If I think happy thoughts, will he stop biting me so much?
Sep 02 2007
Many of you have written to talk about your much loved fugly horses. Fugly they may be, but most of them earned their good homes through having good personalities. They were sweet and amenable to training or they were babysitters who packed your child around and were worth their weight in gold. If a horse is both fugly and ill-trained, it is almost a sure thing that his eventual end will be the slaughterhouse. I am always asked what you, as an individual horse owner, can do to make things better for horses. Well, one thing you can do is do your part every day to create a horse who is likeable and cooperative, and who would have a great chance of finding another caring home if something catastrophic happened to you and you could not care for him any longer.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where many people who own horses never took riding lessons, and are therefore trying to self-educate about training and horse handling via videos and the Internet. I’ve already addressed my thoughts on how some “natural horsemanship” training is both ineffective and results in a spoiled horse who can’t do a job. Now an alert reader has sent me something way sillier than the worst of the NH gurus.
Alexander Nevzorov is some Russian guy who thinks he can revolutionize horsemanship. The thing is, I agree with the man on some points. A lot of people have shitty hands. Horses shouldn’t be used for bullfighting. Most riders really do need to learn to ride more off their seat and legs and less off of their hands. Rollkur is ridiculous. The Dr. Cook’s Bitless Bridle is an absolutely wonderful creation that I wish were legal to show in. Unfortunately, as with many people who are convinced they have found the One True Way, he takes it too far and his worshipping minions take it even farther. He denounces all equestrian sports as evil based upon the bad behavior of a minority of participants. He opposes all shoeing. He denounces ANY punishment of the horse, for ANY reason. And so we see posts like this one from one of his followers. Original post in bold, my comments in blue.
“My pony bites. Relentlessly. Many people in this forum have told me that they have had young horses that bite and they outgrow it, or whatever. Who has ever had a biting horse that wasn’t disciplined simply decide one day to repent and bite no more? Anyone? It is certainly a baby bite, not a mean bite. Your honor, my son is really a very good boy, he was just listening to friends when he decided to assault that old lady. He is a year old, he has hurt me a lot, broken skin, hurt others, scared others, it’s not okay. Really? You are certainly sending HIM a message that it IS okay. I cant lead him, it is difficult to put on a halter because he bites my hands. When I am leading him and I push his mouth away, he rears and that gets very dangerous and we get nowhere. Because you run like a chicken with its head cut off when he does this. I’ll bet money. But I will not hit him or punish him. WHEN will this STOP??? If you will not punish him, the answer is “never.” When will he outgrow this? How long does it take? I’m trying not to be impatient, I dont expect this to go away overnight, but I am getting hurt! It’d go away overnight in a big damn hurry if he were at my house. Other people are getting hurt! Perhaps the first lawsuit or two will teach you a lesson about the necessity of setting boundaries? I try to send energy and thoughts, very calming, and envision my desires in my mind. He’s a horse, not a goddamn psychic and he has no idea what you’re thinking. He just thinks you are a pussy who lets him bite her. When you’re not at the barn, he and the other colts laugh about you. I also try to think about what pleasure he might get from biting, but of course, it is difficult. He’s not mean, he’s just into S&M! I try to impress upon him with my mind that what he does HURTS and I dont want to be around him when he does it. “ You impress upon him with your behavior that you go away and leave him alone when he does it. Great job there, Wonder Trainer.
FHOTD: GOOD GOD, that pony needs an ASS WHUPPING! Sending “energy and thoughts” is no more going to deter his behavior than painting your body with carrot juice. The pony is biting because he is an alpha pony (and I’m betting he’s a stud pony, since there seems to be a fear of genital mutilation, aka gelding, among these loons). Does anybody remember that “Six Feet Under” episode where Lisa was telling the ants in her house to please go away in peace? Yeah, that worked really well for her, too.
A friend of mine tells a brilliant story about a nippy suckling colt. One day, after she had broken her arm and was wearing a cast, she was in the stall with mare and baby filling the water pail with a hose. Nippy baby came over and chomped on her upper arm. In shock, she yelled and popped up her arm with the cast and bopped baby under the jaw with it. He flipped completely over backwards and fell on his butt. Needless to say, baby never nipped again in his life. While obviously I don’t recommend deliberately beating a weanling with a plaster cast, it is an excellent example of a horse learning from cause-and-effect that biting is not the thing to do!
See, when I look at pictures like these, I don’t see an amazing and magical partnership between horse and rider. I see a dumbass trying to qualify for a Darwin Award.
Here’s another post.
“I’m considering buying a horse, just to have as a pet. OK my head already hurts. Theres this beautiful black stallion about 5.6 feet tall that I want to buy to recue him from his horrible owner. At the moment he is been used as a money making machine for covering mares. I am sure he just HATES that. We all know how intact males DESPISE having sex and think it is a fate worse than death. I want to keep as a stallion as I don’t want to mutillate his natural state. I see lots of mutilation in the future, but that’s ok – it’ll be your body, not his. His current owner always has a bit in his mouth when taking him from the stable to the field about 100 yards walk. He rears constantly and bits him a little. I think this is because the horse hates him. No, it’s because he’s a STALLION and nobody has ever taught him NOT to bite and drag people around. So in my quest to save this horse I have converted my garge into a stable and I have rented a five acre paddock down the road about a half a mile away just beyond a neighbours stud farm. Since living in a garage is so “natural!” How high should i have the bounds of my field as it borders another field with many mares? -Do you think the neck string is the right tool to lead him with? Oh please, just tape this for youtube the first time you try to lead the stallion that currently has to be led with a bit with a neck string! The current owner has advised me only to lead him when he has a bit in his mouth but I know he is an ignorant man, so i don’t care what he says. – where do i get a neck string? Youtube! Youtube! Youtube! PLEASE! I am so looking forward to having this horse. He’s looking forward to having you too. I can tell. I plan to keep him in at night and leave him out early in the morning before i go to work. I am sure the neighbors will enjoy watching you lead him a half mile down the road with a neck string. Hope you are ready for a large lawsuit from whoever eventually finds him running loose on their property, breeding everything with a vagina. Might want to notify your boss now that being very late for work is in your immediate future. This is my first horse. I was wondering how I get good advise to manage this horse as i will only accept the best for him in a purist natural system. ” Here’s some good advise: Don’t buy a horse. Buy a year’s worth of riding lessons. If you must buy a horse, may I suggest a 25 year old retired Quarter Horse broodmare? She will probably be willing to live in your garage and lead down the road with a neck string. You may even survive to tell the tale.
I do wonder if Mr. Nevzarov will take these horses when their frustrated and wounded owners finally give up? I’m guessing not. I’m guessing his moronic teachings will result in both of these horses going to slaughter, when most likely both could have been saved with traditional training and a bit of discipline.
You do your horse no favors by allowing him to walk all over you, not now, and not in the long run. A horse is a large animal that can be very dangerous if boundaries for acceptable behavior are not set. Horses vary. There are horses who will realize they have done something wrong, and refrain from repeating it, if you merely growl at them. Others, you may have to get physical with. The point is to make the punishment clearly related to the behavior, to make it immediate, to make it brief and to make it consistent. For example, a horse that drags you down the barn aisle can be led with a chain lead that only hits his nose and causes pain IF he tries to barge past you. If he leads nicely, the chain lies slack and does not hurt him in the least. This is not abusive. The horse always has a simple way to avoid pain – he can choose to stop dragging you down the aisle like a runaway buffalo and walk nicely. Now, there’s a difference between that and running the horse backwards snapping on the chain until he rears up and falls over. The latter is a behavior done in anger that does not teach the horse a thing.
This guy just reminds me of Steve Irwin…it all looks way cool until the day you, oops, die.
I think the guy can ride, and some of what he says, he’s right about. But what he forgets – what MANY of these people forget – is that they have an entire foundation of knowledge they use every time they are around a horse. They have good instincts. They nip bad behavior in the bud with body language and voice. That’s why they can put on these performances. Suzy Backyard Horseowner is not going to be able to do this. She is just going to get hurt, or killed, and the horse will be heading nowhere good.
212 comments to “If I think happy thoughts, will he stop biting me so much?”
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I am inexperianced myself but even I can see that most of those photos in the russian’s site aren’t real, and why have they no context?
Horses don’t just randomly have their guts ripped out like in the one, and all dressage horses bend.
I can make Princess throw her head up too. She even does it all by herself. (We’re working on it.)
P.S. Whats with all the cute rearing? It took me half a year to put a stop to that at home.
I especially love the heels-flying- at-head shots.
now my fury migraine has abated just slightly… ill get picky with just a small handful of images:
* for ‘iron free’ horses, THESE babies sure look capable of slicing open an abdomen..
http://www.hauteecole.ru/
images/photo/Str_1.jpg
* the ‘horrors’ – of sneezing..
http://hauteecole.10gb.ru/
horrors_of_sport/verona2006/6.jpg
* the ‘horrors’ – of a dusty arena..
http://hauteecole.10gb.ru/
horrors_of_sport/200707/20070711-209.jpg
* the ‘horrors’ – of a child rider theyve decided is ugly…
http://www.hauteecole.ru/images/
horrors_of_sport/spbsportsmen/15s.jpg
yes, look at the terror, pain and abuse on her horses face *LOL*
http://www.haute-ecole.ru/images/
horrors_of_sport/spbsportsmen/14.jpg
* the ‘horrors’ – of horse drool..
http://hauteecole.10gb.ru/
horrors_of_sport/verona2006/3.jpg
* the ‘horrors’ – of shitty, incompetent, obvious photoshopping..
http://www.hauteecole.ru/images/
horrors_of_sport/20060101.jpg
http://www.haute-ecole.ru/images/
horrors_of_sport/20051101/001.jpg
http://hauteecole.10gb.ru/
horrors_of_sport/finland2006/14.jpg
* the ‘horrors’ or rather stupidity of not knowing the stuttgart german masters and the fei world cup are different competitions – kind of makes obvious they werent even AT either comp!
and finally…
* dont miss the rollkur gallery – which is image for image stolen from sustainabledressage.com. the lawsuit against that site owner was settled.. yours is yet to come, nevzorov!
sad that a few good and correct points about animal mistreatment must be lost in a website which is a masturbatory ocean of self important bullshit..
lifelike001 said…
now my fury migraine has abated just slightly… ill get picky with just a small handful of images:
Indeed.
Just a tip on posting links.
You can you embed your links in the links tag like this:
link tag tutorial
That way they will appear as links, not truncated text.
i gotta go to bed right now, but i promise tomorrow i go to remedial tag school for dorks!
i was doing it thinking ‘there IS a better way to do this… why cant i just wake up knowing all the useful things i want to know?’ *rolls eyes at self*
the machines are ganging up on me. BUT i did make fresh goats cheese and pesto ravioli 100% from scratch this afternoon… request temporary dispensation as human of variable quality?
Truthseeker, I have experienced the same thing! I’ve been teaching kids to ride and found myself saying ‘Here’s a whip. The next time she does that, smack her.’ Even though I’d never exactly ‘smack’ a pony I was riding, you need to say something to get kids out of the mentality that when little Topsy throws her head around in canter because she knows it unseats little riders, she KNOWS it’s bad and they ARE allowed to correct her.
When I was a kid, I had the gentlest hands in the world. My cue to slow down probably felt like a fly tugging on the reins. The cure? Getting stuck on a speedy little welsh sec A who would be on the other side of the mountain if you didn’t HAUL back for lessons every week. Also taught me to keep my seat. Soft hands are good. Pathetic ones are not.
I deal with bratty ponies, including one who spent most of his youth as a lawnmower for some old ladies who did nothing but give him treats over the fence, You get nowhere with Rupert by ‘sending energy and thoughts’ – you bop him on the nose the first time he pins his ears back and stretches for you! Exactly the same thing he does to horses in the field who are 3 hands bigger and lot chunkier than he is. After that you’re fine, but if he thinks you’re too much of a wimp to stop him, he’s in charge, and he WILL break skin. (Needless to say he is not a riding school mount) I can only imagine the trouble these people will land themselves in.
Besides that, what’s going to happen when a horse develops some bratty behaviour like pawing the ground for food/attention (we had a pony who thought this was great fun) or kicking the 5-bar gate when he wants to come in (Rupert again). Somehow I don’t think heading over to ‘communicate’ with them is going to stop them ruining their feet or getting their leg caught and breaking it – horses are not that bright.
GAH. Natural selection at work maybe?
And fugly, you’re right about it being second nature. I took my OH up to meet the horses the other day. Rupert tried to steal his feed before I’d put the bucket down, and charged at me with ears pinned – I threw my arms (and bucket, narrowly missing said brat-pony) up and made some silly growly noise at him, he backed off and waited quietly at the back of his stable. Must’ve looked like a a right idiot, cause OH laughed at me for a while, but I didn’t think twice before I did it.
like the pet thing was bad enough… then i saw this:
Theres this beautiful black stallion about 5.6 feet tall that I want to buy to recue him from his horrible owner.
and i was like this is going to be REALLY bad.
4Horses&Holding said… Down the road from me, there is a trainer named Tom Curtains (?). He travels around the country (I guess) and is here in the winter. I’ve heard he is good, and he does have some very nice horses on his place. I believe he is, for the most part, a “training-people-to-train-horses trainer.” I know next to nothing about his training methods, etc. But what is so funny, is that when they are there in the winter, you will see people riding off from his place all dressed up. He wears chaps, hat, bandanna, lasso on his saddle, cowboy hat, blah blah blah….. and therefore so do all the people who come to his place. I am NOT putting him down, because, as I said, I know next to nothing about his skills, methods, etc. But it is just so funny that these people dress up in full battle gear to go for a mile ride down the road. I mean, you never know when you might have to ride through desert scrub to lasso a few cows, you know?
LOL!
The whole time I was reading this post today, I was thinking about my one and only natural horsemanship encounter with…Tom Curtain- then I saw 4horsesand holding’s comment & I burst out laughing.
You are correct he is exactly that kind of trainer. I attended one of his clinics a little over a year ago just to audit, and check out what all the hoopla was about.
The clinic was in the Northeast, and with the exception of few, everyone who had signed up to ride was dressed in the exact getup you described- some complete with the rain slicker tied to the back of the saddle. You could tell that some of them were devote followers (on mostly fugly byb horses), no doubt attending every one of his clinics they could haul to and trying to pass on all that they learned to the newbies in the group (eye roll).
I will say that he, like many others obviously has a lot of knowledge, but much of it is wasted on these people who show up and think a weekend is going fix all of their problems- most obviously have never owned a horse before, or are mostly afraid of their horse.
One lady had brought an older Morgan- who I believe was gelded- by older I mean 11 or 12. She had him in the “colt” breaking class- OMG that poor horse had been worked over BIG TIME before this timid lady “rescued” him- he was dangerous- and the lady was obviously terrified of the horse. Here was a horse that had been passed around for probably most of his life and had a mix of fear and bad behavior that had never been addressed correctly- hence the fear- I think Mr. Curtain may have actually all but told the women that she had no business owning the horse- so I will give him credit for being honest, but I didn’t walk away from that weekend with any big revelation that I learned anything new, (my wallet was a little lighter, and I had some good chuckles at the devotees expense) it was the same common sense stuff anyone who has spent any time with an experienced horseperson should already know…
FHOTD- Keep up the good work!!
Sorry this is randomly really late. I was reading the comments and someone directed to a site
http://the-endorphin-tap.com/McCoy.html
with this guy with a device that can be use to immediately calm a horse.
Unfortunately, from what I have learned, this way of training is awful. The way it works is…
Animals have a response when they feel like they are about to die they will suddenly become very calm and relaxed and have decreased feeling. (near-death experience anyone? I’ve felt this myself…) This is to save them from the PAIN OF BEING EATEN. Now, this is why cowboys and such used to throw horses, because, after a bit, when the horse is down and realizes that it can’t get up (which, as many of us know, is one of a prey animals greatest fears, being trapped and unable to flee) it goes into this state of relaxation. If this goes on long enough the horse will not come out of it and voila! a perfectly calm, docile horse. Unfortunately, it’s not really a horse anymore is it? much more of a robot.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe there’s another way this works, but I’d rather not find out. This certainly seems like a good deal, and if I had never happened across that information, I probably would have thought it sounded great (even if I wouldn’t have used it.) And the head turning thing, when a horse relaxes in their poll it does indeed release endorphins. And one way to get a tense, hollow, resistant horse to relax, as we all know, is to gently flex their head until they release the tension.
ps I found this blog a couple of days ago and have already read every post. I wholeheartedly agree with you on every point, and have long felt that slaughter was a necessary (although inappropriately executed) evil BECAUSE OF ALL THE FREAKING IDIOTS that for some reason aren’t happy enough with the horses already on this earth. god forbid you get off your ass and go buy a horse that needs a home. It’s way easier to let studdy mcfugly run around impregnating marey voniamtooconformationallyincorrectto
escapestuddyandsoiamlikeatoasteroven
forunfortunate
sorry for the crazy rant. some “horse people” (ie people who own horses regardless of whether they should even have a cat) are just so selfish
the endorphin tap is a really similar argument to punching your wife in the face to calm her down!
previous post edited for punctuation
I couldn’t see the “tap” on the website, but just by the name and the comment about hitting the wife in the face, I thought I’d mention this trick I learned somewhere.
It works fairly consistently on mildly upset horses, and I use it sometimes when I am holding horses for my favorite farrier.
I simply rap or drum (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4) my fingertips on the horse’s head between and slightly above the eyes. I rest the heel of my hand on his face, and then you can pretty much be sure that you aren’t going to apply too much pressure. I don’t know if it’s just slightly annoying to the horse or if it’s echoing around in their brain, but it seems to work to take the horse’s mind off the unwanted farrier work being done.
I know I’m a bit late but I’m surprised that no one mentioned this. He makes the horse lay down, expose their stomachs(very vulnerable area-as the family jewels are exposed), he sits on top of them. To a horse, that is putting them into forced submission lowering their self-esteem. That is NOT natural.
I also noticed, someone else pointed this out that his horses never display true collection.
Although I am DROOLING over his stables-it looks absolutely gorgeous. Someone comes from money.
I am a disciplatarian-I try to be as empathetic as possible. My horse is a ball of energy and hard to handle-especially over big fences and it can be SCARY. I do NOT play nice, nice if he takes off into a gallop right before the fence-I do not take that fence to let him know that galloping does not get him to the fence any quicker and I make him back his ass up halfway around the arena.
Viola, afterwards he takes the fence from a beautifully balanced canter.
He also had a nasty habit of walking off from the mounting block or literally knocking him off. One day I got so fed up I kicked him in the stomach-he didn’t bat an eye after that and still stands wonderfully.
If a herd member pisses off the lead mare-you can bet there are some hooves clashing. I hear it from the pastures all the time, next thing you know the lower status horse trots off unharmed and isn’t such a smartass.