REPRINT: Ideas for the Off Season
This article was written for Rural Heritage magazine in 2011. Rural Heritage is read by many draft teamsters, both equine and bovine.
Sometimes it’s mud, sometimes it’s rain, sometimes it’s cold, sometimes it’s heat. For all of us, though, there’s at least one time each year when conditions force a change in our working routine with our horses. Sometimes we put them out to pasture for a few months, sometimes they are stalled. The break can be beneficial for both parties in the working relationship.
On the other hand, time with our horses for many of us is an important part of our days. We may not want a complete break away from them, even though the weather conditions are not conducive to our usual routines. With a little thought and creativity, it’s possible to make good use of difficult weather conditions and potentially make the next work season the best yet. Is there something your horse does that annoys you a little? Have you had a nagging feeling about a habit one of your horses has that might turn into a safety issue? Would a better relationship with your team make your work more enjoyable?
Laura Masterson with her mares Bonnie and Patty in 2011
For Laura Masterson, the answer to all these questions was yes. She has found that she can’t work her team of Belgians during the winter months because there is too much mud on her farm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. But she didn’t want to just turn them out for three months and then have to get reacquainted in the spring when things get hectic on her farm. Her solution has been to identify small things that her horses could do better and take a little time each day during the winter months to work on them. For instance, says Laura, “I harness in a double tie stall and it helps a lot if the horses respond to voice commands or a gentle nudge. I often need them to back up or move over when I am harnessing. When I'm carrying all that heavy harness is not the time to teach them.”
Lowering Their Heads
With our big draft horses, teaching them during slow times to lower their heads for haltering or bridling can make life much easier when things get busy. If you pull down on the lead rope and your horse resists, you have a teaching opportunity. The horse is bracing against you, and most of us will never be strong enough to force a horse’s head down to our level. Rather than get a stool, give up or pick a fight, we can see this as an opportunity for improvement. Once we learn to recognize the brace in the haltering process, we can start to see other places where our horses brace against us too (refusing to move over in a tie stall without a slap for instance.)
Leading from Both Sides
Another regular part of life with horses is leading. Making sure our horses can lead from the off side as well as they do on the near side can result in greater safety. One place where I’ve benefited from lessons on leading from the off-side is loading my ponies into the horse trailer. The natural angle and approach to loading my three-horse slant-load trailer is from the near side, but when the wind’s blowing towards me, it blows the door towards me, blocking the pony’s path and creating a safety hazard. Since I’m usually loading alone, I’ve figured out that I can lead my pony from the offside, then hold the trailer door open and send the pony into the trailer. Once they’re in, I throw the leadrope on their back, and climb in and around next to them on their near side, retrieving and tying the leadrope as usual.
There have been people injured when a situation forced them to lead from the off-side and their horse wasn’t accustomed to it and ran them over. Many horses have a semi-permanent bend in their necks from being led repeatedly from the near side; they tip their head toward their handler but keep their body farther away. That physical display alone shouts out opportunity for off-season work. And it’s a good reminder of the importance of repeating any training exercise on both sides of a horse’s body because each side uses a different part of their brain. Lessons on one side don’t automatically translate to the other.
Standing Still
Grooming sessions provide great opportunities to work on little things that can pay big dividends. “Standing seems like one of the most important things you can ever teach your horse,” comments Laura. “On the farm I work by myself a lot, and I couldn't do that if my horses didn't stand. Hitching to equipment, adjusting equipment, getting off to open gates, and a million other things can only be done safely if your horses stand calmly and quietly. I always take the lines with me but that only helps so much. In the winter I'll put one horse in the barn aisle and groom them away from the others. I don't tie them, just hold a long leadrope as I walk from one side to the other. I make a game out of not allowing my horse to move its feet. I made great progress on this when I realized that my horses first ‘move’ with their attention or mind, then they might cock an ear or give me their eye, then move their head, and then finally they’d move their feet. I figured out that if you scold when the head turns they think you can read their mind and you get farther faster.”
Step
Laura continues, “Another voice command I find helpful is ‘step’ which means take one step forward.” You can teach this either from the driving position with lines or from the front with a lead rope or even when a horse is tied in a stall or crossties. Some people find it helpful to place a pole or short section of pipe on the ground, perhaps in the aisle of the barn, and then ask their horse to step over it one foot at a time, coming to a complete stop between each step. A variation on this exercise is to rotate the pole and have the horse move sideways to straddle it, again one foot at a time. Getting more precision in your communication with your horse is always beneficial. Laura notes, “The ‘step’ command is incredibly useful around anything with a tongue because I always feel like I have my hands full. Especially if the tongue is heavy, it’s much easier for me to verbally ask my horses to step toward me to attach the neck yoke rather than hold the tongue up and try to pull them toward me.”
Touching the Butt to the Wall
For young horses or horses that will be put to work for the first time, another exercise that can be meaningful is backing them when on a halter and lead into objects until their rump is touching it. The important thing here is to watch for signs of discomfort: the flick of an ear, turn of the head, a hesitation in movement, or, at the extreme, out-right refusal. Stopping, bringing the horse forward and then backing them again gives them an opportunity to gain confidence in the unusual situations this exercise presents. Tree branches, fences, horse trailers, and barn walls are all possible targets to aim horses’ rumps for. The goal, of course, is to have the horse be totally willing and comfortable with each variation on this exercise.
Move the Snap
Another exercise that is simple to do and can provide tremendous feedback on how we communicate with our horses involves just having them on a halter and lead. The key is that the lead must have a snap. The question to be answered is: just how much movement in the snap is necessary before we notice the horse responding, and ultimately how much is necessary to effect movement of the horse’s feet? Horses have an incredible sense of touch; remember, they can feel a single fly on their flank. It follows, then, that they can feel the slightest shift in the position of the snap because it causes a change in the way the halter lies on their head. What response can you see when that snap swings just away from vertical? How far do you have to go to affect a weight shift and then movement of the feet? When one person tried this, her reaction was “I’m such a brute!” She had been using way more movement of the snap than her horse needed. She was effectively shouting at her horse when a whisper would have sufficed. (1)
Releasing Pressure and Rewarding the Try
These ideas for slower seasons don’t have to be just about the horses. Slower seasons can provide us humans an opportunity to improve our skills, too. Two simple things that work in concert and pay big dividends are: 1) understanding that horses learn from a release of pressure and 2) rewarding the slightest try. To use both of these effectively requires us to use them honestly. The exercise above about moving the snap to move the feet is a great one to use to learn how these two concepts work together. Moving the snap is an increase in pressure; letting it go so it drops back to vertical is a release. If a horse responds to the movement of the snap with a slight shift in weight, and you release the pressure, you’ve rewarded the slightest try. Lynn Miller, in Training Workhorses, Training Teamsters, says “I look for, and applaud, the smallest evidence of success.” (2)
Learning to release pressure is an ongoing process. There can be times when we think we’ve released the pressure but in fact we’ve only lessened it. Laura gives an example with her very sensitive horse Patty. “Just letting the snap return to vertical isn’t enough of a reward for Patty. She needs me to avert my eyes and sometimes turn my shoulders before she’ll relax and lick and chew. It's all in the release, and it works best if you really, really mean it. How many times do I have to learn this lesson?!”
When pondering these slower season exercises it’s important to choose something little and work on that – go for quality rather than quantity. And keep it fun. We all learn better when we’re not being forced. Remember, this is about spending time with our horses because we enjoy them. Laura has found that just fifteen minutes can be enough, and sometimes is easier to find, to do these small things that reap big dividends. “It’s amazing how much more I can do with Patty now after that first winter’s work when I took a little bit of time regularly for the little things. For me, picking one thing and getting good at it really was key to enjoying our time together and seeing progress.”
Seeking Instinct
Finally, you might want to ponder the ‘seeking’ instinct. Emma Kline posits that horses like to solve problems, and if we can provide them with opportunities to solve problems, they’ll want to be better work partners. “The seeking instinct is more powerful than fear or dominance. It’s how horses find water, safety, comfort, play and everything else that they need and want. It’s what enables them to live and gives them quality of life. The seeking instinct is in every organism. It’s what causes a tree's roots to search deep down for the water vein in soil, a dandelion to find the weak spot in the concrete to break its way into the sunlight and moss to grow on the north side of trees. The seeking instinct is why we humans love to read books, play sudoku, get masters degrees, hike to see a special mountain view, study horsemanship and millions of other things that we invest gobs of time and money into. It turns our brains on. It nourishes the very part of us that is alive.” (3) Engaging our horses’ seeking instinct is a way to enhance our relationship with them, making working them more enjoyable and maybe even more productive, too.
Jenifer Morrissey tries to engage with her work ponies during all seasons at Willowtrail Farm in Gould, Colorado.
Morrissey, Jenifer. “Making Contact 2”, Willowtrail Farm Musings (blog) http://fellponiescolorado.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/making-contact-2/
Miller, L.R. Training Workhorses, Training Teamsters, Small Farmer’s Journal, Inc., 1994, p. 95
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