Thinking Inside The Box By (C) By Allen Pogue, all rights reserved
The phrase thinking outside the box, is used often in reference to a person's ability widen his mental horizons, or in an attempt to solve problems that are difficult using traditional means. A useful strategy when Trick Training horses is to limit a horse's escape options and school inside as small a space as reasonable and safe. We encourage horses to think inside the box, long before they are asked to perform outside in a larger area or even a round pen.
Inside our new schooling barn at the Red Horse Ranch, we created a dedicated area for handling foals and Trick Training. The area is three 15'x15' stalls divided with swinging gate-like partitions. The partitions are steel pipe and offer a good visual field and can be opened and swung back against the wall. This allows the trainer freedom to choose just how much liberty an individual horse can deal with, and still be expected to promptly comply to verbal cues, body posturing, and hand/whip signals.
The goal of early schooling is to establish a pattern of compliance that in turn creates a muscle memory. A muscle memory is like a default behavior or reflex. It takes many repetitions of any given behavior to create this reliable form of response to any given situation. Horses are first and foremost creatures of habit. If one takes the time to create good habits early in their life such as in their first schooling experiences, you are setting them up for successes that can be easily built upon.
I was reading a popular new age trainer's book recently and ran across the blanket statement that "horses are never wrong". Really? That sounds really nice--but in the world of humans, and given the opportunity, horses make wrong decisions all the time. Wrong decisions perhaps in terms of human thinking, but probably right in terms of a horse's nature. What about horses that overeat and founder, or reach for green grass on the other side of a fence and get stuck in wire? These are perfect examples of extremely wrong decisions a horse can make when left to his own devices.
In training, horses make less serious mistakes all the time. The most common is called resistance. Presenting resistance is a natural horse response, and a mistake, if seen in terms of human thinking. A new foal will try valiantly to go in every direction except the one asked for when he is being taught to lead, usually trying to move in the direction of its mom. It is simply in a foal's nature to resist every demand they do not understand or have not yet become habituated to. This is why we school all safe to handle horses in small spaces before expecting them to comply in larger ones. A horse's brain is hard-wired to explore all available escape options before finally submitting to any outside influence.
Submission has become a negative term in this day and age of political correctness. Many new equine enthusiasts and trainers devoted to new age methods, would like us all to believe that if you love your horse enough, he will automatically love you back. Loving you back equates to good behavior and magical learning. Wrong.
This is a gross misinterpretation of genuine, natural horsemanship. Successful horsemen and women know how to apply the dynamics of real world horse and human interaction to their distinct advantage. Expert trainers have learned how to win at the level of a minor skirmish when a battle of wills is in the making. Make no mistake about it, love does not prevent a battle of wills when it comes to horse nature!
You can always judge a level of a trainer's talent and understanding by the happy and willing performance of his horse. Always. Horses who are of good character and have been treated fairly and earnestly in their training, exhibit willing cooperation and satisfaction in their work.
Trainers at the Spanish Riding School use a pair of close-set wooden posts similar to cross ties called Pillars, when perfecting a horse's high school airs. These immoveable pillars significantly limit a horse's freedom for periods of short duration when absolute compliance is sought in a lesson. Old time trainers in the Californio Vaquero tradition used what they called the Palo Verde or a single pillar, about which they schooled a green horse in a fashion similar to modern day lunging. These are techniques that I also employ, but only well into a horse's advanced schooling.
The first lessons I teach all horses, young and old, is how to make correct decisions based on my cues completely at liberty. I ask the foal to walk at my side or next to the wall and to halt when he is close to a corner of the schooling stall. The next lesson, is to turn always toward me. The foal can then proceed to the next corner and halt, or make a quarter turn inward and proceed. The goal of this fundamental lesson is to create a muscle memory associated with the verbal cue of "TURN With Me". The value of this fundamental lesson is immense! If a horse has a moment of indecision and he can predictably be cued to turn his body and attention towards the handler, there is a high probability of controlling the situation. If a horse allowed to develop a habit of turning his rump in the handler's direction and his head away, then not only has the trainer lost his attention but more importantly his respect for authority. Horses love joining a herd, even if it is just my herd of twoo?Lhim and me.
Horses turn tail and run out of fear or a desire to escape pressure. Horses with basic good character can be taught to work within the pressure of vocal cues, proximity cues, and hand/whip gestures. The education of a Circensic Dressage or Trick Horse often requires extreme concentration and the ability to work under pressure. High levels of training in any discipline should give the appearance of being beautiful, and exceedingly easy to do. In reality, these performances are the end result of careful, logical schooling. The schooling for seemingly flawless performances required many hours or teaching, corrections, rewards, and much time inside the box.
