To start off I am going to be talking about extreme fear.
If you go through the following scenarios and think how you would feel then I believe you will have a better understanding of how and why your horse reacts the way he does.
Everybody has something they would never want to do, be it bungee jumping, potholing or putting your hand in a nest of tarantulas. Sometimes even just thinking about doing something we fear brings us out in a cold sweat and give us butterflies in our stomach. Not everyone is scared by the same thing, to one person cuddling a hairy spider is nothing and they will not understand why another person can’t even manage to talk about them. This doesn’t make the person who is afraid of spiders a stupid person.
Think about what your worst nightmare would be and imagine it is about to happen. Choose the answer that best describes how you are feeling at given times.
1) How does it make you feel when you think about completing the action?
a) Scared
b) stomach churning
c) increased heart rate
d) All of the above
2) What if there was someone trying to get you to complete this action? What would your reaction be to this person?
a) Very wary, not wanting them to come near you
b) Scared they would not listen to your reasons why you couldn’t do it
c) Worried about what they would do
d) All of the above
3) If the person insisted you do this and even started to manhandle you to try and make you do it how would you react.
a) Tell them to leave you alone
b) Speak in a loud voice and resist any contact they made with you
c) Try and get away
d) Resort to force, even violence not to have to comply
e) All of the above
Now look back over your answers and see how many times you have ticked ‘All of the above’
If you ask people why they are frightened of a particular thing it is normally because they are afraid that they will get hurt or at worst, die.
When we ask our horses to do things that seem quite normal and safe to us we do not always appreciate how that may make them feel. Walking into a small space, like a stable, where there is no means of escape is not a clever thing to do when you are a prey animal. Going into a box which is not only sealed but somehow manages to move at speed by itself must be even worse. These two things we ask our horses to do all of the time without thinking about it. When they object it is because they are being naughty or just plain stupid.
If the thing we are asking our horses to do causes them to fear injury or death then we shouldn’t be surprised if they too mostly choose ‘ all of the above’.
There are times though when we have to do something even though we are fearful of it, for example visit the dentist. Forcing someone into the dentist chair and restraining them while the dentist filled a tooth would indeed get the job done. It would not, however, inspire that person to visit the dentist again but would almost certainly put them off dentists for life.
In the above case we would look for a sympathetic dentist who would let us take each step at a time under our own steam and let us stop when necessary. It may start with just visiting the dentist and sitting in the waiting room and work up to actually sitting in the chair and letting the dentist examine our teeth. If each session was repeated until we were happy with that bit before moving on to the next we would quickly accept that the dentist was going to do us no harm and cause us no, or very little, pain and discomfort. Whatever discomfort there was could be stopped at our request and continued once we were again comfortable with the procedure.
Why do we expect this sort of treatment for ourselves then but can’t see why we need to do this for our horses.
Letting a perfect stranger take control of your head and insert metal objects into your mouth that can cause discomfort is not something we readily embrace and we know what is happening. When the dentist visits your horse he will not be instantly recognised as a good guy wanting to help.
It is our job to make sure that we get our horse used to having his mouth examined so that when the dentist does visit it is not quite such an alien prospect. In fact we should make sure our horse is used to as many situations as possible so that his natural fears are subdued and he will remain calm enough to listen to what we are asking him to do.
The only way this will happen is to work with him introducing him to as many new and potentially frightening experiences as possible. If we do this slowly and in small increments he will gradually start to accept things easier. If he regularly meets strange sights and sounds and no harm comes to him he will be better able to remain calm and relaxed in the face of anything new.
As we have said, it is natural for him to fear certain things but it is necessary, both for his and our wellbeing, that he knows how to behave when he is afraid. How he behaves depends on how much he trusts you to be in charge of the situation and this will be based on pasts experience.
Fear: A reaction to something immediate that threatens your security or safety.
Fear is a Fight or flight response. The Hippothalamus controls this response by sending a signal to the adrenal glands. This causes them to send out cortisol and adrenaline. It also releases glucose into the bloodstream – so you can either fight………………. or run for your life!
But, as Bear Grylls says, being brave isn’t the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it.
Tags: equine behaviour, extreme fear