38. How to make your horse more confident...

Case Study...

Millie was a Thoroughbred X, 6 year old mare who had been with her current owner for two years. Millie lived with four other horses and as a herd they had access to shelter but lived out 24/7.

Millie's problem was very obvious and very dangerous. If she found herself in a challenging situation when out on a hack she suffered from complete fear. Her reaction to problems was to bronc wildly and once she had unseated her rider she would either bolt for home or stand still and freeze.
Millie's problem was very obvious and very dangerous. If she found herself in a challenging situation when out on a hack she suffered from complete fear.

Previously Millie had limited training and experience of humans. She had the minimum of handling up to the age of 18 months old, with a farmer leaving her turned out with a herd of horses. Millie had virtually no handling after that, up until she was four. She arrived with the new owner wearing a broken head collar and having been herded on to the trailer.

Her new owner had equine experience as a child and had got back into horses three years earlier. She was very keen to help Millie and understand her horse's behaviour. When Millie initially arrived it took two weeks to get her head collar on. She escaped twice while being lead, hated being tied up and was always tense and nervous. Millie had been sent away to receive some training and this had made some improvement in her behaviour. However, the trust had gone between horse and rider and the dangers of Millie's behaviour now meant that she was not being ridden out or taken anywhere.

Possible causes of behaviour

* Lack of training and experience as a youngster
* Pain
* Lack of confidence and problem solving skill
* Lack of trust between horse and owner
* Owner confidence very low

Solving the Problem:

Pain is always the first possible area to be considered when dealing with problems and after an initial examination it was recommended that Millie was checked by a vet to establish if she was experiencing pain. Some physiotherapy followed that veterinary check.

Millie might have been six years old but she only really had two years experience and not all of that had been good. Essentially, Millie was a feral horse when she arrived with her new owner. In these situations it is best to forget the physical age of the horse and think about their age in relation to the amount of training they have experienced. In this case Millie was really about one and half years old. It was not surprising that Millie was unable to deal with problems out riding when she was terrified by a sheet of plastic on the floor of the sand school. She was also unable to accept the long lines on her body. When working with problem behaviours we have to find out just how small the comfort zones are, and what the animal will tolerate before we can write a shaping plan or begin training.

Equines have not evolved to have a great problem solving ability. Evolution has equipped them to "run" away from anything they find fearful and to avoid anything that might be dangerous. If they cannot escape, then using fight behaviour may be their only option for survival. In the wild, equine problem solving revolves around their normal behaviours such as, running, kicking, rearing, bucking, biting and any variable or multiples of these behaviours. In domestication they have to apply these same problem solving behaviours to the situations that they find themselves in. Domestication is really the process of limiting the use of these natural problem solving behaviours and teaching the equine more appropriate responses to the problems they may encounter. It is important to remember that problem behaviours are rarely a problem for the horse; they are only a problem for us humans.

Millie's training had to start all over again, with the emphasis on teaching her a calm relaxed new way of solving problems, while building trust between her and her owner. Shaping plans were created to allow her to learn standing still as a way of solving problems. Standing still when faced with a problem is not a naturally occurring evolutionary tactic. However, in domestication it is vital. The shaping plans involved the use of counter conditioning and systematic desensitisation to introduce Millie to having all areas of her body touched, right up to her happy acceptance of the long lines.

Other shaping plans involved allowing Millie to learn how to deal with different obstacles such as plastic sheets, bunting and water etc. The use of the obstacle course is to build confidence and problem solving ability, but this can only happen if the trainer recognises there is a difference in the learning that takes place when an equine is made to deal with something it fears and when it is allowed to learn that it can deal with its fear. Millie had to learn how to deal with problems so when out riding she could give her owner a chance to guide and direct her through difficult situations and so that she was relaxed enough to listen to her riders directions.

The shaping plans led Millie through dealing with obstacles and problems while being led in the school, in the yard and the field. Then the training progressed to being long lined over the obstacles in the school, yard and field. The next step was to ride Millie through and over the obstacle course in the school, yard and field. Doing difficult and challenging tasks successfully together builds trust in the relationship between horse and human.

Once she was happy with all this training, Millie was led in hand on the road to familiarise her to the most common routes and situations she was likely to encounter. From here short rides began to take place gradually increasing in the distance and duration.

During the four months of training, Millie's owner had to learn to long line, which she did on another older very experienced calm horse. A great deal of importance was placed on the owner's ability to use small steps and to stick to a written shaping plan. Millie was never forced to do things but her comfort zones were gently stretched. Millie's owner also had to learn that there was not going to be a relaxed hack for quite some time, she treated all her rides as a training session until Millie was confident and calm in all the possible situations she encountered. After all this training Millie and her owner were able to relax more and begin to just go for a hack.

Often the ability to deal with very difficult problems is just down to the trainer's readiness to take the time required to do the correct training thoroughly, and the ability to use good clear shaping plans to break large behaviours down in to small manageable steps.