Time to do more than 'not watch anymore'? A brief review of Julie Taylor's new book

 Some months ago, I received my copy of Julie Taylor’s recent book ‘I can’t watch anymore’ The case for dropping Equestrian from the Olympic Games: An Open Letter to the International Olympic Committee.

I picked it up intending to browse and ended up reading it from cover to cover. 

Why? I have been in the ‘I can’t watch anymore’ camp for over a decade, and thought I was fairly familiar with the arguments. What kept me reading was:

•  Realising I didn’t know the half of it.
•  Feeling that I should know.
•  The clarity and thoroughness of the arguments presented.

For several years, I have been hopeful that life was improving for top level competition horses; more comfortable tack, better arena surfaces, consideration of their needs beyond physical comfort and so on. Although I felt that the bigger questions – relating to the use of horses in competition – were not being adequately addressed, I consoled myself that at least conditions were improving.

This book provides convincing evidence that my hopes were wildly optimistic. Many important topics are discussed; doping, denerving, rollkur, the gap between rules and practice and transparency to name a few.

It brings you to an inescapable realisation - that when another picture of a horse in clear distress is shown (as on the book cover), or a photo is published of a horse with blood on their side after competing, or a report is given of a de-nerved horse participating in high level competition - the response from regulatory bodies may well not be to act to improve equine welfare. 

Instead, we see within this book too many cases where the response is instead to relax regulation in the troublesome area, or concentrate on how to make the issue either more palatable or less accessible to the public. For example: 

• The removal of the ban on riding de-nerved horses (FEI, 2013)
• Shifting the definitions of prohibited substances and relaxing penalties when horses test positive for them (I was astonished to hear of a horse jumping in the Olympics whilst testing positive for a local anaesthetic - authorised by the FEI Veterinary Commission on the day)
• Downgrading the 'blood rule' to a chapter on 'eliminations' - a consequence most often arising from a mistake, rather than it's former classification as an issue of abuse of the horse. 

Whatever your opinion about competing on horseback (in whatever form), all horse lovers can agree that at the very least ‘good enough’ welfare of these horses must be maintained, and the bodies responsible for monitoring this standard should be scrutinised. This book scrutinises. And should, I feel, be read by anyone who wants to make an informed decision about whether they want to watch, or participate, anymore.

Julie Taylor will be presenting a webinar for the EBA on October 16th 2022, booking at https://www.trybooking.co.uk/BVPZ. You could join us and learn more. Or, if you are reading this after the 16th, contact me at felicity@equinebehaviouraffiliation.org to access the recording. 

I close with a few quotes from the book, which I wholeheartedly agree with.

‘The Olympic disciplines, especially dressage, commemorate the fact that, in past centuries, we involved one of the most peaceful species in the world in our own violent conflicts, forcing them to carry us to war; to starve, to be blown up and shot at and to be slaughtered and eaten when we ran out of rations. To keep that dream alive, we continue to ship horses around the world on lorries and aeroplanes, in order to make them do tricks, the purpose of which they cannot possibly comprehend. It is a truly bizarre habit, the time for which has surely passed.

  Humankind stands at a crossroads regarding our relationship with each other and with the rest of the living planet. We should be looking forward to a more peaceful, reciprocally respectful coexistence. Not back in time at our own glorified violence and domination.’

 

‘NSAIDs are not considered performance enhancing when taken by human athletes because the human athlete is both the one who wants to win and the one whose body has to work through the pain. In Equestrian, the athlete wants to win and the horse wants to be elsewhere, doing horse things with other horses.’

‘If you have ever watched dressage on TV or in person and wondered what is was for, don’t feel bad. Not even the judges know what it’s about. They are expected to award scores for things which are not happening, so they are likely to be as confused as you are.’ 

How to help horses with separation anxiety

Paddy

 Three blurry pictures of horses in the distance... this struck me leaving the yard tonight, and I wanted to photograph from a distance so as not to attract them to me. 

What struck me? That all 3 of these horses, Harvey, Paddy and Tigger, have been described as suffering from separation anxiety. Paddy (the grey) was most extreme, and when he first came to me, he would quickly sweat up and even get colicky if he was separated from certain horses, even if others were still around. Tigger would jump pretty much anything to stay close to other horses. Harvey was never separated from the others after he arrived at my yard nearly 2 years ago, kept an anxious eye on them, and was quick to follow if they left. 

So, these pictures show all of these horses feeling OK about being on their own. Not hard evidence I admit, you'll have to take my word for it! 

How did this happen? Every case is different, but it is very common, and was the case for all of these 3 horses, that their extreme worry about being more than a few feet from companions was due to their overall mental well-being - feeling generally stressed, uncertain, unsafe - leading to a need for the security of other horses. 

Harvey

In the past, I would have approached separation anxiety in a client's horse with training based solutions. Using systematic desensitisation/counter conditioning/shaping, trying to sensitively help the horse to learn that they were OK on their own. This can ask a lot of the client, careful training with excellent reading of body language, and often a lot of time. And it won't be truly effective if the horse doesn't come to feel truly safe without the other horse(s). 

That feeling of safety may have roots which are not addressed by such training. For example, pain issues may leave a horse feeling vulnerable and unsafe. Similarly a new environment, other stressful events, lack of choice, food deprivation, unavoidable aversives - to name but a few - can leave an individual horse feeling insecure and in need of the company of others. 

So - what did we do with these 3 horses that worked? Adapt their environment, management and interactions to optimise physical and mental well-being. For example, ensuring constant access to forage (albeit often soaked hay to keep weight down), as much choice as possible, ensuring physical needs are met, minimising aversives and giving constant access to other horses.

Tigger

 In all cases (and I have seen this with many client's horses too), as they feel more secure in themselves, they start making choices to separate a little from the others. For example, the others wanted to come in and shelter from the sun and the flies today, Tigger preferred to stay out and graze; so he stayed out on his own, out of sight of the others and more than 150M from them. Initially, this might be a lesser distance, and the horse might begin to feel uncomfortable on his own - which he can resolve by re-joining the others. 

A hard thing to take on board sometimes - we like to 'do' something to 'fix' a problem like this. That the 'doing' involves establishing physical and emotional safety for your horse (as far as possible) in all aspects of their lives, then having patience as the feeling of security takes root and grows may feel too passive, but is wonderfully effective.

Attachment theory and horses - serve and return

 A few people have been writing about attachment theory and horses recently, so I thought I'd 'go public' with this little piece relating to attachment theory that I was putting together as part of the Equine Behaviour Affiliation's Applied Behaviour Course. 

Serve and return. If it's new to you, this video may help 

InBrief: The Science of Neglect

So, that's a good introduction for humans, and particularly the importance of serve and return for children. 

As adults, this still matters - for example just brief eye contact with a trusted friend can really help to calm you when you are feeling worried. 

How about horses? The relationships that are central to a horse's life will hopefully be equine, but aspects of attachment theory can help us to think about how we interact with them too. 

Here's a little clip of Harvey, an ex racehorse who lives at my yard. Harvey has just been attacked by his food bowl! He somehow managed to flip it up and fire food into his face and got a big fright. 5 minutes later he is still not eating. 

Here, I think we have some serve and return. He touches me (and it's not for treats - he knows all about my right pocket!), I respond, and he then feels safe enough to eat. He repeats this movement a few times before really settling.

Completing this serve and return might seem a small thing to us, but think how you feel when you try to catch that friend's eye when you are worried and she looks away or ignores you. It's not so different, and can make a huge difference to the horse and really strengthen a relationship. 

Grazing muzzles: thoughts on applying research findings to the individual

This is a great example of considering the individual as well as research.

Effects of grazing muzzles on behavior, voluntary exercise, and physiological stress of miniature horses housed in a herd

Also considering what the research actually tells us - for example, testing 6 ponies is completely understandable from a research point of view, and provides useful information, but is obviously not enough to draw conclusions about most horses from.

In this paper, grazing muzzles are found to have several benefits for the ponies tested, and no measured problems. For these ponies, grazing muzzles would seem to improve their welfare.

For the individual horse - consider the pros and cons and that horse's reaction to the muzzle. Although the ponies in this research showed no increase in physiological stress in the measurements taken, some horses are clearly very stressed by a grazing muzzle and there may be other less stressful solutions to weigh management.

Throughout nearly 20 years of looking after Paddy, the only item he has ever consistently avoided - with an added kick threat if I persisted - is a grazing muzzle. In his case, weight control was essential, but he seemed much happier with a small bare paddock and company. Others have accepted it without seeming too concerned. For the horse who is clearly not thrilled about the muzzle but does tolerate it - careful ongoing evaluation of your options!

Learn from the research, but always listen to your horse too.

Equine Aggression: Character or well-being?

Flynn (the chestnut horse in the video) is lovely with people, but in the first yard shown in the video spent a fair amount of time threatening and moving the other horses.
It's common to label a horse like this as aggressive, antisocial, dominant.
There are actually many factors involved in Flynn's behaviour. Out in the field with the others he looked very relaxed. He needs to have a good bit of space to feel he can safely be around other horses. So much of his behaviour was about maintaining a safe space around himself. This may have come from being cornered/injured/threatened by other horses in the past - we don't know.
If we label an animal, we tend to lose empathy for them, and we may be annoyed or frustrated by their behaviour.
Instead, we could consider this behaviour as a symptom of an underlying problem; his well-being is compromised. It could be a sign of pain, fear; really any form of stress. We can then consider how to help him.

Having sufficient space and feeling safe are basic needs for all animals, and vary for each individual. In this case, we could simply say that his basic needs are not being met in this environment, causing stress which then (as is often the case) causes aggression.

Flynn will also behave more aggressively than usual if other basic needs are not being met; for example if he is cold and wet, or in pain.

Even if we can't resolve the issue entirely (we didn't move to the new environment in the video for over 5 years), we can at least make some changes to improve things, and appreciate that we should be looking for ways to help this horse rather than impugning his good character.

Horses as individuals (not statistics)

Asking a good equine behaviourist questions about your horse may initially be frustrating. They are often going to say something like ‘it depends’.

Why is my horse bucking after jumps?

Why won’t my horse go in the trailer?

Why does my horse pin his ears when people pass her stable?

Why does my horse yawn after I put his bridle on?

What should I do if my horse is pulling away from me for grass when I lead her?

  

And so on.

The answer to all of these questions is – it depends…

Part of the reason ‘it depends’ is that every horse is an individual, and whilst research and experience may both reveal patterns in horses’ body language and behaviour, the individual may well not conform to the norm. So a behaviourist will want to ask an awful lot of questions and actually see your horse if at all possible before giving any sort of opinion.

In a recent journal club with IAABC colleagues, we discussed an interesting paper, ‘Horses associate individual human voices with the valence of past interactions: a behavioural and electrophysiological study’ Serenella d’Ingeo, Angelo Quaranta, Marcello Siniscalchi, Mathilde Stomp, Caroline Coste, Charlotte Bagnard, Martine Hausberger & Hugo Cousillas. Scientific Reports | (2019) 9:11568 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-47960-5.

The authors of this paper were interested in how horses responded to a voice they associated with a negative experience (V-) as opposed to their response to a voice they associated with a positive experience (V+). The figure below is reproduced from the paper (Many thanks to Springer Nature for their generous copyright policy!), with my simple additions of the letters A, B, C and D and a vertical blue line. Each dot in the figure represents a horse, so 16 horses in total are represented.

Figure from above cited paper: Theta wave relative frequency in % of the power profile (right hemisphere): correlation between data obtained for each horse during the playback of V+ and V− respectively.

Without reviewing the findings in this paper, we can simply use this as an example. Please don’t worry if, like me, you are not well versed in the significance of brain waves!

Here, a notable observation might be that 12 of the 16 horses are to the left of the blue line drawn from 0 on the x axis; the majority of horses have a negative measurement in response to the voice associated with a positive experience. This would be a typical and very valid point for discussion – we have found a pattern. 

However, this figure is also an excellent reminder to consider the individual.

For example, horse A measures 30 for the voice associated with the negative experience (V-), and around -15 for the voice associated with the positive experience (V+), whilst horse B is -20 and 20 for V- and V+ respectively. So they are showing opposite responses in this test. Horse C has negative readings for both experiences, whilst horse D has positive readings for both experiences. Horse D also has a strongly positive measure for V+, whilst most other horses are negative or close to 0.

Furthermore, if we were to look at, say, the mean average of V+ measurements, we would get a figure around -5. We need to be very aware that several individuals showed very different measurements.

Statistics gathered for groups give us useful information, but should not be assumed to relate to the individual. 

That this figure beautifully illustrates the point that each horse is an individual was observed by Dr Robin Foster at the journal club, so all credit is due to her for highlighting this. The explanation given here, and any mistakes therein are down to me.

horses, fireworks and feeling safe

For very obvious reasons, feral horses prefer to be in wide open spaces, where they can detect threats from as great a distance as possible. Other needs - for food, water, shelter and so on may take them to less open spaces where they will be more vigilant - predators may lurk there.

When I built my yard, I wanted to provide adequate shelter from the scottish winter weather, but also tried to keep it as open as possible so it would feel like a safe place. And they look very relaxed and happy in the yard, and come in from the field to rest and doze.

As the weather turns, they have been spending more and more time in the yard. However, coming up the morning after fireworks night, it was interesting to see that they had hardly been in the yard. It was clear that they had spent the night in the most wide open area of the fields. Maybe seems obvious, but I thought it worth commenting on. Our view is often that a stable is a place where a horse can feel and be safe, and depending on the horse's situation and past experiences this may be the case, but often if the horse senses danger a wide open space will feel much safer. 

Of course, horses did not evolve to cope with traffic, fences, and thousands of other hazards in the environments we keep them in. Where a horse will actually be safe, may be different from where he will feel safe, but his emotional state and possible responses to feeling endangered are an important factor to consider. 

Spending quality time with your horse

Got a message from a past student a couple of days ago with a very well put observation. 

Over last summer she had done a lovely piece of training with her horse to help him with his worries about trailer loading - very slow and observant, really listening to him and taking things at his pace. 

He had been a bit 'off' coming out of winter, and she was keeping an eye on him, looking for something to perk him up. For various reasons, as the trailer was out, she decided to try loading him. He did brilliantly, and the next day was full of enthusiasm when she arrived. Her comment was 'it's amazing how spending some quality time with him made him so happy'. 

When I first got involved with horses, I think I'd have considered quality time with them as going out on a long hack, or maybe grooming - but more from the perspective of what I enjoyed, unless the horse was really clearly unhappy about the activity! A trailer loading training session definitely wouldn't have been on the list. 

I've seen this often, how working at the horse's pace through a fear issue can transform a relationship, and also this training becomes something they really enjoy. The phrase 'quality time' was so accurate; when we can slow down and really pay attention to them and help them feel better about their worries in life, it can mean so much to them. And we can then bring this pace and attitude to other areas of our work with them, and build on a solid foundation. 

Some thoughts on negative and positive reinforcement

Most of us, if we learn about learning theory, quickly become familiar with the following:

Negative reinforcement : the removal of something aversive from the environment as a consequence of a behaviour, making that behaviour more likely to occur in the future. 

Positive reinforcement: the addition of something rewarding into the environment as a consequence of a behaviour, making that behaviour more likely to occur in the future.

Negative punishment: the removal of something appealing from the environment as a consequence of a behaviour, making that behaviour less likely to occur in the future

Positive punishment: the addition of something aversive into the environment as a consequence of a behaviour, making that behaviour less likely to occur in the future.

Looks quite straightforward...

Then, we categorise the training and learning we see. We give our horse a polo when he touches a cone, and say we are training with positive reinforcement. We form biases about what kind of training is good and what is bad. Taken to an extreme, we form opinions about whether people are good or bad based on the kind of training they do, but that's a subject for another day! 

So - a couple of thoughts on positive and negative reinforcement. 

Is it positive or negative reinforcement? 

Let's say my horse Paddy has an itchy leg - he finds a tree stump, lifts his leg and rubs against it, removing the itch. We would generally describe this as negative reinforcement - the irritating itch has been removed by Paddy's behaviour - rubbing the tree stump. 

Now, let's say Paddy has an itchy leg and lifts his leg while I am grooming him. I reach down and scratch his leg for him. Is this positive reinforcement - I am adding a pleasant scratch, or negative reinforcement - removing the itch as in the previous case. Does Paddy learn any differently in the two cases above? 

Since it is the horse who is learning, it only really matters how his brain processes these two events - my opinion is unimportant in his learning process! But I'd be more likely to call the latter case positive reinforcement, because I added a good consequence. 

So already we see a grey area in how we classify the learning. 

Can  learning through negative reinforcement be a 'nice' experience? 

The example above, where Paddy finds the handy tree stump surely confirms that negative reinforcement can be an enjoyable method of learning - the relief of scratching the itch. 

To take an example involving a human rather than a bit of wood - let's say Paddy comes hobbling in from the field. He has a big stone trapped in his foot which I removed when he lifts his foot for me. We'd usually describe this as negative reinforcement - I've removed something aversive, and this was probably a very good experience for Paddy. 

How do we decide on our preferred training methods? 

If we think in terms of positive and negative reinforcement, and decide that positive reinforcement is good, kind, ethical, call it what you will, and negative reinforcement is to be avoided where possible - the above examples don't make sense! 

Not only is negative reinforcement a good experience for Paddy in theses cases, it's also sometimes not even clear if learning has occurred through negative or positive reinforcement - that just depends how we view it. 

When we are considering the effectiveness of training, then understanding the mechanics of learning is important. 

When we are considering the ethics of training, a major factor is how it feels to the learner, rather than how it affects their behaviour. Using a model that describes how their behaviour is affected to describe how they may feel is, I think, not enough. 

What really matters, I think, is how the horse feels about interaction we have with him. 

To take an extreme example, if we apply a painful stimulus to our horse then release it when he behaves as we wish, we are using negative reinforcement, but it is the active application of a painful stimulus that we should be concerned about, not the learning mechanism. Whether the aversive stimulus is applied before or after a behaviour, or entirely at random, for myself, I'd like to minimise these stimuli. I'd also like to increase the things he finds nice, whenever they happen! 

In summary - be nice to your horse :-) 

Some thoughts on the loss of a horse

A few wee thoughts on how the loss of Benson has affected my other horses. Benson came to me in 2002, Paddy and Tigger arrived in 2003. Flynn has known Benson since 2002, and Elvis since about 2008 - so a long time for all.

Benson died of heart failure 12 days ago, as peacefully as can be.

Initially, all horses looked exhausted. Paddy and Tigger particularly were standing dozing, knees kept buckling but neither wanted to lie down. About 2 - 3 hours after he died huge bout of eating hay. I would guess that they hadn't ate or slept the night before, I can't say how ill he seemed but I think they knew.

I left Benson's body in the field shelter for a few hours after he died, interestingly they didn't come in much while I was in the shelter but once I disappeared to pick up poo in the field they all went in. Shortly after they had gone in, Flynn herded the rest of them out and spent some time alone with Benson.

It's the first time I've had a chance to do this, and I'm glad I did. After he left, there was no calling, no searching for him; they knew he was gone which I think is probably better.

Things are getting back to something like normal now, but they still don't spend time in the shelter where he died, they all use the other one. I was slow to notice this and change haynets around so they aren't having to eat somewhere they don't want to be.

Also, they are sticking much closer to each other. Usually one will go out an graze alone quite happily while the others stay in, or one will stay in alone. Just now they prefer to be in a close group, and graze as in the photo - close together, where they'd normally spread out.

Nothing I can do to make it better really, but there are things I can do to not make it worse. I wouldn't, for example, take one out for a ride alone, or separate them off for any other reason. And I can see where they prefer to be and provide food and water there.

These changes are easier to notice when a horse has died, maybe because you're expecting change and feeling the loss yourself. But they will also happen when a field mate leaves; we think a lot about how to introduce new horses, but not so much about the impact there may be when one leaves.

A thought on orphan foals

So, this is just more random musing...

The young of some species are coprophagic, meaning they eat faeces. There are various theories about why they do this. Foals eat their mothers faeces. So do baby rats!

I came across this paper today - 'The Maternal Pheromone and Brain Development in the Preweanling Rat'

TM Lee et al. Physiol Behav 33 (3), 385-390. 9 1984. 

The abstract says 'Preweanling rats selectively approach and consume pheromone-containing maternal feces. This selectivity suggests that the consumption of maternal feces might be important for the growing pup. Previous research suggested that such feces might promote brain development. A series of experiments was carried out in which pups were denied access to maternal feces. These pups were clearly inferior to control pups in brain growth and neurobehavioral maturation, as well as in the quantity of brain myelin.'

Interesting - often hand reared foals have behaviour problems, and we tend to put this down to the absence of other horses to teach them social skills, stress, our inadequacies in training them and so on. But I wonder if the simple lack of the building blocks necessary for normal brain growth and behavioural development plays a significant role?

The side effects of how we train horses...

People often evaluate training simply in terms of 'does it work'? Sounds reasonable.

If they mean 'does it change the specific behaviour we are focussing on, in the way that we want' then it is definitely not enough.

Every interaction we have with a horse may change lots of things other than the specific behaviour - for example they also learn about the individual trainer, may generalise this learning to all people, may come to feel more relaxed or more worried in certain environments, with certain equipment and so on - all as a result of one simple piece of training.

Just rereading a paper, 'Reinforcement as a mediator of the perception of humans by horses (Equus caballus)', Carol Sankey et al. To quote from the abstract:

'In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the use of positive or negative reinforcement in horse training may have consequences on the animals’ perception of humans, as a positive, negative or neutral element (in their environment). Two groups of ponies were trained to walk backwards in response to a vocal order using either positive or negative reinforcement. Heart rate monitors and behavioural observations were used to assess the animals’ perception of humans on the short (just after training) and long (5 months later) terms. The results showed that the type of reinforcement had a major effect on the subsequent animals’ perception of familiar and unfamiliar humans. Negative reinforcement was rapidly associated with an increased emotional state, as revealed by heart rate measurements and behavioural observations (head movements and ears laid back position). Its use led the ponies to seek less contact with humans. On the contrary, ponies trained with positive reinforcement showed an increased interest in humans and sought contact after training. This is especially remarkable as it was reached in a maximum of 5 sessions of 1 to 3 min (i.e. 5 to 15 min) and had lasting effects (visible after 5 months). Even learning was positively influenced by positive reinforcement. Overall, horses seem capable of associating humans to particular experiences and display extended long-term memory abilities.'

Common sense, you might say - if we do nice things with our horse they want to be with us more, if we train them by doing things they find unpleasant, they want to be with us less.

This is only a little part of the picture of 'good' training - for example simply throwing large amounts of food at your horse for every good thing he does is probably not the answer either! But it is an important element that is often overlooked, by scientists and trainers alike, so it's great to see some research in this area.

More horse watching - social behaviour

Came across this video I took a couple of years ago. Tigger meeting Duke, the stallion who lives at his yard, for the first time. Tigger's posturing is obviously attention grabbing. You can look up any good book on horse behaviour and find descriptions of this kind of sequence of behaviour. But what I find interesting is the more subtle interactions.

For example, at the start of the video, the older, wiser Paddy (grey) is not particularly interested in Duke, it is clear that his communication is with Tigger (the touch behind the elbow, then sniffing). He moves a little way from Tigger then waits until Tigger joins him. When Tigger then turns back to Duke, Paddy considers going with him but doesn't. There's very little written about these kinds of interactions.

I would say it looks very much as if Paddy recognises that Tigger's interactions with Duke aren't very wise, and is suggesting that Tigger should move away/calm down. It's a shame that the moments which bond horses, or demonstrate an existing bond, are not given more attention.

What's in a whinny?

I love just watching horses - and there's always something new to ponder. So today - the whinny.

The whinny is generally described as a way for horses to maintain or regain contact with each other and also as a friendly greeting. It's an effective way to attract another horse's attention over a distance, and emotions can certainly be transmitted through frequency of whinnying and different types of whinny.

I think the whinny can convey more than simple communications like 'I'm here and excited' or 'where are you, I'm scared'.

Getting video of a really interesting example isn't easy - but here's a fairly basic one. Paddy is often observed 'managing' the social life of the horses in his field - herding 'his' mares away from the other horses, and breaking up interactions between certain horses.

In this case, Paddy is some distance away from one of his field mates who is talking to a pony over the fence. Paddy hears a squeal, whinnies in response and continues to watch until the interaction is over. I have seen more extreme examples where a play fight is turning a bit serious, and a distant whinny from Paddy breaks it up immediately. This whinny could simply be attracting the other horse's attention and thus interrupting their behaviour. But I do think there is more being communicated than that.

On learning... ??

So, seems a bit off topic, but I'm reading a book just now on psychotherapy. Lots of ideas in there for anyone who is teaching/coaching, for example the importance of relationship between teacher and student -  creating and maintaining an environment in which the student can learn rather than , say, trying to push information into them regardless!

Over the years, one thing I've had to work on is saying less! The desire to give someone 'useful' information and help them leads you to do and say too much, where often giving them the space to work things out is more productive.

But the bit that really caught my attention - a story about a man who had been coming for therapy for months, mostly about his failing marriage, but had not revealed he was having an affair with another woman! His desire for the therapist to have a good opinion of him was stronger than his desire to work out his problems and change.

So, this obviously isn't about horses, but my horse-obsessed brain draws parallels... I have suffered from something very similar when getting help from people whom I respect - I very much want them to have a good opinion of me, so consciously or not, you try to hide what you think are the 'bad bits'. You don't ask the 'silly' questions for fear of sounding stupid, you maybe don't ask to work on the weakest bit of your riding because you know its a big mess, and you'd rather work on something that looks at least passably good!

Being aware of this tendency (if you have it), being aware that it isn't helpful and will actually slow down your progress, and also being aware that a good trainer/coach/teacher will not be judgmental and think less of you for being willing to expose and tackle the weakest areas, but will be pleased to help you through them... all very important.

As usual, not quite sure where I'm going with this, have nothing profound of my own to add, but may strike a chord with some of you, as it did with me, whether you are teacher or student...

When horses don't 'live in the moment'...

For the past few years, I've felt that while I would use clicker training, or treats as rewards, to train 'routine' tasks such as lifting a foot or standing to get legs hosed, I wouldn't use treats for anything where I wanted quality in the action - for example teaching shoulder in. Mostly I've just said this is because, having trained these types of movement both with and without treats, there is a different feel to them - the quality is not there when you use treats.

So, I was really interested when one of last years students came out with pretty much the same comment last week. As happens sometimes, I had 3 separate conversations around this subject with 3 different people and finally something clicked. 

I think there would be lots of different ways of explaining this, but basically when we use a valuable reward in training, at the point where the horse has learned the task and knows a reward is coming, he is anticipating a future event, rather than being focused on what he is doing right now. 

For us people, we know that 'being in the moment' is crucial to improving our horsemanship - if we are thinking about the last poor canter transition, or wondering what we'll have for tea tonight, we are missing what is happening now. I think the same happens for horses - if they are busy thinking about the tasty carrot they will get if they complete 3 steps of shoulder in, they are not feeling the movement, and it feels different to us. 

Not saying don't use treats - if you fade them out appropriately it wouldn't be a problem, but just interesting to consider?

To put this another way, when the consequence of the horse's actions are big, whether it be reward or punishment, this will cause the horse to anticipate to consequence, which distracts their attention from what is happening in the moment. Which will affect their learning...

All because Elvis left the field - problem solving...

In my last blog, I was talking about Tigger and his lamentable lack of social skills, more evident that usual when Elvis left the field and Tigger's social life was turned upside down. 

Not really relevant here, but this picture just sums
Tigger up for me - always a bit different!

Usually during the summer, Tigger either comes when you call, or you have to go and fetch him, and he is quite happy to come in once you’ve reached him.

A few days before Elvis and Paddy were due to return to the big field, Tigger didn’t want to come in any more. His attention was glued to the mare and foal, and he didn’t want to leave them.

What now? The first thought most of us would have is probably a training solution – carrot or stick – fairly literally in this case. But neither would be a great idea.

Treats for the wanted behaviour (leaving the foal) would most probably not work – as he gets further from the foal he becomes increasingly anxious, and treats would not be a sufficient incentive, nor would they really address the problem. Safety wise also not the best – Tigger might well move further from the foal than he is comfortable with in order to get his treat, which might the trigger an explosive dash back to his buddy.

So – maybe a schooling stick or his bridle? In this situation I’d say not. He is clearly worried about leaving the foal, and putting more pressure on him will not help matters. Firstly, safety wise it’s a really bad idea – the field is deep and muddy in places, and ‘picking an argument’ with a horse on bad footing is just daft J .  Secondly, particularly in the deep and muddy bits, you are likely to fail – Tigger will return to the foal leaving you stranded without your wellies, or worse! Finally – you might get him in from the field, but if it’s not an emergency what is the point really? You’ve risked your safety and the horse’s, done no good to your relationship, probably stressed both of you quite a bit….

Think again… another option would be to bring the mare and foal in. Tigger will doubtless follow, not get stressed, this will be safer and more likely to succeed. Nothing wrong with this solution, except than in this situation, the mare and foal aren’t mine, and I don’t have anywhere to put them once they are in! So an option in an emergency, with permission from the owner, but not ideal in this case.

And we think again… and find the lazy solution, which always suits me well J Does Tigger really need to come in at all? I can check him in the field, he doesn’t need fed, and I’m certainly not going to try and ride him while he’s so distracted. In a few days Paddy and Elvis will return to the field, and they will most likely fix the problem for me. Once field life is back to normal, Tigger should get back to normal too, and we won’t have done any damage in the meantime. If things don’t settle down, we can think (yet) again.

Sure enough, the ‘not coming in’ thing stopped a few days after Paddy and Elvis returned to the field, and we’re all back to normal now.

A good example of how each ‘behaviour problem’ is so individual – we need think before acting,  understand the causes and find a solution appropriate to that unique situation. 

All because Elvis left the field...

Tigger, whom we love dearly, spent a lot of time alone until he was 3 years old, and has, to put it mildly, very poor social skills – he just always seems to be saying or doing the wrong thing around other horses! In a stable herd he does OK, make changes to the group and anything could happen.

So, about 6 weeks ago Elvis injured his leg, needing stiches and rest in a small non-muddy paddock for 4 weeks. Paddy and Flynn were nominated to keep Elvis company, taking turns to stay in. Elvis, who has very good social skills, adjusted to this change in routine remarkably well. He didn’t show any great desire to go back out to the big field, and led out nicely in hand every day for some grazing. The only change in his behaviour was due to being fed treats while he was getting his dressing changed every day – he is much more interested in people approaching than previously, and nickers at the sight of hibiscrub and bandages J

So, all was well in the small paddock. Out in the big field… in the absence of Paddy and Elvis, Tigger finds new horses to hang out with. This causes all sorts of problems. Tigger has an ill-founded burst of confidence, and starts challenging horses whom he has always steered clear of in the past. This doesn’t work out too well for him and causes all sorts of trouble… he then becomes very attached to a 3 month old foal in the field, and doesn’t want to come in any more.

Now we have a fairly calm and content Elvis, but a Tigger who is distracted, unsafe to handle and having fights with other horses!

Elvis, Paddy and Flynn are now back in the field, and things have more or less settled down again. The video shows Elvis being turned out for the first time after his ‘paddock rest’. Elvis is a confident pony with, as I mentioned, excellent social skills, and it really shows. He enters the field, turns back for a treat, says ‘hi’ to the horses and ponies he hasn’t seen for nearly a month – all pretty relaxed. Meanwhile Paddy is back in the field also, and the drama is not Elvis rejoining the herd, but Paddy separating Tigger from the foal – and having to put a lot of effort into it – usually Paddy just flicks an ear and Tigger moves. The last clip is day 2, and you can see how much less Paddy has to do to tell Tigger to leave the foal. 

Any point to this? 

Firstly, that good social skills make such a difference to your horses social life - just as they do with people. With horses, there is so much focus on social dominance hierarchy, and how that affects their behaviour, and far too little focus on their social skills and how these may affect their behaviour towards other horses and people - and how badly a lack of social skills may affect them emotionally. 

Secondly, to be aware of how changes to the social group can affect a horse, particularly one like Tigger. He changed very quickly from a rideable, manageable horse into one you could not even safely bring in from the field - all because Elvis left the field. 

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'Aggressive' mare in stable - the fundamental attribution error?

I’m not a psychologist, so forgive my massive simplification, but I came across a term a while ago that grabbed my interest – the ‘fundamental attribution error’. Basically, this means that when we see someone doing something, for example running a red traffic light, we tend to think it relates to their personality ('he's an idiot') rather than the situation the person might be in. And the ‘error’ bit would give a clue that we are often wrong in attributing their actions mainly to their personality.

Why did it interest me? Because it is so common in how we view horses. I hear often about horses who are grumpy, moody, vicious and in other ways of bad character, when often they are simply responding to a situation they can’t cope with.

Recently, I visited a client who was concerned about her young horse. Lets call the horse Milly. Milly was lunging over the stable door at people, with her mouth open, ears pinned. Going into the stable with her was a risky business, she would unpredictably lunge at you, or turn her hind quarters and threaten to kick. Recently she’d become much worse when you approached with a head collar.

So, this is a classic case where Milly might be described as being aggressive, grumpy, having a bad attitude and so on. Actually, Milly is afraid of particular situations and events, and having no option to flee in her stable is resorting to defensive threats.

If a horse like Milly is approached with the attitude that she is being, in some way 'bad', or needs to learn manners, the common approach will be to punish her behaviour - making the situation worse. If we realise she is simply showing her fear of a specific situation, we can do something a bit more constructive. 

So, what do we do? Retraining Milly to be truly comfortable with people in her stable may take a while. The most immediate problem then, for Milly’s welfare and the safety of her handlers, is to be able to put a head collar on her without scaring her. Then she can be taken out of the stable, turned out into her field, her owner can muck out safely and so on, while she is retrained.

This client very kindly did a little bit of filming while I was there, and even more kindly has allowed me to put the video up on youtube. Of course, being there to work with the horse and owner and not to make a movie, it's just a few wee clips and the progress by the end of the session wasn't filmed - we were both much too absorbed by Milly! 

We worked with Milly for a little over an hour, with several long breaks and lots of short ones. In the initial part of the film, she is clearly fearful, and trying to retreat as far as her stable will allow. The second part of the film is taken early on in the ‘retraining’. She is not looking totally relaxed, but is investigating me and the head collar, and I am giving her a very tiny food reward each time she progresses a little in her explorations of the head collar. When I move the head collar towards her, she still backs off, but if I am patient and let her choose to come forward, she is making good progress.

'Milly' before and during first training session

By the end of the session, we had put the head collar on Milly a couple of times, with her full cooperation. She allowed both of us to scratch her withers, and began grooming us back. She certainly did not look like a mare of ‘bad character’, she was more than eager to be friendly to people when she didn’t feel threatened by them.

The outlook for Milly is good – she has a very caring owner, who recognised that this was a problem her horse needed help with, not a bad horse who needed put in her place. 

Can horses get stressed?

No, I wouldn't seriously ask that question, would have hoped the answer was obvious.

Anyway, today I noticed that there was an article about stress in horses in the new British Horse magazine.
Good to see.

The article opened by reporting on a survey, which found that 90% of horse owners questioned believe that horses suffer signs of stress or anxiety. 44% have a horse that displays signs of stress, and 84% wish to reduce these signs. The stats look quite nice like this, but looked at another way...

... 1 in 10 horse owners don't believe horses can suffer signs of stress or anxiety

More than half the horses out there have owners who believe they don't display signs of stress

And 1 in 6 owners have no wish to reduce stress signs

Long way to go apparently!