Attitude is Everything

Anyone who has watched horses in a herd interacting with one another has witnessed an extensive amount of communication taking place via body language.  Horses don’t have any kind of sophisticated audio language that I’m aware of unless they communicate with some sort of sub-audible frequency that is imperceptible to human ears and hasn’t yet been discovered. Their entire vocabulary consists of a few basic sounds that are pretty easy to interpret.  What is much more sophisticated and complex, however, is their physical communication.  Horses are masters of body language.  They pay attention to the slightest movement another horse might make and understand what this movement signifies.

We humans on the other hand have come to rely so much on verbal communication that we tend to forget how much information body language can really communicate.  This is especially true when working with horses.  We may not speak the same body language as horses, but they are masters at this stuff.  It doesn’t take long for them to learn a new language and start interpreting every move you make.  Because of this, we have to be keenly aware of what signals we give to our horses when we work with them. 

Horses’ ability to read and assign meaning to every move I make has caused me to develop a particular aspect of my horsemanship that as a human I wasn’t initially aware of, my attitude.  I’ve come to realize that my attitude is one of the most influential components of my communication with horses.  Now, I’m not talking about my own personal attitude and things like staying positive or being open minded.  This is more interpersonal than intrapersonal.  What I’m talking about is the attitude I convey to my horse.  Once again, horses are masters of body language and because of this they will pick up whatever attitude I convey. 

Of course, your attitude can negatively influence your horse’s behavior.  If I’m working with a horse that is excited and nervous about something, I am likely to get a little excited and nervous too.  Well guess what happens when I get excited and nervous in this situation.  My horse sees the way I’m acting and thinks to himself, “I knew there was something to be worried about!  This must be even worse than I thought.”  I just confirmed all of my horse’s fears, plus added to all that nervous energy that was already floating around.

 Fortunately, with a little practice you can learn to convey a different attitude in this same situation and affect your horse’s behavior in a positive way.  Whenever I’m working with a horse that is excited and nervous about something, I always try to behave in in a way that would be equivalent to asking my horse, “What are you so worried about?”  Now I may know that a particular situation is terribly frightening to a horse, but I don’t ever want to let him know that I know it’s scary to him.  I always want to send him the message that he is the only one who is excited and would probably be better off to just calm down like everyone else.  To help myself with this, I often find myself verbalizing the message I’m trying to convey.  I don’t do this because I think my horse understands what I’m saying, I do it because I’m a human and I best understand verbal communication and this will help me to say the things I want to say with my body.  I’m also not always aware that I’m doing it and I probably look like a crazy person when I do it.

This power of attitude is effective in many different situations and should be practiced in everything you do with your horse.  When I’m asking my horse to do something he thinks is difficult, for instance going over a jump for the first time, I want to have the attitude that this is really no big deal.  I want my horse to think that I’m not worried or excited about this and that I may not even really care about it.  It’s almost as though I’m saying to my horse, “Oh, is there something in the way?  I didn’t even notice.  I was simply asking you to go in a straight line in which a jump happened to be set up.”   On the inside, I might be all excited and hoping that he goes over the jump, but I don’t want to let him know this.  As far as he can tell I couldn’t be less excited about the jump.  This practice works when I’m giving a horse its first bath.  I act as though the water is such a non-issue that I’m not even aware of it.  I want her to think that the water just happened to spray her on the leg, not that I purposely intended for it to happen.  There’s no reason to be scared of it because nobody else is.  Of course, I will have the discretion not to spray her directly in the face right away, but if I accidentally do, I want to act like it was no big deal.

Make sure that when you work with your horse you remain aware of just how perceptive he is to your body language.  The most effective way to control your body language is to try to convey the attitude you want your horse to believe you have.  It isn’t necessarily easy, but you can do it if you just stay aware of it.  Good luck.      

The Energy Constant

Those of us who have ever taken any kind of science class have had to learn some sort of constant.  There is always some non-changing value named after an old scientist that we have to memorize and use to solve equations that we’ll never actually have to solve in real life.  Well I have discovered my own constant.  It’s an energy level constant that we need to keep in mind when working with horses.  Unfortunately, this constant is more qualitative than quantitative so I can’t assign a numerical value to it, or put my name on it to make myself famous and make students memorize it for generations to come. 

So what is this energy constant I refer to?  As we all know, every horse is an individual and has its own individual characteristics.  Some horses are big bundles of energy and some are more reminiscent of a Basset Hound, but no matter which kind of horse I work with, there is a certain energy level we will need to operate on to have any kind of success.  This energy level is more or less constant for all horses.  They all need to be operating around the same energy level to have a productive learning and working experience.  Our own energy level combined with that of our horse should add up to equal this energy level on which we and our horses should operate.

We can help our horses to operate at this level if we adjust our own energy levels to balance those of our horses.  For example, if I’m riding a horse that barely has enough energy to walk to its own feeder, I need to contribute lots of energy to help bring the overall level up to where it needs to be.  Similarly, if I’m riding a horse that feels more like a jumpy little meerkat, I need to introduce very little of my own energy to the equation to get us to the proper level.  It’s a really simple concept.  If my horse only contributes 20% of the energy we need to operate at the desired energy level, I need to add the remaining 80%.  If my horse contributes 90%, I have to make sure to only add 10%.  There is also the occasional horse that operates around 120% of what is needed and I therefore have to find a way to bring that energy level down to where it belongs.

Now let me clarify what kind of energy I want to display to my horse.  Any energy I give must be calm energy.  I never under any circumstances want to display nervous or anxious energy.  Even when I’m trying to get my horse to show a little more life, I want to always remain calm and help my horse to remain calm.  If I ever get excited and convey to my horse that I’m nervous, my horse will instantly get scared and switch from learning mode to survival mode.  I sometimes have to be able to overcome my own instincts and feelings to make sure that I present to my horse a picture of calm confidence.  Even when encouraging a lazy horse to have more energy I try to remain calm.  I might exaggerate some of my movements and be more demonstrative in asking them to move, but I never act excited or anxious. 

Another important thing to keep in mind is that our horses don’t remain at the same energy level throughout our ride.   The situation is liquid and a horse can one moment act as though it is half asleep and the next moment act as though it is going to jump out of its skin.  Because of this, we obviously must frequently adjust our own energy levels to match those of our horses throughout the ride.  Always try to keep in mind what your horse’s needs are regarding the energy you bring to the overall equation.