More Thoughts About Ears
Over the past few days I have continued with my theory. So I have been setting it up at grain feeding time, that I leave his halter and leadrope on and just lay the leadrope across his withers. Then as I approach with his feedtub of grain, I keep an eye on his ears. If he puts his ears back I simply use the leadrope to prevent him from being able to reach the grain and wait until his expression softens. Then I continue from that point to set the feeder down or take his halter off, whatever I was doing. The one day I did let him have a bite of feed after his expression softened but before I put the feeder down. I was very sure to give him a clear signal that he was allowed to have a bite and then another signal that he was to wait for me to set the feeder down and take his halter off before he could have the rest.
Overall there has been less ears back. During sharing territory, I have been sitting on the edge of his hay feeder. This week he has started to eat out of the spot in the feeder that is right behind me and then when he is chewing he touches his nose to the back of my jacket or over my shoulder as he chews.
When I get up to leave I usually say hello and give him a scratch before going. This is another spot that he will sometimes put his ears back--as I am approaching him when he is eating. So I have been experimenting with how and when I approach trying to figure out what causes it. I haven't pinpointed a specific angle of approach that works better than another but I have noticed that if I approach as his head is down and he is eating, he is less likely to put his ears back. This is the same with leaving. If I wait for him to put his head down to take a bite and then I walk away, then he is unlikely to put his ears back as I walk away.
What I have been doing is that if I approach to say hello/goodbye and scratch him and he puts his ears back, that means he has raised his head to look at me as he puts his ears back at me. So then I just don't allow him to put his head back down and resume eating until his expression has softened. When he softens, then I allow him to go back to eating and repeat whatever I was doing that caused the ears back. Usually the second time he will then allow me to approach and say hello and not put his ears back. And overall the need for a do-over has been diminishing too.
If I think that the way that I approached caused the ears back, then I just turn away and try to figure out what error I made in my body language, fix that, and try again. So I have to make a judgement call about whether my approach was perceived as rude in some way or he was incorrectly anticipating that I was going to drive him away from the feed.
If he were to turn the ears back to actually pinning his ears and I felt like he was trying to drive me away from his feed/his spot, then I would for sure drive him away from his spot. But his body language seems to be more defensiveness than aggression.
Another spot that the ears can go back is when I am doing something like throwing his blanket on and the belly straps bump his back, or I toss the leadrope over the back and I miss so it bumps his side instead. This seems like an expression of displeasure at this point. And I am also pretty sure that it doesn't hurt him, but it is his thought about it that causes the displeasure. So I realized that when he is wearing his blanket is a perfect time to change his mind about things bumping into him accidentally because the blanket provides a dampening feeling on the touch and also makes a noise.
This morning as I was tossing the leadrope over his back and it made a noise landing on his back was an example. He put his head up and his ears back on the first toss, so I repeated a few times. His expression softened and he leaned his head gently into my aura and totally relaxed. It was like he was telling me he understood.
Now it strikes me that what I am doing could turn into tiptoeing around my horse. And that is the last thing I want to do. I want Gunny to be more secure so that he doesn't feel the need to be defensive about little things. So I am trying to be mindful and explain to him that he didn't need to be defensive at that moment. I am hoping that those moments add up so that his perceptions change about what is tolerable and not tolerable. I want Gunny to be aware and present but OK with what is going on.
I think that I need to consciously have a plan for expanding this from the tiny movements of coming into his space slowly, to being able to move into his space purposely and eventually even quickly, and that he is OK with it. Right now he isn't totally OK with those things, so the defensiveness shows up. When he is eating at the hay feeder, getting him OK with my approach and touch can turn into having him be OK with my approach, touch, and asking him to move.
I just went out to pull his blanket off for a bit and he was eating beside the hay feeder. He said hello and went back to eating. So I undid the snaps that I could reach, but then needed to ask him to move over. As I tried to PQ his shoulder over he put his ears back and leaned into me. In the past I would have opposed that and increased my phase until he moved. But today my reflex caused me to oppose him for a split second and the pressure increased as I became a wall. But then I remembered the floating hold idea and let my hand give with him for a moment in the direction that he was leaning while still keeping contact and then ask and go back to just contact. After two cycles he stepped across and had soft ears the whole time. It seems like if he thinks I am going to oppose him, then the ears go back as he thinks about opposing me back. But when I don't oppose him, but request and act as if he did it (or another way of looking at it would be that I wait for him to do it), then he realizes I am just making a request and not looking for an argument.
So is this tiptoeing or is it learning a new way to communicate that keeps the harmony? To me tiptoeing happens when a person is afraid or unwilling to be assertive with their horse when the situation calls for it. If Gunny were to become rude and pushy, I am fine with sending him out of my space assertively and my motivation is for more harmony and to create a more solid relationship, rather than avoiding an issue. I am attempting to meet the issues head-on, but in a way that keeps and creates harmony. I will need to re-evaluate in a couple of weeks to see if I can tell which direction things are moving or if they are staying the same.
My initial evaluation is that I am on the right track. For example, with the blanketing interaction in the past I would have become a post and he would have moved over but he would have done so most likely with a bad attitude. So then I would have kept moving him until his attitude changed and it probably would have taken much longer, been more work, and more emotional for both of us. This whole interaction today took less than a minute when I was asking him to move his shoulder over. I think that the situations that keep recurring are because he is still thinking I am going to oppose him or argue with him. Carolyn Resnick talks about dealing with the resistance in a loving way so the horse can come through the other side. So I think that finding the spot where the resistance starts and dealing with it there makes sense and that it might look like tiptoeing at the start, but is peaceful commnication and dealing with the 0-1 step that so often gets skipped.
Overall there has been less ears back. During sharing territory, I have been sitting on the edge of his hay feeder. This week he has started to eat out of the spot in the feeder that is right behind me and then when he is chewing he touches his nose to the back of my jacket or over my shoulder as he chews.
When I get up to leave I usually say hello and give him a scratch before going. This is another spot that he will sometimes put his ears back--as I am approaching him when he is eating. So I have been experimenting with how and when I approach trying to figure out what causes it. I haven't pinpointed a specific angle of approach that works better than another but I have noticed that if I approach as his head is down and he is eating, he is less likely to put his ears back. This is the same with leaving. If I wait for him to put his head down to take a bite and then I walk away, then he is unlikely to put his ears back as I walk away.
What I have been doing is that if I approach to say hello/goodbye and scratch him and he puts his ears back, that means he has raised his head to look at me as he puts his ears back at me. So then I just don't allow him to put his head back down and resume eating until his expression has softened. When he softens, then I allow him to go back to eating and repeat whatever I was doing that caused the ears back. Usually the second time he will then allow me to approach and say hello and not put his ears back. And overall the need for a do-over has been diminishing too.
If I think that the way that I approached caused the ears back, then I just turn away and try to figure out what error I made in my body language, fix that, and try again. So I have to make a judgement call about whether my approach was perceived as rude in some way or he was incorrectly anticipating that I was going to drive him away from the feed.
If he were to turn the ears back to actually pinning his ears and I felt like he was trying to drive me away from his feed/his spot, then I would for sure drive him away from his spot. But his body language seems to be more defensiveness than aggression.
Another spot that the ears can go back is when I am doing something like throwing his blanket on and the belly straps bump his back, or I toss the leadrope over the back and I miss so it bumps his side instead. This seems like an expression of displeasure at this point. And I am also pretty sure that it doesn't hurt him, but it is his thought about it that causes the displeasure. So I realized that when he is wearing his blanket is a perfect time to change his mind about things bumping into him accidentally because the blanket provides a dampening feeling on the touch and also makes a noise.
This morning as I was tossing the leadrope over his back and it made a noise landing on his back was an example. He put his head up and his ears back on the first toss, so I repeated a few times. His expression softened and he leaned his head gently into my aura and totally relaxed. It was like he was telling me he understood.
Now it strikes me that what I am doing could turn into tiptoeing around my horse. And that is the last thing I want to do. I want Gunny to be more secure so that he doesn't feel the need to be defensive about little things. So I am trying to be mindful and explain to him that he didn't need to be defensive at that moment. I am hoping that those moments add up so that his perceptions change about what is tolerable and not tolerable. I want Gunny to be aware and present but OK with what is going on.
I think that I need to consciously have a plan for expanding this from the tiny movements of coming into his space slowly, to being able to move into his space purposely and eventually even quickly, and that he is OK with it. Right now he isn't totally OK with those things, so the defensiveness shows up. When he is eating at the hay feeder, getting him OK with my approach and touch can turn into having him be OK with my approach, touch, and asking him to move.
I just went out to pull his blanket off for a bit and he was eating beside the hay feeder. He said hello and went back to eating. So I undid the snaps that I could reach, but then needed to ask him to move over. As I tried to PQ his shoulder over he put his ears back and leaned into me. In the past I would have opposed that and increased my phase until he moved. But today my reflex caused me to oppose him for a split second and the pressure increased as I became a wall. But then I remembered the floating hold idea and let my hand give with him for a moment in the direction that he was leaning while still keeping contact and then ask and go back to just contact. After two cycles he stepped across and had soft ears the whole time. It seems like if he thinks I am going to oppose him, then the ears go back as he thinks about opposing me back. But when I don't oppose him, but request and act as if he did it (or another way of looking at it would be that I wait for him to do it), then he realizes I am just making a request and not looking for an argument.
So is this tiptoeing or is it learning a new way to communicate that keeps the harmony? To me tiptoeing happens when a person is afraid or unwilling to be assertive with their horse when the situation calls for it. If Gunny were to become rude and pushy, I am fine with sending him out of my space assertively and my motivation is for more harmony and to create a more solid relationship, rather than avoiding an issue. I am attempting to meet the issues head-on, but in a way that keeps and creates harmony. I will need to re-evaluate in a couple of weeks to see if I can tell which direction things are moving or if they are staying the same.
My initial evaluation is that I am on the right track. For example, with the blanketing interaction in the past I would have become a post and he would have moved over but he would have done so most likely with a bad attitude. So then I would have kept moving him until his attitude changed and it probably would have taken much longer, been more work, and more emotional for both of us. This whole interaction today took less than a minute when I was asking him to move his shoulder over. I think that the situations that keep recurring are because he is still thinking I am going to oppose him or argue with him. Carolyn Resnick talks about dealing with the resistance in a loving way so the horse can come through the other side. So I think that finding the spot where the resistance starts and dealing with it there makes sense and that it might look like tiptoeing at the start, but is peaceful commnication and dealing with the 0-1 step that so often gets skipped.
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