The Project:
Horses from many walks of life, communication through body language, tools used only for safety, never to train.
(Photo taken at Lime Kiln Point, a few miles from my home)
The Goal:
To discover how far Equestrian Art can be developed solely using body language.
A Grand Experiment
The full moon is reflecting off of every surface outside and the night is bright and quiet as I write. Here in the San Juan Islands we have just passed through an incredible windstorm that brought many trees down including one on the paddock fence, rattled all the roofs and kept the horses on edge for days. No one is hurt, but I think everyone is grateful for the quiet after the storm.
I find myself reflecting on intensity in life and the ways we all experience comfort and discomfort. The ways we sometimes protect ourselves from discomfort and the ways we sometimes walk head on into the wind and drink up the chaos and beauty of it all.
At the beginning of the week Atlas and Ari had another big fight, and this one resulted in Atlas becoming injured. Nothing life threatening, just a chest wound from a bite in the heat of battle. I understand stallions fight sometimes and they have their own social structures to build that might be outside the realms of my comfort zone. For that reason, I did not separate them immediately afterward, I watched and tried to understand.
Unfortunately, Atlas’ injury and ensuing weakness intensified his tendency to freeze and tune out the world which seemed to anger Ari and the attacks from Ari became more frequent and more intense in an effort to wake Atlas up. When I noticed Atlas starting to look over the fences in a searching way he never had before, I realized my space was simply too small for these two and all their differences. It was time to close the gates and separate them again, at least until Atlas healed.
Ari seems lonely since I separated them, and Atlas seems relieved. They still touch noses through the fence and the intensity of difference between them seems less dramatic every day. Atlas is still the first to pull away seemingly wanting more space to be peaceful. Ari only allows him that because the fence stops him from following and pushing for more attention.
I have had these issues before when putting Mustangs and domestic horses together. For Mustangs, staying aware is a life or death matter and they have very little tolerance for herd mates who freeze up and miss things happening around them. There is nothing more irritating to a horse that is quick to fight than a friend who is quick to freeze. Given enough space the horses always work it out, but space is a key factor and not a luxury I have with Ari and Atlas.
I have a strong belief that life is about learning. If we don’t know something, we get to try it, and then assess the results.
Life is all a grand experiment and we learn a little more every day.
I continue with my personal experimental work of Freedom Based Training® and it is so slow with these two that I am continually grateful Myrnah was such a generous partner to learn with in my first project. I remind myself over and over that slow isn’t bad, I am simply learning different things than I learned in the first project.
With Atlas there seems to a be a strong correlation between the time I invest simply being with him in ways he appreciates (meaning we are together with the buffer of space between us) and how much I can ask him to stretch his comfort zone. The thing I ask for when I can afford to stretch the comfort zone, is that he be interested or curious when I reach out to him.
I find he can match me reaching out to some degree, but it is a real effort for him, and you can see him grow more fatigued with each repetition. Some days he can manage a touch, the softest finger against nose moment. Other days all he can do is reach toward me, stopping short of any contact. If I ask too many times, he shuts down completely and pretends I do not exist. When this happens, any further movement I make toward him results in flight and I have hours of reinvestment in the relationship, being with him at distances he can handle before he is ready to try being interested in me again.
I think this is the grand experiment of the project. If I invest in doing primarily things the horses choose, and then, with good feel and timing asking for the things I might choose, how much can we ultimately do together?
I think of this on a spectrum, as I think of most things. It isn’t black or white, it isn’t all or nothing.
On one end of the spectrum are the things the horse might choose that we can do together. On the other end of the spectrum are the things I might choose that we can do together. In the middle of that is a whole world of variations we can play with.
In Freedom Based Training® I start with things the horse would choose, and I figure out the places around them it is most comfortable for me to be while we experience life together.
Then I start venturing into the places around them that are less comfortable, in small enough doses that it is reasonable for them.
With patient practice and repetition the horse’s comfort zone grows and the places I choose to be that were once uncomfortable become comfortable.
After we have established touch as a comfortable way of being together then I can start adding moments of pressure.
At first the pressure is what I call desensitizing pressure, that means I only aim for the pressure to cause interest or thinking of some sort, no movement yet.
Once desensitizing pressure is established then I can start to play with sensitizing pressure which means I expect the horse to move a little when I ask.
If I ask too much too soon, I will get fight or flight instead of yield and then I must go back and figure out what is possible in this relationship. What are we capable of together?
Investing hundreds of hours doing things the horses might choose is the foundation for everything else! This is the grand experiment of Freedom Based Training®, if I invest enough in doing the things the horse finds enjoyable, how much will the horse then be willing to try new things with me?
Then, after we do new things successfully can I link them emotionally to other things that are deep in the comfort zone, such as simply being together in harmony.
When we as human beings do training with tools or food rewards, we can ask the horse to do things for us because of an extrinsic motivator, then over time the horse learns to enjoy the things they are being asked to do and the extrinsic motivators become less and less necessary.
I am simply turning things around. If we take away all the obvious extrinsic motivators what is the natural evolution of building a relationship and the variety of things you can enjoy together in that relationship?
There are many days I wonder if I will get to the end of this experimental year and the horses will still have very little increase in skill to show for my time investment. The stallions are so much more difficult than Myrnah was for so many reasons and at this point I simply have no idea what our result will be at the end of this year.
The one thing I know is I asked for a challenge and I got it. Ari and Atlas are going to push my understanding of Freedom Based Training® far beyond anything I have learned before.
At this point with Atlas, sometimes we can touch and sometimes we can’t. I am learning to read probabilities of success from moment to moment with him based on more subtle signs than I have ever before noticed. Thank you, Atlas.
At this point with Ari I can handle every part of his body (apart from his mouth and his ears) and as I run my hands over his body, I find many moments of focus change, interest, and curiosity stimulated. When the weather is good and the stress levels are naturally low, I have started venturing into asking Ari to pick up a hoof for a moment or take a step back when I ask. I am learning to calm my greedy self that wants two steps of back up the very moment one step feels ok to Ari. I am learning to put my greed aside and read Ari’s probability of success instead.
Push a little when Ari is bored, release to flow when he is interested. Repeat as possible. The goal is to build an association of feeling good, being interested and curious when pressure is applied.
Thank you, Ari for helping me find the rhythm and consistency of developing new skills on your timeline.
How much is possible from this foundation? I don’t know, it is all a grand experiment!
If you are curious to learn with me as it all unfolds, join us on Patreon where I post update videos of the process every week.
https://www.patreon.com/tamingwild
Hooves and Heartbeats,
Elsa
