The Importance of Spending Time with Horses Doing Things Their Way
Often, in our work with horses, we overlook a fundamental aspect of building a true partnership. That is just spending time doing things the horse’s way. This isn’t really about the “doing nothing” or “less is more” principles of good horse training, which are also important, as much as it is about spending time with horses just being horses and doing the things they do in the way they wish to do them.
What we’re really aiming for in building connection is a partnership, and partnerships are made up of relationships. Relationships mean that you give sometimes and you take sometimes. So when you are working to build a partnership with your horse, you’re going to do it your way sometimes, and you’re going to do it his way sometimes. Instead of going to ride or train your horse every day, go just to hang out and join him in what he is already doing.
Learning Through Observation: The Art of Co-Regulation
For example, I went to work at REIN Rescue the other day. To help out with the development of their young horses who are transitioning from once feral and wild stock into gentled saddle horses. I first went to visit a mustang named Ike in his pasture. He was taking a snooze. So I thought, okay, I’m going to snooze with Ike. I’m just going to sit with him. I leaned up against a column that was holding up the run-in-shed roof, and watched him, and I just started to be there with him in his space.
I noticed that his nose couldn’t have been more flared. He had these absolutely enormous nostrils, these big boxy nostrils. Then I saw, though his eyes were drifting shut and his hind leg was cocked, there was tension in his neck, and I kept watching him. I wondered what he was doing with these huge open nostrils?
Then I realized that now and then he would flick an ear to the side, and then he would turn his head, raise his neck a little, open his eyes, and stare out into the distance. So I started to watch with him. What’s he staring at? Way down across the pasture, over the other side of the fence, I saw a person moving around in their driveway. And I realized Ike was keeping an eye on him. He was very much still a wary Mustang. He was keeping his eye on the movement and on that person way out there, making sure they weren’t coming any closer.
So I watched it with him, and I noticed that he noticed I had seen it too. I looked, and then he kind of took a sigh, and I did too. And then I just sat there with him, and I got present, and I listened to the noise around us. Pretty soon, Ike’s neck softened, and his eyes blinked shut and stayed closed longer; his lower lip hung down, and a little tiny bit of drool fell into the dirt. Now and then, his eye would open a little, and his nose grew softer.
I was just kind of co-regulating with Ike, and I was doing his thing. I had joined him in his thing, and I could tell he was happy that I was there with him. He had made it his job to maintain vigilance, and now that he was aware I was aware too, I think it helped him relax a little deeper. It was as if he thought, ‘Okay, this is good. Now, two of us will sort of sleep and keep an eye on that man across the field. ‘We were partners in our napping and keeping a sleepy watch together.
Encouraging Natural Exploration: The Bag of Interesting Objects
Another fun way to spend time doing things the horse’s way involves encouraging their natural curiosity. I have a big bag of stuff—it could be described as the bag of interesting objects for horses. In there I have things like an empty cinnamon bottle, a fluffy girth cover, an empty Summit vitamin jar with three treats in it so that it makes a noise when it moves around, a piece of firewood with bark on, two empty grain sacks, a rope, a bright orange rubber, squeaky dog toy, a towel that smells like my dogs, a fluffy soft polo wrap, another long leg wrap, a rubber feed tub and a wool Dimond western pad.
I think it’s very good for horses to get to sniff and see things that people are holding, but that they are not often allowed to explore in the way that they might want to. They might want to pick it up. They might want to bite it a bit. And we are always taking things away from them.
After my nap with Ike, Joy, the owner of REIN Rescue, and I brought my big bag of things out to a pasture of three-year-old fillies who are doing very well in their training. For the fun of exploration, we scattered the contents of the bag around the fillies gathered by the gate and let them explore the contents at their own pace and in their own way. We did not encourage them to look at things. We did not lead them up to the stuff. We did not ask them to sniff or explore anything. We just watched them. We did not prevent them from biting on objects or pawing at them.
They had so much fun exploring, shaking the crinkly bags at each other, and scaring themselves and each other with the strange noises. This group was incredibly exploratory. A horse still interested in exploration is a good indication that humans have done a good job with the animal, as they have not stifled curiosity or rendered the animal mechanical, preventing it from using its senses to explore.
These were babies, so it was nice to see that they had not lost their curiosity and had been encouraged in this way to build their mental tools naturally. The fillies just played with everything. One of them squeaked the dog toy, one of them tried to tip over the upside-down dish, and several of them were shaking the sacks. They bit the wood. They just had a great time.
Joy and I had a great time watching them play with the items. We weren’t showing them the objects. We were just like two more horses, enjoying the exploration and play. I picked up the long leg wrap and let it unroll in the air, blowing around in the wind. Then I wound it up and did it two more times as they watched me. Joy and I attached ropes to the grain sacks and started dragging them around the pastures. They followed the moving bags with noses on the ground and ears pricked forward. The two young fillies in the next-door pasture had become so interested in what our group was doing that Joy ended up going into their pasture with a few of the toys and her grain sack attached to the rope.
The Deeper Benefits: Building Confidence and Connection
The encouragement of exploration is also beneficial for horses that have been under tack for a long time, as most horses that have undergone the saddling process have shut down a significant portion of their innate and natural exploratory behavior. When a horse goes to look at something that seems novel, we often rush it through its exploratory process. We often dictate the process by which that animal explores novel items. We should not do this and allow horses to explore things at their own pace and in their own way. Doing so will make them much more self-confident.
In nature, horses are curious creatures. They put things in their mouth, try things, bite on things, lip things, lick things, sniff things from one, the other and both nostrils. This is the natural way of exploring things and deciding in their minds if they’re safe or not. What allowing them to do this does is make them more confident. An animal that knows it’s going to be allowed to use all its senses when it wants to explore something new is going to be a lot more settled. It’s going to make them less stressed and better regulated, which means fewer ulcers, less anxiety, and overall happier and healthier animals.
The Take Away
Spending a day doing something your horse’s way. It’s not only good for the horse and good for the relationship and good for the connection, but it’s also good for you because you are learning from the horse how he does things. You’re learning how your horse learns and how he approaches things. Maybe this knowledge makes you better at building the relationship.
True partnership isn’t about constant direction and control—it’s about joining them in their world and allowing them the freedom to be horses while we learn to be better partners. Sometimes horses end up showing you how to have a lot of fun. That’s what my day doing it the horse’s way at REIN was, it was a whole lot of fun.
