Learned Helplessness

During torture, it is often not the pain that breaks someone. It is the despair within knowing that no matter what you do, there is no escaping the pain and inevitability of the next assault on your body and mind. It is the same for those horses that are physically forced into compliance using pain.

Allow me to paint you a picture: Have you ever heard of school ponies who have “dull” or “dead” eyes, who have lost the spark of life? An average and somewhat typical pony arrives at a riding school. It is routinely subjected to random and harsh aids from children who have no concept of the position of power and control they have over this little pony. Day in and day out kids are yanking on the reins, with no particular purpose in mind a lot of the time. The children are unable to clearly communicate what they want to the pony, and often resort to kicking repeatedly, using a whip repeatedly, or banging on the pony’s mouth with the reins. No matter what the pony does this treatment continues. The pony is not confrontational and so does not respond aggressively to the affronts on its body. As this life continues, the pony resigns itself to the inescapable nature of the inevitable – that no matter what it does, it will be abused by these children (who, to be fair, simply do not know any better).

This is a common occurrence in the typical riding yard. Some instructors simply do not take the horse into consideration when teaching exuberant children who as yet lack the physical awareness to recognise the pain they cause.

An even more egregious abuse of the horse happens with techniques meant to “break” the horse, such as tying up their limbs, rendering them physically unable to move. The “philosophy” behind this type of approach is to exert a complete control over the horse’s body, following which MOST horses will give up entirely and simply allow anything to be done to them. A small percentage of horses will continue fighting, tooth and hoof, until the very end (which often is a very final end for the horse).

So why am I writing all this awful stuff about how badly horses are treated? Surely this is not news to anyone. I decided to write this post after reading this article: http://horsesciencehorsesense.com/index.php/learned-helplessness/

As horrible and extreme as all of the above is, the reality is that most of us (myself included!) have, or are still, applied some degree of these approaches with our horses. Our mentality is “Do what I say or else.” There is still that part of us that wants to resort to force, dominance,  and control in order to achieve the result we want from our horses.

Let’s face it – the society we live in does not honour things like communication, respect, consideration, patience. We are taught by our parents, teachers, bosses – to obey “or else!” It’s no wonder that we bring this mentality with us into other parts of our lives.

As with all things, awareness is the first step to change. We must acknowledge to ourselves that we are in fact allowing certain types of opinions, beliefs, perceptions, philosophies within ourselves, and that these things have a direct effect on how we interact with all the beings and things in our lives. Once we start seeing when, where, and how we are manifesting these internal states onto the world around us, we can start planning how we can do things differently instead. We must will ourselves into changing that which we do not want to continue living any longer. Sometimes our force of habit is difficult to change – in these moments we must FORCE ourselves to change anyway, so that we can create ourselves to be the people and horsepeople we know we can be, someone we can be proud of.

Are we Oblivious to our own Ignorance?

A friend of mine is visiting with her 2 daughters from the Netherlands. These 2 girls are your typical horse crazy 10 and 12 year olds. They go for one riding lesson a week and spend all their spare time watching horse videos on YouTube.

Now with me being the person I am, I want to teach these girls everything I know about horses, and in the process of doing this I am learning exactly how little they have been taught when it comes to the basic stuff that one really should know when one owns or looks after a horse – and I’m not saying that this is unusual, it is sadly very common for “Horse people” to be woefully ignorant of the creatures they have spent so much time obsessing over.

Looking back to when I was a child, I also was not taught very much in the way of practical information. I didn’t learn much about horse behaviour and body language. I didn’t learn much about the anatomy of the horse. I didn’t learn much about what a balanced hoof looks like. I basically learned how to tack a horse up, get up on the horse and then make it do things.

In my opinion these things that are so commonly ignored in the average riding school are among the most important things that a horse person should know – so why is it not being taught to the next generation of horse obsessed kids? Why is ignorance so common in the horse-people community? On the one hand it really doesn’t make sense, because the more we know about our horses and the better we are able to understand and care for them, the better our working relationships with them will be and the healthier they will be. But then on the other hand, if you have a look at how we as humanity live in every other part of our lives, it’s really not all that surprising.

Now I’m not saying that there isn’t a shift of awareness (or whatever you want to call it) happening – because people do seem to be developing more consideration, open-mindedness and compassion. However, this is not something that will happen overnight, and even for those who do decide to develop their awareness of and consideration for other living beings, mistakes will be made. It’s certainly not a smooth ride.

In my personal experience, I met my teacher having basically zero practical knowledge about horses. I could ride and tack up, but that was it (I couldn’t even ride well – I knew only what I was taught as a child – kick to go and pull to stop!). After having met her, my eyes were opened – but not all the way opened (and still not, maybe I will never reach that point). I started looking at horses differently, seeking out different methods and philosophies. My perspective started to shift, and I make it a point to continue shifting it every day even now. I went through phases where I thought I knew everything, I thought I knew the right way, the best way. It was over a period of years that I developed the humbleness to recognise how little I actually know.

Being humble is not easy for most of us – it wasn’t for me. I liked feeling like I knew everything. I liked feeling in control. I liked feeling powerful. I liked all these feelings – but the feelings didn’t make my horsemanship any better, or improve my ability to keep my horse healthy. I was blind for a moment to the truth of how I was with horses, and when I started being willing to really reflect on who I was, I really didn’t like what I saw.

We may not be able to change every person’s perspective and approach to working with horses, but we can make a difference in our lives, with the people who see and learn from us, whether directly or indirectly. We can be part of the growing change to bring awareness and self-directed learning to all areas of our lives, so that as we grow and learn, we stand as examples to those around us.

Are You Listening?

We often impose our personal interpretations onto the world around us – this can be seen especially in our relationships with animals. Animals are unable to speak for themselves using our method of communication (words) and so must rely on their behaviour to try to communicate. We, though, have the tendency to completely ignore their behaviour and place our own interpretation of the situation onto them.

Let’s use horses as an example. They can be flighty, silly, dramatic and sometimes a little dull – or so we think. We make the mistake of judging them as humans. Actually, we make the mistake of judging them, period. When you judge someone or something, you are essentially imposing your views, opinions and beliefs onto them, and in so doing you close yourself off from really looking, really listening and really being open to hear what they’re saying (whether they’re saying it in word or deed). We see the behaviour of others through our own perceptions – we do not fully immerse ourselves within who they are.

With horses, we often fail to take into consideration that they do not think the same way we do, they do not have the same drives, they do not interpret the world around them in the same way. And yet, we label them with very human qualities such as being defiant, dominant, stupid and more. How can we be open to seeing through their eyes, feeling their discomfort and tuning into their emotions if we have already judged them as being this or that?

I recently experienced this kind of moment where my mind took the reins and dismissed a horse’s behaviour of showing his physical discomfort as being him just being “naughty” and a “drama queen” as he was acting up in his stable while getting repellent wiped on. He had been perfectly well behaved every time he was dipped for years before that – so I assumed that he was just full of the joys of summer and being difficult because he felt like it. It turned out that, when I checked on an itchy spot a day or two later up in his thighs, he actually had some dried up skin flaking off. Well did I feel like an idiot and an a**. The repellent, for whatever reason, had burnt his skin – enough for the very top layer to dry up and fall off. Of course it could have been much worse – it was very mild and could be equated to getting a rather rough facial exfoliation – but it was more than enough for me to want to kick myself for not listening to him when he was saying, as loudly as he could without hurting anyone, that we were hurting him.

When I put myself in horse’s shoes I find it difficult to understand how they are so patient and kind to us even when we are so utterly oblivious to what they’re trying to tell us. It is rare to come across a horse that resorts to aggression. Their ability to forgive and keep giving us opportunities to change is astounding. That is the kind of patience and kindness that I strive for in all my dealings with man and animal.

Why don’t we listen when these big, gentle creatures speak to us? Yes, we may not understand their language well enough – though I see that the biggest obstacle is our mind set. We automatically believe that we are right. We automatically justify our interpretations of their behaviour and refuse to consider any other possibilities. We are stubborn and self righteous, and do not like admitting that we are wrong. But who pays for our attitude? Those who are kindest, those who give us everything they have for nothing in return.