Splendid news about Malakai, the Arab that we had in almost two years ago. Malakai arrived in pretty poor condition with terrible teeth and a broken rib. His previous owner had been pouring food and money in to him but to no avail. He left us in better condition having eaten his head off all summer and is now competing in endurance with his new owner in Yorkshire.
Little Frances, who is doing her work experience with me, brought her lovely pony, Red with her. He has a terrific clipper phobia having been ear twitched to have his top-notch clipped before she got him. With careful de-sensitization we have got him to the stage where he will accept the clippers on his neck without him feeling the need to leave. The de-sensitization technique has been the subject of some debate on the Intelligent Horsemanship Discussion Group with people expressing concern about horses being restrained whilst being de-sensitized. I tend not to totally enclose a horse or force them to stand still. The art has to be in the timing. When a horse is frightened, the muscles in his neck tighten as a reflex, i.e. automatically and yet to lower his head he has to make a decision to unlock that reflex and relax his neck. I have started to add a bit of finesse to de-sensitization work so that if the horse tenses, I look for the slightest sign on softening and then take the stimulus away, give the horse a lovely rub, a kiss on the nose and tell them that they are a good boy and perhaps walk them forwards before repeating again. At first, even the blink of the eye, or a movement of the ear is enough and later I'll look for the head to drop a little. In this way the horse learns to unlock the reflex much more quickly and to effectively lower their own adrenalin levels. I see the neck as an adrenalin graph. I am all for not frightening the horse in the first place but I also think it helps them to learn how to deal with their fear in a way that doesn't involving leaving the scene! A phobic person will tell you that the greatest freedom doesn't come from avoiding the thing they are frightened of but from learning how to deal with it. having supportive people around while you are doing that is absolutely fundamental; people who belive your fear is genuine even if irrational (rather than someone who says pull yourself together or puts the wriggly worm in your hand - I am terrified of earth worms but happily poo-pick these days). I say to the horse "I do know how you feel" and "you can cope" and "you didn't die yet". I feel that constant reassurance coupled with sensitive exposure to the thing you're frightened of is the most likely to work.
