Many people place a lot of emphasis on getting horses accustomed to scary things. A lot of time is devoted to exposing horses to a tarpaulin or umbrella or plastic bags or water or a bicycle, etc. I think people who do this feel it is an important technique on the road to making a horse spook-proof.
The one big flaw in that plan is that there isn’t enough time in a horse’s life to make them spook-proof to everything that might spook them. I’m reminded of the adage “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” But in this case, “teach a horse not to spook at an object and he won’t spook at that object on that day in that place, but develop focus and a good relationship with a horse and he will always try not to spook when you are mentally and emotionally connected.”
Desensitizing a horse to a challenge is never the better option because there are always limits to its effectiveness. Most desensitization involves using flooding pressure to shut down a horse by teaching the futility of resistance. It’s not a reliable or desirable pathway to having a good relationship with a horse. It’s often an obedience trick that kills something inside a horse that makes a horse a horse.
I am telling you these thoughts because they are an example of something more important I want to touch on.
In the preface of my book, The Essence of Good Horsemanship, I relate an event that happened while I was driving through Melbourne on my way to a clinic. On the radio, a Catholic priest known as Father Bob was being interviewed about a charity fundraising competition he was organizing. Most of you won’t know who Father Bob is, but he is a legend in Australia as a most decent and caring man who has devoted his life to working with the homeless and troubled youth. Although he is a Catholic priest, he is constantly in trouble with the church for his irreverent attitude to the hierarchy.
In any case, in the radio interview, Father Bob was describing the prizes to be won in the competition. The third prize was a large flat-screen television, the second prize was a weekend for two at a luxury hotel and the first prize was serving for 2 days in a soup kitchen at a homeless shelter. When the interviewer expressed their dismay at the first prize, Father Bob set him straight. He said the second and third prizes were just stuff, but the first prize was happiness.
This was a light bulb moment for me. Father Bob’s succinctly expressed in one sentence my ambition for my horsemanship. Having a horse do stuff is just having a horse do stuff, but having a horse want to try to do stuff is happiness.
Desensitizing a horse to not spook is just stuff. Winning a blue ribbon is just stuff. Loading onto a trailer is just stuff. Being able to train a horse at liberty is just stuff. All these things can be achieved without caring a damn about our horse’s opinion of us or the things we ask it to do. I don’t see the satisfaction or thrill in that alone. I mean, we all need our horse to do stuff, but for me it is not enough and I’m not satisfied at just teaching my horse to do stuff.
The reason why my relationship with my wife, Michele is the best and happiest relationship I have in my life is that we both care about how the other feels as much as we care about ourselves. I want that with my horses too.
I care about all our animals, including our horses. Their emotional and physical well-being is top of the list of things that are important to me in our relationship. That’s easy. I care about them and that’s not hard to do.
But it’s not enough that I just care about my horses. For my happiness to be complete I want them to care about me. I don’t believe horses can care about people in the way that people care about horses, but they can care in the way horses can care. They can care about what works well for them and at the same time be thoughtful about working with me.
By that, I mean a horse can be comfortable in my company. It can feel okay when I present a task to it. It can look to me for help when it feels troubled or confused. It can gain confidence from my presence. It can feel free to express its opinion (good or bad) and say ‘no’. It can offer the best try it has to give. I want all that. That would be happiness to me. The rest of the stuff like snappy flying changes or coming when called is nice, but it’s just stuff and not enough for me. I’m greedier than that. I want a good mutual relationship. I want first prize. I want happiness.
Hanging out with our 11 hand Welsh pony, May