It's All About What's In Your Heart and How You Use It"

Well, let's get back to the clinic this weekend. While watching the clinician work with the first horse, one of the people owning the 2nd horse that was scheduled for the clinic decided this 'training' would not be compatible with her horse. She withdrew her horse from the lineup. Her horse is a highly sensitive one who requires nothing more than a mere "look" of correction and will respond favorably. This clinician's trainings was a bit more than mere looks and "ripping off his face" was becoming a trite statement from the round pen in response to a horse not complying with the clinician's requests. The owner politely declined to have her horse's face ripped off so withdrew her horse from the clinic. The 3rd horse in the lineup was brought into the round pen. The clinician set him up to react to an extreme situation to see how he would react. He reacted as expected ... he spooked and tried to bolt. The clinician "corrected" him (ripping off his face). He was then put into the long lines and taken out of the round pen to work. He was "corrected" numbers of times as he would balk and react but the clinician's sharp and loud "Haw!" with slaps with lines and cracks with the whip combined with his face being "ripped off" would "make" him go forward. She got the results she was looking for from him in short order. Then, she asked me if I wanted her to work with my filly to get her into the lines. Because our last venture into the round pen was a scary one, I hesitated. I also hesitated because I was witnessing a bit more "aggressive" handling than that with which my filly was accustomed. I knew my filly would not respond favorably to the harsher, aggressive handling. But, in my moment's hesitation, my mouth opened and said, "OK". !! What was THAT!?!? Well, said and done. I went and brought my filly into the round pen and left her with the clinician. Within the first five minutes my filly reared up more times than I had ever seen her do so in 1 and 1/2 years here. She never kicked or struck out at the clinician in aggression; she reared in fear. She was not responding to the clinician's cues as she "should" be doing. The clinician repeatedly "ripped her face off" by snapping the line heavily at the mare which resulted in the heavy "natural" brass snap connected to the line and halter (one well known to Natural Horsemanship advocates) to pound the filly's chin. Where else is the filly supposed to go? She's panicked, she's got the aggressive human in front of her and the round pen panel in back of her ... she had nowhere else to move her feet except up. Horses have another peculiar hard-wiring. They HAVE to move their feet when frightened. This is part of their survival instinct. To try to force a horse to stand still when fear is mounting and mounting in their heads results in nothing else than wrecks. I consider rearing a wreck ... for the horse. After repeatedly trying to "kiss" and call the filly into her without positive results, the clinician called me in to show how I accomplish the task. At this point my filly is now worked up in a sweat with panic flight round and round the pen. I stepped in; the clinician stepped out. I kissed to the filly. She turned and trotted up to me and stopped. We then backed up, we turned on the forehand, we went forward, we went round on the haunches. She felt safe with me. When I asked her to cirlce around me, she then balked and began to trot off. I gave a soft tug on the lead and told her "easy" and she reared. Reared and went backwards on her hind legs. Got her down, backed her up then asked her to go round again. This time was fine. I stood without moving my feet while she circled round in both directions then halted. I teach my horses to stop and turn to face me. I like horses to face me. I don't like their hind ends towards me. They certainly wouldn't turn a hind end towards an equine leader! Well, clinician didn't like that - said I was wrong. OK. Fine. Not an issue. I stepped out of the round pen and the clinician came back in saying she guessed she just didn't know the cues. Clinician tried doing some more with the filly and finally, in one instance, kicked my filly hard, in the chest. Punishment, you understand. The way "nature" punishes. Just the same as another horse would do. That was enough. I stated that the filly was overwhelmed and I wanted to back up to a more comfortable task and then I'd take her. Thank you.