Timing And Pressure Sensing

We’ve already seen that we can subtly influence the bad behavior of a horse by taking a step back when he invades our space or stepping forward while asking him to back up. You won’t be surprised that there are a lot of ways to subtly influence horse behavior, and all too often, its not in the way you want.

One important aspect of horse training is about pressure sensing, applying and removing pressure. If the pressure isn’t removed at precisely the right moment, this may cause problems in achieving the best results. Let’s take two examples. We’ve already discussed the importance of actually walking away from a horse you’re trying to catch in a field when you sense he’s about to run off. If done correctly-by taking the pressure off an instant before he is about to run off, it can lead to dramatic results. But if not done right, say you’re a second late in taking the pressure off, he is going to be even harder to catch next time.

Here’s another example I got from John Lyons, which I love because it really illustrates not only the importance of timing, but how horses think and react. You have a horse that doesn’t like you touching his ears. Every time you reach up to touch his ear, he turns his head away from you. Lyons points out that this is the same as a horse running to escape. Same mode of thinking in other words. How do you get the horse over it? You find what I’ll call pressure sensing point or a pressure point and take the pressure off just before you reach it. In other words, suppose your horse keeps his head in place for 2 seconds when you reach for his ear, then turns away. That means the pressure point is 2 seconds. You work with the pressure sensing point by putting your hand on his ear for only 1 second, then removing it. By removing the pressure (touching his ear-something he doesn’t feel comfortable with) you help the horse begin to relax and not respond to the pressure sensing anymore. It gives the horse the opportunity to stop and think. In this case, he starts to realize you’re not going to harm him by touching his ear for a second. When he feels that way, the pressure point has moved, maybe now he would let you touch his ear for a maximum of 3 seconds. But you’re not going to take it to the max-instead now you remove the pressure at 2 seconds. The idea of the pressure sensing point is to apply the threat (in the mind of the horse), discomfort, or whatever it is until the horse is just about to go into escape mode-but without quite letting him reach that point.

Getting this timing down is simply a matter of experience. Don’t feel bad if you’ve got problems with it, there is only one way to get perfect timing with horses and that’s by spending more and more time with them conscious of this aspect of horse training.

When its not done right, sometimes we can inadvertently teach our horses something we don’t want to. An example: you’re desensitizing your horse by standing in front of him swinging a rope back and forth over his head. Naturally this makes the horse uncomfortable. Suppose that he walks towards you, looking for security. Or looked at another way, this is another example of a horse going into escape mode-trying to get away from the stimulus (although in a subtler kind of way).

One natural response of the handler might be to stop swinging the rope when the horse takes a step towards him. After all, you might be worried the horse is about to run you over. But doing this teaches the horse something we don’t want-that walking into our space removes the uncomfortable stimulus-which is the swinging rope over the head of the horse.

The correct way to deal with this situation would be to carefully watch the muscles of the horse, and figure out how many seconds go by before he shifts his weight to move. Then swing the rope 1 second less, so that the stimulus gets removed before the horse starts stepping forward. In other words if he steps forward at 4 seconds, stop swinging the rope at 3 seconds. That way he doesn’t learn the incorrect lesson, which would be that stepping forward removes the stimulus. Done the correct way, the horse will learn what we want-which is that an uncomfortable or scary stimulus doesn’t necessarily mean he is about to die or get eaten!

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