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Why Does My Horse Spook?
Horses are prey animals and predators eat them! Consequently, horses think everything in the world is out to get them – especially the nervous, high-strung types. When a horse feels threatened or trapped his strongest survival instinct is to run for his life – at any cost. There is no thinking – just an immediate and explosive right brain reaction to fear - better known as “spooking”! The thing to remember here is that inside even the gentlest of horses, there is a wild horse with deeply rooted survival instincts.
When horses enter into this “life-threatening zone”, risk of physical injury to both horse and rider are at its highest! We must give our horses something better to deal with their fears than their natural instinct of “flight”.
Horses and humans are two completely different species with two completely different ways of thinking, communicating and reacting. As horse owners we have a huge responsibility towards our horses – animals that happen to fall into our hands. Horses can’t say what they feel or need – we need to learn how to understand their language and their logic so that we can better communicate with them through our aids, legs, reins, seat, weight, and voice. In fact, the more we can learn about and understand our horses, their self preservation instincts, herd psychology, pecking order, sight and body language, the better our chances are to develop a successful relationship with them.
Horses cause movement in order to earn respect! In their world, it’s the dominant horse that drives or herds other horses out of his/her personal space in an effort to establish a position of leadership. Horses want and need a strong natural leader; in fact, the pecking order demands this. We need to be that leader, especially if we expect to create a respectful relationship and have our horse’s attention focused on us.
By better understanding our role in earning respect, maintaining focus, and refined communication skills, the more successful we’ll become in expanding our horse’s world. These foundation principles need to be very polished or mastered if we expect to produce a brave, confident horse, and, a lasting partnership.
Horses need to feel “safety” before they can feel “comfort”. The plain truth is that a happy horse is a horse that is in his comfort zone, and every horse on this planet is a comfort seeker. In order to achieve success we’ll need to desensitize our horse to a wide variety of new and scary things. In fact, the more fears we desensitize our horse to, the more comfortable his expanding world becomes. This process simply means introducing frightful objects like saddle blankets, lead ropes, whips, tarps or whatever, in a way that keeps the horse emotionally balanced, or in left brain. The more I can keep my horse in left brain, the more he can think – and the more he can think, think, think – the more I can teach, teach, teach.
Adding pressures too fast or too soon will over expose any horse and send it immediately into the flight zone. This horse will not be thinking, nor will it be in a learning frame of mind. We need to do all of our teaching under the umbrella of emotional control. We do this by applying our pressure with rhythm, feel, and balance.
Pressure motivates horses to learn, but it’s the release of pressure that teaches. The best reward we can offer any horse is a release of pressure. This involves timing! By learning how to “feel” - what’s going to happen before it happens - we gain an incredible advantage in our “timing” for our release of pressure. This is a goal for which we should all strive.
Given the opportunity to watch horses in nature, it’s simply amazing to see just how quickly they react, and then respond to fearful situations. For example, something scares a horse, and without thinking that horse runs for its life. But, have you ever wondered…..exactly where is it that he runs to? Well, that horse will run to what it considers a place of safety – he runs to his comfort zone. Only then will he turn around in his tracks to identify exactly what it was that sent him into this right brain explosion. He’ll raise his head for a better view, and in an effort to take in any suspicious scents of danger, he’ll snort and blow to clear his nostrils. Then, by darn if he doesn’t do something else, he starts to “cautiously” approach the very thing that scared him.
Surprise! Once again that scary thing frightens him, and once again his survival instincts demands that he runs for his life. As crazy as it may seem, horses are born with a healthy dose of curiosity – so, once again he inches forward to see what it was that scared him, each time getting closer and closer.
Horses use the strategy of “approach and retreat” to overcome their fears and build confidence – naturally! Common sense should be screaming out to us – it’s to our advantage to use the principle of approach and retreat to teach our horses how to become braver – naturally!
Restriction of movement, in effect stops horses from acting naturally to a stressful situation. In other words, if we do not give the horse a place to go or allow movement, he has no choice but to feel trapped, braced up, threatened, or fearful.
I like to use a round pen when working with spooky horses. Its circular design offers the horse the freedom of movement it needs to run from its fears. At the same time, the round pen allows us to always keep up to and be with the horse, leaving us in the perfect position to communicate, and to make a connection. It’s here, in the round pen, that I can introduce myself to the horse to establish a position of leadership – all to earn the respect and the focus I’ll need to gain control of his mind and feet. All without force, bad attitudes, or impatience. This allows my horse to stay mentally and emotionally relaxed so he can think and learn.
Making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult is one of my strategies. I want my horse to consider me as his comfort zone, or a better place to be. By staying with me, I can use the principles of approach and retreat to introduce scary things to him in an effort to help him overcome his fears.
My philosophy is simple: you’re free to leave me anytime, but if you do, I’ll make it my idea by driving you forward as a consistent reminder that there will always be a consequence to your actions. I do this, all while working under the umbrella of emotional control.
By allowing a horse the freedom to run, he will soon learn that running away will not be as good as staying. In effect, we will be giving him something better than his natural instinct for dealing with fear... us!
Pretty powerful don’t you think? Remember – “Success with horses, starts with us”!
This article was written for the April/May issue of Horses All magazine.