Tragedy!!!Includes discussion of dramatic experiences, and blinders vs. open bridles

[Jean]

@kevint 13531 wrote:

Whew!!! I thought next years teamsters breakfast was in the wind!

That made me laugh out loud. Pretty hard to do to me lately.

[Carl Russell]

So today I was working the team in the woods. I have an apprentice who has just started working with me. He has a husky mix, and today was the first day she came into the woods with us. She was pretty excited about the horses. She would run in front and jump and bark in their faces, run ahead, then back at them and bark some more. When they had to pull hard uphill she would get really excited and barked like a cheerleader.

As we were returning from a hitch, and I was turning the horses around to back them to the tree where I chain them, she came at my Ted horse from behind yapping, and snapped at his heel, taking hair in her mouth. He raised his foot, and laid his ears back, and when I said “easy” he put his foot back down and relaxed. I said whoa, dropped the lines, got off the cart, dropped the choker around the tree, and went back to work.

I have no problem with the dog acting like this. It was kind of amusing. She was basically good natured, and was having fun. I find it a good exercise for the horses to have this kind of distraction and stimulus. My biggest problem was Kevin yelling at his dog with a loud and domineering tone. This made the horse more nervous than the dog.

I love you guys, Carl

[Joshua Kingsley]

Scott, I would normally warm them in my hands as well, but I had also cleaned the bridle the night before. I also have had a bad habit of bringing harness into the entry way to the house much to my mothers dismay. My barn is very open and I had some nice bridles come up missing….. I would normally have had them locked in the tack area of my trailer. In the end it worked out for the best. Though if I remember right the warm house would have been a better option for the day as we got a bad winter ice storm and was called out that night and worked on the power system for the next 48 hours cutting down trees for my “real” boss. Joshua

[Carl Russell]

I had a few more thoughts.

The Ted horse that I wrote about last night is a run-away horse. I have only had one run-away in twenty-three years, and it was because of him. It was only the second time I ever drove him, about six years ago. He has always been the type of horse that I call a “thunder flincher”, not so much a runner. You know his whole body goes…”Waboom”… when he sees something that disturbs him. But working him consistently has almost eliminated that.

It got me thinking about Jen’s BFO. In her defense, she is not the only “rider” that I have had a hard time getting my point across to. The reason, I think, is related to the “rider’s seat”. There is such a direct and intuitive connection to the animal that the reassurance and guidance is instantaneous and somewhat subconscious.

Like Donn’s example, horses left to their own devices will shy away from frightening stimuli. When riding or working that shying can be a big problem. So even when riding the horse, say without bridle or saddle, when the horse sees a distraction they need guidance from the rider to react appropriately. They get that through the bodily connection used by the rider, not from repeated exposure and experience with the particular stimulus.

When I am driving I replace that connection with “Tension, Intention, and Inflection”. When the dog was excited and distracting, I never said anything to the dog, never got distracted from the work I was doing. I never changed the inflection of my voice, and continued to speak directly to the horses. I used a consistent working tension on the lines, showing that my mind was still on the directives that I was giving to my horses. By the time the dog “attacked” Ted, they were focusing through the distraction on me and what I was telling them.

Carl

[jen judkins]

Now that I understand your perspective better, Carl, I wonder if I am making too much of Reno’s periodic anxiety. He comes back down when I ask. If I anticipate something might set him off, I say the word, ‘easy’ ahead of time and he pulls himself together. So it seems pretty clear that we have a working relationship. So maybe it will just take time and hours together for those little anxious moments to go away. OR maybe they never will?

I have always thought of tension and anxiety as a sign of worse things to come, but maybe I’m making too much of it? Perhaps if I just ignored those moments, I would bring more confidence to the working relationship?

For right now I am going to continue working him in an open bridle, as he is having trouble backing up (a mostly physical issue) without getting tense and fidgety, especially between shalves. For this particular exercise, I think the added visual field will help him gain confidence (in where his feet are going), though I think I will try harder not to concentrate too much on the anxiety and simple work on my own calm, assertive energy. In this case I agree the blinders issue has nothing to do with our working relationship, but I think going without them serves our purposes for right now.

[Wes Gustafson]

Carl, you’ve missed the point that I’m making. Bear with me for a bit.

My point is that trust is a two-way street. As we know, by consistency and good training, the horse, or team, learns to trust the teamster as their leader and protector. Likewise, as the teamster grows accustomed to his team, which includes learning about their unique characteristics and personality, the teamster learns to trust his team. All this is the same whether you utilize blinders or don’t utilize blinders. By staying calm through stressful and explosive situations, the teamster maintains control of his team, and helps to prevent an escalation of anxiety; once again the use of blinders is not the issue.

My point is that allowing the horse to have more visual freedom, by means of not using blinders, is a decision on the teamster’s part to entrust his team with the freedom to respond to stimuli that are beyond the control of the teamster to correct in a timely manner.

I gave specific examples, which you seemed to have dismissed as being unimportant. For example, when you said:

I have no problem with the dog acting like this. It was kind of amusing. She was basically good- natured, and was having fun. I find it a good exercise for the horses to have this kind of distraction and stimulus. My biggest problem was Kevin yelling at his dog with a loud and domineering tone. This made the horse more nervous than the dog.

Oh. I see. A harmless, good-natured dog was just having a little fun. Got it. In your way of thinking, all external stimuli is under your control, and never cause serious harm to you, your team or any bystanders, because you are quiet, calm and in control. Only uninformed humans, like Kevin, who don’t share your calmness and control, cause problems. Unfortunately, we can’t always have a controlled environment wherein our horses are working.

Let’s say a teamster is reading this who happens to live in northern B.C. Let’s replace the good-natured, harmless dog with a 250 lb. northern wolf, soundlessly approaching the team’s hind legs on powdered snow. Hmmm. The teamster is off to one side of a bobsled, loading firewood onto the sleigh. Because he is on the other side of the sled, he doesn’t happen to see the wolf approaching. I’m sure that the wolf is basically good-natured, and just having a little fun with the horse. Hamstringing is such fun. During this fun time, the teamster, in a calm and cool voice, is instructing the horse to stay calm.
The same team without blinders at least has the option to defend itself until the teamster can quickly attempt to gain control of the situation in whatever way he can, with calmness and steadiness. Such was the case with John’s team. That dog was not just having fun with John’s horses. It was a malicious attack.

Let’s take another example:

Brush-hogging this fall with my DR tow-behind mower, a six- inch piece of wood shot up and bounced off my mare’s rear. She never saw it coming because of the blinders. She jumped, and high-stepped for about 20 feet. When I told her to take it easy, she calmed right down into working walk.

Okay, fair enough. She only high-stepped for about 20 feet before calming down after you told her to take it easy.

Let’s modify your experience just a bit. Your team is in the identical situation, but for some reason, your mare’s blinders weren’t on that day. As the six-inch piece of wood gets shot up, the mare sees the piece of wood just the tiniest fraction of a second before it hits her in the rear. The input to the horse’s brain from its eye-gate is assimilated way before you as the teamster can exert any calming influence. The result: maybe 10 high-steps before you get her calmed down, and possibly the difference between a tragedy and just another bit of excitement for that day.

In both cases, a horse allowed to have more visual information at the earliest instant, can provide for a safer result for you, your team and those around you.

I think that you are assuming that the idea of not using blinders is a ‘fix’ for a lack of good, basic training for a horse. It’s not. But it is a way to extend more trust towards your horse, which depends upon you for leadership and help.

Hopefully, conversations like this are always pointed towards learning more about the fine art of using horses in harness, not about who is right and who is wrong. Sometimes it’s good to keep pursuing the idea, because no matter how we end up deciding how we will train and use our horses, and what kind of harness we choose to employ, exploring different ways of doing so expand our knowledge of how our horses think and partner with us.

Wes

[Carl Russell]

Wes Gustafson;13587 wrote:

Carl, you’ve missed the point that I’m making. Bear with me for a bit.

….. at least has the option to defend itself …..

In both cases, a horse allowed to have more visual information at the earliest instant, can provide for a safer result for you, your team and those around you.

I think that you are assuming that the idea of not using blinders is a ‘fix’ for a lack of good, basic training for a horse. It’s not. But it is a way to extend more trust towards your horse, which depends upon you for leadership and help.

Hopefully, conversations like this are always pointed towards learning more about the fine art of using horses in harness, not about who is right and who is wrong. ….

No Wes, I think I understand your point. I just think there is more to the acceptable reaction than whether the horse can see the distraction. My knowledge of horses tells me that any of these examples would cause the horse to shy, IF it weren’t under the control of the teamster.

Today I had to cut some dead-fall out of the trail from in front of my horses. While I expect my horses to stand for me to use the saw in front of them, I also realize that they are hardwired to react in alarm to small erratic flying objects, like sawdust. Even though they are watching me, they are startled as soon as the sawdust starts flying. Why don’t they run, or move? I think that it is because they are watching me, and I am telling them through my body language that these flying things are not a problem.

The same mechanism will be in play in the other examples you mention. I understand that you want to show respect to your horses by giving them the opportunity to see for themselves, but I still believe that the reason they remain calm is because they are following your guidance.

I realize that my comments have been interpeted to mean that I see open bridles as a “fix”. Those words were used in response to Jen saying that she thought that the open bridle helped Reno with his anxious behavior. In that case it seemed as though she looked at the open bridle as a way to “fix” that problem.

I never started this to dismiss open bridles. My point was, and still is, that there is more to the glue that holds the working relationship together than whether or not the horse can see.

I absolutely respect you for making the gesture to your horse. I never doubted the value of that. And I apologize if I made you feel like I was saying that you were wrong for doing that.

[Carl Russell]

jenjudkins;13578 wrote:

…. Perhaps if I just ignored those moments, I would bring more confidence to the working relationship?

…I will try harder not to concentrate too much on the anxiety and simple work on my own calm, assertive energy….

Jen, “ignore” is probably a term I would use as well, but I don’t really “IGNORE” those moments. I definitely pay attention to them. Register them. Evaluate them. But I definitely don’t react to them. Or, I see it, appraise it, and react to it the way I want my horse to react to it.

Carl

[TBigLug]

@Wes Gustafson 13490 wrote:

In my viewpoint, the horse without blinders in the same situation, could monitor the dog during the same attack, and make a decision when to apply his hoof to the dog’s face with a bit of force if things got out of hand, which they did in the case we’re talking about.

I saw this post and it got me thinking about the “What could have happened…” in my head. This in particular is an excellant example of why I want the blinders on my horse. It’s hard to explain where everyone’s body position was but what I can tell you is had that horse kicked the dog, there’s no way she would have been able to hit the dog alone and not the man given he was tangled up with the dog. His head was right at the level of the dog as he was wrestling to get him away. Now envision this, horse sees dog coming with man on top of it, kicks as hard as it can at that dog, connects with man in face breaking man’s neck, now I have a dead man and a scared horse on my hands. Dog biting horse is bad but there is no animal life worth more than a human life. With the blinders on she was forced to go with her training and that is to listen to my commands. No kick, no hurt dog, no hurt horse, no hurt dude and an interesting story to tell.

[Carl Russell]

I had to think about these comments before I felt I could respond.

Wes Gustafson;13587 wrote:

Carl, you’ve missed the point that I’m making. Bear with me for a bit.

My point is that trust is a two-way street. As we know, by consistency and good training, the horse, or team, learns to trust the teamster as their leader and protector. Likewise, as the teamster grows accustomed to his team, which includes learning about their unique characteristics and personality, the teamster learns to trust his team. All this is the same whether you utilize blinders or don’t utilize blinders. By staying calm through stressful and explosive situations, the teamster maintains control of his team, and helps to prevent an escalation of anxiety; once again the use of blinders is not the issue.

I don’t think we disagree that much. For the most part that statement echoes what I believe. The only difference is that I only concentrate on being trustworthy. I don’t invest any time in “trusting” my animals. That is not to say that I don’t “let” them be the horse that they are. My sense about “trust” is that I don’t have any true control over whether or not they are trustworthy, but I have absolute control over whether I am trustworthy.

Wes Gustafson;13587 wrote:

……..I gave specific examples, which you seemed to have dismissed as being unimportant. For example, when you said:

I have no problem with the dog acting like this. It was kind of amusing. She was basically good- natured, and was having fun. I find it a good exercise for the horses to have this kind of distraction and stimulus. My biggest problem was Kevin yelling at his dog with a loud and domineering tone. This made the horse more nervous than the dog.

Oh. I see. A harmless, good-natured dog was just having a little fun. Got it. In your way of thinking, all external stimuli is under your control, and never cause serious harm to you, your team or any bystanders, because you are quiet, calm and in control. Only uninformed humans, like Kevin, who don’t share your calmness and control, cause problems. Unfortunately, we can’t always have a controlled environment wherein our horses are working…..

This is not the interpretation I intended. This was an example of how I DON”T try to control my environment. I let the dog do what it wanted, as I knew that if I became distracted by that, then my communication with the horses would break down. The fact is that I don’t try to control my environment, or any external stimuli, I only concentrate on how I respond to the things I can’t control. I know that the only way to protect myself, the team, or any bystanders is to concentrate on my reaction, and my connection with my horses. This is not to say that I am never a short tempered, angry, frustrated guy, but I have been on both sides of that coin enough to realize how much better things are when I maintain focus on calmness.

Also I never said that Kevin was uninformed. My example was that when he barked at his dog, trying to stop her behavior, the tone in his voice was disconcerting to the horses. It was merely a mention of how tuned in they are to human vocal inflection.

And in fact I didn’t dismiss your examples as unimportant, I only meant that when I read them, I don’t see the open bridle as the determining factor. I know that you are saying that the more the horse knows about the situation, the more they may be able to participate in the response. My experience with unpredictable situations is that horses can respond in very unpredictable ways.

So although I don’t see their unpredictable reaction as any different than any other unpredictable occurrence, I know that at some level it will be my guidance/communication that I have to depend on, not some hope that they understand enough about the situation that they will be able to help out. I just don’t believe that just because the horse can see something guarantees that their reaction will be any more predictable, or helpful.

This is not a condemnation of open bridles at all, just a focus on a different, and in my mind, more important part of the equation.

Carl

[Donn Hewes]

Donn Hewes, Back home in sunny NY state where it never snows more than two inches at a time. I had a great time with Jason and Jagger in Virginia and I will report a little of what I learned on another thread; maybe tonight.

I have enjoyed this thread, especially how it almost went off the tracks only to recover. I truly believe it will all ways be difficult to express these ideas with just words, but it sure beats not talking at all.

Here are a couple of after thoughts. Carl, it took me a while to stop talking about trusting horses, and now it is second nature, an important part of how we fit in this relationship. Just try to be trustworthy. That is an idea I got from you a few years ago. Also I think your description of what the teamster contributes when dangers or unwanted external stimuli occur is very useful. I would like to throw in a caution to folks who might not have experienced some of these events. I don’t know how to cut and paste a quote, but you said something to the effect of ” I don’t try to control the environment, I focus on how I respond to the things I can’t control.” I get it, in fact I think it is leadership and it can be a hard thing to teach. My only concern is that we distinguish between things we can control and things we can’t. It is a little cavalier to say we don’t try to control anything, as in fact I think we do it all the time with out realizing it.

Some examples: Good harness and equipment is an example of trying to control what might happen. It is fine to make light of dogs running around having fun, but do that with a mowing machine and you will end up with a short dog. Keeping our horses and mules home on our farms is another great way to control a lot of unwanted unexpected stimuli. I would say we control what we can, then we train ourselves, and our animals, on how to deal with the unexpected.

I used to be really up tight about my horses working with my dogs all over (most mules really don’t like dogs); and you are 100% right my being up tight was a greater distraction for the working animals than the dogs ever were. I have learned to ignore a lot of dog activity and so have the horses and mules. My wife still yells at the dogs sometimes, but fortunately you can use the same method to deal with that as you would with the dogs. (Don’t tell my wife that I am training the animals to ignore her!) Dogs should be as easy to control as horses, if I tell any of ours to “go home” They should be gone all the way to the dog house. It usually works!

Great thread, lots of images for people to think about while they work their animals. Donn

[jen judkins]

@Donn Hewes 13640 wrote:

I have enjoyed this thread, especially how it almost went off the tracks only to recover. I truly believe it will all ways be difficult to express these ideas with just words, but it sure beats not talking at all.

Glad to hear you are enjoying yourself:p

But how bout a report on your trip down south?

[jen judkins]

BTW…who created the poll? There should be 3 choices….blinders, no blinders, and no preference…

[Carl Russell]

Good points Donn.

[colttrainer]

Hi All
My 2 cents. All horse should be started with out blinders, some may at some point need them as some will start paying to much attention to you & start trying to react before being asked.
We just lost a good mare because she had never been with out them stupid blinders, Her bridle got rubed over her ears & when she let the bit fall out of her mouth she realized that I had no control on her she took off, only to become totally freaked out by that sled chasing her. Never was any good after that.
Al

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