Everyone’s looking for the happy place. This is where life is beautiful, there are no pressures and no stress, this is where we can relax and enjoy what the world has to offer. Horses also look for the happy place. When horses are in the happy place they can relax and unwind their muscles, their minds are open to learning and they are open to their human. As custodians of these beautiful creatures, we want to make sure our horses regularly find their their happy place, especially when interacting with us.
Sadly, sometimes when I’m out and about I find situations where there is no happy place for the horses. Sometimes us humans can be too controlling, micro-managing every moment, constantly applying aids and communicating with our horse. After a while the horses can tire of this and start exhibiting escapist behaviours, which we perceive as being ‘naughty’ or ‘resistant’. Sometimes, all they’re saying is ‘Hey, give us a break’. So here's a few ideas of how we can do this.
When handling, doing ground-work or riding a horse, we apply a cue (the aid) wait for the response and then release the aid. This sounds simple, but what can happen is the horse doesn't give us quite as much response as we want. The temptation is to keep asking or ask harder. In these situations the horse doesn't get rewarded for trying, doesn't have time to think and digest, and doesn't get a moment to relax. For example, if we are lunging our horse and ask for more speed, when they offer it we need to relax our driving aids. They have responded, we have rewarded. Then if we want more we can ask again. Instead sometimes people constantly move the whip, give non-stop voice aids and generally drive along a horse that’s already going. As you can imagine, from the horses perspective there's no winning, and definitely no happy place.
The result of this is that the horse has to tune out the human to deal with the situation. If we are constantly using aids when it doesn’t mean anything, the horse must tune us out or go crazy. After a while our horse isn’t responding to the whip anymore, or the voice or our body language, and has effectively been de-trained. Unfortunately, at this point some people blame the horse, and instead of looking at what they’re doing and learning how to change that, they employ more aggressive methods to get the result they want.
Whenever we’re riding or doing ground-work or lunging or anything with our horse there really should be more happy places than pressured places. Heaps more. We can make a point when we’re working our horse to find places where we can remove ALL pressure. We want to develop a headspace where this is what we’re looking for when we're doing things with our horse. At times people become fixated with applying aids and forget the much more important place of removing all aids and allowing the horse to be. This is the reason horses respond to us, not because we’re applying an aid, but because they know we’re going to remove it. If we do not remove the aids our horse will stop responding.
Every horse everywhere is looking for the happy place, as are we. If we give it to them, give them lots of it, our horses will be more willing and softer. It’s much nicer for us too. Spending more time being in the happy place with horses will change both their lives and ours.
Happy Horses Bitless
Considerate Horsemanship
Ph: 0401 249 263
Email: suzy@happyhorsesbitless.com
Facebook: Happy Horses Bitless Bridles
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