Ideally, when preparing for and playing at liberty, you will take the time to create a comfort place for your horse … with you. They need to know that when they stay with you, they find this comfort consistently. Being such literal creatures, we humans then automatically think that when our horse leaves us, we should make him as uncomfortable as possible, so we go about chasing our horse around in the attempt. This is great if it works; however it can cause a whole new set of issues.
In our quest for alpha status, it is easy to turn into a make monster. That is, everything always has to be on our terms. In this regard, some people always insist that their horse comes to them when catching or playing with their horses. This is a great goal and one to aspire to. However, if the goal over takes the principle, it’s a short journey from there to losing rapport.
An example might be someone who goes into their paddock and starts swinging their ropes around, trying to get their horse to come to them. More often than not, the horse moves off into flight response. The human swings the rope a little harder because the horse left, so the horse leaves even quicker. After a time, the horse figures that he isn’t getting comfort so he’ll look to the human for some clue as to where the comfort is. The human backs off, the horse finds comfort and so comes to the human. This is great … to a point. A new pattern is forming. In the short term, most horses will learn to run around a bit and then come racing in to the human. It looks good and feels great to have your horse come to you like this. In the long term, some horse will learn to not come in until they have first run around for a while. Whatever you do, your check would be to make sure you can still walk up to them in the paddock at any time and put a hand on them without them leaving.
The same scenario sometimes happens in the round yard. The horse starts to lose connection with the human and leaves, so the human helps him leave by creating discomfort. The idea is to make the difference between comfort and discomfort clear. He then proceeds to chase the horse around the round yard applying discomfort until the horse either comes in or busts out of the round yard. Do enough of this and as soon as your horse gets confused or scared he will leave in a huge hurry because he is scared of breaking the connection. He’s not sure what he did, but he knows he’ll get in trouble for it. If your horse gets scared and confused, wouldn’t it be preferable to have him put effort into staying with you and trying to figure out what it is you want him to do, than to have him get frightened and run away? A horse like this can be difficult to bring back in or put a hand on and he sure as heck weighing up his options and how successful escape might be. And once they learn they can escape it can be difficult to ‘retrain’ them not to. Horses like this are what we call ‘glued on’. They’ve learnt to stay with the human for comfort but only because they have gotten into trouble for leaving. Their whole attitude will be different from a horse willing to stay with you. Having your horse confident enough to make mistakes and still stick with you because you are a great place to be, must surely be a better option.
If you are relying on the round yard to keep your horse in, you have not truly created rapport. Your horse may stay with you for a time, however if you try something new or he gets confused, chances are he will leave. What do you think would happen if you took the round yard down?
So, if chasing your horse around with discomfort isn’t the ideal thing to do, what would be a better idea? Let’s ask the alpha horse what she’d do. Have you ever watched a herd of horses being yielded by the boss? She doesn’t have to chase them around and around for hours although she may be prepared to. The herd is made up of other horses; they want to come back to the herd to find safety and comfort. With safety in numbers, they don’t even think about leaving … they want in. Alpha Horse doesn’t need a fence, round yard or even a lead rope and she manages to keep a whole herd together, not just one or two horses. The difference is alpha horse doesn’t chase the herd around; she will however cause them to move. She will keep them moving around until they ask for permission to come back in. She will keep the pressure on them, only giving them the hurry up if they slacken off. When she feels they are ready to come back in politely, she will release the pressure and allow them to come in. She is not making them come in; she is offering them comfort if they choose to come in. If not, they choose the discomfort.
Your energy level is the key. How good are you at turning the volume up or down on your body energy? If your horse leaves, can you smile and turn it into a game. Can you drive him along with your energy and cause him to feel uncomfortable? You might even turn his idea into your idea. If he leaves, try pushing him along with your body energy for a while, then see if you can influence him by changing gait or direction. Give him a purposeful job to do if he choses to leave you, until he starts to think again, then offer him the chance to come back in.
You need to be an attractive option for your horse. A leader who is fair, kind and clear. One who is fun and interesting to be with. Not one who is bossy, dominating and pushy.
All this of course takes a certain amount of feel, timing and experience, which is why we have left it until Level 3 to discuss. In Levels 1 and 2, we spent a lot of time teaching our horse to keep track of us on our circles and spiralling in. If we did a good job of that, we have created some rapport. Chasing your horse away is the quickest way of losing it.
Read More Road To Horsemanship articles.
- By Meredith Ransley, Quantum Savvy.