Developing the Horse's Confidence

Confidence- just because a horse is going through the motions of "doing things" and is "learning" does not mean that he is gaining confidence and feeling secure from his experiences.

The horse may "quietly" tolerate a situation a few or even many times before he starts to show more obvious signs of stress, insecurity, or fear about what is being presented if he is being coerced to physically comply.

A great example is the famous "wet saddle blankets" theory. Does a horse learn better though numerous physical repetition? If the person is solely focused on the physical movement/tolerance of the horse, without assessing the quality of his mental availability- or willingness- and the softness of his movement, they may not realize that repeating something is actually making things worse for the horse and teaching him to be defensive in the future.

I'll use an example presented in human terms. Let's say you were fearful of heights, and I brought you to a tall cliff, asking you to jump into the lake below.

If I kept asking you, and you kept trying to tell me how scared or uncomfortable you were, and I ignored your words how would that make you feel? More prone to jump in the water? Or physically start to tighten your body, (think brace,) experience a shortness of breath due to anticipation, increased heart rate, and perhaps your mind would be racing as to various potential outcomes.

If I realized my words didn't help, what if I then stood behind you and started "prodding you" with a finger in your back? Each time I pushed you towards the lake, you'd probably lean back into the pressure of my hand, and away from the lake. Would this help you change your emotional concerns about heights or jumping in? No.

So then, if that didn't work, what if I started to get MORE busy or chaotic in pushing on you, using both hands and with stronger force? At some point, you'd probably get irritated enough that your initial subtle "quiet" physical tension or resistance of just standing there locking up your body, would evolve into perhaps you lash out physically, towards me, to get me to go away... or you move off away from my reach.

Would this approach ever help change how you felt about the scenario? Even if I irritated you enough to get you to jump, what would you feel like the next time I brought up jumping in again? You'd perhaps come up with every reason to avoid or prevent it from happening because of how stressful the previous experience was. What would happen to your tension be just by walking in the direction of the cliff- despite being quite far away?

But what if initially when I realized you were scared of heights, I brought you down to stand three inches above the water. We might slowly practice putting one foot in the water and then back out. As you became more confident that you could take your foot out, and you had better balance, and the water didn't seem so far, then I might ask if you could you hop in with both feet. from the low height. Perhaps you could do so without becoming mentally triggered, emotionally stressed, or physically chaotic?

Then if you said, "Well that wasn't so bad," what if I asked how about we try from six inches? What if each jump you made, you started decreasing focusing the height, and instead realized the water that was cool and refreshing and actually felt kind good?

Then while you were still in a calm state, what if we went and did something else, while you still had that positive mental and emotional feeling? We may come back to the lake on a different day and revisit what we had previously done; how do you think you'd feel? Perhaps not so anticipative, or concerned, and you might even "offer" jumping from that six-inch spot or even foot height, without me having to ask you to do so.

By me compromising, or meeting you where you were at in the first time near the lake, by me BELIEVING and addressing your fear, worry and concern, by me presenting the "big" picture in small, specific segments, diminishing the pressure or "how much" you had to do, offering you a "release" when you tried at a realistic and attainable height for your current mental and emotional state, did I build your confidence or diminish it? Was I supportive or critical? Did I build your trust toward my communication? Even though I initially presented something outside of your comfort zone, were you better or more confident for the experience or not?

This is exactly the same for our horses and developing a trust-based partnership with them. My approach is to first create "tools" in how we clearly and intentionally communicate that is relevant to the horse's feedback. This gives us options to present specific, segmented communication as the "building blocks" creating a solid foundation to build the horse's education on.

90% of horses I meet today are defensive and fearful toward human communication- spatially and physically. They may have learned to become physically obedient or tolerant, but they are not trusting of the human. They do not offer anything more than minimal try because of living in a continuous anticipative state. For most, their feedback is either not acknowledged or it is criticized and shutdown. This teaches the horse to become increasingly resistant, anticipative, defensive and increasingly dysfunctional in and out of the herd and human interactions.

Teaching the horse to learn how learn, offering him time to think, search, and try without fear, is what while builds his confidence, willingness, and adaptability versus teaching him fear-based obedience and tolerance.