Friday, September 3rd, 2010
Just Say YES! to CAT – H Constructional Approach Training for Horses
The two horse books on this website, Zen Connection with Horses and Bobby’s Diaries – Straight From the Horse’s Mouth to You, have a large part of their focus on helping beat the fear that so many horses and riders experience to some degree. But I love it when I come across other ways that also help horses to live without fear too.
There’s a bunch of keen horse people out there, many of them clicker trainers, who are working with a technique for dealing with fear in horses that was successfully adapted from a technique developed for aggressive dogs. It’s called CAT-H Constructional Approach Training for Horses.
Hmmm, I know… dogs are predators and horses are prey and they have quite different ways of thinking and characteristics. It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to me to think that something that works on aggressive dogs would work on fearful horses.
But the Youtube footage below showed me differently.
The information in Zen Connection with Horses is a beautiful addition to any way of being with horses. One of the things we talk about is noticing and then developing how we experience our early warning signal that something is Not Quite Right with our horse. Not Quite Right is what happens before what happens, happens. So you can imagine how useful it is to have that kind of sensitivity and that kind of responsiveness.
When we ask our horse to do something, we use that early warning signal to know when to stop asking and then we wait for as long as it takes until our horse has chewed and is ready for the next step. Sometimes in that waiting, the horse will process and release a trauma from earlier in their lives. It’s a beautiful and liberating thing to do with our horse – to free them from an old fear that is affecting their lives now. The horse gets systematically calmer and more confident – and so does the rider.
CAT – H does it differently – though still progressing in small stepslike we do. CAT – H approaches in very small increments and then waits until the horse shows calm before the person retreats. This retreat rewards the horse’s calm by taking the pressure off, thus giving the horse control over the whole process and empowering them. Anything that empowers a horse in a fearful situation is a good deal. And judging by this Youtube footage, it works.
So, viva la difference! And Just Say YES! to a different technique that has the horse no longer scared, but alert and in the self carriage that indicates they are truly comfortable.
Click here for the article that explains the Just Say YES! project
