A great practical question from a reader
In both Zen Connection with Horses and Bobby’s Diaries – Straight from the Horse’s Mouth to You, we talk about how to handle it when we ask our horse to do something and they don’t do it.
We suggest that even if you don’t get what you are asking for, that you stop asking and wait for your horse to lick their lips and chew, no matter how long that takes.
“What the?” I hear some of you asking as you want to read that again and seee if you’ve misread what I wrote. Yes, that is what I mean, stop asking even if you didn’t get what you wanted and wait for The Chew.
One of the most common causes of a horses fear and resistance – indeed vast amounts of our horse’s fear and /or resistance, comes from having pressure put on them when they are confused. You might eventually get what you want from applying that pressure, if you have a lot of skill – but the anxiety burdened horse that is the result is not what I want my partnership with my horse to feel like.
So with that in mind, here is a readers’s question: – “you know how you said even if the horse doesn’t give the response you want, you stop and wait for The Chew etc… If you ask for something and they do something different – like you ask for back up but they go sideways instead - if you stop asking, do they not think that what they did was right because you took the ‘asking’ pressure off? Just trying to get my head around that part as couldn’t explain it to a friend lol.”
My answer: If they gave me something different than I was trying to communicate, keeping in mind the principle of not adding pressure to fear or confusion, I would say “thanks! but that’s not it” and use something rhythmic and gentle to explain that it wasn’t what I was asking. All the time I would want to be feeling warm and fuzzy, because it’s obvious our horse is trying.
And I might well jump off and explain more clearly on the ground where I can use my hands to support them better for a straight back up. It’s all about the communication and the understanding of that.
E.g. If I asked for backup and got sideways, I might keep my rhythmic back up “ask” on (seat or leg or rein, whichever I have established) so as to say “sideways is not it, thanks baby”. Then after three to five times of that rhythmic seat or legs or hands that I was using, then I would stop and wait for The Chew - whether they changed to back up or not.
I would stop anyway even if I hadn’t got what I was after, because otherwise I risk adding pressure to what is either resistance or confusion and most likely confusion. (I might do this differently to this if my horse truly has no fear at all when they are confused, but that is uncommon.)
Another option in the same instance of getting sideways when I asked for back up, would be to block the sideways with my leg, nicely, saying “that’s not it thanks, baby” and keep applying my rhythmic explanation of my “ask” for the back-up, for three to five more times and then stop whether I got it or not and wait for The Chew no matter how long it takes, even if I had to jump off because I was sitting there so long…
And if that confusion happened more than once or twice, I would probably be:
- checking through how I was asking because there may be something in the way that I am going about this that is not communicating clearly,
- or explaining it on the ground where it is possible to be more clear about what it is that I am wanting, using the “ask” in exactly the same way and the same position as in the saddle, so as to help them understand better when I get back on.
I hope that helps, please ask questions if I haven’t explained clearly enough…
