Mustangs at the Cedar Mountain Horse Management Area, Utah
Last week at the wild horse gentling workshop, I learned that when horses are beginning to understand a new task, they make chewing motions with their mouth and tongues, which gives a new meaning to the phrase "something to chew on." During the chomping and pondering, it's a good idea to let them have some time to think it through for themselves.
When I left last Tuesday morning, I told R not to worry, there was no way I would go into a pen with a wild horse. 36 hours later, I was surrounded by a couple hundred of them and I felt no fear, even knowing they could have trampled us in a moment if we did something to upset them. I signed up because I wanted to learn some practical beginning horsemanship; you might say that starting with mustangs is an over-the-top way to get that knowledge. Probably so, but I now can safely navigate around a nervous horse, find its favorite spot for scratches, put on a halter (with a cooperative animal), and clearly communicate my status as the leader of the herd of two. I probably won't have much call to teach a horse to make an inside turn in a round pen, but I now know it is reasonable to expect a well-trained horse to come when called, to stand for saddling and grooming without being tied, and eventually to take its cues from my reaction to something new, rather than freaking out. And I have a slight appreciations for how hard it would be to reach that level of training, for me more than the horse.
Some other lessons have relevance for everyday life. I ask the horse to trust; it will trust so long as I am trustworthy. These animals are smart, and they don't forget a lesson, so make sure to know what I want to teach them, and thus avoid a prolonged period of trying to unteach behaviors I don't want. Don't punish refusal to obey, but give consequences the horse understands. Stop the training session on a high note--if necessary, back up to something the horse already knows and reward it well. And that patience comes from having right-sized expectations, and being willing to set aside those expectations when the horse has other ideas. Even horses have bad days.
I have long believed that we teach people how to treat us. That certainly held true for the horses and burros. The trainer's alpha mare attitude wasn't the simple dominance I had imagined, nor was there any pleading or placating with the horse. The correct approach required clarity of intention, simple communication, and choices for the horse. Consistency engendered respect, not fear; calmness rather than anxiety; confidence and trust, not confusion. Revising the bumpersticker about dogs and their owners: I would like to fully be that person a horse would need me to be.
