Close Call

[mitchmaine]

well said geoff. the discription of an emotional response or a mental process given to someone who hasn’t had the same experience is darn near impossible. two people with similar experience can share a language, no matter how vague the image presented. not sure if i was too clear with that statement. but we have to start somewhere. and words are what we have.

[Billy Foster]

I really enjoy reading all your thoughts on this, I just got our first green broke Haflinger and am looking forward to spending the winter working on the basics with him. Some of you know I raced sled dogs for a bunch of years. A very famous Dog musher, Gorge Attla said, “a dog never does anything wrong, he is a dog and he does just what a dog would do in that situation”. That was not a direct quote but it is was how I remember him saying it. I have to believe the same idea goes with the horse as well.

Billy

[Jean]

I have a question on standing to be hitched. One of mine will not stand to be hitched or unhitched without someone at his head. I have been working on ground driving him and having him stop and stand at various times. He is fine with that, but when he knows that the stone boat or cart is behind him he is very jiggy. He always starts off with great excitement, sometimes rearing up and lunging forward. I stop him and ask him to walk off calmly. He also knows when the hay bale is placed on the boat, or removed from the boat. He wants to start right away. It looks to me as if he feels the standing is not the reward but the punishment. My question, do I go to the stone boat and try to hitch him, if he moves, do I walk him around, go to the boat again, try again, until he does not move? I would really like to be able to hitch him without having to get some one to stand at his head.

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Jean, I have a shorter answer and a longer answer, but first let me reiterate something that has been suggested on this thread already. We are all looking for a “feeling”, a moment when you should apply the pressure and a moment when you should release it. It is hard to put it into words or tell someone else “this is how you do it”. Using children as an analogy; hold your thumb on one and they will go right where you want, hold your thumb on the next one and you will be working backwards.

Having said that here is my short answer. I often find that folks with a specific problem; ie. my horse won’t do xxx, or he doesn’t like yyy tend to rush through those trouble spots. I think it works like this, Someone’s horse is not very good at putting his bridle on, but he is pretty good at everything else. If they can rush the bridle on in less than a minute, their hour with the horse is 2% bridling and 98% pleasant. I usually suggest they take the trouble spot and delve into it. Don’t rush. Make it take longer and move slower.

Here is a slightly longer answer. I recently did a two day intro to work horses. The two day arrangement gave me a chance to try something new. We, eight students and I, spent half of the first day working with loose animals. I explained and demonstrated, and had students moving animals on command and standing on command. At the beginning of the second day as we were gathering horses, mules, and one donkey off pasture; each pair of students had one animal and they were all standing in a wide circle. Each animal had been caught and haltered. The animals were standing without being held with their lead ropes over their necks. I was teaching everyone how to pick up horses’ feet. But we were also reinforcing the fact that each of us could make the horse stand as we worked around it. It was a really fun moment for me.

I returned to that moment at different points in the workshop. As a new teamster would get tangled (or just focused) in lines and eveners (we were moving logs), I would point out that what made a horse stay and stand was the same thing as when we were picking up the feet. These little signals and body language and all the rest make up our leadership. One of my horses is a little green, and has little experience working alone. He made a great demonstration of how our work around him is focused on getting him to stay and stand. It did not prevent us from working, we just worked a little slower and were very aware of all the signals we were giving him. This would make him stand, just as we knew it would from our experience on the pasture.

[jen judkins]

Hey all, great discussion! I have really enjoyed catching up on this thread. Been at the LIF course for the past week. My experiences there with Reno, teaching, illustrates some of the challenges of working with sensitive, living creatures. Someone mentioned the limitations of the horse’s way of communicating. Its truly an art to read a horse….an art I will study the rest of my life.

For me, one of the challenges with using a horse (or team) in a teaching situation, is that my attention is divided between the horse and the students. This includes the ‘on stage’ sensation, George mentioned. It puts me in a different state of being. I like to blame the students inexperience for any unacceptable behavior in my horse, and it is true that inexperienced hands on the lines can confuse the horse and lead to some anxiety….but its really my attention and leadership that is lacking in those situations. All I can do is point this out to the students. I don’t know how many times I said, ‘look at the horse..does he look ready to do what you want to do?’ There were many ‘no’ answers, appropriately and this gave us a chance to explore how we might get his attention, or focus him or settle him in some way. One point I think I made clear to every student is that you never hook a nervous horse to a log. Forget the log. Figure out what it takes to get him confident enough to stand still. In the end it was a positive experience for everyone, I think.

George, I respect your horsemanship a great deal. I think you have a good handle on this situation. As the old saying goes, ‘shit happens’. Being prepared is the only thing we can do.

[Donn Hewes]

Hi Jen, Great post. Just as I enjoy picking up the lines of other folks horses to see what I can learn; I also find it really interesting to have others learning from my horses. It can be very challenging to manage all your people and animals so everyone is finding a positive outcome. Nice job.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Billy Foster 30378 wrote:

…famous Dog musher, Gorge Attla said, “a dog never does anything wrong, he is a dog and he does just what a dog would do in that situation”.

Billy

Billy, I am sure there are many similarities between working with dogs and other draft animals, many differences as well. Sometimes I think an ox is more like a cat than a dog. Anyway, many years ago I aspired to have a dog team, wanted to have Malamutes, the freighters of the dog world. I have the book by George Attla, ‘Everything I Know About Training and Racing Sled Dogs’ Probably been more than 30 years since I read it, I think I will read it again over the coming holidays. Never got a team of Malamutes, ended up with oxen. Got to love those freighters. Thanks for the memory jog.

[leehorselogger]

every time I start working with a new horse I say to that horse…INBD….its no big deal…..throw harnes..’.its no big deal,brush them…its no big deal……youhave to say the words out loud…..try it dsomretime…..qnd both you and the horse will realize its no big deal!

[drafthorsey]

George you started a wonderful conversation I needed to hear …. again. Love to sit in this circle and listen to this conversation with a cup of coffee. I don’t have the luxury of working with my horses everyday or even every week. And it reminded why I don’t fly in light planes with friends anymore as they’ve thrown away the checklist because its a good old plane … had for years and never had a lick of trouble with it. Since your post had me thinking, I headed out to the barn and found a checklist that I’d thrown out too either for cost or time and began putting some equipment right. I’ve had bolters too and a couple of times there was but a second’s warning before it happened. And what if it happens and my equipment is faulty. I forget, good horsemanship starts a long way from the barn …

Thanks to all of you who contributed.

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