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Danke!

Unfortunately - Randy himself used the word "pressure", when this is not what he is doing at all. He is reflecting and connecting with a horse that has had previous experience with pressure. As you can see in the final few seconds of this clip, the horse has recognized the lack of pressure and is coming in ...... Following Randy's lead of listening. Start by listening to HIS words. :)

Thank you Ilka and Randy. I really enjoyed watching this clip and noticing what it triggered in me. After reading the comments here and on FB I watched with fresh eyes and wrote a blog about my experience. I thought I'd share what I learned about myself here: My mentor, Chandler Stevens, often speaks about the difference that makes a difference. The difference that makes a difference is usually something quite small that helps me distinguish between this and that, now and then. As I refine my ability in this regard, it becomes increasingly obvious how easy it is to make broad, sweeping generalizations about things seen or heard. For example, a colleague recently posted a tiny video clip of a gentleman interacting with a horse. Now, this snippet really was tiny, only a few moments where the gentleman spoke about the interaction with the horse in the clip. I was surprised how quickly my own biases kicked in, and I cringed when I read a comment criticizing the man’s work with this horse as typical of ‘Natural Horsemanship’. After reading the comment I had to go back and watch the clip again to see if it really was as bad as all that… It’s interesting to notice what you notice. The first time I watched the clip, I must admit that there were a few things that stood out, reminding me of what I consider ‘typical’ Natural Horsemanship methods that I tend to dislike. My eyes took in all the trappings of ‘typical’, my ears grabbed hold of phrases like ‘pressure and release’ which only served to confirm my bias towards this being ‘typical’. Honestly, I noticed that I stopped really hearing anything and couldn’t really watch what was happening. Here are the things that initially stood out, grabbing my attention and triggering my tuning this out as ‘nothing new’ or potentially interesting to me: The man was tall and lanky, wearing a plaid shirt, jeans and cowboy hat. His arms hung at his sides and in his right hand he carried a lariat in loops. He stood in the center of a round pen. Said round pen had tall walls, tall enough that the horse couldn’t really see over, and solid enough that he couldn’t really see through. My snap judgement: this is like every other natural horsemanship trainer who puts a horse in a solid round pen where they have no escape and no choice. Then I read the comments. That one comment that was critical, seemed to make a lot of assumptions based on such a small clip. It was so strong that I thought, ‘huh, I need to watch that again and actually absorb what’s happening and what’s being said’. I watched again, kicking my biases to the curb and making an effort to notice what’s different about this as compared to what I instantly labeled as ‘typical’? This time, I noticed the man’s energy. He was calm and relaxed. Hands in his pockets, his back to the horse who is investigating some distance behind him. He looks over his shoulder as he takes a step this way and that, paying attention to how the horse responds to his movement. Does the horse notice or not? There is no pressure in the way I see ‘typical’ Natural Horsemanship done in the round pen. In the next small clip, I see him matching the horse’s movement. They go back and forth along the rail matching each other. It might look like he’s ‘blocking’ the horse, putting pressure on, but only if I look through my biased lenses and see the round pen as inescapable. I know horses well enough to know that if this horse really felt pressured there was room to run or make an escape. The horse stays calm and responsive. In that light I no longer see him blocking the horse, rather I see them dancing together rather seamlessly. It’s actually quite beautiful. In the next clip he stands passively in the middle of the pen, allowing the horse to walk around while he waits and observes. The horse stops and turns to face him. Three tiny clips a few seconds each. Never did I see this man do anything other than explore a dialogue with this horse. There was no typical escalation of pressure. There was no chasing the horse around, or hazing (some of the more extreme examples of the kind of round pen work I dislike). This horse and human were mutually engaged, mutually curious. In Tango we might call this kind of interaction ‘ask and answer’ or ‘suggest and respond’. In Tango the ‘leader’ makes a suggestion and the ‘follower’ responds in some way. A good leader in Tango waits for their partner to respond and then offers the next suggestion in a way that is appropriate to the response. That’s what I saw in these clips. He made a suggestion by changing his position relative to the horse, or matching the horse’s steps. He observed the horse’s response to him and adapted accordingly. This is most definitely different from my experience of that round pen work I dislike. No question about it. It still shocks me, how quickly I let my initial perceptions: cowboy, round pen, pressure/release cause me to check out and not be capable of noticing how this is not that. Our emotions around horses are often quite powerful. And powerful emotions make it easy to lose our ability to distinguish the small, but significant, differences that make a difference in how one person interacts with a horse versus another. Next time I see a clip of someone working in a round pen, you can bet that I will take a breath, feel my feet on the floor and actively watch for those differences that make a difference - how this is different from that.

Thank you for putting all this work into the symposium Ilka. I am honored to contribute this year.

I am, and have been, wrestling with how to work, if at all, with my horses for some time. If you choose to use coercion, this man seems more reasonable than many. Listening to the horses giving him a voice and allowing him to say "no thank you" are different though. I'm not sure this man is allowing his horse to say no thank you. Simply putting a horse in a confinement like that is a form of coercion, one could argue. However, if slowly, over time, the horse comes to realize that, in spite of coercion, he will never be asked something that evokes a flight response or a shut down response, perhaps a relationship can grow. The question is, do we recognize responses for what they are? We think we do. But that doesn't mean we do. Before we do anything with a horse, we should learn about calming signals and other behavioral signals that inform us whether the horse is OK, both physically and emotionally.

I couldn't agree more with what Pauline Keil has said. There is a better way and that's Positive Reinforcement (R+) training that has been around for a very long time and has been proven over and over again to be a better, kinder way to train all animals, including horses.

Pressure and release does not give choice and is quite coercive. It’s also called escape avoidance learning and I hope no one is modelling this with clients or patients, because that’s not modelling a healthy relationship. It’s a one sided relationship with a big balance of power in favour of one person. That’s not congruent at all imo. It’s also not the only way horses communicate with each other and that’s pretty standard Natural Horsemanship fare to suggest that as a reason to interact with horses in this way. If horses are using a lot of Negative Reinforcement and aggression towards each other, that is a management and husbandry issue, NOT an innate character in the horse. Horses are friendly and social and avoid conflict, it's part of how they are so good at survival. It’s like suggesting someone with a lot of negative self talk should be spoken to that way, because that’s what they’re used to hearing. Makes no sense. Watch him stalk the horse, the horse tries to escape in one direction and he blocks with his body, the horse tries to escape the other way, he blocks again. Finally the horse realises the only way to make him stop this uncomfortable pressure, physical but also emotional pressure, is to face him. There’s no listening or choice or relationship in that, it’s extremely controlling and it’s in a round pen. Although this can be done just as easily in the pasture as well. Imagine if that were two people, how is that acceptable? I recommend studying Learning Theory, investigating force free reward based training techniques such as Positive Reinforcement training and most importantly, the philosophy underpinning these training approaches, that accept the horse as a sentient being, highly intelligent and emotional and that they have a right to feel safe. When we don't cause discomfort, scare or chase horses and give them things they like and value such as food and scratches, we create horses/animals that like and value humans, through association. Any therapy model that is causing discomfort and using the animal as a tool and not creating a safe space for them, has to be questionable. I suggest reading this study on round pen techniques such as this and the effect of Join Up: "Our results indicate that because these methods rely on fear and safety, the horse is forced to choose between being repeatedly frightened or remaining with the trainer. We question whether it is humane to rely on fear and its termination to train horses," said Henshall. www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2012/07/13/researchers-urge-rethink-of-monty-roberts-horse-training-method.html