Intellectual Equines

19/10/2022

Recycle your pelham

Just Use A Bit Horse Bit Toilet Roll Holder - Ported Pelham Bit - https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?awinmid=6091&awinaffid=293307&ued=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.etsy.com%2Fuk%2Flisting%2F1104231835%2Fjust-use-a-bit-horse-bit-toilet-roll

21/03/2022

For a very long time – I have debated that the one dimensional and linear traditional hierarchies that people tend to see in horse bands (or horse herds) are not there. I have written about it several times before, in book chapters, blogposts and in posts on FB. And now I will come at it from a sl...

18/03/2022

I'm Vicki and I've been very remiss about personal content on my page - no excuse other than slack!!
I started reward based training when I took on an Australian cattle dog with fear (defense) aggression. Dominance training does not cure that - in fact it makes it worse. I was lucky I recognised the body language and fear signs the 1st time I 'corrected' my dogs lunge via check chain, and enlisted help. Lucky again the help I found was accredited delta and now accredited PPGA instructor, and very passionate about force free. So much knowledge and so passionate it got me hooked too! So lots of research and lots of learning and courses and books, and I have since taught puppy preschool and basic dog manners classes for 20yrs.

Somewhere along the line there (Ian Dunbar seminar) the "horse training = negative reinforcement" connection slapped me in the face (subtle stuff I missed!) Enter clicker training for horses.

How quickly they learned and how long they remembered blew me away - don't tell my dogs but I think ponies are faster!

As everyone else did back 20yrs or so ago I started CT piggybacked onto traditional stuff. Started with younger horses teaching new stuff, and they were so light and so responsive and keen and learnt really well. Did a bit of cooperative care on few ponies. Stand for injection and foot bandage loose in the paddock as I hadn't taught tieing up! I also got a big kick out of cross species training, or applying puppy stuff to ponies (or trying to!) But Alex Kurlands 'everything is everything else' seemed pretty apt at the time.

Hmm well I was still slow, perhaps another 10yrs passed before I started the 'force-free' for horses, so trying to incorporate no negative reinforcement at all. Stalled here! Its a long road from FEI dressage with double bridles, whips and spurs to force free, there is a big learning curve (and often a slippery slope when you miss your footing!)

I haven't done a lot of advanced stuff, I've done a lot of basics and a lot of introducing new animals (and trying to introduce new people) to the concept. My dogs target, my sheep target and my horses target! Its interesting how puppy class people can be so full on with positive training for their puppy, but can't get the same concept for horses. The phrase blank wall springs to mind. I probably have done more thinking on how it all goes together than I have practice at how to put it together! With my own I keep threatening to train one so well that I can do demos, but it doesn't seem to happen!

So for now I enjoy watching my ponies (warmblood ponies that is) graze in the paddock and interact as horses should. I like watching behaviour. I like to watch their interactions, I like to think I can dispel some disney myths! And my plan is to document and post some of my training sessions, and perhaps post some thoughts on my herds observed behaviour. Perhaps another ripple can help spread some positive training, help someone somewhere, and more importantly help make life, living, training and existing with humans better for some horses somewhere.

17/03/2022

A proposition addressed here is that, although bitted horses are viewed by many equestrians as being largely free of bit-related mouth pain, it seems likely that most behavioural signs of such pain are simply not recognised. Background information is provided on the following: the major features of....

08/03/2022

Training ponies too

TRAINING TUESDAY
One of the best tips for any training plan is to be flexible! We all would love it to "go to plan" each and every time, but the reality is usually quite different to what we envisaged. The key is to be flexible and keep it positive and enriching all the way. Change things as needed, keep it fun for your dog, and continue to work towards your end goal, no matter how long the road is or how many obstacles appear. 🐕🐾💟
Graphic credit: unknown.

08/03/2022

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Choose to be curious and wonder 'why'. Choose to give the benefit of the doubt. Choose to respond with compassion. Choose to walk away and try again tomorrow. Choose to acknowledge and celebrate small approximations towards your goals. Choose to zoom alllll the way out, let go of the goals and simply be thankful we have these amazing creatures sharing our lives.
(Image description: a grassy view under a large oak tree. A white pony stands with his front feet up on a filled tyre. A girl in a pink striped shirt and black shorts stands with her back to the camera looking at him)

07/03/2022

Lloyd Morgan’s canon:– Morgan, 1903Dominance hierarchies, alpha positions or leadership in social groups...

25/02/2022

An IAABC Foundation Publication

23/02/2022

🧐 Quite some time ago I read a Facebook post where someone described having used clickertraining for a long time with her horses and not having much to "show" for it. And with show she meant something like tricks or behaviors on cue. What do her horses actually "know"?

🙋I think this is a very common feeling. Which is why I wanted to bring this up again. I've certainly gone through this and I've heard my students talk about it as well.

🤠 But as she pointed out, she did now have a horse who was happy to see her, who was excited to go out for walks, who trusted her and enjoyed doing things together.

💁And that is huge! Isn't that what we set out to do? To have a real relationship with our horses, horses who in turn enjoy being with us and doing things together?

🙅 So I think we should stop to put pressure on ourselves to be able to show behavior x, y or z.. Stop to prove to the outside world we are worthy, to show with clickertraining we can achieve all the traditional things.

👉 It's not about how many behaviors you've taught your horse or what behaviors she is able to perform for you. It's not a competition about whose horse knows the most cues. It's about how does your horse FEEL, while doing those things?

🙌 If you're horse loves working with you and doing things together and is confident and relaxed about it, you've accomplished the world.

❤️ It's like someone commented on that post: "What does your horse know? She knows she's safe with you!"

Isn't that the most important?

14/02/2022

Licking and chewing

Licking and Chewing
Nope. It doesn’t mean he’s thinking… or that he’s accepted you as the alpha/leader/dominant one…

Licking and chewing when the horse is not eating or drinking is often explained in training circles to mean one or both of these things, but it’s just not true.

I mean horses are always thinking about something, so the first one is going to be true regardless of the horses’ body language. As to the second explanation, the idea that we need to dominate the horse has been long debunked. In a nutshell:

1. Horses don’t live in a society with a consistent alpha/leader/dominant horse

2. Horses don’t need to be dominated to cooperate willingly with humans

3. Domination in this context is typically a euphemism for punishment during training, which is used to suppress unwanted behaviour in the horse.

4. Training that includes punishment damages your relationship with your horse and runs the risk of fallout which might include the horse avoiding being caught or ridden, aggression or depression. 😔

So what the heck does licking and chewing mean then?

Essentially, outside of an eating or drinking context, licking and chewing is indicative of mild stress or tension. It is a calming signal - a request from the horse to please lower the intensity of a situation or interaction and may be directed toward a human, a horse or an inanimate object.

It typically occurs as the horse calms down a bit after something a bit stressful happens. For example:

- An otherwise calm horse gets a fright - let’s say the bridle flicked up over their ears a bit quickly, or

- When a stressed horse has started to calm back down and is now a bit less stressed. Let's say the horse is chased around a round pen or on the end of a line, which causes them to get quite stressed and then after a while they start to calm down a bit and lick and chew as a result of that.

Essentially, if your horse is licking and chewing outside of an eating or drinking context, then it is likely your horse is finding the situation a bit stressful. If our goal is to build our relationship with our horse, then our job when we notice these moments is to do what we can to make the situation easier for the horse to cope. Doing this helps the horse to trust us and to learn that being with us is a safe place to be.

It’s also our job to recognise when the thing that has caused our horse to feel uncomfortable, is something that we have done - and then either stop doing that thing, or do it differently so the horse doesn’t find it stressful. Perhaps we stood too close to them, or moved too quickly, or asked too challenging a training question. By taking a step back, moving more slowly or asking an easier question of the horse, we show them we are listening to them and it builds our relationship.

It's important to remember that licking and chewing is a signal horses use frequently, as part of a running body language dialogue on how they are feeling. So we can expect it to happen at some point when interacting with our horse. It's a good thing to have them communicate with us in this really subtle way. What's important for our relationship with our horse, is how we respond when it does happen.

Be kind to yourself here. Most of us have been taught to see licking and chewing as indicating that the training is working, not that the horse is a bit stressed – myself included. It is not easy to figure out how to change what you are doing given this new information, but it is definitely possible and most certainly worth it.

Edited to add the reference:
Language Signs and Calming Signals of Horses, by Rachaël Draaisma

04/02/2022

03/02/2022

What Can I Teach My Horse?: Clicker training ideas, tips, and inspiration for activities from A to Z

01/02/2022

🐎 Bad Behaviour 🐎

When we think of bad behaviour in horses, we think of the things we don’t want them to do. We think in terms of pulling away when led, or crowding into our space. When ridden, we think in terms of baulking, or in terms of bucking and rearing. These are unwanted behaviours in a horse, pony or donkey who we expect to behave in a predictable and obedient fashion to our commands.

But we’re way off the mark. Bad behaviour in horses is behaviour that’s damaging to the horse as a horse. Here’s my list of behaviours that you shouldn’t see in a horse, and they’re a bit different from the ones you might think of as bad behaviour.

🐎 Not eating🐎

Why is that a bad behaviour? If you look at a group of wild living horses, observational research shows that they spend most of their time eating. When they’re not eating, they are spending time in social behaviour: snoozing together, mutually grooming, courtship, play. However we expect our horses to spend much longer not eating than a horse would do in a natural setting. We expect them to not eat for an hour or more while we groom, tack up, ride, lunge, clip, wash, plait or otherwise interact with them. We also expect them to not eat because we want them to lose weight, so we restrict the amount of food we offer, but we don’t give them the opportunity to search for more.

🐎 Being alone 🐎

Going back to our free living feral horses. How often do you find one of these horses alone? Very occasionally, a male horse will leave his family group and spend a little time alone. Even though he’s alone, though, he’s likely to be searching for company. He will either find a mate or he will find other solo males and spend time with them. A mare will occasionally leave her family band to find a mate as well, but again she will try to minimise the time she spends alone. Horses have evolved as herd animals. The safety of each individual horse is distributed across all the horses in the group. Having company means you’re less likely to end up as prey. However it’s still quite common for people to expect their horse to live without other horses, and even with no company at all apart from the daily visit of their human caregiver. We also expect our horse to happily leave their horse friends and spend time with no other horse company and only human company. While we label “not wanting to leave the other horses” and “not wanting to leave a familiar place of safety” as bad behaviour, for the horse being alone and leaving their familiar “home range” is bad behaviour. In their mind, it places them in danger.

🐎 Being confined 🐎

Horses are creatures of movement. In their wild state, they will move many miles a day, seeking food, water, shelter and shade. Bad behaviour for a horse is staying in the same place with overgrazed grass, limited shade or shelter and proximity to their waste. For us, however, bad behaviour is a horse who does not accept being confined to a small space on their own with no ability to walk, run or socialise. We stable horses and then complain about the consequences: horses who are “fresh” because their movement has been restricted, horses who pull to grass because their diet has been unvarying, horses who are drawn towards other horses when we want to go in the other direction. Our concept of bad doesn’t align with the behaviour that’s bad for the species.

🐎 Being restrained 🐎

Horses will naturally resist any kind of restraint, because restraint usually means there’s a lion on your back about to break your neck. It can also mean that you’ve become trapped and need to free yourself to survive. It’s bad horse behaviour to just give in without a fight in a situation where you appear to be trapped. From a human perspective, we think of bad behaviour as a horse resisting a pull on its head, or a horse resisting having a single leg lifted and held. Both of these signal death in a wild living horse, but sometimes we forget that we need to train them in a way that shows that these are safe behaviours. A lot of our training involves teaching the horse that we will not let go until they give in, whereas from a horse perspective it would be much less frightening if we taught them without triggering escape behaviour.

🐎 Not mating 🐎

Our horses are born either male or female. Once they reach puberty and mature, they have a desire to mate, just the same as any mammal including ourselves. We spend a lot of time talking about our mare’s bad behaviours: being moody and directing s*xual behaviours towards males (and sometimes females) on a cyclical basis. For the most part, males are gelded before puberty and we expect them to be completely s*xless, forgetting that they were born male horses with hardwired behaviours. Bad behaviour for a horse is ignoring your s*xual urges, not being interested in finding a mate and not reproducing. These urges don’t go away if we keep mares in single s*x groups, and male horses continue to want to live in a mixed s*x family group even if we remove their ability to sire foals. We need to find a way to manage our domestic horses in such a way that their drive to have opposite s*x company (and a family) is not suppressed in a way that leads to behaviour we don’t like.


🐎 Good behaviour 🐎

It’s our responsibility to look at ways of managing horses to mean that behaviour that’s good for the horse is also the behaviour the human considers good. Our training needs to take into account the horse’s ethology, so that their needs and desires are not suppressed by management in a way that leads to rebound behaviours we don’t like.

This can be a challenge. Allowing the horse unlimited food while preventing them from having unlimited exercise can backfire, so we need to find ways to make sure the horse can always have food available without weight gain. Choosing the right kind of forage will help this, as will setting up grazing that requires the horse to move further in search of food. Not confining the horse for long periods of time will mean that rebound movement when we want to ride or otherwise handle the horse doesn’t lead to us being injured or having to hurt or frighten the horse to get the behaviour we want.

In terms of training, we need to teach the horse in small increments that restraint will always end. A horse who knows that a lifted hoof will be put down immediately, then in one second, then in 5 seconds, then in 15 seconds will not need to fight the restraint. A horse who learns that standing still to be groomed will lead to pleasurable sensations will learn that standing in one place for a while is something to anticipate rather than to dread.

Keeping horses in stable family groups will mean that we don’t have to worry about the unpredictable seasons a mare will show when new horses are constantly arriving and leaving. It will also help our horses be confident about learning to leave the others for short and then increasingly long periods of time, since the group is always there when they return.

Horses who spend more of their time able to perform good horse behaviours are horses who are easier and safer for us to interact with, who are healthier and who live longer, less stressful lives. Our best way to increase our own enjoyment in interacting with them is to foster good behaviour as a horse so that the horse can cope with the good behaviour we expect from them as human handlers.

12/01/2022

Kneel down for the almighty sniffing pony!

02/01/2022

15/12/2021

13/12/2021

The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount. - B.F. Skinner

Start where you are. Start with what you have. Focus on just one minute and one behavior with positive reinforcement. Leave the rest as it is. Avoid what makes your horse uncomfortable as best as you can but continue your relationship as much as possible. Then maybe you'll do five minutes with that first behavior. Then maybe one minute on that first behavior and one minute on a second behavior. Then one minute on that first behavior and five minutes on the second behavior. Watch how your relationship improves from those few minutes spent focusing on what you want to see more of.

Watch you and your horse's positive reinforcement repertoire grow: default behavior, food manners, targeting in place, targeting in motion, leading, stationary targets as a station and as a destination, liberty circles with the target or a reverse round pen, increasing pace to trot and canter, starting to work positive reinforcement into your riding work, etc.

Before you know it, if you desire, you'll be ready to tackle the "problem areas" you have with your horse, if they haven't been solved simply by changing your dynamic. Maybe that's hoof handling or trailer loading or picking up a certain canter lead.

It's hard to believe, but you and your horse will be capable of more than you can imagine by engaging in focused, high quality positive reinforcement work a little at a time. A year from now, you'll be astonished how far you've come together, and the way your relationship with your horse has evolved will matter more than anything else 💚🧡

03/12/2021

"In the brain, every new learning stimulus is saved together with an associated feeling. A one-on-one connection is made. If the learning stimulus is perceived to be positive, it will be associated with a positive feeling. A negative learning stimulus is paired with a negative feeling. Naturally, you will want to create a learning environment for your horse in which he saves positive emotional associations. This makes the horse feel more confident about you, his training program, and the environment in which he lives. It gives the horse a sense of well-being and makes him want to cooperate and follow along in your thinking." -📚 Rachael Draaisma from the book "Language Signs and Calming Signals of Horses."

30/11/2021

Here are some horse social behaviour factoids I thought you might enjoy . When we think of social behaviour in horses we tend to think only of mutual grooming but horses can show affectionate and friendly behaviours in other ways too including

🐴Head over back or hindquarters of their friend
🐴Head over or under the neck of their friend
🐴 Nose or body touch with their friend
🐴Mutual grooming
🐴 Sharing proximity or space

This may be familiar knowledge to some people but not to others.

Seven Facts about Equine Social Behaviour

1. Horses use MUTUAL communication between all
members of the herd or group .Horses communicate via body language and
behaviours through giving and responding to develop a mutual language between them.

2.Each horses’ behaviour gains meaning through being given consistently and predictably over time .

3.Each individual has a comfort zone or bubble around them and they communicate who is or isn't allowed to share their space. “Friends” or preferred herd members are allowed nearest but others they would prefer further away. This is often confused with resource sharing, guarding or dominance! (Kieson, Lundgren & Abramson, 2019,). However, it is more a product of inappropriate management and spatial restriction due to domesticated environments (Rees, 2018)

4.Recent and emerging research suggests horses display social bonds through :

🐴Proximity
🐴Mutual movement and synchrony
🐴Mutual touch. Just because horses don’t touch or mutually groom does not mean they are not friends. Affiliative behaviours can be expressed in other ways (Kieson, Abramson & Lundgren, 2019)

5..Horses form complex social networks (Kieson,Lundgren &Abramson,2019,Wolter et al,2018)

6..Early and abrupt weaning, inappropriate social groups or isolation can lead to problems with social behaviour (Henry et al,2020,Hausberger et al, 2008) and increased agonistic interactions (Pierad et al,2019). Management and lack of space also play a role (Sigurjonsdottir & Haraldsson, 2019, Furiex et al, 2012).

7. The use of join up and other techniques frequently applied by some proponents of Natural Horsemanship are based on agonistic interactions and not affiliative ones as often claimed (McGreevy et al., 2009, Hartmann et al., 2017). When these techniques are used the risk of causing depressive states, creating psychological trauma or re-traumatisation is high.

What behaviours can you spot ?

References

Draaisma. R 2018. Language Signs And Calming Signals Of Horses. Boca Raton: CRC Press Taylor Francis Group.

Fureix, C., Bourjade, M., Henry, S., Sankey, C., & Hausberger, M. (2012). Exploring aggression regulation in managed groups of horses Equus caballus. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 138(3-4), 216-228.

Hartmann, E., Christensen, J. W., & McGreevy, P. D. (2017). Dominance and leadership: useful concepts in human–horse interactions?. Journal of Equine Veterinary Science, 52, 1-9.

Hausberger, M., Roche, H., Henry, S., & Visser, E. K. (2008). A review of the human–horse relationship. Applied animal behaviour science, 109(1), 1-24.

Henry, S., Sigurjónsdóttir, H., Klapper, A., Joubert, J., Montier, G., & Hausberger, M. (2020). Domestic Foal Weaning: Need for Re-Thinking Breeding Practices?. Animals, 10(2), 361.

Kieson, E., Lundgren, K., & Abramson, C. I. Preliminary Findings of Observations of Affiliative and Stress Behaviors in Large Horse Herds with Variations in Resources. In 15th Annual Conference for the International Society for Equitation Science, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

https://medwinpublishers.com/IZAB/a-preliminary-investigation-of-preferred-affiliative-interactions-within-and-between-select-bonded-pairs-of-horses-a-first-look-at-equine-love-languages.pdf

McGreevy, P., Oddie, C., Burton, F. L., & McLean, A. N. (2009). The horse–human dyad: Can we align horse training and handling activities with the equid social ethogram?. The Veterinary Journal, 181(1), 12-18.

Pierard, M., McGreevy, P., & Geers, R. (2019). Effect of density and relative aggressiveness on agonistic and affiliative interactions in a newly formed group of horses. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 29, 61-69.

Rees, L. (2017). Horses in Company. The Crowood Press.

Sigurjónsdóttir, H., & Haraldsson, H. (2019). Significance of group composition for the welfare of pastured horses. Animals, 9(1), 14

©️Jessie Sams (2021) Animal Behaviour and Trauma Recovery Service

08/10/2021

Lots of people asked me a while back, what does a happy horse look like? I thought about how to address this question and I've come up with an answer that I hope will be helpful..

Some of you may have heard of the 3 Fs or the Five Freedoms, maybe even some of you have heard of the Five Domains, if you've followed my page for a while. The problem with the Five Freedoms is that it focuses on the absence of negative states ie. hunger, thirst, cold, etc. It doesn't really address whether all the animal's needs are being met and how they feel about their life. Not just the physical, but mental and emotional as well, more than just covering their basic survival.

I think the Five Domains is a really excellent model to gauge the welfare status of our animals; to assess as best as we are able, if they're "happy".

Professor David Mellor: "Keeping social animals with congenial others in spacious, stimulus-rich and safe environments provides them with opportunities to engage in behaviours they may find rewarding, in other words, it provides opportunities for them to experience “positive affective engagement”. In general terms, the associated positive affects are considered likely to include various forms of comfort, pleasure, interest, confidence and a sense of being in control, and, more specifically, may include the following feelings: being energised, engaged, affectionately sociable; rewarded maternally, paternally or as a group when caring for young; and being nurtured, secure or protected, excitedly joyful, and/or s*xually gratified."

If you'd like to read more about Professor Mellor's Five Domains, you can follow the link here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5575572/

Or if you'd like to look at an excellent poster developed by the people at Horses and People magazine, adapted from: The 2020 Five Domains Model: Including Human-Animal Interactions in Assessments of Animal Welfare, by D.J. Mellor, N.J. Beausoleil, K.E. Littlewood, A.N. McLean, P.D. McGreevy, B. Jones and C. Wilkins. Animals 2020, DOI: 10.3390/ani10101870.

You can find the link to the pdf here:

https://app.box.com/s/88rakysmtmseh4eha21fx4jdy6ps47fp

06/10/2021

Enrichment

22/09/2021

“Labeling a horse "dominant" and in need of "respect", or needing to be taught to be submissive, doesn't offer us any training solutions to the behaviors we typically attribute to a "dominant horse". Saying a horse bites or kicks or rears because he or she is "dominant" is a circular definition that doesn't solve anything.

"Why is this animal doing this unwanted behavior?

Because he's being dominant.

Well, how do you know he's dominant?

Well because he's doing the behavior.

Well why is doing the behavior?

Because he's dominant.

Well how do you know he's dominant?

Because he's doing the behavior." -🗣 Cindy Martin quoting Dr. Susan Friedman? On the Equiosity podcast

And you go round and round in circles. It doesn't offer any solutions, it doesn't help the horse, and it doesn't actually explain the cause of the behaviors you're not happy with. What it does do though, is excuse the use of aggressive and force-able training methods.

Same goes for other labels. Lazy, stubborn, rude, disrespectful, mareish, bratty, bossy, sassy, grumpy... And even breed, size, gender, or color-related labels .. think "chestnut mare" , "stubborn pony", "stud", "Arabian", "OTTB", and allllllll the assumptions that come with those labels. We'd be better off just treating a horse like a horse and looking at behaviors as training, and just ignoring the colors, sizes, genders, breeds.. they just don't matter as much as we want them to. Sure, we have hormone fluctuations and certain genetic "tendencies" but you're still dealing with a horse .. that learns just like everyone and everything else... And every behavior has a cause, that's often related to training or environment. Quit with the labels. A whole new world of possibilities will open for you and your horse if you can look at your horse without them.

20/09/2021

Aggression is frequently, I dare say, almost always correlated with fear. Fear of harm, something bad happening to you, or fear of losing something of value. Hmm... those sound familiar, something bad being added or something good being taken away... wait, I know, PUNISHMENT! Aggression is caused by fear of punishment (whether a natural consequence or intentional by another being).

So why do we often resort to punishment when things go bad? Funny enough, our circle is complete, FEAR!! When we humans are afraid, afraid of being harmed by our horse, shamed by our peers, or our horse being harmed (losing something valuable), we often resort to, you guessed it, aggression! Because we are afraid we feel the need for more physical control (control and fear are contradictory). We give ourselves a strong illusion of control by using forceful methods to manipulate our horse. This is reinforcing to us, the punisher, because it often works, at least in the immediate short term, to reduce our fear. Even though it almost always creates more problems in the long run.

When you see someone become aggressive with their horse, don't get mad, get sad, because they are afraid and they don't have the tools to handle their emotions and respond appropriately to the situation. My only two horses who have an ounce of aggression in them are my most frightened horses. One is a violent resource guarder, the other a history of abuse. Both only aggress when they are afraid for their safety or losing something they value. So before you raise your hand to the horse who is aggressing, stop and think, will punishment, the thing they are afraid of, reduce their fear? Not likely!

Instead we should aspire to bring comfort and a sense of safety to those who are afraid. Provide them with tools to feel in control, to feel their safety and their resources are not at risk. Allow them dignity as they overcome this difficult emotion, give them tools to express their fear without aggression, and give them comfort when they are afraid.