The horse is a flight animal with long legs to carry him away at speed. In the wild, he flees from danger, only fighting when he is trapped, for a resource, breeding rights or seeking dominance. He is a vigilant animal with wide-set eyes that enable him to see predators approaching. He has a big nose with wide nostrils to help him smell things on the wind. He has a long neck and tall ears that help him get information about things approaching. He is a herd animal and relies on his nervous system and the nervous systems of the animals around him to keep himself safe. Everything about his biology, physiology and behavior is primarily there to keep him safe from danger.
He is always aware of his safety. That’s what makes a horse so sensitive to pressure. A direct gaze or a straight-line movement towards him is enough to move him away or freeze him in place if he has nowhere to go. The activation of the fight-or-flight response in a scared rider’s nervous system can also really unsettle a horse and make him want to run away. When we have a horse on a rope, when we are riding or when we are holding one in a contained space, we are taking away their feeling of mobility, which they rely on to feel safe. We are taking away their main way of protecting themselves from perceived danger. They do not have unconditional access to their legs or to their flight. This immobility makes horses feel vulnerable and fearful until they have learned to decouple fear from the feeling of being restrained. We often forget to consider deeply enough what this feeling of vulnerability must feel like to them. We can help our horses learn to decouple fear from the feeling of immobility placed upon them by our ropes and bridles by making sure we are aware of where they are in their nervous system when we are working with them, by making sure we take the time to keep them below their threshold of fear for tolerating new experiences and objects. We can help them by making sure our nervous system is anchored in the present moment, a place where we are grounded, nonjudgemental and not overtaken by strong emotions. We can help them by letting them know we are paying attention to their feeling and going with it enough for them to understand we are with them. We can help them by being patient and remembering that if they are not “getting” what we are trying to teach them, we need to change how we teach them. We can help them by being clear with our asks and our responses to their tries. We can help them by titrating their exposure to something that scares them instead of overwhelming them with too much all at once. We can help them grow by pendulating between increasing exposure to the thing that they find frightening and a feeling of safety. If a horse becomes too panicked without being able to flee or fight for their safety, they disassociate, they freeze. They do not learn anything new in this state. They are truly incapable of it. If they are forced to do this too much or for too long, they shut down. The energy that is generated for them to flee gets stuck in their bodies and minds. This can make them mentally and physically sick and lame. They can become tense and hypervigilant, or they can become depressed and shut down from what is happening around them. Their eating habits can change, and they can develop coping behaviors like cribbing, head swinging and stall walking. Their minds withdraw, and their postures change as they struggle to deal with their stress. They become disconnected and unable to really trust people or their environment. It’s important to understand that force is never the answer. Not only can it truly break a horse’s nervous system, but it will also break their spirit and their trust. We know so much more than we once did about the mammalian nervous system. We understand that tonic immobility is often a big part of the development of PTSD in people. Why should it be any different in a horse, an animal that was born to run?
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