How well do you communicate with your horse?

Mark Rashid helps people communicate with their horse. Here are some great ideas that he shared with PBS.

What’s your philosophy?

Basically, I try to help folks get along better with their horses by finding some common ground so they can accomplish what they want to accomplish. I have two main messages — Don’t fight; and be clear. If you can do those two things, it opens the door for pretty much everything else.

The vast majority of horse training is designed to find the bad stuff horses are doing, so we can fix it. I try to find the good behavior, so we can build on it. That doesn’t mean we ignore the bad, but we don’t hit it head on. You try to work around it.

Can you give an example?

Well, a lot of people will come to the clinics and say, “My horse doesn’t stop when I want it to.” So, I’ll ask the rider what constitutes a good stop? How many steps do they want the horse to take before it stops? Well, often they don’t know — they haven’t thought about it. They get an idea in their head as to what they want to do, but don’t give a lot of thought as to how they are going to get there.

So the first step is to break things down. Before the horse can know what it is supposed to do, the rider needs to know exactly what he or she wants. Then, you can start making some progress, such as working on how much pressure [the rider can put on the reins] to make the horse stop.

What do you mean by “don’t fight?”

Horses are usually happy to do whatever we want them to do — if they know what we want. But if you come in with the attitude that the horse is [intentionally disobeying], you set yourself up for a confrontational situation, and it all goes downhill from there. But if you say, “I’m not going to fight with you,” you open lots of doors.

Then, people often realize the problem is that they are applying cues that the horse doesn’t understand. It’s a basic misunderstanding from the get-go. It would be like going to Germany and speaking English to everyone and assuming they would understand. It isn’t going to work.

So you help people think about why they are having problems with their horses?

Yes. I really urge everyone to look at all kinds of possible explanations [for problem behavior]. Sometimes, it’s not really a training issue. You have to make sure the saddle fits properly, that the horse doesn’t have some kind of a chiropractic issue. Horses can be stiff or sore. We see a lot of teeth and feet problems. Basic horse care can solve a lot of problems.

What techniques do you use to get your ideas across?

One thing I do at the beginning of some clinics is that I split the people up into “horses” and “riders.” Then, the “riders” have to go back and teach their “horse” a task — such as walkng in a figure eight, then jumping a fence, and then sitting in a chair. But they can only use the words “good” and “no.” Yesterday, we did it with 10 people, and only one of the “horses” understood exactly what it was that their “rider” taught them. The vast majority of the time people can’t get it done. So they realize how important communication is.

Then, I have my students pick a task for me to teach a “horse.” And they come up with some weird things. Once, I had to [teach the "horse"] to write my name backwards in the sand with his foot. But I did it. You just have to keep up a steady stream of “goods” and “nos,” and not just communicate once every so often. You have to be clear about what you want.

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