and she’s pretty keen to figure out how to get the food, so it seems like she doesn’t mind, but I don’t know and I don’t assume. Even back then I was very generous with the food and she always enjoyed her clicker training.
People make jokes about mares all the time, but I don’t ‘mare shame’. I don’t, as I can empathise with her, because we have both had similar experiences. Our bodily autonomy disrespected, our boundaries crossed and ignored, our choice and our power taken away, our personal dignity trampled. We’ve been touched in ways we didn’t like, made to do things we didn’t want to do and our protests were ignored, sometimes even punished, we often had no agency at all.
Worse, people have shamed us for protesting, for expressing when we didn’t want something done to us, we didn’t want to do something, we didn’t want to be touched, when we felt violated, when we *were* violated.
Because of this, I am very much triggered and my skin crawls when I hear people talking about “consent training”. I don’t want to be trained to give consent and I can’t imagine Mercedes does either. Basically, that is the definition of grooming and I don’t want to do that to anyone. By trying to "train consent", it feels to me that people are actually promoting the idea that consent is something we teach or make happen and that's not consent imo.
If I need an injection that will improve my health or prevent illness, I can look at the pros and cons and make a decision, Mercedes can’t. That means I don’t train her “consent”, because no way is she going to agree to having a needle. But I can train and condition in a way that it is the most positive and least aversive experience possible for her. I can watch her body language extremely closely and adjust my training and conditioning appropriately to make it the best experience possible for her. I don’t need her “permission” to do things to her that benefit her wellbeing, as a good caretaker and trainer. Things that involve her health are not optional, but I do prepare her in a way that it’s as pleasant and pleasurable as it can be and it can be surprisingly pleasurable for her sometimes.
We can clicker train behaviours and we can condition emotional responses. These are not conscious decisions they make, based on an animal’s personal beliefs, these are ways they interact with their environment, an environment *we* create.
I like to use my understanding of learning and behaviour, to describe what I do.
I avoid making up stories or constructs about the training and conditioning I do.
I avoid trying to mind read or assume horses are like people in how we make decisions.
Emotional Horsemanship by Lockie Phillips is one of my favorites and worth a follow.
An interesting perspective on routine desensitization for our horses, plus a mention of non-escalating pressure, which is a concept I’ve been exploring more and more lately.
Re-Sensitization
Here is the horsemanship problem. We desensitise horses, which tells them "Don't listen to this". Then eventually, we ask them to "Listen to this". Not all desensitisation is a problem. But in this context, it is. It sets the horse up to be wrong with us, and sets us up to fail.
We desensitise horses and then wonder why they don't respond when we want them to.
We potentially set the horse up to always be wrong.
I used desensitisation for many, many years. I even will still use it, in a very specific scenario. So if you are reading this, already angry that I am criticising something that you do and find valuable, please hear me out.
I have spent many years, deeply involved in desensitising horses. This worked best, and usually worked only for specific horses.
- horses who had been trained with highly damaging methods previously and were in extreme states of nervous system hyper arousal.
- rescue/rehab horses who where in complete inner and outer chaos
- horses who were generally overwhelmed by their world and had OES (Overload External Stimuli) and needed "Stimuli Triage" by way of showing them that not every signal is a signal that needs their attention.
YES, there are a few very specific lenses where desensitisation can be a useful tool, and it remains one of my tools.
But in the places I go and the horses I see at the moment, desensitisation is an overused tool. An overused and powerful tool that is being done on horses that don't need it. And those horses become dull, stop listening. When they stop listening, their trainers escalate the pressure until the horse listens. Which is confirmation bias that escalating pressure works. And then the horse eventually goes over threshold. Then they need desensitising. And the vicious cycle continues.
Today, I advocate, teach and use NON-escalating pressure. And to be able to be effective with non-escalating pressure it is necessary to have a sensitive horse. Caveat: a sensitive horse that's feels UTTERLY safe with us.
A sensitive horse that doesn't feel totally safe with us is an accident waiting to happen.
De-escalate
Listen
Believe
Trust
Communicate
Rather than...
Desensitise
Ask
Tell
Demand
Control
Desensitise
So we get to decide, do we want/need less response from our horses, or want/need more response.
If we desensitise a generally calm and generally balanced horse, you will make them dull. Then later, when you need them to perform for you, the ONLY thing that will work is escalating pressure.
So I RE-sensitise horses to us, so that I do not have to use escalating pressure later.
Meaning that touch and signals through touch, can be something positive for a horse and never has to escalate to a threat, because the horse responds to a tiny signal, first time.
This is a principal of Emotional Horsemanship; this RE-sensitisation approach, and I have several techniques which do this. One technique to start with, which is very paired down and simple, then many more which add more layers to this.
In the comments below is a video which demonstrates one of those techniques and discusses more topics besides.
Enjoy!
Board is painted! I have been sketching out ideas for how to arrange the buttons and I am thinking I will do objects along the top, concepts along the center, and actions along the bottom, although those will get a little mixed up, because I don’t have a perfectly even number of 6 buttons for each of those things.
Also considering making the center stripe buttons black and blue and top/bottom stripe buttons white and yellow… as far as I can tell from reading, horses can identify, black and white, obviously, and green, blue, and yellow. Other than that the colors get pretty sketchy.
Give me ideas!! 🥰
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