Expanding Your Horse's World
Written by: Jay O'Jay - Natural Horseman, Jay O Jay Inc.
It’s true! Horses need to feel safety before they can feel comfort. By expanding our horse’s comfort zone we are indeed expanding his world, thereby making him a happier and safer horse. We do this by offering programs, which are built upon trust and understanding. This in turn will produce a confident horse, a brave horse, a safe horse and a true partner.
By better understanding our role in earning respect, maintaining focus, and the use of improved communication skills, the more successful we’ll become at expanding our horse’s world.
Developing a safe and meaningful relationship with your horse balances completely upon your ability to earn his respect. The one thing that we know for sure about horses is that dominant horses cause movement in an effort to prove they are the strongest, fastest, smartest horse. By driving or herding another horse out of their personal space, dominant horses earn the respect of each herd member challenging this position.
Like a dominant horse, the more times we move a horse out of our personal space, the more respect we will earn. This of course starts with groundwork exercises designed specifically to cause movement and gain control of your horse’s feet. For more detailed information, check out my DVD “Earn Respect and Gain Control”.
Along with earning respect, we need our horse’s attention focused solely on us so we can communicate. This in itself can be a big challenge. Why? Because horses are into “awareness” – not focus! A horse’s innate survival instinct demands that he be aware of all things around him, at all times. For this reason it’s difficult for a horse to stay focused on any one thing for too long. Simply put, the attention span of a horse is relatively short. In fact, horses live in the moment, from moment to moment to moment.
A respectful horse may be willing to give you his attention for “the moment”, however our job is to develop a program of keeping his attention focused on us for longer and longer. After all, it is only through communication that the learning process can continue.
For example, if my horse is at liberty in a round pen (no halter, no lead line) I will use a verbal command such as a cluck or a kiss to call my horse’s attention back to me. If needed, I will reinforce this voice command by slapping my leg or stomping my foot, all in an effort to get his attention. If the horse continues to ignore me, I will cause movement by driving him forward. I will not allow my horse to stand there and ignore me. He gives me his attention or he goes back to work. I want my horse to understand this lesson very well. I teach it by making the right thing easy (give me your attention) and making the wrong thing difficult (driving him forward). With consistency I will become more important to my horse than “the other things” in his life.
Once we have a respectful horse’s attention focused on us, we can then continue developing our communication skills. Horses communicate through body language. Yes, horses read each and every movement that we make, whether we are aware of it or not! Our body language influences the mental and emotional mind-set of our horse. We either encourage a horse to become calm, relaxed and trusting or we do the very opposite by making the horse feel nervous, fearful or insecure. By learning how to move in a quiet rhythm that is neither quick nor sporadic, our horses will learn to trust our actions. He will gain confidence within himself, simply because he has learned to trust our actions. Remember, communication is the seed, and it’s confidence and trust that grows.
The plain truth is that a happy horse is a horse that is in his comfort zone. We accomplish this by desensitizing our horse to a wide variety of new and scary things. For the spooky or un-broke horse this process is known as “sacking out” and it simply means introducing frightful objects like saddle blankets, lead ropes, whips or tarps in a way that keeps the horse emotionally balanced. In fact, the more fears we desensitize our horse to, the more comfortable his expanding world becomes.
There are only two places that a horse can go when he leaves his comfort zone - the unsure zone or the flight/fight zone. Adding pressures too fast or too soon will “over expose” any horse and send him immediately into the flight/fight zone. This horse will not be thinking, nor will he be in a learning frame of mind. We need to do all of our teaching while working under the umbrella of emotional control. We do this by applying our pressure with rhythm, feel and balance. Also, the best reward we can offer any horse is a release of pressure. This involves timing! Feeling what is going to happen before it happens is the ultimate sense of “feeling” we can have with a horse. It gives us an incredible advantage in our timing for a release of pressure; a goal for which we should all strive.
To expand our horse’s world, we do most of our teaching in the “unsure zone”. We raise the fear level just enough to send the horse into the unsure zone – wait for the slightest try – then release the pressure and allow him to come back to the comfort zone. If we were to allow the horse to come back to the comfort zone before there was any “try” we would only be teaching him to be wrong. The more times we can send the horse into the unsure zone, wait for a positive change, then release the pressure, the more we expand his comfort zone. This horse’s confidence and trust in us will grow as he learns how to deal with his fears in a safe, positive and constructive way.
Horses learn best if they are respectful and focused! We communicate through body language and we gain the trust of our horse by moving in a slow consistent rhythm. The combination of respect, focus and improved communication skills has a powerful effect on any horse. These qualities will not only allow your horse to become confident in himself, but also with the job set out for him. Complimented with a well-timed release of pressure, you will gain softness in the control of your horse. These tools will help you to expand you horse’s world, making him a safer, more confident and happier horse. To master these principles is to achieve finesse in horsemanship.
Remember – “Success with horses, starts with us”!
Jay O'Jay is a horseman who specializes in developing a respectful relationship and connection between horse and rider. His passion is the Western discipline of Reining, but through his clinics, videos and demonstrations, he aspires to teach "transferable skills" to riders and horse owners of all disciplines and experience. Those skills, based on the ability to earn respect and gain control of the horse, are the central elements in Jay's "common sense" approach to his training program.
