Lay Lady Lay

"Please, we just want to be your friend!"

There was an interesting article in Western Horseman this month about laying horses down.

It was carefully worded so the magazine itself didn't offer an opinion one way or the other.
Smart choice on their part, since this subject is pretty controversial in the horse training biz.

Remember the movie "The Horse Whisperer?" Yeah, me too. Irritated the crap out of me.

Anyway, Robert Redford laid the crazy horse down during his rehabilitation process. It transformed the horse and everything became magical and perfect after that.

This wasn't the first time I had watched a horse brought down as a training tool. It was the first time I had seen it described as anything but total domination of the animal by the trainer.

The first time I saw this done was as part of a last ditch effort to train a human-aggressive horse. I wasn't training it, I was just around while it happened. The horse hadn't killed anybody, but it was a strong possibility for the future. He wasn't responding to standard training and was going to be put down if he didn't get straightened out. FYI - this was a bottle raised orphan foal - now three years old.

The horse had a front leg roped up and was laid down on his side by pulling on said leg with a rope from the off-side. He was then covered with a canvas tarp and left for 4-5 hours. When the trainer came back, uncovered the horse and released him, it seemed to me the horse thought he had come back from the dead. He was dazed, surprised, and very, very confused.

He was also over any and all signs of aggression to people. Dull-eyed and quiet as a Mexican rodeo trained rope horse, he never offered to fight again. He wasn't nervous, spooky, as a matter of fact he was nothing but a biddable service animal. Nothing.

He wasn't friendly either. He had got the message loud and clear, but it sure didn't make him anybody's buddy. He never offered to hurt anybody again, as far as I know, but he never became much of a horse either. He had no try, no interest, no drive. He just did as he was told. The essential, people hating horse was still there, as a matter of fact, it seemed he had been proven right, but now he knew he couldn't win.

This lesson burned into my brain, probably not as much as it did this young horse's, but it gave me something to think about.

I have watched variations of this procedure a few times since and have tried it once. I've never been impressed with the results.

Martin Black and Dr. Stephen Peters have come out with a new book, Evidence Based Horsemanship. I haven't read it yet, although I'm getting the feeling it's my kind of read, so I'll hold back on commenting for now.

It was referenced in the WH article. The point stressed was this is not a training tool for everyone and how the horse has to be set up to choose to lay down.

Here's where I come in.

I don't have a huge bucket of experience to draw from in this area. I don't have much scientific training or reference here either, just my own thoughts and observations.

Horses are prey animals. Given the option, they run from trouble, run from pain, run from potential danger and death. They are wired with ever fiber of their being to get the hell out of Dodge in order to be safe.

I consider picking up their feet, one at a time, to be a huge step forward in the development of trust. If a horse gives me a foot, he is allowing me to hinder his ability to flee. I teach them this by always letting them take the foot back if they need to, but then, in my stubborn, bull dog like way, I take the foot again and again and again until we come to an agreement.

My training approach is completely based on moving forward, not stopping the feet. I think a horse feels safer in motion and therefore I am safer too. It is yet another reason I don't use one rein stops (another day another fuss).

I am also the first to admit I use my status as potential predator to train my horses. I like them to look at me as a benevolent dictator. I could eat them, but they're pretty sure I'm not going to. I have never been able to buy into the theory that  horses accept us as a best friend and cohort when we crawl on their backs and wrap our legs around them to ride, like a mountain lion jumping on them to eat them. Or when we put a bit, hackamore or Dr. Goodhorsie's Painless, Bitless, works-with-fairy-dust bridle on their heads to control where they go, like  a wolf latched onto their noses, in order to eat them.

They learn to do what we want, the release of pressure teaches them we probably won't eat them and as time passes friendship happens, only because horses are awesome.

What is critical to my thinking is that the horse keeps some options in this twisted way of doing things. He always gets to leave. I might still be on his back, I might still be torquing his head here and there but he always gets the comfort of movement to help him along. The hard-wired need to move goes along way to avoiding the other response a horse has, which is fight. I really prefer to avoid that one.

Because I think this way, the idea of taking away any chance a horse has of escaping me or fighting me is repulsive. No horse, on this planet, chooses to lose control of his feet. I just don't believe it. They may accept it because they have learned they have no other options, but I think that's where we head into soul crushing.

If we go there, from an emotional point of view, we have destroyed the very freedom that draws most of us to horses in the first place. From a practical, trainerly way of looking at things, we have taken away the fire that creates a top competitor, or the horse that sucks it up and travels those last few miles.

I have read definitions of the reaction of a horse that is laid down. The horse becomes still, relaxed and calm. The transformation is nothing short of miraculous. This keeps being described as the horse accepting us as non-threatening.

Thing is, I grew up watching Marlin Perkins and Wild Kingdom. I never once heard Marlin say, "Notice the calm, peaceful expression of the antelope being eaten by the hyena. It is clear he has become one with the hyena and they will now enter a life long partnership."

You know why? Because what really was happening with our friend the gazelle was a little thing called
dissociation.

"This is the normal response of the central nervous system when living beings are faced with intense physical harm, fear or terror they are unable to avoid, escape or shield themselves from. In a state of dissociation, animals (including humans) undergo a partial or complete disruption of the normal integration of their conscious and psychological functioning. They can no longer feel physical pain, shed tears, access or express emotions, communicate or interact with others. They become disconnected from their physical bodies and emotions.

 In the wild, when an animal is pursued by a predator, through the length of the chase, the prey is very much engaged in the form. Fully present in its body, it is actively immersed in the flight mechanism aimed at saving its life. Yet, the instant the predator's jaws closes on its throat, the prey's body instantly becomes limp and loose. Dissociation allows the nervous system to shield itself from a level of physical, psychological and/or emotional harm, the intensity of which would be impossible to absorb.

The dissociative state in wildlife and human beings is characteristically recognizable by the dazed, faraway, glassy, disconnected stare we get when our lives, physical safety, emotional well being, or all of the above, have been suddenly, violently altered."

How about that. What do you think is really happening to a horse who has had both flight and fight completely taken away from them? Tied up, completely powerless, getting crawled all over by some human who's petting them all over and cooing "Good pony," in it's ear?

Is he hearing, "I love you and want to be your best friend," or, "Yum, yum, snack time!"

To my way of thinking the horse gets that peaceful, accepting air about him BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE IS GOING TO DIE. He is preparing himself to be eaten.

When humans come back from this kind of experience they are deeply transformed. War, Tsunami's, earthquakes, they can all cause it.

Even though we have supposedly better tools to reason with than our horses, we don't get over these experiences. It's called PTSD folks, not creating an open line of communication.

At this point in my life I can't imagine doing something like that to a horse or any fellow being on the planet. Unless of course I'm planning to eat them.