The Soul of a Horse (5 page)

None of the DVDs had said any of this early enough to suit me. And very few effectively embraced the concept of how a horse learns until well into the program. Simply understanding what
reward
is to a horse made so much difference in the way I approached the task of training. But like learning to get out into the pasture, I had to skip ahead in those DVDs to find it.

Reward for a horse, I finally discovered, true reward, comes from release of pressure.

And with that reward comes learning. Communication. Understanding.

It’s as simple as that.

In the wild, when being chased by a cougar, the horse’s reward is when the cougar turns back.

Release of the pressure.

And so it is in the herd. When the matriarch disciplines the foal by sending him away from the herd, and pressures him to stay away, it is the release of that pressure, when the foal submits, that is his reward. As the foal begins to understand what it takes to avoid the pressure, he will submit earlier the next time. And, hopefully, not be a bad boy at all the third time.

When a dominant leader says,
Move your butt over,
the instant the follower responds, the leader drops the pressure. The lesson:
If I move my butt when she applies pressure, she will release the pressure and I will no longer feel uncomfortable.

The next time, that same horse will move his butt sooner. And before long, a simple look from the leader will do the job. No swelling up. No pointed movements. Maybe just a drop of the ears. Or a flick of the head.

And so it is as we teach. It’s not so much what we do, but rather the release of pressure the very instant the horse gives even a hint of the desired response. Then, depending upon the horse, it usually doesn’t take long to reach the conclusion:
Oh, I get it. If I move over when Joe does that, he releases the pressure, so that must be what he wants.

In effect, this is an extension of the doctrine of choice.
Do I want the pressure or the comfort of no pressure? I think I’ll move over and thereby choose no pressure.

Maybe Kathleen and I are weird, but we agree that having a thorough understanding of how a horse learns, and how the herd teaches one another, how they receive information and understanding, would provide so much more insight into the training process. And be a richer foundation from which to launch.

Concept-based learning.

This all came together for me one day as I was scanning a DVD and stumbled onto a very simple little exercise with an in-depth conceptual analysis of why it worked. The exercise was simply to get the horse to lower his head when asked. No sticks involved. No arenas. No stumbling around trying to rub my belly while patting my head. Just me and Cash. Up close and personal.

The lesson began with understanding that all horses, by nature, resist pressure. And lean into pressure. When you push on an unschooled horse’s hindquarters, the hindquarters will come toward you. Push on his shoulder and he’ll lean into you. Pull down on an unschooled horse’s halter and he will resist and pull up. That’s because the pressure, to him, is actually at the top of the halter. He feels the top strap pushing down. So he pushes into that pressure by lifting his head. These are genetic traits, embedded for survival. When a wolf sinks his teeth into a horse’s underbelly, the horse’s only chance for survival is to push down, to apply pressure to the wolf. If the horse pulls away from the wolf, he helps the predator rip his belly open.

So how do you get the horse to understand that you want his head to go down? How do you communicate that when he wants to push against the pressure by raising his head?

How would I do it with a dog? How would I get Benji to understand a desired action?

I would reward him with a treat.

And what is reward to a horse? I asked myself with a knowing smile.

Release of pressure. Comfort, I said smugly.

And off I went to gather Monsieur le Cash.

This time it went swimmingly. I applied the slightest of downward pressure to the lead rope. Not trying to pull his head down. Just enough to counter his upward resistance. And I held it. The discomfort to Cash was minimal. Just the pressure of the rope halter. Before long, Cash lowered his head, just enough to release the pressure, and I immediately dropped the lead rope, rubbed him on the forehead, and praised him.

Then we did it again. This time he dropped his head sooner, and went farther down, and I released the rope, as Clinton Anderson says, like it was a hot potato.

Before long, Cash’s response was almost instantaneous, dropping his head as much as ten to twelve inches. I pulled out a folding chair and sat down to see if he would drop all the way to my lap. Three sets of pressure and release, and he was there. I could’ve bridled him from the chair. Granted, Cash is very intuitive. He gets things quickly and is very willing. Others of our horses would take longer. But now they all have learned this task.

The next step was to ask Cash to leave his head down, rather than immediately lift it up upon the release of pressure. To communicate that, when I released the rope, I released it just a little. When he lifted up, he bumped back into pressure from the rope and immediately dropped again.

He was soon staying down until I completely released the rope and said, “Okay. Good boy.”

I was grinning from ear to ear.

Not so much because he had done the task, but because I had watched his wheels turn. I had seen the intake of understanding that I was asking for something that was completely counter to his genetics, but because I was a trusted leader, he could respond safely, without worry. Willingly.

And he did.

We tromped up the driveway to the front door of our house and I called for Kathleen.

“Come out! I’ve gotta show you something!” You would’ve thought I had found the cure for cancer.

The door swung open and she almost swallowed the plum she was eating. She had never seen a horse at the front door before. Cash was virtually inside, his curiosity working overtime.

I demonstrated Cash’s new feat and rattled on about the learning process. The discovery of pressure and release.

“Have you tried that with his ears?” she asked.

Cash had come to us with one rule:
Do not ever touch my ears!

We had often wondered what might’ve happened in the past to cause this reaction. I’ve heard of trainers who have been known to twist an ear to make a horse do or accept something. Whatever it was, we couldn’t get close. Couldn’t even scratch Cash between the ears.

“Good idea!” I said.

The
pressure,
in this instance, would come from his own fear of humans touching his ears.

I reached slowly up the side of his head toward his ear. He immediately pulled away when I got too close. My hand went with him, staying in position, creating even more pressure, until he stopped and held still for a couple of seconds. Until he was able to realize that it wasn’t going to hurt him. Until he relaxed. Then I removed my hand.

It happened. He finally began to think,
This is no big deal.
That bought him a release of pressure. More comfort.

I reached again, a bit farther.

When he didn’t retreat, I dropped my hand. The release of pressure sent a message, just as it had when I’d released the halter while teaching him to lower his head.

One more time. Gaining an inch over the time before. And I retreated immediately when he didn’t pull away.

And rubbed him on the forehead.
Good boy.

And so it went, gaining an inch or so with each try. If he pulled away, I’d go with him until he relaxed. It didn’t happen often. He was getting the picture.

It took about ten minutes before my fingers were wrapped around the base of his ear, rubbing very gently. Then withdrawing.

I quit for the day, feeling there had been a major breakthrough.

The next day, after maybe twenty minutes of microprogressions, I wound up with my hand wrapped all the way around his ear and my thumb rubbing gently
inside.

Just amazing.

Approaching the other ear was not quite like starting at square one, but close. By the end of the week, I could rub both ears, inside and out, and today Cash virtually purrs when we do this, leaning into it, saying,
More, more.

It’s truly exciting what a bit of understanding can do.

And patience.

That’s the huge lesson Cash, and all the other horses, are teaching me. I’ve never been accused of having a lot of patience.

Not even a little.

Cash showed me the way.

Again.

Don’t start halfway around the track, Joe. Start at the starting gate. Because when faced with an unruly horse who hasn’t begun at the beginning, a beast six or seven times your own weight, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to attempt to overcome the size relationship with force and dominance.

I remember one of the first times I went on a trail ride. A mere kid, primed with years of cowboy movies, I wanted to let this huge creature know in no uncertain terms who was boss. Understand that this poor horse had probably been doing the same thing, dealing with idiots like me, day in and day out, for longer than I had been alive. But there I was, reins pulled tight, jerking this way and that, kicking his sides, establishing my dominance. Without a single clue.

The real embarrassment is that, decades later, when Kathleen arranged the birthday trail ride, I was doing exactly the same things. Establishing my bossmanship. Looking like I knew what I was doing. Soaking up compliments from the trail leader.

And in a way, I suppose, all of that’s fine for the occasional trail rider. Most trail horses know so much more than those who ride them, it’s difficult to do too much wrong. They won’t let you. They are turning, going, and stopping before you think about it so you don’t have to jerk on their mouth or kick them in the side. The years have taught them.

But for the horse owner, there’s only one place to begin.

At the beginning.

Stand in the horse’s hooves. Study his history. Understand why he is the way he is, and why he acts the way he does.

He’s a prey animal.

You mean like a rabbit??

Pretty much, yeah.

But he weighs eleven hundred pounds!!

Yep.

Discover what makes him feel safe. What keeps him healthy. What he wants in a leader. And why.

The following story is not mine. I asked and received permission from Monty Roberts to summarize it here because I feel it’s so important to understand what can actually be accomplished. Monty has written an entire book, entitled
Shy Boy,
on the subject. I encourage you to read it.

Monty was asked by the BBC if he thought he could accomplish his Join-Up procedure totally in the wild. Without round pens, without lead lines. Just him and a wild horse. A mustang. He said yes, and a few months later he did just that. With cameras rolling, he joined up with a mustang in the wild, saddled, bridled, and placed a rider on the horse he later named Shy Boy. It took something like thirty-six hours to accomplish this feat. Monty was in the saddle of his own horse for most of that time. An amazing accomplishment. But the most important part of the story is this: A year later the BBC called again and asked Monty what he thought Shy Boy might do if he were returned to his herd. Would he choose to stay with the herd or would he stay with Monty?

Frankly, Monty wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. He now loved this horse. But persistence from TV producers convinced him. And, again with cameras rolling, they found the herd and released Shy Boy.

The mustang took one look at the herd and loped off to join them. They were last seen that evening literally racing off into the sunset. Monty stayed awake most of the night. He had lookouts positioned all over the place with radios, watching for the herd. Around nine o’clock the next morning, a radio crackled and blared that the herd was in sight, headed more or less their way. Shy Boy was out front.

At the bottom of the ridge that separated the horses from Monty’s encampment, the herd stopped and Shy Boy climbed to the top of the ridge. He stood for quite some time looking first at the herd, then at the camp. Finally, he turned and galloped down the ridge toward the camp, weaving in and out of tall brush, slowing to a trot, then a walk, stopping only when he was nose-to-nose with Monty. I cried like a baby when I read that story. Imagine how you would feel if that was your horse, turned loose to make his own choice, to run free with his herd or come back to you. You would surely know that you had been doing something right.

We were finally able to meet Monty about a year ago when we got together at his ranch to discuss his possible involvement in an upcoming Benji movie. But it was difficult for me to stay focused. This man is an icon in the horse world, and I had read his every book and seen all of his DVDs. I was mesmerized.

Just listening firsthand to Monty speak of his experiences, and twisting and pulling ideas with him, made it a very special encounter. But the highlight of the day—sorry, Monty—was meeting and being able to Join-Up with Shy Boy himself.

Seeing our twins, Allegra and Dylan, then twelve, Join-Up with this famous horse as if they had been doing it all their lives confirmed forever the simplicity and value of the process. They did a much better job than I did. With the master himself barking directions and correcting my body positions, I felt like a bumbling buffoon.

But Shy Boy made up for all of our shortcomings and was having a terrific time showing us the ropes. There was no question that this was one happy horse.

I am quite certain that when he was turned back out into the wild, Shy Boy would never have returned to the cowboy who sold us Mariah. Or the trainer mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

But he returned to Monty Roberts.

I tell everyone Shy Boy’s story. I tell it over and over again.

It’s the way it should be. And it doesn’t have to be any other way.

It’s what happens when you begin at the beginning.