Learning Donut

Every horse is different.  That has never been clearer to me when I consider the differences between Donut and Nimo.  While there certainly are some similarities, there are far more differences.  Which has created a bit of a challenge for me as I have been working with Donut.

I expected from the very beginning that I would not necessarily be able to use the same techniques and strategies when training Donut as I did with Nimo.  For one thing, I have 17 years of experience now that I didn't have when I first got Nimo.  While I certainly don't feel like an expert on horses, I do think that my ability to work with horses has improved.  That growth alone means that I will be working with Donut differently than I worked with Nimo.

I also expected that Donut would have a different personality and different preferences than Nimo.  But little did I know how much those differences would mean when it came to basic communication.

The best thing about Donut is that she came to me with some really solid training in leading.  The second best thing was that I realized it and worked very hard to maintain that training.  Because of the work that was done with her on leading, I can use what she knows as a stepping off point for teaching her new things.  

The big problem came when I started to understand that the way I've been working with horses for my entire life was probably at best less than optimal and at worst just plain wrong.

Let me back up for a minute.  I grew up around horses to a certain degree.  My grandma got her first horse when I was probably around 8 years old.  And then she got another one.  And I spent a lot of time at her farm riding both by myself and with her.  The thing about those horses is that they already had certain skills.  So all you had to do was just handle them.  You put the halter on and they would follow you around.  They would stand tied for grooming and tacking up.  And under saddle, they knew how to walk, trot, and canter.  In fact, one of the horses my grandma had knew how to work cattle.  I only got to ride him one time working cattle, but I remember it vividly to this day.  It was some of the most fun I've ever had on the back of a horse.

But because the horses already had basic skills, I didn't spend a lot of time learning much about how to teach a horse something.  I learned how to put tack on and I learned how to sit on a horse and I guess I must have learned some basic cues for how to turn a horse, stop a horse, and ask it to go faster or slower.

By the time I was 11, my parents had gotten me a horse of my own and I was in 4-H.  You'd think that 4-H would have been a great way to learn how to teach horses new things, but I don't remember that being the case.  In fact, my grand training adventure that started with a weanling Quarter Horse bought at auction ended up with me selling him at the age of 3 because I never connected with him.  He was somehow rideable, thanks to the professional that my parents had the good sense to hire to start his training under saddle, but I don't remember that my own contributions were significant to his education.

I was best suited to riding my trusty Arabian mare, who had been well-trained by someone else and basically just required that whoever was on her back sat still and stayed out of her way while she did her job in the show ring or went as fast as possible down the trail.  Nothing irritated her more than a rider who tried to influence her to slow down, or God-forbid, stop, while she was on her way to where ever it was that she was going.

I did take her to horse camp every summer and there I got some formal education in riding, but it was always pretty limited to getting a horse to walk, trot, canter, and turn reasonably well.  There wasn't a lot on how to communicate effectively with horses and quite honestly, the training methodologies that were common way back then (during the late 80s and early 90s) were really focused on the dominance theory.  Horses were supposed to do what you told them to do and if they didn't, they might get yelled at or hit or otherwise physically handled.

By the time I got Nimo in 2003, the general training world hadn't changed much.  The "natural horsemanship" techniques had started to become more common, but it was hard to get access to them unless you could find a clinic to go to.  I did start to amass a collection of books and videos about new techniques and I went to a couple of clinics as well, but my basic training philosophy with Nimo was still dominance-based.  

And that really worked OK with him.  He wasn't a particularly sensitive or flighty horse and the most challenging thing I ever had to do with him was teach him how to lunge.  He absolutely refused to move away from me.  I think part of the plan was that I finally had to resort to putting a plastic bag on the end of my lunge whip to basically scare him away from me, but it was also sheer repetition of working on it every day for months and months.  I remember absolutely hating it at the time, but no one, including my trainer had any good ideas for working with him on that particular task, so I ended up blundering through it on my own.  In the end, though, he was so solid on lunging that by the time Gemma was old enough to hold herself upright on him, I could safely lunge him with her sitting on his back.

But now, there isn't really much excuse to be using dominance-based training methods with horses.  There is a wealth of information that is easily accessible in books and videos and on the internet that provides lots of great alternatives.  And I have been quite determined to find a better way than how I worked with Nimo, particularly because Donut is a much more sensitive horse than Nimo, and she is unsuited to being yelled at or hit.

What I have discovered recently is something that I should have understood at the beginning of my work with Donut but didn't.  During a past phase in my life, I entered a masters program for secondary education.  One of the most fundamental things that was drilled into me was that there are different types of people and different types of learning preferences.  The trick to providing a good education to kids is two-fold.  First, the teacher needs to understand herself, which means knowing her personality type and the preferences that go along with that, and teach according to those preferences.  Second, the teacher needs to know how to present information based on different learning preferences so her students can learn.  The single fastest way to fail at education is for the teacher to either force herself or be forced to teach in a way that doesn't match her own personality preferences combined with presenting information in a way that doesn't match the learning preferences of the student.

I guess I don't know this for sure, but my guess is that working with horses is about the same as teaching kids.  The trainer needs to teach based on her personality preferences and she needs to present information with extreme regard for how the individual horse learns.

So the strategy, then, is to find a system of training that fits the way the trainer thinks and prefers to interact with horses and also fits the way that a particular horse wants to communicate and learn.  That is easier said than done.  I know this because I've spent no small amount of money on books, DVDs, internet subscriptions, and online training classes on the last six months or so.  I've investigated a variety of methods, including those by Mark Rashid, Warwick Schiller, Double Dan Horsemanship, Larry Trocha, Linda Tellington-Jones, and Tristan Tucker.  

There were three trainers that stood out to me as best fitting my own preferences:  Mark Rashid, Warwick Schiller, and Tristan Tucker.  The most important thing to me is that I can follow a method that requires as little effort from me and the horse as possible.  That probably sounds lazy, but one thing that became clear to me in my work with Nimo using Science of Motion techniques is that most people make riding horses way too much physical work.  I went from having lessons where I thought I might black out from lack of oxygen because of breathing too hard and having single or, on one memorable occasion, double calf cramps to feeling like I had done nothing more than take a saunter around the yard.  It wasn't that I wasn't doing anything in my Science of Motion lessons, it was that the work I was doing was focused inward on very nuanced body control.  It wasn't easy at all, but it was more like learning how to play an instrument than learning how to ski.  It was such a welcome relief, and I realized how much more mental energy I can give to my horse if I'm not constantly physically exhausted.

So the three trainers whose methods most resonated with me were ones where they had clearly spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to communicate with a horse as easily as possible while still allowing for individualized interactions.  That was all great and everything, but when I started thinking through or actually trying out some of the methods on Donut, I hit a snag.  Donut is an active young horse who is fairly extroverted and confident.  She is also crazy athletic and possesses what I am convinced is other-worldly reflexes.  In terms of her learning preferences, she is in what I am calling the mindset of "she wants to do what she wants, when she wants, and how she wants."  Any hint that I might want her to deviate from this very strong preference is typically met with a fairly impressive display of athletic ability that involves all four feet leaving the ground repeatedly, or in other words, an epic temper tantrum.

One day, after watching her antics occur about 10 feet away from me at the end of the lead rope, I contemplated the situation.  I had plenty of time, because this particular display went on for several minutes.  It wasn't until Donut had flung herself sideways in a way that was perhaps not advisable and found herself falling to her knees, that she finally realized she may have overreacted to my request to stand next to a ground pole.

Now, both Warwick Schiller and Tristan Tucker have some specific techniques designed to help horses that are reactive and anxious and not focused on their handlers.  I have gone through some of them with Donut and what I found is that I'm not particularly good at executing these techniques.  (I will share just how awful I am in a future post.)  And after thinking about why I'm not very good at them, I realized it had to be one of two things.  Either I have been handling horses for the last almost four decades and have only survived through the good will of the horses and an overworked guardian angel or something about the techniques wasn't working with my own preferences.  Given that Nimo was widely regarded as the best-behaved horse at the barn I boarded him at and that we survived more than one ride on our own in technical terrain without a single incident of bad horse behavior, I'm going to give myself credit for having at least some degree of reasonable skill in working with horses.

If that is true and it isn't just that I am really incompetent at handling horses, what about the techniques was creating difficulty for me?  I spent a lot of time thinking about that.  Like months.  Here is what I have concluded.  There are two reasons I am having trouble with the techniques.  First, I didn't grow up learning how to handle horses using these type of techniques, so it is much like learning a new language for me, and I'm old enough that learning a new language is challenging and uncomfortable.  Second, my brain doesn't like the idea of using a technique to manage horse behavior.  In other words, the idea of doing something like disengaging the hindquarters or putting the horse through a little footwork pattern to refocus them is not appealing to me.  (The thought process behind these techniques is complex and valid, so I'm not trying to diminish them in any way.  They clearly work very well for a large number of people and horses, but they aren't working for me and Donut, and it is far more likely to be me rather than the technique that is the issue.)

In this case, Mark Rashid's approach, which tends to be less specific technique-based and more focused on an individualized approach, is more appealing to me.  The problem is that Mark Rashid doesn't necessarily have a specific kit of tools that he has published regarding how to work with self-centered young horses.  (Or if he does, please let me know where I can find it!)  Mark's advice (I can call him Mark because I've attended several clinics with him, I guess) would probably be to figure out exactly why Donut is reacting the way she is and then take steps to address that reason.  I think other clinicians and trainers would say that the reason for her reactivity is not necessarily important.  It's more about helping her to find a way to calm down and focus.  

I have to admit that problem-solving with horses is not my strong suit.  I haven't worked with that many who had a lot of problems to solve.  But there is nothing like practice to help a person become better.  So I gave it my best shot.

Why was Donut so reactive about working in the large arena, even when all I was asking her to do was walk around for a few minutes and maybe walk over some ground poles?  This comes back to my assessment that the biggest reason was simply that she didn't want to do it.  For example, I could take her to the round pen and walk her around and she would basically act like she was bored.  She might not focus as well as I'd like, but there were no temper tantrums.  I could also take her to the parking area and do a few circles, stop and back up, and practice a turn on the forehand without too much of an issue.  She would even be calm enough to want to go exploring in the huge hay barn.  And, leading her to and from her field to the barn was rarely eventful, unless there was something unusual that spooked her.

So it was really just the big arena that was causing the problem.  The big arena is located well behind the barn.  There are some horses in a field nearby, but it isn't really in what I would consider Donut's home area.  In fact, the only reason we would go that way is for her to do something in the arena.  So big arena = work and stuff Donut doesn't want to do.

My next step in the process was to look at what Donut wants.  She mainly wants to eat.  She loves eating and green grass is her favorite thing to eat.  (She also likes to sleep, but I didn't feel like I was going to be able to work that in - ha, ha!)  

Donut's second favorite activity is sleeping!

I remembered something from one of Warwick Schiller's videos that talked about how hand-grazing is a great way to develop communication with a horse.  He has a specific technique called Matching Steps that he suggests as something to do during grazing, and I've tried it several times.  I haven't seen the benefits from using the technique with Donut that I saw on the video examples, but that could certainly be because I'm not doing it as well as I should be.  Or it could be that it works better with older horses.  Or perhaps with horses that have a different personality.  I'm not really sure.  But I do hand-graze Donut for about five minutes every day before I turn her out because due to our incredibly mild winter this year, there is still some green grass in the grassy areas between fields and buildings.

And I realized that I had been incorporating the work in the round pen (which is near where I was grazing her) and the work in the parking area (which is on the way to her field) into our daily routine.  But the big arena was something I was doing only occasionally because there were often lessons in the arena, and I didn't feel comfortable working with Donut while two or more people were jumping.  So I had been avoiding the big arena as the place where we did our ground work.

The first thing I did after I realized that was to move our hand-grazing sessions out by the arena.  We didn't go in the arena at first.  Instead, we just hung out there, and I let Donut eat grass.  I did that regardless of whether there were other horses out there or not.  Then, I started adding short sessions in the arena where I didn't ask her to do anything other than be in the arena.  Whether she wanted to walk around or stand still, I didn't care.  And we were only in the arena for a minute and then we walked out, and Donut got to eat more grass.  It didn't take long before Donut would happily walk into the arena and explore the entire arena and even walk over ground poles and flower boxes on her own.  She even tried to climb on top of the mounting block and one of the big wooden jump boxes, so I'm thinking pedestal training is in her future!  And when she found out there was grass to eat at the far end, well, let's just say, she thinks the arena is fine now.

Donut at our hand-grazing session yesterday that also included the introduction of polo wraps.  That is probably worth an entire post on its own!

 

The next step will be to start incorporating actual work in small doses and we'll see how it goes.  Remember how I wrote earlier that Donut's current mindset is that she wants to do what she wants when she wants and how she wants?  Well, I think the best strategy was to get her to a point where she wanted to be out at the arena because there is good grass out there, and she learned that the arena is still a place where she has control over her actions.   Now that she has learned the arena is part of her daily routine, I'm going to see how she does with giving me control over her steps for a minute or two and then see if we can expand it from there.  She is certainly quite capable of doing groundwork patterns and we've done them in other locations without an issue.  So I'm hopeful that I've figured out what was going on in this case and we're near a resolution.  I guess I'll find out over the next week or so!

This whole process that I've been going through with Donut has not been without its frustrating moments (not to mention the hit on my bank account as I've researched a variety of techniques).  I've certainly been frustrated with myself and with Donut more than once.  But if I learned nothing else from working with Nimo, it is that frustration often occurs right before I really learn something.  In this case, what I'm learning will form the entire foundation of my relationship with Donut.  I'm learning her.  And myself.  And how we can do things together.  I'm learning that no matter how accomplished an expert is, that expert can only work with what they have experienced.  And no one is more experienced with working with Donut than I am.  That doesn't mean an expert couldn't come in and do a better or faster job teaching her things.  Of course they could.  I have no doubt that any number of good horse trainers could do an excellent job with Donut.  She is smart and curious and athletic.  But those horse trainers aren't planning to spend the next 25-30 years with Donut.  I am.  So their advice and experience is helpful and relevant, but I have to use my brain too, and listen to what Donut is trying to tell me.  And right now, she is telling me that we don't have the foundation in place for her to go gallivanting around doing whatever I tell her to do.  I have more work and learning to do first.  The good news is that there will then be many, many more blog posts about that process:)