Killing them with kindness is still killing them
Sep 05 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYV01QS3j6M
Another day, another idiot untraining their horse and creating a monster. (Yeah…you guessed right…Parelli person)
We see this stuff all the time and we all shake our heads but I want to go into why it’s such a problem today. Sure, it’s highly likely that girl is going to be kicked in the head, but there’s a much bigger reason that this kind of play-slash-permissiveness is a problem.
It kills horses.
No, I’m not being melodramatic here. If we could rewind and watch the last three months of life of every young horse who goes to slaughter in this country, I’ll bet we’d see permissive handling well over 75% of the time. A lot of it stems from the family who wants to have a foal so that the kids can see the miracle of birth and because foals are so kyoot. They are shocked and stunned to learn that itsy bitsy baby foals can be darn challenging to handle. They strike, they nip, they don’t want their halter on.
Many first time foal owners are baffled about what to do. They are thinking of it like a human baby, and can’t imagine disciplining it. WRONG. If it’s a week old and it bites you, smack it and growl at it! (I will lightly pop a horse in the nose for nipping…it’s never hard and is accompanied by far more growl and intimidation than force…but I don’t think you make a horse head shy by rapping the offending body part with your knuckles, either.) Your foal isn’t going to get easier to handle when it gets bigger, and it will be highly confused if you permit all sorts of bad behavior ’til it reaches a certain size and then attempt to crack down. They learn really well those first few months – what are you teaching them?
I literally cannot tell you how many ill-mannered yearlings, two year olds and three year olds I see at auctions. They are as common as mosquitoes at a lake. They barely lead. They barge into people. I have seen them strike and bite at their handlers in the auction pen. Almost 100% of them go to kill. It is a disgusting waste of life, an atrocity, and some human somewhere was entirely to blame for it.
Then there are the older horses like the one in the video. One day they push the envelope – and their owner giggles. So they push it a little further. Yep, owner still thinks it’s funny. The behavior, whatever it is, escalates. Now the owner starts to get a little scared. Trigger’s rearing was kind of cute, but now he’s doing it all the time. She starts to avoid situations that might make Trigger rear. No more riding outside the arena. No more trying to ride away from the other horses. Trigger doesn’t want to go in the wash rack anymore? Well, okay. She backs down from Trigger and lets him move her around like a cow at a team penning, showing Trigger just who is in charge of the herd. (You can see that in the video. NEVER back off a horse like that. You barge AT them preferably with a whip and growling like something from a straight-to-video horror movie when they threaten you like that.) The end result? Same as above. Trigger gets too scary or someone gets hurt and off to the auction he goes. It happens constantly, to horses who were fabulous horses in more competent hands in their past.
A friend of mine rescued a pony last year. The pony is a lovely POA mare, a wonderful mover who is easy as pie to ride. How did she wind up in a kill pen selling for $125? Easy. She ran people over on the ground and when I say ran over, I mean ran over. Oh, and if she decided she wanted to bite another horse and you were in the way, tough. You got chomped. It took a lot to get that pony to back off and not respond to stress by mowing down the nearest human. It was not a pretty process. But six months later, she is almost totally fixed and I won a couple classes at the SAFE show with her. She will always need an owner who can say no to her and mean it, but her future is bright again thanks to people who were willing to dish out a little tough love. And the pony loves us and snuggles with us – the people who clocked her with the grain bucket on numerous occasions. Really, they won’t hate you for disciplining them as long as you’re fair and consistent and focus on sending the message the behavior is wrong, not getting revenge or causing pain.
So, can you be kind to your horse and not wind up being used as a doormat? YES. Here’s how: You catch disrespect before it ever gets to the point shown in that video. Disrespect is refusing to pick up a hoof. Disrespect is yawning and ignoring you when you poke him and ask him to move over. Disrespect is whinnying to other horses and dragging you around when you’re handling or riding him. Disrespect is raising his head and making it hard for you to halter or bridle him. Disrespect is pinning his ears at you. Don’t allow any of it. If a horse makes an ugly face at me, I growl at him and may raise my hand just to say, hey, that nose better not come over here if you know what’s good for you. Works great. If I let the ugly faces continue ’til he chomped me, well, then we’d have to have a big, dumb, avoidable fight. Nip it in the bud, and most horses will never go further.
(Of course, and it should go without saying, always look for physical pain if a horse is crabby or aggressive. However, you always discipline EVEN IF the aggression is in response to pain. It’s still not allowed.)
You’d be amazed at how many bad behaviors you will never see in your horse if you merely demand simple respect, every single day, every single ride. You’re not being kind if you never discipline. You’re being a spineless conflict-avoiding twit who is laying down a red carpet to the slaughter truck for your horse. For some horses, a growl is all you’ll ever need, but there are others who need firmer discipline. (I’m told the “carrot stick” is quite effective for providing a good hard smack to a horse who is disrespecting your personal space. See, it IS good for something!)
Final point: Your horse will still love you if you discipline him. So will your kids, so practice on both – the world will thank you!
129 comments to “Killing them with kindness is still killing them”
« Previous 1 2
« Previous 1 2
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment. Not a member? Registering is free, and you do it here!
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAnetPh_dZM
and eventually it may all be solved for her…”
Heck, no. She’s literally making a mountain out of a molehill. ALL horses’ splint bones eventually calcify to the cannon bone; the splint is a vestigial toe bone. When ossification is stimulated by injury, as in this case, there’s going to be a bump — but it has nothing to do with soundness except in rare cases.
I had a gelding who broke a splint bone at about 8 — it was already calcified from the normal maturation process, but he was playing in the first snow he’d ever seen, slipped and fell, slipped again as he started to get up, and stepped on himself with a shod hoof. Not that he was then lame — not at all. If I hadn’t seen this happen, I wouldn’t have known the cause. He started to go a bit uneven a few months later, and xrays showed that the splint fractured and the normal calcification had gone beyond the site, growing down the cannon and interfering with the fetlock joint.
He had surgery — the vet described it as “scraping” the excess calcification off the bone, which conjured up in my mind’s eye one of those implements that looks like a handle with a stiff loop of wire attached. In reality, it involved a stainless steel mallet and a stainless steel chisel — wham! wham! wham! (Yes, the horse was under general anesthesia)
A few weeks of stall rest and controlled exercise, and he was 100% sound — he went on to win national championships in multiple performance disciplines, including two regional top fives 3 days before he died of a stroke at 27.
Bumps from splints are why people protect their young halter horses’ forelegs. 99 & 44/100% of the time, a splint isn’t a soundness issue – it’s a cosmetic issue. Potential for ugly bump? Yes. Career ending unsoundness? No.
Imprinting doesn’t ruin horses — *incomplete* imprinting does. You have to read the *whole* book, not just the part about handling the foal right after birth, but the rest, the part that establishes the same respect for you as the mare demands from her foal.
Doing the whole job really does make things easier all around; properly imprinted foals are confident and trusting but respectiful. Yes, I’ve met the “monsters” created by people who only did the first part of the job, and yes, that is very difficult to overcome; you can imprint them with the wrong stuff as easily as with the right!
Oh my gosh Kalik!
I bet she wont still be thinking that horse is so “cute” when she is in the E.R. with her skull cracked from a blow to the head with that horses hooves. “But his rear is just sooo cute”. This girl needs a reality check, hopefully one on that doesnt result in permenant damage!
I don’t like imprinting. And I don’t like natural horsemanship.
I call my personal philosophy ‘non-aggressive dominance’. That doesn’t mean I won’t pop a horse in the nose IF it truly deserves it. It doesn’t mean I won’t give a firm tap with the crop if a horse is not respecting my other signals. It means I don’t get *aggressive* with them. I don’t hit a horse unless it tries to bite or kick me. I once stopped a horse from kicking me…this was a chronic kicker…by stepping to one side and having him kick the noisiest crop I was able to find. He never tried to kick ME again. (Sadly, he still tried to kick everyone else…horribly stall aggressive horse who’s owner, a trainer, would not let the people she had look after him bring him OUT of his stall to work with him.
But the core of my philosophy is ‘You do not let things get to the point where you HAVE to hit the horse’. A horse that tries to go through *me* when being led will get my shoulder into the place where shoulder meets neck. If that doesn’t work then I’ll be getting a crop (It only doesn’t work in horses that have been natural horsemanshipped to death or otherwise never taught respect) just to use as a *barrier*. A horse that starts warning that it might bite gets its head pushed away and a firm ‘No’ or ‘Don’t you even think about it’. If that pressure and clear signal is ignored, then it gets popped. But the key is not to let the disrespect escalate to that point.
The other part of my philosophy is to approach all misbehavior with ‘WHY did that horse just do that?’ If you address the cause, then, again, you can avoid it escalating into a confrontation. Did that horse try to bite me when I fastened her girth? (I say her, because it’s my experience that girthiness is far more common in mares than geldings, possibly because of how they’re built). Maybe I tightened it too fast. Maybe she would be more comfortable with a stretch girth, a shaped girth, or even an English-style string girth (A girth made from several tough cords…a lot of girthy horses prefer them). Or maybe she’s coming into heat…which while it’s not an excuse for bad behavior, is certainly something to bear in mind.
For one example, I was at the barn once and one of the horses was being a total so-and-so. The animal concerned is a 16 year old Quarter Horse gelding who’s commonly used for beginners. He decided that he was going to respond to any request from his rider to do *anything* but mosey around the arena on his forehand with ‘Make me’. My trainer was ‘Would you *please* get on that horse’. She had come to the reasonable conclusion he was a little sour and had been getting away with too much.
I led him a little bit, and he tried to get into my personal space, so he got the shoulder shove treatment and backed down. Got on him…and then realized the problem.
Our indoor was being refurbished. We were riding in the large outdoor, which is sadly not a very good ring. It has an outer ‘sand’ track…that has been there years. Earlier in the day, it had poured it down. Poured. One particular corner was absolutely a swamp, and he balked. Then it occurred to me. Normally, unless the going is good to firm, we ride in the indoor. At no time since acquiring this horse had anyone ridden him in sloppy going. He was playing up because he *hated the mud*. A combination of not taking any of his crap and asking him to avoid the worst bits of the arena…and he gave me a great ride.
Whew, the video khlaik linked, is just…. HOR-RI-FY-ING!!! There is nothing cute. There is just an really annoyed mare. And I never liked it, when horses rubbed their heads against me. I was told, that it is a sign of dominance.
But after I watched this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAKxySzJk-U&feature=channel
I got an idea, why sweetie little Tilly is so annoyed of her owner and seems to want to beat her with her cute little hoovies. While watching the video, I just wanted to shout all the time: “STOPP CHASING YOUR HORSES THROUGH THE PASTURE AND LEAVE THEM THE FXXX ALONE!!!” In my opinion, the pasture should be a place for the horses to rest, feed on the grass and enjoy themselves. And not a playing ground for their childish owners to chase them around just for the shoot of dumbass…. sorry… cute videos, she shows on Youtube, to show all the world what cutie horsies she owns.
Have the slight feeling, that the owner mistook their horses seriously as big cute plushies.
That is so sad for the horses. They are so beautiful. And I after I watched the photos and videos of the jumping lessons with Tilly, I have an idea, while Tilly is (again!!) injured.
Poor, poor horses.
Even the most well-behaved horse will challenge your authority from time to time. They just want to check and make sure that the pecking order hasn’t changed. If you miss restablishing your authority once, at best they will get confused. Miss it more than once, and bingo! In the horse’s mind, he has moved up in relationship to you moving down. Horses are very quick to push an advantage.
Considering that horses generally outweigh us by around a 1000 pounds, I think we owe it to ourselves to ensure that humans are ALWAYS at the top of the pecking order. If your horse respects your position at the top, he will still love you and you will still be partners. But, you will both be a lot safer and have more of a future together.
I will say though, there are rare (very rare) horses that appear to be untrainable in this regard. My trainer has an amazingly beautiful young quarter horse gelding once. He was built almost perfectly and bred up one side and down the other for barrels, and was a gulla to boot (I love color, but it’s the LAST thing that should be bred for. She just got lucky on this guy). He was one of the few colts she had bred that she had considered keeping a stallion – he was that nice (she believes that ALL colts should be gelding unless you are SURE that they are so good that they will add something meaningful to the local horse population. She also says that the best of stallions make amazing geldings, and she’s right. The main reason she decided to geld him is she says she always knew he might have a screw loose. She promised I could barrel him once he was well started. I ADORE the way she trains barrel horses…her horses are such sleepers they fool everyone! They saunter into the ring on a loose rein as if they were on their way to a Sunday picnic, and stand and wait politely to be told to go. Then they explode and turn in amazing times. She says it’s because first, they don’t blow all their energy prior to the pattern, and two, they have super soft mouths; there isn’t any yanking and pulling, kicking and beating to get them around the course. It’s a beautiful thing to watch; she rides all body and almost no bit. I’ve even seen her make runs without a bridle at all. She doesn’t smack at them on the way home, either; she just shakes the reins beside them as they go.
Anyway, this gelding was OK through his ground work; OK, but not great. He was pushy and difficult, but seemed to be learning. He was almost four, as she doesn’t start them on more than ground work until then. It became obvious that this guy was different as soon as she started riding training. I’ve rarely seen a horse buck with her; she starts them so slowly and thoughtfully that it rarely happens. This guy, though, was a bucker, and the more he bucked the worse his groundwork seemed to get. She kept going back to basics and starting over. She had him vet checked and he came through clean. Although not one to overuse punishments, she even tried that. Nothing seemed to work, and he got worse and worse. After a year of training, not only did he seem barely halter broke but now he was tricky as well as virtually unridable.
Finally in despair, she sold him to a rodeo company bucking string and he has turned into an amazing bucking horse. He truly loves his job, and he gets great care (I know that a lot of rodeo companies don’t take the best care of their stock, but fortunately this one does). She says he is the only horse she ever met that she couldn’t train. I’d have taken a right of first refusal on him if he quit bucking, but three different rodeo pickup men beat me to it so I think his future is safe.
So, if you are at a northwestern rodeo and you see a beautifully built grulla gelding with no white anywhere, that’s my Magnum. My barrel horse that got away.
Uh, link goes no-where.
I did follow the link posted by Kalik. I’ll agree that the lunging bit shows a lack of respect for the human, but I think this is an example of much ado… The horse did stop and if she really wanted to run the girl down she would have. There are plenty of stills in there showing that the horse isn’t really nasty or she wouldn’t tolerate those girls hanging off of her.
I know a horse that *regularly* plays with me and his trainer when turned out. We generally give him 15 minutes to play before sticking him in the trailer on show mornings. It is difficult here in the winter to lunge horses at shows and it’s easier to just get the yahoos out at home, so that’s the normal routine. He does rear and hop about. He doesn’t come towards us, he usually stops/props in the corner, turns and rears, lands and snorts, standing there. He is 17.3, 1800 pounds, if he wanted to hurt me he can. I suppose it could be said we taught him to do it by not discouraging the rearing, but I’d rather he express himself that way instead of tearing around the ring and blowing a tendon or something.
I’d be more concerned about the bad-spot-bingo displayed in the jumping parts of the vid. Kid needs to learn how to get better distances and not let the critter run off her feet to the jumps.
The only thing about that video that Kalik posted that was remotely Parelli-ish was the carrot stick. Other wise I have to say “huh”? The owners of the aforementioned horse also have a carrot stick, the result of being talked into a clinic. One of those “if I do it once, will you leave me alone?” things. Doesn’t make them Parelli People just to have the stupid carrot stick in the tack room. Oh, and you are assuming it’s hers. Maybe her own lungewhip is mia and that was handy.
She made the featured video private, but you can still see snippets of it in this other compilation video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey-VYRglsmE&feature=channel
The clips where you see the horse rearing at her and striking, that was basically the entire thing. Only some of the original video were even scarier than the clips shown here, because the girl was standing RIGHT NEXT to the horse when the horse decided to rear and strike, and the girl had to quickly back out of the way. And this happened repeatedly.
But if nasty comments are left she’ll pull this one too so let’s be nice so everyone can see!
Jennifer R, I’d say that we have the exact same philosophy about discipline. I’m the same – I ask WHY and I am willing to be flexible. Your girthiness example is a good one. I also like the point you made about how you start with a mild discipline (like blocking the horse with a body part) before you escalate. Being fair to the horse and giving them opportunities to do the right thing is an important part of effective discipline.
Jennifer R, I really think that dismissing ALL natural horsemanship is a mistake. I practice what could be called natural horsemanship, but, as far as I can tell, our philosophies on behavior and training are very much the same, and I’m guessing we get equally good results. It’s not what you call your horsemanship that’s important; it’s how you practice it. I guess you could call what I do common-sense-manship, and I think you’d probably say the same thing about what you do.
It’s been a while since I did any training (and almost as long since I’ve actually handled horses). But what I saw in the “playing” video was a horse resisting turning to canter on the right lead. Every time she tried to turn the horse, the horse refused, reared and struck at her. Tilly was never forced to go right during that video, which means she won.
And now the right front has a splint fracture? Now? Or she just noticed it and she’s oblivious enough to what the horse is trying to tell her that Tilly believes she needs to make Every Statement Very Loudly. I’m not making excuses, clearly that horse is a danger to her and anyone that handles it. I also noticed, watching some of the other videos, that the kid is making a lot of allusions to “hard times” and “pain” etc. This sounds to me like someone who is desperate for someone or something to love her and care about her. And she can project that onto her horse and people don’t dispute it. I actually found myself feeling a little sorry for her. Again, not excusing the permissiveness – you can’t be permissive with a 1000+ pound animal and still be safe. Just… She needs someone to lead her as much as the horse does.
Boundaries for horses are like boundaries for children. If you do it right and do it consistently they never know the boundaries exist, because they’ve never known that they can go there.
Parelli is a trainwhore. His method of “just enough information to get you killed” has created a section of the horse industry that churns out disposable horses. Parelli trained horses are nothing but lifelong projects. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a “finished” Parelli horse.
Glad this topic came up. In pasture with horses at boarding barn to catch my buckskin and my husband’s palamino (spelling,?) kept barging up to me and pinning her ears. The first couple of times I backed away being a very non-confrontational person but then I realized she was trying to boss me like I was low in the herd pecking order so the next time she came at me I stomped toward her with my arms up shoulder height and snorting. She immediately started backing away from me but when I turned a little away from her she tried again–I used the same body languge but gave her a swat on the nose with the end of the lead rope and she didn’t try to barge into me again after that. The saying if you give an inch they’ll take a mile is so true especially with horses.
I am going to go OT with the dog training thing and defend Cesar Millan. Like ANY training tactic, a beginner/clueless owner will warp it to his own need. I have watched Cesar correct a lead pulling dog and he does *not* advocate body slamming the poor thing. He corrects with a very simple, firm and *non-violent* tug to the side (toward you) and a sharp sound, and in the worst case I’ve ever seen, he corrected by a combination of body language and disinterest in whatever the dog was doing (aka dog is pulling, is corrected sharply, and then leader does an abrupt about face and the dog is left being pulled along and clueless; when he starts to pull again, the leader does another abrupt about face, etc). Whoever thought body slamming was a correct solution, and one he would advise, is seriously misinformed and needs to read his book instead of forming their own assumptions.
Yes, a lot of dog issues are based on leadership/trust issues, just like horse issues. Especially in the case of aggressive animals! But I can only think of one situation when Cesar would advise actually body slamming a dog, and that’s in the case of a very aggressive dog and even then he advises **professional** help. Rolling a dog is what he says for very dominant dogs, not “body slamming”, and you should only need to do it *once*. Just like people who do join-up a bazillion times with their horse to get him to “accept their leadership”. We all know that’s crock; attempting to perform join-up more than once in a blue moon is like an OCD person washing their hands every 5 seconds. Your hands are clean, they’re NOT going to get any cleaner. There is no purpose in it.
And now that I’ve defended CM, I’m going to go eat lunch
Our horses are handled with boundaries,basics and aware of their place around people from the day they hit the ground. We don’t go overboard with punishment but they absolutely respect our personal space at all times.We also take our time and try to never react or over react due to anger. Respect,patience,kindness and repetition has served us very well all these years.
[...] Killing them with mercy is ease ending them « Fugly Horse of … [...]
My trainer “acquired” a 16.3 tb from another barn because most of the people there were afraid of him. He pinned his ears, ground his teeth and virtually no respect for humans. After a couple of come to trainer meetings, he understands that this is the box he lives in and these are the rules – everywhere – in the barn, in the pasture, at a show. Period. Result – a happy horse who is comfortable in his world because he knows what is expected of him.
Apparently the video has been removed. The link just goes to a log in page. (can youtube videos be made private/log in only?) I clicked on some other links in the comments, then on the user name of the person posting the videos and there isn’t anything terribly noteworthy. The worst thing I saw was under a minute and it showed some *lovely* baling twine cross ties and the horse was totally leaning on them to the point of collapsing. “OOOOOOoooooo she’s falling asleep in the cross ties… isn’t that kyoooote!” I totally don’t get these people who live with a video camera glued to one hand recording every minute of every activity. Who watches this crap? Maybe I should duct tape a camera to my horse’s (or dog’s) chest and post the video of them wandering around all day. It’d probably be a huge hit.
The problem is that the term ‘natural horsemanship’ has ended up associated with the wrong alley so many practitioners have gone down.
WHY is the most important question to ask. Always. I was attacked by a horse not that long ago. And I do mean attacked. Had she landed that bite much harder, she might well have broken my arm. This was a horse that did have a history of nipping people because she was afraid to be touched (She is now a lot better after several sessions with a good massage therapist). But she was out and out trying to take chunks out of anyone who went near her. Which she had not done before. Her body language was that of a trapped, terrified horse who Just Wanted Out Of That Stall.
Why? She hated the horse in the next stall…a grouchy old mare who was glaring at her through the bars and baring teeth. She couldn’t get to her, so she was going after humans instead. Because she could get to us. When moved to the other side of the barn, away from the other horse, she stopped doing it. She now appears to be starting to learn to enjoy being groomed, although she will still pin at you when you come in with a bridle, she doesn’t actually bite now. It’s more a ‘Do I have to work’ face than anything else.
And yes, horses will test boundaries. Some more than others. I know one mare who is test-test-test. She IS the herd alpha and also extremely intelligent. The first day I saw her, I took one look at her head and went ‘uh oh’…the width of her forehead between the eyes is very obviously above average, a clear sign of lots of room for a brain in there. She tests. She pushes. She’ll try to go through you when you’re leading her just to see if you’ll get out of the way. It’s her personality, it’s the way she is, and if you lock her down right when she starts to test you she’s great. You just can’t turn your back on her for a moment.
The easiest & most effective “cure” I’ve found for nipping or biting is Binaca (or any other brand) breath spray. It’s safe, quick, easy, & effective (not to mention cheap & painless lol). It works for adults, as well as babies & youngsters. All of my horses are hand-fed treats & not a one of them nips, including my studs. The method does require being alert & being able to read your horse. A quick blast right in the mouth or nose (immediately, be ready when he/she gives off the vibe that he’s going to bite or nip), usually only takes a couple of times. With a horse who’s giving the nasty, vicious snake look as he goes to bite, I do the “WHATTHEFUCKDOYOUTHINKYOU’REDOING?!!!” dance ~ waving my arms, jumping up & down & yelling exactly that.
I was at a show recently where a couple brought 2 young stallions to show. They had been shown several times before &, I’m told, are generally well-behaved. At this particular show, they must have conferenced & decided to be shitheads. One of them first jerked the owner into the stall when he went to halter him, then went up & struck him in the head, knocking him down. (Other than a headache & a knot on the head, he was ok.) The other owner then takes the other colt into his class & he goes up & strikes that owner right on the forehead. Although his intention wasn’t to hit, he was trying to get away, hitting was the result.
So… Later, as I’m watching one of them “trying” to go into the stall of one of these colts to halter him so they could leave, it was quite obvious the owner was afraid to even enter the stall. Since no one else offered, I walked over & asked if they’d like me to halter him for them. With much relief shown, I was told yes. First off, they were using those halters you have to frigging knot once you put them on. That’s fine & dandy for some but I sure wouldn’t want to worry about having to tie a knot on a horse I was unsure of in the first place. Anyway, I just walked in the stall & told him to get over & put the lead around his neck. When he went to strike, I immediately & firmly let him know I wasn’t going to tolerate any crap & he stood like a gentleman. It was done with my posture & voice only. He didn’t need anything more.
I’m not sure what happened, because these are not novice owners. I don’t know if they’re novice stallion owners. Whether it was an unusual circumstance or not, both colts picked up on their lack of confidence that day & became shitheads. The damage could have been much more tragic. The good news is, the owners do have sense & are responsible. I was told that both colts will be gelded.
An open comment for the people who watch the videos linked and then fill the YouTube page with nasty comments:
It’s not that i disagree with you, but when you do that, those of us who come along later don’t get to see the video because Butthurt Video Poster made it private.
I love to read your snarky reactions to these things, but can we leave them here and not on youtube? I’d like to be able to watch the video myself.
And sorry for the double post. Now i’ve read the full blog post and can comment on the actual story.
I worked with a quarter horse once, a fugly grey gelding who might have actually been diagnosable as ADD. His owner was one of those “Oh, i always wanted a horse growing up and now i can afford one but i’m scared of him” cases. So she let a friend of hers ride him, and that friend was clueless. I watched her ride him in endless tiny figure eights because, “he acts like he doesn’t want to do anything else when i ask him.” I also watched him jerk his head up when she tried bridling him, and had to retrain horse and rider on bridling. Then i was riding him several days a week, attempting to teach him that he had to walk in a straight line whether he wanted to or not. Once a week i was giving the owner a lesson on him, once a week i was giving the friend a lesson on understanding that she has to be in charge. The horse could not stay focused on anything he did for more than about 15 seconds. I hated every minute of riding him.
Eventually the owner fell off of him (note i do not say “got thrown,” but FELL) and decided she was done, gave him to the friend, and i was finished with the whole thing.
Well, I think the striped ear guard thingys are cute. Everything else that I think has already been said!
Ruthie
I have a mare boarded at my barn, i used to be it’s primary rider, Her owner asked for my help since, naturally, a totally green rider just HAD to go out and buy a green broke 16hh full Percheron mare.
I am an advanced rider, however, handling this horse is HELL.
I tried training this horse, but she’s already eleven years old, very set in her ways.
She bucks, The story behind that is that her old farrier messed her hooves up badly and she was in a lot of pain, our farrier told me it was okay to do light riding on her, but by that time the mare had already learned to buck out of pain.
Naturally i would get “Don’t get mad at her, she’s just in pain, she’ll stop when she gets better!” every time i disciplined her for bucking on me.
I continued to smack her on the shoulder and yell at her everytime she bucked on me, or i would kick her and try to ride her through it, but to no avail.
she bucked on me every ride, several times without fail.
Finally one day she threw me into a fence post, dislocated my shoulder and left a post shaped bruise from my tailbone up to my shoulders, that day i got up, threw the reins at her owner, told her to take lessons or to get her horse the #$%^ off my property.
I didnt kick her off the property because the horse is absolutely no threat to my horses, she knows her place and should that change, somoene would notice right away and get her out of the pasture.
She continues to struggle with this horse every time she rides, she does take lessons from a very good instructor now though.
My non-horsey ex-husband bought me a nice looking two-year old gelding for my birthday many years ago. The first thing he told me was ” Don’t pet him he bites!” Nice gift!! The previous owners – first time horse owners- thought it was cute when the colt chased , bit and reared at them. Needless to say, I never entered the pasture unarmed. But it didn’t take long for the gelding to figure out that trying to run over people was not a good idea. The biting was very difficult to fix. He was smart and quick. I got him to stop biting me but he would try to bite the people I was riding with. Never the horse but the people. I thought that was kind of twisted.
My friend lets her horse rub his head on her or anything close by. It drives me crazy! Not only is it disrespectful but also dangerous. Her horse has ripped open my saddle blanket and the seat of my jeans by rubbing his head with his bridle on. For some reason he doesn’t understand her when she tells him ” Don’t do that, she doesn’t like it”. I know my friend doesn’t appreciate it but I smack her horse in the head everytime he tries to rub on me or my horse. She isn’t going to stop him and I figure it is within my rights to protect myself.
On another note, I had the “pleasure” of watching some Parelli students getting their horses ready for a ride. Or at least I think that is what they were doing! Whatever they were doing was really irritating their horses.
It’s to bad what some people consider being kind and good to the horse actually hurts the horse and eventually the people around them in the long run.
Late, but I have to comment anyway.. I’m enjoying reading the comments.
I was given a Welsh cross baby 2 years ago. Just the tiniest little thing and cute, OMG, you can only imagine.
Never had a baby before, not anything under 6..so it was all new to me. BUT I knew I had to teach her manners as I didn’t want her to end up like some of the older horses I had that were awful and with a pony this small, she was going to be mostly handled by children. It was a challenge and still is.. my husband unknowingly took the lead when one day she tried to kick/play with him when he was filling water. He screamed bloody murder at her and threw the entire bucket of cold water all over her instantly. Worked miracles.. she has not attempted a kick since then.
I love this blog because there are so many intelligent, experienced, true horsepeople with so many valuable different points of view. Here’s mine. I have been blessed to rescue (at this time) 8 OTTBs who were race broke (FHOTD is right – at BEST that means green broke because alot about race training is BAD), sound, sane and still on their way to the killers. I am a confirmed fan of Clinton Anderson’s style of training for many of the reasons FHOTD states – it is fundamentally about respect. I used Clinton’s techniques to both overcome the results of harsh race training (ear shy, biting, jigging) and to prepare them for their new careers as youth and adult amateur hunter/jumpers. In every case, without exception, these techniques proved themselves. I have 8 examples on the local show circuit now with their happy owners proving it every day. I think EVERY training technique in bad/wrong/inexperienced/unknowing/disrespectful (etc., etc.) can be, at best counterproductive and at worst cruel and dangerous.
Thanks for a great blog. I think it makes a difference.
Yowza. Unfortunately I think the whole ‘natural horsemanship’ has become akin to the ‘Petsmart method of training’ (you know…”please do this for me doggie. I love and respect you and I HAVE A COOKIE! but if you don’t want to that’s ok too”). *sigh*
In any case. I agree with the many of you – the biggest ‘training’ issue with so many seems to be simply that people forget that a) they are horses, not people and b) in ANY group situation respect is and must be established immediately (not friendship…respect)
My husband bought a great appy gelding a year ago. The owners had cared for him well but had failed to train him. He wasn’t mean (in fact, he’s one of the friendliest horses I’ve ever met), but the
‘training’ he’d gotten (i.e. “please do this…oh he’s just not in the mood to do that today”) in the past created a huge mess. He had learned he was bigger than people and avoidance was a very successful tactic. One of his most impressive ‘avoidance’ tactics was simply to stand straight up on his hind legs and stomp around like Godzilla in Tokyo. He never laid his ears back, wrung his tail, bared teeth or the like…he just went, well, UP. Needless to say this was very impressive and made it virtually impossible to get anything accomplished. Fortunately his problem was simply relearning respect. The first time he stood politely for hoof trimming was a great day! It required a lot of common sense, consistency and the refusal to be impressed or pushed around when he pulled some trick. But in fact, this horse seemed RELIEVED when he was given boundaries and expected to toe the line. He is rapidly becoming a very good working horse for my husband.
BTW-I agree, a well timed, instant correction can cure a lot. It’s worth remembering that you are training your horse every time you handle him, whether you realize it or not.
You could kill your horse with kindness, or you can just go ahead and kill ‘em like this owner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ixVlgSNuHE
She seems to think the only thing she did wrong was to tie with too much slack.