Dear Friends,
I had an interesting chat with a friend the other day who was expressing a little frustration about her horse getting spooky again.
After some discussion, she realized that she had become a little direct line again with dressage and was not helping her horse’s confidence by respecting thresholds and doing enough on the ground with longer lines. In fact as we talked about it, she kept saying “yep, I did that, I did that…”, all the right things, but then we came to something she should not have done – she would walk the horse up to the one part of the arena that was spooky and get him see that there was nothing there.
It is so easy to think that horses will respond to logic, but they don’t! In fact, they do much better if you ignore what they are spooking about, focus on an exercise or task, don’t cross thresholds and use the principle of retreat. For example, say you are riding in the arena and you can feel your horse worrying as you approach that spooky end. Instead of pressing them forwards and over the rapidly mounting thresholds, turn away. Go across the arena to the other side, or do a 180 turn and go back the other way. Do it as soon as you feel the threshold or even better do it before the threshold… which is easy if you have already experienced where that is!
This is how retreat and reapproach works. You just keep avoiding/retreating from that spot until suddenly your horse doesn’t have an issue any more and soon you’ll be able to go a few feet further before turning off. Then one day, your horse will actually want to take you over there. It’s amazing how that works! Of course you can do the same on the ground, do it on long lines – preferably a 22 or even a 45 line. That way they are further away from you which helps grow their self confidence… and most importantly, don’t just send them there. Play long distance Squeeze Games and changes of direction on the circle, a lot like you would do if riding.
Here’s why it works: your horse’s fear will subside instead of escalate, and he will start to have more confidence in you! I think of thresholds being like the edge of a cliff. The closer you get, the more the fear escalates and if you push them over the threshold it’s like pushing them over the cliff. Sometimes the horse’s fear reaction is terribly violent and horses and humans can get hurt in the process, so it’s just not worth it. And it does not make horses better to push them over thresholds, it gets worse. Sometimes you don’t even notice it until all of sudden, “for no reason at all” your horse blows up.
It’s not about the spooky spot, it’s about your relationship and your leadership. When your horse knows he can trust you, he will stop being afraid… but it is your job as leader to look out for him all the time, only then will he start trusting you and not worry about things like he used to.
Some of the biggest thresholds I’ve had to get Remmer over in years gone by have been to do with being in foreign environments, such as going on trail rides… even on or around our property! But when I started to really respect them, he changed and kept building confidence and more trust in me. It’s wonderful how I can take him anywhere in the country now and he doesn’t turn a hair… but if he does, I do the right thing, right away. If I don’t he can be pretty explosive, and that’s not fun to ride but worse still, it’s awful for him emotionally speaking. And… I totally get that it is my job to take care of him or why should he continue to trust me as his leader?
In the end, I told my friend that she can’t just be a rider… she has to be a ‘trainer’ too. That means that when your horse has trouble you need to forget trying to work on the things you think are important and work on the things your horse thinks are important. When your horse is calm and confident you can do a lot of things, but when he’s not you can’t… so fix it or you’re in danger. What does Pat say? “Take the time it takes so it takes less time”. Otherwise you find yourself dealing with the same thing over and over and over again.
What have been some thresholds you helped your horse overcome?
Yours Naturally,
Linda
I have a question. Jake sometimes is a tiny bit startled and looks at something (say a backhoe moving across the road) while we’re trotting in the arena, say. Should I continue with what we were doing — or stop and let him look at it? What I’ve been doing is this: if he seems just surprised or curious, but not right-brained (he’s LBI), I keep going. If he seems worried, I stop and let him look until he relaxes, and then continue. Is that savvy, or am I encouraging him to worry more by stopping? A similar situation would be if we’re mosying outside and a horse in the stable kicks the stall or something, and he momentarily flinches.
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Loved this entry…thank you Linda!
Gotta love those thresholds, they really deliver opportunities for growth and understanding. For Duke and I it was the gate…any gate…wherever we were riding. Didn’t matter whether it was a 50′ round corral, or a large arena, Duke always wanted to stop at or go back to the gate. It was so frustrating!
Our turning point began after I watched a video of Linda playing ‘tit for tat’ with Two Socks in the Savvy vault. There she was dealing with the very same behavior, but what a transformation!! On our next riding session I played a little tit for tat with Duke and within minutes he was a little more willing to venture farther away from the gate. Time and patience…so very important for my LBI/E.
That was a year ago, and now the only time he wants to be near the gate is when we’re riding indoors on a nice day and he reminds me it’s too nice to be indoors. So out we mozy to the outdoor arena and he doesn’t even give the gate a second glance during our session. In the past I always had to shut the gate to keep him inside; now, we can ride with the gate open or closed…it doesn’t matter to Duke anymore.
Linda,
Great information!
I have a question ….. Last weekend I went cattle sorting, nothing seriouse, just for fun. It turned out to be anything but fun! My horse is fairly atlettic but was his head was totally out of the game because he was more concerned about his “trail buddy” horse outside of the arrena. I am thinking maybe instead of trying to work him down and keeping him away, I should have done something different. Was this simular to being “spooky”? Did I cross a “threshold”? Should I have done the approch and retreat letting him know he could always return to the other horse? What I was doing never helped ! ! !
Linda
As a living, breathing, ever improving Level 2 Parelli Student, I can atest to the approach and retreat method of partnering with my horse through life. He’s a Right Brain Introvert who’s afraid of his own shadow so spookiness is his middle name! But using the approach and retreat method on the 22′ line has made all the difference for us. And when we ride together and happen upon a spooky “whatever”, we just retreat and re-approach until he relaxes and trusts that I will not let him get eaten! Thank you, Pat and Linda for all that you do for us!
My LBI doesn’t have many threshold issues, in fact she likes new places.
My sister’s RBI is a different story, she is quite spooky with ropes and things being around her back legs. Today I worked with approach and retreat and she stayed calm 85% of the time. :) :) :)!!!
Right on Priscilla!
Linda
Isn’t it strange how a solution appears when you most need it. Thank you Linda and all those who added their experiences.
Thanks Linda.
I am new to natural horsemanship. Have found I have spent years doing the wrong things and am now working on “relationship first” with my wonderful Champ. One of the things I am struggling with is that my horse spooks when there are bushes around him. Just found out that I was doing the wrong thing by taking my horse to the place where he gets scared. I thought it would make him see that there was no danger. Thanks for this post.
My Right brained extrovert surprises me every time. I thought we would try to work at the top end of my pasture as the ground was better, but as soon as I approached the area she went completely right brained even though she grazes there every night, but this time her pasture mate wasnt there only me. We had to sort this out straight away and after getting her calm I realized her threshold was way before even getting to that part of the field and I became more aware of the change in her much sooner and we turned back as soon as it bothered her and waited and waited then she moved forward on her own. At this point I turned back again and low and behold the next time she went further. I left it at that point with her looking curous and waiting to go further until our next session.
My experience was at the horse behavior course where my horse became extreme RB and totally unconfident in his new environment. If I took him to the playground I could only get his attention for a few seconds , it was exhausting! We stayed back at the pens and advanced until we met a threshold then stopped and played some games until we could proceed. I kept thinking about Linda’s DVD’s on thresholds and asking myself “what would Linda do”. It took me three days to get to the playground (because I’m not as good as Linda) but the difference in my horse was amazing, our relationship improved in the process and my leadership skills as well, an added bonus. At the beginning I was so disappointed that I wasn’t able to participate at the playground and in the end I learned the greatest lesson of all -LOVE, LANGUAGE & LEADERSHIP!
Well done Donna. That’s exactly what we mean by putting the relationship first :)
Linda
Thank you for this post, Linda! I love that Natural Horsemanship isn’t about forcing the horse. So often our first response (at least mine) is to make that horse go somewhere he doesn’t want to go to prove to him he can. But that’s so not thinking like a prey animal! Thanks for giving us the permission to retreat, back off, give the horse time to figure out for himself that that trouble spot isn’t going to kill him. :)
Thresholds in the arena – wanting to be at/near the gate and her pasture buddy – not wanting to go to the far end of the arena. We just did a passenger lesson where there were two criteria from my point of view – if you need to turn towards the gate/your buddy we will trot a bit faster than you wanted to, if you turn to go towards the scary end of the arena I will get in harmony with you, relax and let you relax – if you want to turn back, that’s okay! Let’s trot! 15 minutes of this and she stopped at the far “spooky” end. The next time it took 5 minutes, the third time we came to the arena, when I turned her loose at the beginning of our session to roll, she ran to the far end and parked herself there.
Allowing her idea and turning away (going faster away from he scary place) now we have no more arena issues – and I can go back to this any time, any arena, if the need arises.
On the trail I have a horse I’ve not done much with and she’s unconfident in new environments – as soon as she starts to get slow/tense when I drive her from zone 3 I immediately turn and go back a few steps, her head lowers, her stride lengthens and loosens and then we turn again and head in the original direction. Usually she goes a few strides further (if the threshold was a medium one) and I build her confidence in me as her leader and in the new environment.
I used to feel SO frustrated that I couldn’t get my horse out of the end of the driveway without a rodeo – now I don’t feel frustrated at all because my goal has changed from “go for a walk up the road” to “go for a walk with confidence”. I can almost always meet my goal and if I can’t, I learn from it!
Thanks for this great distinction and strategy!
Thank you SO much for this Linda, I seem to be struggling with spooky thresholds everyday and I know I must trust you that this will work and I must slow right down and stop being so direct line (this is what I’m going to do today) and PUT THE RELATIONSHIP FIRST suddenly makes more sense..wow do I need to develop some more patience….Cant wait to start tomorrow, you have given me faith that it isnt 10 steps backwards but it is actually the way forward!!