by Joe Camp
Not good enough, said I. My research shows that Method B will produce a better finished product, and that’s what we want.
Finally, the manager of one of the smaller labs I visited scratched his head and said, “Well, I guess that’s why David Lean uses Method B.”
I almost fell out of my chair. For you youngsters, David Lean was the director of such epic motion pictures as Dr. Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia. I had my answer. And, finally, I knew I wasn’t crazy.
It’s still a mystery to me how people can ignore what seems so obvious, so logical, simply because it would mean change. Even though the change is for the better. I say look forward to the opportunity to learn something new. Relish and devour knowledge with gusto. Always be reaching for the best possible way to do things. It keeps you alive, and healthy, and happy. And makes for a better world.
Just because something has always been done a certain way does not necessarily mean it’s the best way, or the correct way, or the healthiest way for your horse, or your relationship with your horse, or your life. Especially if, after asking a few questions, the traditional way defies logic and good sense, and falls short on compassion and respect.
The truth is, too many horse owners are shortening their horses’ lives, degrading their health, and limiting their happiness by the way they keep and care for them. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Information is king. Gather it from every source, make comparisons, and evaluate results. And don’t take just one opinion as gospel. Not mine or anyone else’s. Soon you’ll not only feel better about what you’re doing, you’ll do it better. And the journey will be fascinating.
We were just a year and a half into this voyage with horses when these words found their way into the computer, but it was an obsessive, compulsive year and a half, and the wonderful thing about being a newcomer is that you start with a clean plate. No baggage. No preconceptions. No musts. Just a desire to learn what’s best for our horses, and for our relationship with them. And a determination to use logic and knowledge wherever found, even if it means exposing a few myths about what does, in fact, produce the best results. In short, I’ll go with Method B every time.
CASH WAS PAWING the ground now, wondering, I suspect, why I was just standing there in the round pen doing nothing. The truth is I was reluctant to start the process. Nervous. Rejection is not one of my favorite concepts. Once I started, I would soon be asking him to make his choice. What if he said no? Is that it? Is it over? Does he go back to his previous owner?
I have often felt vulnerable during my sixty-eight years, but rarely this vulnerable. I really wanted this horse to choose me.
What if I screw it up? Maybe I won’t do it right. It’s my first time. What if he runs over me? Actually, that was the lowest on my list of concerns because Monty’s Join-Up process is built on the language of the horse, and the fact that the raw horse inherently perceives humans as predators. Their response is flight, not fight. It’s as automatic as breathing.
Bite the bullet, Joe, I kept telling myself. Give him the choice.
I had vowed that this would be our path. We would begin our relationship with every horse in this manner. Our way to true horsemanship, which, as I would come to understand, was not about how well you ride, or how many trophies you win, or how fast your horse runs, or how high he or she jumps.
I squared my shoulders, stood tall, looked this almost sixteen hands of horse straight in the eye, appearing as much like a predator as I could muster, and tossed one end of a soft long-line into the air behind him, and off he went at full gallop around the round pen. Just like Monty said he would.
Flight.
I kept my eyes on his eyes, just as a predator would. Cash would run for roughly a quarter of a mile, just as horses do in the wild, before he would offer his first signal. Did he actually think I was a predator, or did he know he was being tested? I believe it’s somewhere in between, a sort of leveling of the playing field. A starting from scratch with something he knows ever so well. Predators and flight. A simulation, if you will. Certainly he was into it. His eyes were wide; his nostrils flared. At the very least he wasn’t sure about me, and those fifty-five million years of genetics were telling him to flee.
It was those same genetics that caused him to offer the first signal. His inside ear turned and locked on me, again as Monty had predicted. Cash had run the quarter of a mile that usually preserves him from most predators, but I was still there, and not really seeming very predatory. So now, instead of pure reactive flight, he was getting curious. Beginning to think about it. Maybe he was even a bit confused. Horses have two nearly separate brains. Some say one is the reactive brain and the other is the thinking brain. Whether or not that’s true physiologically, emotionally it’s a good analogy. When they’re operating from the reactive side, the rule of thumb is to stand clear until you can get them thinking. Cash was now shifting. He was beginning to think. Hmm, maybe this human is not a predator after all. I’ll just keep an ear out for a bit. See what happens.
Meanwhile, my eyes were still on his eyes, my shoulders square, and I was still tossing the line behind him.
Before long, he began to lick and chew. Signal number two. I think maybe it’s safe to relax. I think, just maybe, this guy’s okay. I mean, if he really wanted to hurt me, he’s had plenty of time, right?
And, of course, he was right. But, still, I kept up the pressure. Kept him running. Waiting for the next signal.
It came quickly. He lowered his head, almost to the ground, and began to narrow the circle. Signal number three. I’ll look submissive, try to get closer, see what happens. I think this guy might be a good leader. We should discuss it.
He was still loping, but slower now. Definitely wanting to negotiate. That’s when I was supposed to take my eyes off him, turn away, and lower my head and shoulders. No longer a predator, but assuming a submissive stance of my own, saying, Okay, if it’s your desire, come on in. I’m not going to hurt you. But the choice is yours.
The moment of truth. Would he in fact do that? Would he make the decision, totally on his own, to come to me? I took a deep breath, and turned away.
He came to a halt and stood somewhere behind me.
The seconds seemed like hours.
“Don’t look back,” Monty had warned. “Just stare at the ground.”
A tiny spider was crawling across my new Boot Barn boot. The collar of my jacket was tickling the hairs on the back of my neck. And my heart was pounding. Then a puff of warm, moist air brushed my ear. My heart skipped a beat. He was really close. Then I felt his nose on my shoulder…the moment of Join-Up. I couldn’t believe it. Tears came out of nowhere and streamed down my cheeks. I had spoken to him in his own language, and he had listened…and he had chosen to be with me. He had said, I trust you.
I turned and rubbed him on the face, then walked off across the pen. Cash followed, right off my shoulder, wherever I went.
Such a rush I haven’t often felt.
And what a difference it has made as this newcomer has stumbled his way through the learning process. Cash has never stopped trying, never stopped listening, never stopped giving.
Is this any way to begin a relationship with a horse?
Why would you do it any other way?
3
The Language
The big palomino stallion was anxious to leave, but the matriarch of the herd was scolding a young colt. And the time it took must be honored, the discipline meted out, or the colt would grow up a selfish renegade, of no use to the herd, and would most likely wind up prey to a cougar or a wolf.
After the earlier run, the colt had been feeling his oats, adrenaline and testosterone pumping, and he had snapped and kicked at a couple of foals half his age. He hadn’t really meant any harm, but it was unacceptable and dangerous behavior in the herd and had to be dealt with. The mare had squared up on him, back rigid, ears pinned, and eyes squarely on his. He knew exactly what she meant, and he now stood alone, well away from the
herd. Alone was the scariest place for a herd member to be. Without the protection of the herd, a pack of wolves could easily have their way with him. Before he would be allowed to return, however, he would have to demonstrate his penitence; the mare would eventually swing her back to him and relax, saying the apologies were accepted. He could rejoin the group.
The dominant mare, the matriarch, is the leader of the herd. Usually one of the more mature horses in the group, she serves as disciplinarian, dictates when and where the herd will travel, has the right to drink first from watering holes, and always claims the best grazing. The stallion is the guardian and protector. And the sire of every foal.
The great palomino was taking this quiet opportunity to wander through the herd and check his subjects after the run. It had surely been good exercise, and a sniff here and a look there confirmed for him that there had been no injuries. The steep rocky terrain had conditioned their hooves and legs into appendages of steel. Their daily movement kept the blood flowing and the muscles toned. They were indeed a hearty bunch. But they had to be, for being so was their only defense.
The stallion scanned the horizon, turning a full circle. The sun was low in the west and sometimes caused objects to become mere dark shapes against the light, difficult to distinguish one from another. But one particular shape on a distant ridge stopped him. It hadn’t moved, but didn’t really look like a rock or a plant. He sniffed the air, but the wind was still coming from the east, and there was no scent other than the sweet smell of Indian paintbrush on the hillside.
The stallion waited. And his patience paid off. The dark shape moved. Turned. His heart began to pump and his nostrils flared. The most feared predator of all! More dangerous because he came astride one of their own, on a horse, capable of running as fast and as far as the herd itself could run. It was a man!
Over the past year, only two herd members had been lost to cougars or wolves, but five had been lost to man. All emblazoned upon the stallion’s memory. Long, withering chases ending with herd members being slung to the ground, legs tied, then whipped and dragged around until there was simply no fight left in them, their bodies and their beings stripped of strength and dignity.
The stallion slid up next to the matriarch, adding his burning stare to hers. Saying to the young colt: Now! The recalcitrant colt began to lick and chew, and he lowered his head. The two leaders turned their backs, allowing him to return. The matriarch had also seen the figure on the ridge. She uttered a low guttural call to the herd. She must now determine which way to lead them. Certainly not back toward the cougar. Her instincts told her to go south.
She glanced back at the western ridge. The dark shape was gone. There was no time to waste.
4
The Plot
How did we get here? How is it that we have taken this majestic animal, which is fully capable of keeping himself in superb condition and living a long, healthy, happy life, and turned him into a beast of convenience, trained by pain and fear, cooped up in a small stall most of the time, subjected to a host of diseases caused, in most cases, by us.
One would think that the long history of the horse’s value to man—as beast of burden, draft animal, riding animal, and companion—would have stirred such a thorough knowledge of his needs that he would have a better, healthier, longer life in our care than he ever could have in the wild. But, in most cases, the exact opposite is true.
According to Dr. Hiltrud Strasser, noted veterinarian, researcher, and author, horses in the care of man have a life expectancy that is, for the most part, only a fraction of that of their wild-living counterparts. Usually because of problems with their locomotor organs. In other words, lameness.
Issues with their feet.
Caused by wearing metal shoes. And standing around all day in a tiny box stall.
Is that a surprise? It was to me. A big one. And it propelled me onto a journey of discovery that quite simply upended everything I thought I knew, and virtually everything I was being told by the experienced and the qualified.
What I discovered was that most humans who own horses have no idea about what’s at stake—or what the alternatives are. They’re just doing what they’ve been told to do with no concept that they are causing emotional and physical stresses that depress and break down their horse’s immune system, cause illness and disease, and shorten life. And, in so many instances, prevents any kind of real relationship between horse and man.
Dr. Strasser is emphatic that, no matter what you’ve heard to the contrary, the horse living in the Ice Age, the present-day wild horse, and the high-performance domestic breeds of today are all anatomically, physiologically, and psychologically alike. They all share the same biological requirements for health, long life, and soundness. In other words, we could be not only making the horse’s life as good as it is in the wild, but also making it better. At least as healthy. And happier!
Why aren’t we?
And what can be done about it?
Finding answers to these questions became the mission. The discoveries were mind-boggling, the solutions remarkably uncomplicated, more often than not involving little more than a willingness to change. A willingness that, bewilderingly, all too often wasn’t going to happen.
LEANING ON THE fence next to me, elbows propped on the top rail, was a true cowboy. Gnarled and weathered, crusty as they come, and a likable sort. Full of tales and experiences. He must’ve been near my age and had been riding since he was old enough to hold on. I actually paused long enough to absorb the moment, me with my Boot Barn boots and new straw hat, right there in the thick of it. Me and him. Cowboys.
Then he spoke for only the third time since Mariah had come out of her stall, and the reverence I was feeling cracked and shattered like the coyote in a Road Runner cartoon.
Mariah was a cute little Arabian mare that the cowboy had for sale. Kathleen and I were still looking for the right horse for her. The cowboy had watched me earlier in Mariah’s stall, just hanging out, waiting for her to tell me it was okay to put on the halter. She never did. The cowboy had asked, “Do you want me to catch her?”
It made me uneasy, but I said, “No thanks.” It was that thing about choice again. Trying not to seem so much like a predator by racing into the stall and slapping the halter on first thing, horse willing or not. But I couldn’t push away the feeling of embarrassment. Even incompetence. As if I were being challenged. I knew I could corner her and catch her. The stall wasn’t that big. But I was attempting to stir some sort of relationship. Not my will over hers, like it or not. Finally, I took her willingness to just stand still as an offer, and I slipped the halter over her head. She made no move to help. I rubbed her forehead. Then her shoulders, belly, hips, and again her face. She twitched, and pulled away, showing no warmth whatsoever.
I led her into the cowboy’s arena and turned her loose. It was a small arena, but too large for a real Monty Roberts kind of Join-Up. Still, I had to try. I wanted to see if I could break through the iciness. When I unsnapped the lead, she took off like I was the devil himself, galloping full stride around and around and around. For the most part, I just stood there, doing nothing, mouth agape.
After several minutes, the cowboy asked again, “Do you want me to catch her?”
“No, it’s okay,” I mumbled, feeling like I was the one on trial, not Mariah.
And she continued to run. I made a couple of token tosses of the lead line, but they were quite unnecessary. She ran on for a good seven or eight minutes with no apparent intention of stopping. I was getting dizzy. Finally, I quit circling with her, turned my back to the biggest part of the arena, dropped my shoulders, and just stared at the ground.
And on she ran. Around and around. I felt the cowboy’s eyes on me, probably saying: What kind of an idiot are you? Get a grip and catch the horse!
I was running out of will. But Mariah wasn’t running out of gas. I was ready to give up when quite suddenly she jolted to a halt. Just like that. Maybe ten or fifteen
feet behind where I was standing. I just stood there, staring at the ground. After a moment or two, she took a few steps toward me, then a few more. Monty’s advice notwithstanding, I was peeking.
She never did touch me, but she did get within a couple of feet and just stood there. Finally I turned to her, rubbed her forehead, and snapped on the lead rope. I wanted to feel pleased, but didn’t. It was willingness without emotion. Her eyes were empty. Like those of an old prostitute. I know the gig. Let’s get on with it.
The cowboy then climbed aboard to demonstrate Mariah’s skills. I suspect he was on his best behavior. He didn’t appear to be particularly hard on her, but I noticed that his spurs seemed about two feet long and he did use them. She performed cleanly.
Then it was my turn in the saddle. Mariah pretty much did whatever I asked, but, all the while, her lips were pouty and her ears were at half mast. Neither fish nor fowl. Not really showing any attitude, good or bad. Simply not into it. Not caring, one way or another.
Kathleen was next, woman to woman.
That’s when I walked back through the gate and propped myself on the fence rail next to the cowboy. And that’s when he said, “I’ve seen some of that natural horse pucky on RFD-TV and I’ve gotta tell you, the way I look at it, that horse out there is here for one reason. My pleasure. And I’m gonna make sure she damn well understands that.”
I think she did. And, now, so did I.
Clinician Ray Hunt opens every clinic or symposium the same way. “I’m here for the horse,” he says. “To help him get a better deal.” He and his mentor, Tom Dorrance, were the first to promote looking at a relationship with the horse from the horse’s viewpoint. Mariah’s owner wasn’t willing to do that. His question would likely be, What’s in it for me? Rather than, What’s in it for the horse?
