Balance Point Learning Center

I find it interesting what becomes normalised in the equestrian industry. It’s also interesting that those who push to normalise these things are trainers who create this behaviour in their own horses.

Horses looking away, avoiding, giving calming signals, dry licking and chewing, yawning seems to have become the norm. This is not normal!! This is indicative of how they feel about you and about the time you spend together.

I’m a Positive Reinforcement (R+) trainer. I train with food, with choice and control where possible, I don’t train with pressure and release (Negative Reinforcement), therefore I don’t cause the horse physical, mental or emotional discomfort in training.

My equines all come running when I call or they wander up as soon as they hear my vehicle, my voice or spy me coming.

I have visitors who always comment on how “chatty” my horse and donkeys are and I realised that had become my norm. I had forgotten that not all horses and donkeys are this happy to see their person or this vocal and communicative.

Therefore if I see calming and appeasement behaviours, I consider it an error on my part and I’ll change my behaviour and training approach. But I don’t really see them in my equines, who are all experienced R+ trained animals.

I also don’t often see these behaviours when they are just hanging out in their space. This is because the way I train causes them to like me and I’m someone of value to them. I also generally don’t see them act this way towards each other, because I train them and keep them in a way that they don’t need to be adversarial with each other.

Equines (especially my donkeys) are generally friendly, sociable and cooperative and performing agonistic/ aggressive behaviours is usually about management of resources and the environment. It’s not fun or relaxing for the horse or donkey to be constantly guarding and aggressing at other animals.

Next time you see a trainer or anyone suggesting that the look away or licking and chewing, yawning, etc is good, really question it, because it’s not actually good at all, it’s kind of sad.

Worse, after the horse has given a signal they want distance, the trainer ignores that communication and catches them anyway.

I look at these types of behaviours as something I want to avoid, NOT something I use in training.

There is always an emotional association with all behaviour, therefore a horse sending out this message is pleading for space and non confrontation. This is not something I want to trigger in any animal I am training.

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“The fact that the new study highlights two behaviours – snorting and non-nutritive chewing – however, can now be eye-openers. “A main finding of this study is that non-nutritive chewing is actually not a behaviour indicating a relaxed state, as a lot of people believe, but rather indicates that the horse is trying to relax himself because he’s in a stressed/aroused state,” Baragli explained. “This is actually the opposite of many schools of thought, especially among horsemanship trainers. And the distinction is critical.” "

You can read the article here:

https://horsesandpeople.com.au/calming-behaviours-support-the-concept-of-resilience-in-horses/?utm_source=Horses+and+People+Newsletter&utm_campaign=52dd4cb2a5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_04_30_01_50_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0f7220ee8f-52dd4cb2a5-63109965&mc_cid=52dd4cb2a5&mc_eid=52d8d1f178&fbclid=IwY2xjawNKpAlleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFDaTdBM1VkR0dRVkNENzJoAR5HYp4d4v_jkaOPxiN7omBY5QQbrLuJn108VSL9qhA0aSGAQjtrzaS2rtP9Iw_aem_puWf5NVTJdofZXaUc4TyBA

Too cute!!

Upepo is demonstrating the appropriate amount of excitement everyone should be feeling about World Okapi Day. These unique forest giraffes are worth celebrating 24/7 and can be found in the dense forest ecosystems of central Africa (or along the African Loop trail at the Safari Park).