Monday, December 31, 2012

Offering choice to build trust, by Jesse (www.PartridgeHorseHill.com)

Offering choice to build trust

The most important aspect of training I have learned in the past week is to always offer a horse a choice. Not to force the right behaviour, but to encourage the right behaviour and make it worth their while. By allowing a horse a chance to think through their options, and then subsequently be rewarded for making the right choice; you give the horse confidence. And positive encouragement to do that action again willingly, by their own accord.
An interesting example was with Rema, a client's Icelandic pony whom Lindsey is starting. She is a pokey little pony, and can be hard to motivate around the ring on the rail. So Lindsey offered her a rewarding rest in each corner of the arena when they passed by them. Rema learned that corners were comfortable, so she became excited to get to them. When Lindsey then moved her away from a corner, Rema had the choice of how fast she would move towards the next corner. And since Rema wanted the comfort in the corners, she decided going fast would be the best option! Here Lindsey has given Rema the choice to her own speed; and Rema has chosen to work harder for the reward in the corner. Without having to whip or kick this pokey pony around the ring, and Rema has learned she can make choices with Lindsey as a partner.
Another example of choice would be when we were teaching Shania how to canter under saddle. When asked to canter she would race around at a very speedy trot, rather than switch her gait to everyone's comfort. So we offered her the choice to follow another horse at the canter, to encourage her gait change; or she could choose to continue to trot. When she would pick up a canter for a few strides, we would immediately stop and give her reward. If she didn't, we would continue to trot and ask for transitions. In this way she learned the reward came after she tried to canter, and more work came when she continued to trot. From here we also took her on a trail ride, to allow her some room to run and the choice to run (canter) with the other horses on the trails. She took to this method extremely well; and by the end of the ride she was offering canter transitions off of a simple voice cue.
Choice is a very important part of a partnership, and it invokes the need to trust each other. Offering choice therefore builds confidence in both horse and handler, for their own workings and for working together. When you continue to offer a choice to a horse, and they continue to enjoy the outcome of the right choice; they become more likely to trust you and begin to follow your leadership without question. If you force a horse; you break that trust and they are weary to follow you. Force invokes fear, and fear can lead to all kinds of nasty attitudes. A good example of this happened just today with a horse named Angel. We hadn't expected any issues with her, and had pulled her out to ride as a leading horse to pony another horse we were starting. But when I got on Angel, we discovered some sour attitude. She would stop unexpectedly, and stand with pinned ears. Even with no leg pressure, and no rein contact; she would stand angrily. When urged forward, she would threaten to rear and pin her ears further. After some long thought on the matter, we concluded that after a lesson with another student, Angel had become sour to leg aids, as the other student had been too firm with her squeezes and kicks. By pushing Angel constantly, this rider had taken away her choice. And had doing so had made her sour to wanting to do anything at all. Together Lindsey and I reaffirmed Angel that all we wanted was for her to walk on, and that we would not kick or push her too hard. By positively reinforcing her tries to work for us, and by only asking her to move with our voice; Angel learned once more that she had a choice. And so again, she trusted us as her leaders and was able to walk/trot around the ring easily again.

By Jesse - a student with Partridge Horse Hill from Guelph

(Pictured is Jesse with her horse Johnny at a 2012 Partridge Horse Hill clinic)

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Horsey Talk - by Jesse, a Guelph student doing a placement with us

Horsey Talk
Learn more at PartridgeHorseHill.com
This past week I have spent my days working alongside Lindsey learning everything I can pick from her brain on how she trains horses through Natural Horsemanship. But it's not just a training technique; it's a language. She doesn't just walk up to a horse and force it to work for her, she asks this 1000lb beast to make a choice. By offering this choice, she creates a partnership. One that I have high respect for. Because I can see how it functions, and I can see how effective it really is for training. But you cannot ask a horse to make a choice, if they do not understand the question in the first place.
I have been taught many ways to do the same thing with a horse; the most common is lungeing. I have been taught 100 different “right ways” to lunge: facing the horse, locking shoulders with the horse, following the horse, whipping the horse, yelling, stomping, and everything else few and far between. The first day I was out with Lindsey she asked me to do ground games with one of her horses, Fiona. I immediately set out to show off my newly learned lungeing techniques and was quick to notice Fiona's uncomfortable demeanor to my techniques. I was confused as I was perfectly set up in the way I had been taught; lunge line in one hand, whip in the other, and facing my horse, following the circle around me. She ran in circles around me, sure; but she was also turning in on me, flicking her ears back and almost half stepping at me telling me to stop with the pressure! Lindsey showed me how to do circles with Fiona from there, how by facing Fiona I was constantly putting pressure on her with my belly button and her reaction was out of confusion and discomfort. So I tried again, this time facing the direction in which I wanted Fiona to travel, and lead her with my belly button. I think of it now as using my belly button as a big light beam to show my horse where I want them to go. This was a new language that I had never been taught before, this wasn't some quick fix for a snarky horse, this was understanding why Fiona was upset and adjusting my own behaviour to properly convey my goals to her.
From here I have been working hard to be a very strong observer while working with the horses day by day. I understand now the importance to learn their language so we can better learn together; rather than trying to force them to understand my language. It's funny to think, but how often have you seen trainers pushing a horse to do a task by way of human language, and human force. And yet they think the horse is the stupid one. When we should be smart enough to understand how to communicate on their level, if we want them to do things for us.

By Jesse - a Guelph student doing a placement with Partridge Horse Hill