Humanity, Evolving

I apologize for the language in this article. I chose not to edit or filter it for the purpose of authenticity.


Sometimes I think the real purpose of teaching other people is to deepen your own learning. There is no better way to understand yourself than to have to explain your own knowledge to someone else. Even though I am known in some circles as a biomechanics riding teacher, I frequently get to explore the core of my own beliefs when I teach, mostly because riding is seldom just a mechanical, technical experience. Horses tend to steadily bring us to the threshold of our own humanity and as a coach and teacher I believe these are the opportunities for the real learning to start.

Recently I was helping a student, whom I will call Laura, understand her horse. She wanted to know why he was behaving in a certain way.

"Is he doing this just to be an asshole?" She asked sincerely.

This question is very, very common among equestrians. Often it's not even a question, but rather a statement: he is an asshole.

I calmly explained to Laura that horses did not know how to "be assholes."

Okay, I can see some of my readers rolling their eyes now. A few may even be thinking that if I'd met their particular asshole horse, I would not be making such bold statements. But I do believe that no horse could change my opinion about this. Seriously. As I told my student, horses are not out to annoy us or upset us deliberately, they are merely trying to communicate. Perhaps they are in pain. Or they don't like what we are doing. Or they know our emotional landscape and don't like the fact that we are actively working to hide it. Or something else. But there is always a reason and it's not "being an asshole".

In general horses tend to choose the behavior that is the most profitable for them. If you are leading your horse to the arena and he drags you over to a patch of grass, he's not doing it to be mean, but because eating grass is rewarding the behavior. And when something is rewarding, the horse will continue to do it. The same applies to many, many other scenarios.

I admit, I could see why Laura felt tempted to call her horse an asshole, she was stuck in a vicious cycle with him. She used most of her energy to correct and reprimand him for his "bad" behavior. I am deliberately using quotes with the word bad, because using this kind of terminology always comes with the assumption that we as humans make the rules. Meaning that we decide what is good or bad behavior. Because from the horse's point of view it is all just behavior for which it either is getting rewarded or not.

"Stop it!" "Don't!" "No, no!"

Laura was trying to tack up her horse. Her verbal cues were accompanied with slapping and pushing, which seemed to only augment matters, leading to a whole new host of problems such as nipping and biting. After observing all this for a moment I suggested that instead of focusing all the attention on the horse's unwanted behavior, Laura should look for the behavior she desired and find a way to reward the horse for that. Because, as I said previously, horses will choose the behavior that is the most rewarding.

I briefly explained the principles of negative and positive reinforcement to Laura. It is always interesting to discover how little people really know about operant and classical conditioning even though they have operated in the world of horses for decades. On the other hand, I was in the same boat some ten years ago. Perhaps I had a bit more knowledge than your average Jeo, but I definitely could not put that knowledge into words and explain why I did what I did with horses, which was mostly negative reinforcement in those days. (if you are not familiar with operant or classical conditioning, please google them!)

"In principle I do understand what you are saying," my student said. "With children it's the same idea, using the carrot is more effective than spanking. But this is a horse. I tend to think that there are moments when it's best to just smack it to get the point across quickly."

"Like take my seven year old daughter and her pony," my student continued before I could comment. "The pony is constantly going for grass when my daughter is leading him. Isn't it better to teach my daughter to smack the pony in the face to prevent him from doing that? Not only should the pony not go for the grass, I hate watching my daughter yank and pull to get him off it. I mean, there are some moments when smacking the horse is just better for the horse, too, right?"

You have perhaps guessed that I don't believe in using violence with horses. But how do we define violence? Because truth told, sometimes it really seems to be a matter of interpretation. My Webster dictionary says it is "physical force used so as to injure, damage or destroy; extreme roughness of action." It is also an "unjust or callous use of force and power, as in violating another's rights, sensibilities etc."

So is smacking a pony an act of violence? Are we violating against the pony's sensibilities, causing it injury? I believe the answer to that question is deeply personal, particularly in the equestrian world where the line between violence and schooling is sometimes blurred. The evolution of my own answer to this question is a good example of that. There was a time when I would not have considered smacking a pony a violent act, although in my own defense I must state that it also never crossed my mind to even question the act or it's justification. Which in hindsight is not only proof of my ignorance, but also my sense of entitlement.

Psychiatrist James Gilligan who has written a series of books on the subject of violence, claims that "all violence is an attempt to replace shame with self-esteem." I certainly think this was often true in my case. I hit horses because I desperately needed to control them. And why did I need to control them? Because if I didn't, I looked bad.

Okay, perhaps it was a bit more complex than that. It usually is as we are complex human beings. I was taught at a young age that violence was the answer with horses in certain situations. The power trip came much later. I do, however, believe there is a lot of truth in what Gilligan says even though he is talking about violence between humans. But I did not bring this up in my conversation with Laura, because complex matters such as these take a while to unravel. And although my own story resonates with Gilligan's words, perhaps hers doesn't. It is always good to start with the aforementioned operant conditioning and how positive punishment as a training method does not work long term. But once the learning theory is covered, we are left with deeper issues. Especially because in Laura's case, this involved her young daughter as well.

"Laura", I said after thinking about it for a moment. "I believe the answer to your question depends not only on the way you want to train your horse, but on your parenting philosophy as well. Do you want to teach your seven year old daughter that violence is a justified method of solving a problem with her pony? Or do you want to help her find a non-violent way to communicate with the animal?"
It was interesting to follow to the expression on my students face as she took in what I said. I realize that although helping horses is definitely one of the reasons I am an equestrian coach, more importantly I want to help humans find their way to connect with personal questions such as this one. Finding answers may not be in the cards immediately, but awareness is a start. I'm not sure yet which direction Laura will take with her horse or her daughter, but I know that our lesson gave her a lot to think about. Which is my main goal. Heck, it gave me a lot to think about, which means killing two birds with one stone (ugh,what a horribly violent metaphor, wish I could recall another, more positive one!)

Understanding is one of my core values in life: I want to understand rather than judge. Therefore I can honestly say I'm not judging Laura or anyone else who struggles with these questions. Quite the contrary, I commend them for finding their way to a place of struggle. If you are struggling with it, you are perhaps ready to question what you are doing. And we need to continue to question, that is how we evolve has human beings, that is how we cultivate our humanity.

Horses have been my teachers, but so have my students. I feel that I am constantly challenged to find a novel way to navigate these important issues and just as often I am learning new ways to read the road map. It is clear that although my starting point may be to teach people how to sit on their horses correctly, it is often just that, a starting point. What happens then, is out of my hands and mostly up to the horse and his person. I merely hope I am taken along for the ride towards kindness and compassion.

"The next evolutionary step for humankind is to move from human to kind."  - author unknown

Just for Encouragement

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. ~ Mahatma Gandhi


Last fall I met a lady, who had just recently gotten back to horses after years of having nothing to do with riding. The woman owned a big gelding with which she rides trails. She had a kind attitude towards her horse, but was nevertheless going down the traditional route, more or less. We were having a conversation about Little Love’s abusive past and how it affected the present day. I was telling her that it was extremely hard for Little Love to witness the abuse of other horses.

“You mean people at your barn hit their horses?” the woman asked.

“Yes, some do,” I said (this was when I was not yet Lilo’s owner and she was still boarding at the big barn close to my house).

The woman shook her head in disbelief. “I have never hit my horse. Ever.”

Ten minutes later, she showed me one of her many crops. “I always carry a whip when I ride though, but it’s just for encouragement. Like if he stops on the trails, I just tap him with it – to help him.”

Everything is relative, I suppose. Violence is not a black and white issue, but rather another one of those grey matters. Nobody wants to say they hit their horse; it is much easier to use words like encourage, guide, correct, help, tell, tap and even smack. And it is true, there are different levels of abuse. To take a four foot whip and hit the horse as hard as you can surely is different than giving him a few slaps on the shoulder.

Or is it really? What are the mental and emotional consequences for the horse that is subject to such actions? Especially when often this sort of behavior is coupled with extremely bad timing and human emotions that are running high?

Horses, unlike other animals, are trained mainly using negative reinforcement instead of positive reinforcement. In positive reinforcement a desired behavior is rewarded by adding a pleasant stimulus, a reinforcer - such as food, and thus making this response more likely in the future. So, in a nutshell, when we use positive reinforcement training, the animal goes from a neutral state to a positive state. This training method has been highly successful with animals ranging from marine mammals to dogs.

In horse-training, however, we apply pressure to the horse and remove it when the animal gives the desired response. Therefore, the horse starts in a negative condition, but ends in a neutral state. So in a way, you could say that negative reinforcement involves the use of a “pre-punishment”. Of course, the goal is to use as little pressure as possible, but because people don’t know any better, are impatient or have a hard time understanding the principles of this method, they often revert to excessive pressure and even punishment.  In addition, the timing of the release is essential for learning, but often becomes equally muddled, leading to severe communication problems. And a confused horse is often subject to more abuse.

I also believe that a training method that is based on using pressure often paves the way to abusive behavior; if a person has already learned that it is alright to kick the horse, the next step i.e. hitting it with a crop is all too easy to take.

While I was in California over the holidays, I ran across my old trainer. She and I have grown miles apart when it comes to horses, but we still greet each other as old (but perhaps a bit apprehensive) friends. Conversation turned to horses, what else, and soon I realized I was listening to my trainer reminiscing about an old acquaintance of ours, a student we once shared.

“Remember how she just couldn’t get the horse to move off her leg,” she laughed. “It was terrible, she kept nudging and nudging and nagging and nagging and the horse just stood there. It took her forever to learn to give the aid and then the correction, then another aid and another correction, and so on, until the horse got it. In the end she barely needed the aid and didn’t have to give the correction.”

Nudging and nagging? Aid and correction? This is smart horse terminology. And with smart I mean it makes everything sound less abusive than it really is. What my old trainer was talking about was her student repeatedly kicking the horse to get the horse forward (nudge and nag). Her advice was to give a lighter leg signal (aid – as if the rider is somehow helping the horse with her leg) and then hit the horse immediately afterwards, if and when he didn’t react (this is called the correction). In the end, as the horse is now anticipating the abuse, he will undoubtedly move off the light leg “aid” out of fear and thus the rider won’t “have to” (as if we had no choice in the matter and it was the horse forcing us to take this route) beat him.

In general, talking about “aids” is slightly misleading. In dressage, this word is used frequently to signify the cues the rider gives to the horse with her leg/reins/seat/whip/spurs. In real life this means the pressure the rider/trainer puts on the horse.

In Equitation Science McGreevy and Andrew McLean (my new holy book, it seems) put it well when they comment on the use of the word “aid” in current horse-training, especially dressage: “This word is antique in origin, derived from the French verb ‘aider’, meaning ‘to help’. The notion that cues in any way offer assistance to horses is anthropocentric and… nourishes the notion of the ‘benevolent’ horse, the horse that is a willing partner. Horse-trainers should respectfully recognize that training is an act of equine exploitation rather than equine enlightenment…”

I find the term “equine exploitation” to the point. Because isn’t that really what current horse-training is? Unfortunately, to train a horse in the competition-driven world, it is hard not to rely on negative reinforcement.  Yet, unlike positive reinforcement training, the effects of this method have not been studied much.  Many trainers don't even know they are using negative reinforcement, as they confuse it with positive reinforcement. In any case, using such a training method without really understanding the principles of learning theory can lead to the use of excessive pressure and punishment.

The other problem in the realm of competitive equestrian sports is that the rules permit hitting horses with whips. When the FEI states in their General Regulations (2007) that “whipping or beating the horse excessively” is forbidden, they imply that hitting the horse is alright, as long as it’s not excessive. And what exactly is “excessive whipping” and how can any outsider be the judge of that? How can we justify any kind of violence, even if it is not “excessive”?

The FEI is the authority in many parts of the equestrian community. Perhaps they don’t directly affect the majority of riders in the world, but indirectly their violent attitude towards horses is significant, because it trickles down to the grass root equestrians, many of whom are children.

How is it possible that the governing body of competitive equestrian sports is supporting punishment as a training method? What good can ever come from the use of punishment? If it isn’t common sense to realize the long-term disadvantages of abusive training, science backs it up. B.F. Skinner, the American behavioral psychologist, concluded years ago that positive reinforcement was greater to punishment in altering behavior. According to him punishment was not simply the opposite of positive reinforcement; positive reinforcement results in lasting behavioral changes, whereas punishment changes behavior only temporarily and presents many detrimental side effects.

So many people claim they don’t hit their horses.  I did, too - once upon a time. And if I did hit them, they certainly “deserved” it (which somehow didn't count as hitting, right?). It is easier to hit a big animal than something smaller, say a dog, which on top of cowering down onto the floor will make pathetic whimpering noises. Horses don’t do that – unfortunately.

A while ago I witnessed someone brushing their horse. The horse was extremely unhappy, pinning his ears back and making threats to bite. The person brushing the horse ignored all this and carried on as if nothing was out of the ordinary. And perhaps nothing was; maybe this was how the horse always reacted to brushing.

Finally, after several minutes, the horse crabbed the woman’s arm and bit into it – hard. She yelped in shock.

“How dare you bite me,” she hollered and stared at her horse incredulously. “That’s it, I won’t talk to you anymore,” she continued.

Then, as an afterthought, about ten seconds after the fact, she hit the horse on the neck with her fist. The horse turned his head away; his eyes were tired and there was a sort of accepting look in them. Or was he merely dissociating from the situation? After all, he had tried his best to communicate his feelings to the person brushing him. 

Little Love, who had witnessed the whole scene, sighed and chewed and lowered her head. It seemed that she, too, sort of shrugged the incident off. If that horse had flinched or yelped out loud or cowered away from the human who hit him, had it made a difference? Would she have then perhaps seen the consequences of her actions? I’ll never know, because the horse took it like only a horse does, silently, stoically and without an ounce of blame or anger. And before I opened my mouth to share some of my thoughts with the owner, I sent him a message of love – just for encouragement.

~ K

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. ~ Salvor Hardin

Reflex

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. ~Abraham Lincoln


I want to share four different episodes I witnessed this week. I'm not going to dwell too much into my personal emotions nor my reactions to these four episodes, I simply want you to read and give space to any feelings and thoughts that might arise.

1

I’m walking to my car after teaching a few lessons at a nearby barn and I run into an old student of mine. Delighted to see me, she stops in her tracks and gets into a lengthy explanation of her newest purchase, a three year old gelding. During our chitchat her five year old stallion stands patiently on the end of his lead rope, waiting for her to finish. The horse is black and absolutely beautiful, but what strikes me the most are his manners; he does not move a hair during our conversation. It isn’t until the very end, when his owner is proudly explaining the merits of one of her horses that the stallion turns his head to look at something in the distance. The gesture is barely noticeable, harmless and natural, but instantly and without interruption the owner lifts her left hand and strikes the horse across the face with the end of the lead rope. Her eyes never leave mine, nor does the flow of her speech stop; it is as if she has merely swatted a fly buzzing around her head. But for her horse this means more than she can comprehend. He is now irritated, shaken. He takes a few steps to the side, to get away from his unpredictable owner. She, in turn, hits him across the chest with the lead rope. This time she turns her eyes away from mine.

2

It is an exceptionally warm autumn afternoon and Little Love and I have ventured off into the fields. When we turn a corner and arrive at a fork in the dirt road, I see a woman on a horse in the middle of the field. The horse stands stock still with a stubborn expression on her face. Her head is held high, her eyes are sullen with resistance. When the rider, a middle aged woman, sees me appear from behind a small hill, she immediately, as if on cue, starts kicking the horse and slapping it with a short riding crop.

Little Love and I stroll over and stop. I don’t know this particular horse, it is from another barn in the neighborhood nor do I know the rider.

“Do you need help?” I say. “We are going this way,” I point towards the forest, “and you can ride with us if you like.”

The woman looks relieved. “Yes, thanks,” she says and directs her horse back to the road. We continue our trail ride side by side. But it isn’t long that her horse stops again. Instantly and without a moment’s hesitation the woman becomes aggressive, yelling and shouting at her (also) black mare. She grabs the reins in one hand and starts smacking the horse across the rump with the crop. The horse backs up tossing her head in the air, her ears pinned against her neck.

Little Love has stopped, too. She turns her head and looks at this spectacle with her eyes blinking. I wonder if she is thinking what I’m thinking. She is witnessing her previous life before her eyes. I gently ask her to walk forward, and she does. Again this helps the other horse and for a moment it follows obediently. Until it stops again.

Now Little Love decides that the mare’s behavior is highly suspicious. She, too, doesn’t want to move. The woman has thrown herself into a fit again, now kicking her horse with both legs as hard as she can. The horse’s ribcage echoes with every thump, but the effect is everything but what the rider wants.

I don’t know this person, we have just met, but we are now in the same boat; my horse won’t move either. I climb down and take the reins off Little Love’s neck.

“Let me walk ahead. My horse will follow, if I’m on the ground,” I say. Anything to get this woman from attacking her horse.

For a split second the woman stops kicking. She looks at me.

"Yeah, I used to do that too, my horse follows me anywhere if I walk it in hand. But I don't want her to get into the habit of me always coming down. It's not such a good option,” she says and kicks her horse again, as if to make a point.

3

Little Love and I come back from a long walk in the fields, she is in a halter and I’m walking her in hand. We stop to graze by the outdoor arena where the grass is still lush and green. The barn owner’s wife, an avid dressage rider, is starting a ride with her five year old gelding. He is a big guy and normally very compliant and docile. But today he has noticed a difference in the arena sand, it has been leveled and new footing has been brought into the left back corner. The horse’s ears and eyes are alert and when his rider attempts to walk past the corner with long reins, the horse spins around, visibly freaked out by the different shades of sand below his feet. Instantly and without a moment’s of hesitation the rider lays into the horse with her four foot dressage whip. The horse responds with a buck and twirls around again, his mouth open from the pull on the bit. His rider nearly falls off and when she gets herself back into balance, she is furious. She screams at the horse:

“I will show you.” And she does. Over and over again with the four foot dressage whip.

4

I am walking across the barnyard when I see a woman brushing her horse outside. The horse, tied loosely to a grooming post, is standing calmly while the woman is working her way around its body with a rubber currycomb. When she gets to the chest, however, the horse pins its ears back and threatens the woman with a clear gesture of baring the teeth. The woman, seemingly oblivious to the horse’s message, continues to vigorously brush the chest with circular motions. The horse threatens again, this time also swooshing the tail and stomping the foot. When the groomer takes no notice the horse finally lashes out and bites the woman on the arm. Immediately, and without a moment’s hesitation, the woman hits the horse hard across the face with the brush.

……………………

Four different scenarios; four different people, but all are connected through similar episodes which could have taken a completely different turn, had the person been more patient, more aware of their horse’s body language and willing to ask, instead of demand. Is it right to judge these people for their reactions? How do you control or stop a reflex which is ingrained into the marrow of your spinal cord through training and tradition and fear and habit?  How do you even begin to see such "horse training" for what it is - violence?


Which one of these stories made the biggest impact on you? Why? Can you imagine what happened afterwards? Can you see the relationship these people have with their horses? Can you picture what it’s like to have the need to control a horse’s every move, every emotion? Can you understand the fear these people feel? The anger?

Where does it all stem from? What does it take to change?

How can we help ourselves and other people learn a better way?

~K

There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used.... Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed. ~Gil Bailie