NORTH COUNTRY RIDER |
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Hobby Horse: A little positive reinforcement
North Country Rider file photo
Susan Lagsdin is a member of the Back Country Horsemen of Washington and executive director of Write on the River. She and her Arab cross, Stella, split their time between East Wenatchee and Twisp.
Harry Whitney’s August clinic in Cashmere offered some positive reinforcement to an old concept: behavior modification. I had some transforming realizations during that long weekend that will forever change my riding and the relationship between me and my horse for the better, forever.
And yet, there was absolutely nothing new under the hot sun.
I promise not to psychologize beyond what I know from years of riding horses and teaching middle school, but here’s the concept:
Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt, both legendary horse trainers, believed we should “make the right thing easy, and the wrong thing difficult,” which is a pretty powerful way to modify anybody’s behavior. I grasped the connection one afternoon early in my career when I had come home from teaching school, changed clothes and saddled up for a short afternoon ride before dark. I suddenly realized that the cues I used to signal my students that day were the same kinds of cues I used to signal my horse. (Please don’t picture a room of snaffle-bitted 12-year-olds, or an Arab with a Bic pen and a Pee-Chee).
Classroom chatter getting too loud during quiet work time? The first cue by me was to stand up from my desk. Usually noise abated. The second cue? Glance at the clock. The implication was something to do with lost time. The third, usually unnecessary, was a portentous clearing of the throat. For years, I could settle a classroom without ever — ever — having to raise my voice in complaint or (the bane of female teachers) getting shrill.
On to the afternoon ride: walking down the trail, I wanted to stop, so first I stilled my body and leaned back a little. Naturally, there was a slowdown. The second step was to touch my loose reins, maybe raise them a little from near the saddle horn. The third, often unnecessary, was to murmur “ho” very softly. Full stop. I never had to pull back on the reins to halt my horse.
I realized then (without having read the natural horsemanship books that were yet to flood the market, or the myriad online articles) that I was on to something. My students had the same interest in avoiding my potential wrath as my horse had in avoiding the harsh mechanics of a metal bit on her mouth and jaw.
Hearing a redfaced colleague shout “OK, you guys — quiet down or else!” was to me the same as seeing a frustrated rider hauling back on the reins and yelling “Whoa!” It didn’t have to happen that way.
Fancy that. I knew something intuitively 30 years ago that I’m reading about and learning in clinics today!
That rigorous weekend with two dozen other riders at Harry’s clinic brought it all together.
“Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult” worked when I finally respected my horse’s intelligence enough to realize she could read my body language — that I might sharply demand an action at first, and then very soon invisibly signal her with understood “pre-cues.” Within a few minutes, after Harry’s instruction, as I walked her on a halter and lead my horse made immediate and respectful stops, turns and backups the very second that my right shoulder and leg signaled my intention.
The concept worked again when I realized that I could smooth my horse’s turns by “opening up” the side she’s turning into. I practiced slightly lifting weight from the inside stirrup and shifting it to the outside stirrup, with its corresponding release or bearing down of seat weight on the right or left side. I eventually learned to make the right turn easy, and the left turn difficult and vice-versa.
The clinic was a turning point in my horse life, and I’ll go again next year and again. Those days affected how my mare and I work together — her new response to my expectations, and my new respect for her ability.
But, really, didn’t I know all that years ago?
After a little learning of the cues, of course it works best. Why haul on the reins and yell whoa when you can just lean back a little and relax?
Susan Lagsdin is a member of the Back Country Horsemen of Washington and executive director of Write on the River. She and her Arab cross, Stella, split their time between East Wenatchee and Twisp.
