The Soul of a Horse

by Joe Camp

  It worked so well that during the first rehearsal, I almost aborted the sequence. I was forty feet above the scene with the cameraman and camera in the bucket of a cherry picker—the kind utility companies use to fix power lines—and Frank Inn, Benji’s trainer, was in the alley below screaming at Benji, “Shame on you! Put your head down! Shame, shame on you!”

  Benji looked as if he had, in fact, lost his last friend. It was perfect. I believed him. But I couldn’t bear to see him hurt so from the scolding.

  I asked to be lowered back to the ground and I walked into the scene and asked Frank to hold for a minute while we talked.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, eyes wide and curious. “Isn’t this the look you want?”

  “It’s perfect,” I said. “But I don’t feel right about getting it this way.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I don’t feel right about you scolding Benji like that.”

  Frank’s eyes rolled heavenward. “Turn around,” he said. “Does that look like a scolded dog?”

  Benji was aimlessly scratching his ear. He looked up at me and yawned idly.

  “Watch closely,” said Frank. He motioned Benji onto his feet and began scolding him again. Our floppy-eared star’s head dropped like a rock, his eyes drooped, and he looked as pitiful as anything I had ever seen. Then Frank relaxed, chirped a simple “Okay,” and as if he had flipped an emotional switch, Benji blinked away the blues, had a good shake, wagged his tail, and awaited his next command. He fully understood what was going on, and scolding wasn’t it. He might not have known the word, but he was, in the truest sense, acting.

  He picked things up so quickly that he even astonished Frank on occasion. Like the time we realized he had deciphered what the word cut meant. We were all on the floor, crunched around the camera, down at Benji’s eye level. When the shot was over, Frank began to unravel from the pile and suddenly realized his dog was nowhere in sight. “Your dog’s no fool,” one of the crew chuckled. “When Joe said ‘Cut,’ he split for the air-conditioning.”

  Benji learned very quickly that the air conditioner was his. It was used to keep him from panting, so that’s where he was supposed to be when the camera wasn’t rolling.

  But telling these stories, and a dozen others like them, left not the slightest dent in the armor of the Dallas Morning News reporter covering the newly emerging film production scene in north Texas. The story came out the next day on the front page. It was all about a seven-year-old Dallas girl and a nine-year-old Dallas boy making their motion picture debuts. The dog was barely mentioned. And there was certainly nothing about his ability to think. Or to reason.

  Animals can’t do that.

  Not dogs. Not horses.

  But don’t tell that to Allen Pogue. He won’t believe you. And he’ll probably tell you this story about his mare Hasana.

  “Whenever it was time for our young horses to be introduced to Liberty training—running free in a round pen without a line or lead rope—Hasana would be put in the ring with them, and she would help keep them in their assigned places in the lineup much better than any human handler could possibly do. If one got out of his place, as Gater would often do, she would trot right up alongside of him and promptly push him back into the lineup. If he resisted, she would become more insistent and give him the bossy-mare look or a nip until he resigned himself to his job. The precision and understanding that she displayed in this responsibility was amazing and her ability to teach other horses was a considerable help to me.”

  Many trainers, if not most, do not agree with Allen on the use of treats. And, as mentioned, most eschew the use of verbal cues. But Allen uses words and treats to build brainpower, relationship, communication, and fun. And, as they say about truth, when you see the results, the value is self-evident.

  Kathleen notwithstanding, I like to call Allen’s methods self-motivated behaviors because the horse chooses, on his own, to do it, or not. And there’s no discomfort if he chooses not to.

  It’s worth repeating that a good relationship based upon choice, trust, respect, and leadership needs to be in place before training with treats is introduced. Or the horse needs to be started very young, as Allen does now with all of his foals. Otherwise, many horses—and owners—can become treat crazy, which is good neither for the horse nor the owner. Once a horse is listening, his brain engaged, a bit of treat here and there, given at just the right time, can actually encourage listening and reasoning.

  Wouldn’t it to be nice to walk into a pasture of six horses, call out to a horse by name, and have one horse look up? The right horse?

  Or be able to say, “Lower your head, please.” And have it happen.

  Or have a horse come to greet you with a big, openmouthed smile? That’s the first of Allen’s behaviors that I began teaching Cash. Actually it looks more like a tooth-and-gum–showing pucker to me. As if the horse were offering a big, sloppy kiss.

  Horses use their soft, floppy lips to sort through things, to check things out, to groom, to push away the dirt on a single strand of hay, or to tickle open your fingers to get to a treat. Which is the way the cued smile begins. As Cash’s lips tickle my fingers, I raise my hand into the air, flip up my index finger, and say, “Smile.” Cash had this down in no time. Even I was amazed. Now I need only to raise my hand and flick the index finger a couple of times and his lips open wide in an exaggerated goldfish pucker. And he holds it until I lower my hand.

  He even offers the smile, on occasion, without my asking. Instead of exhibiting the typical pushy, horsey-treat behavior, like shoving against you trying to get into a pocket, Cash walks up and smiles.

  May I have a treat please?

  “Absolutely,” say I.

  Deep into the first hour of circus-ball training in the round pen, I decided to give us both a short break. I walked across to the far side of the pen and just leaned on the fence, arms draped across the top rail. Cash stood in place, maybe three or four feet away from the ball, and watched me until I was once again looking at him. Then he turned to the ball, took two steps, and nudged it not once, not twice, not three times, but four times, moving it a good ten or twelve feet. Then he turned back to me with that familiar cocked-head question of a look that asked: Is that worth a paycheck?

  I laughed so hard I could hardly muster a “Good boy.”

  He got his treat.

  And because he was actually having fun, I got mine.

  A few days later we were actually playing “pitch and catch.” I would roll the ball to him, and he would roll it back. How cool is that?

  Thanks, Allen, for continuing our amazing journey of discovery. Our horses owe you.

  As do we.

  25

  New Life

  In the center of the herd the matriarch lay on her side, squeezing new life out of her body. It was a dangerous time for the stallion, and for the herd, for there could be no running if attacked. New life was more important than old. Perpetuation was everything. Survival of the species.

  The stallion could see for miles in every direction. It had been planned that way. A predator would have to expose itself for quite some time before it could reach the herd. Not a tactic many predators cared for.

  The foal, once born, would be standing before the end of its first hour of life, eating and walking by end of hour two, and running and kicking before hour three came to a close. By hour four, the herd could be once again on the move if necessary. This was encoded for survival over millions of years.

  A few days before, another foal had been born, a female, a near copy of her father. Golden, with a big white blaze on her tiny forehead. From under a belly, she was peeking out of the herd, gazing with anticipation at her daddy, wanting to come out and play. But the big stallion pinned his ears, warning her to get back to the center, back to safety. Then he heard the softest of squeaks, and the herd began to stir. He threaded his way through the tightly packed band of horses for his first look at his
new son. The foal was sprawled on the ground next to his mother. He had the matriarch’s color, a dark bay. No gold at all. And the tiniest white speckle on his forehead. His father’s movement drew his attention, and he cocked his head as if he recognized him, and maybe he did. And the stallion was proud.

  26

  Uh-oh

  How could this have happened?

  We were less than two years into this brand-new world and somehow we had already become one of them.

  The old school.

  The know-it-alls.

  Like the farrier with the gutter vocabulary. Or Mariah’s cowboy with the long spurs.

  “We are not one of them,” Kathleen argued. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Is too,” I said. “We should be ashamed of ourselves.”

  We were sprawled in our favorite chairs after the kids were in bed, reading an article about a safety measure called the Cavalry Stop. Well, that’s not exactly true. We were rereading an article about the Cavalry Stop. After having completely dismissed it only a few weeks before.

  I’ve always found it interesting how, at just the right time, God has a way of reaching down and slapping me in the face to remind me of my stated mission.

  The serendipity of it all made me smile.

  I was fortunate that I could.

  Beware what follows.

  This is how stagnation begins.

  Back in our early horse days, at least a year ago, we were learning an exercise called the one-rein stop. The one-rein stop teaches your horse to stop immediately, right now, no matter what might have just scared the knots out of his tail. Many perfectly calm, happy horses have been known to do all sorts of crazy things when something causes them to leap to the panic side of their brain. Like when Pocket took off with Kathleen because the pit bulls next door came racing down to the fence barking. Kathleen was just learning the one-rein stop, but it wasn’t yet automatic. So she just held on, hoping Pocket wouldn’t leap over the fence at the far end of the arena.

  She didn’t.

  “Did you try the one-rein stop?” I queried.

  She hadn’t.

  And she didn’t appreciate my asking at that moment.

  Unfamiliar surroundings, like out on a trail, are prime places for a horse to encounter a perceived predator. Like a plastic bag blowing in the wind. A duck skittering by. More dogs. The logical plan is to be prepared. Just in case. The one-rein stop is designed to keep the rider from winding up as a tree ornament, or worse. Clinician Clinton Anderson calls it the all-purpose emergency brake.

  The horse is taught, over time, to give lightly to one rein, flexing his neck, bending his head all the way back to the saddle, causing his hindquarters to pivot in the opposite direction. The hindquarters are where the horse’s power is. This pivoting or disengaging of the hindquarters stops the engine that is propelling him. It takes the steam out of a reactive flight mechanism such as bolting, bucking, or running away. The horse turns in one or two ever-tightening circles until he comes to a stop and can once again engage the thinking side of his brain.

  We practiced and practiced one-rein stops in the arena. It’s not as easy as it sounds, especially when you’re new at everything about horses and are still trying to find your way. Even more especially when you’re Kathleen. After her experiences with Mariah and Pocket, she was terrified that some day, somewhere, some horse was going to try to run off with her. This was before Texas, before Skeeter.

  I was blowing it because when my horse needed stopping, I was supposed to choke way up on the turning rein, dropping my hand about halfway down the length of the rein, to a point perhaps only two feet away from the horse’s mouth. The purpose of this maneuver is to ensure there is enough leverage on the rein in case the horse doesn’t respond as lightly as he was taught back when there was no horse-eating squirrel racing across the trail.

  Unfortunately when something freaks your horse the last thing you’re thinking about is choking up on the rein! The key word there is thinking. Generally, when something like that happens, the first reaction isn’t to think, at all.

  The object, then, is to practice this art of choking up over and over until it becomes second nature. Automatic. Pure habit. And since we all hope that there are not that many opportunities to practice when the horse is truly freaked out, I began to use the one-rein stop as a schooling device with Cash. And, of course, the more the one-rein stop was used in other training, the better emergency brake it became. And the more automatic it became for me to choke up on the rein.

  I encouraged Kathleen to do the same. To practice, practice, practice. After a time she began to encourage me to shut up. Especially after Pocket had scooted off to the other end of the arena.

  “Don’t say it,” she said.

  She wasn’t smiling.

  The moral of this story, so far, is that we worked long and hard on the one-rein stop, so we could always be safe no matter what. Kathleen practiced even more hours than I did.

  We had a big investment in the procedure. And we were finally feeling good about how automatic it had become. We were actually beginning to feel safe. Secure.

  Then an issue of Western Horseman arrived with a cover story by clinician Curt Pate questioning the safety of the one-rein stop.

  I almost fell out of my chair.

  When I read the cover headline to Kathleen, she offered to burn the magazine.

  One page at a time.

  I read the first few paragraphs. His rationale was that pulling a horse into a tight circle, especially when he’s going fast, throws the horse off balance, and once he loses his balance, in such a tight circle, he cannot regain it.

  Neither of us had ever had any such problems in our arena. As you acquire mileage, you begin to learn how much of what is needed when. How big a circle to turn depending upon how fast the horse is going. I thought, Of course you’re not going to pull him into a tiny, tight circle if he’s going really fast. That would be stupid.

  So, unfortunately, I skipped ahead in the article and completely missed the part where Curt says, “Granted, the rider might have developed some sense of security after countless perfectly planned and executed one-rein practice stops in the round pen or arena, but reality outside the pen can be a two-foot-wide mountain trail with a cliff on one side and trees and rocks on the other. In that situation, there’s no way to do a one-rein stop without a wreck.”

  I didn’t see that.

  I had skipped ahead to scan Curt’s alternative, the Cavalry Stop, to see what it was all about. Clinicians are always promoting their clinics, seminars, and presentations, and the Cavalry Stop sounded to me like something designed to give Curt a point of difference for promotion’s sake. Something other clinicians didn’t have.

  I deduced, with no further study or trial, that the Cavalry Stop might not work in an emergency with a rider as nervous as Kathleen at the reins. She needed assurance. And if I had told her, just moments after she had finally become comfortable with her one-rein stop, that she needed to dump it and learn something new, I suspect I would’ve been looking for a new wife. Or worse.

  On to the next article.

  We’re good with the one-rein stop, thank you very much. No need to learn anything new. Let’s just keep those brains closed.

  This is where I became acquainted with higher learning.

  Slap!

  The trail we were on was a bit wider than the two feet Curt mentioned in his article. We had at least four or five feet. Thankfully there was no cliff, just a short drop-off on one side, and a hill on the other. Kathleen and I had just finished our picnic lunch, which was shared with our horses, and we were having a perfectly marvelous time.

  Well, except for the nuisance of Cash and Skeeter wanting to compete. And stay together. Whenever one of us would canter off, the horse left behind would have a hissy fit to keep up. Or catch up and pass. We were, for the most part, using these opportunities to school on the trail. To remind them that we were the leaders, and the desi
red speed would be determined by us.

  I was soaking up the scenery, paying little attention to much of anything, when it happened.

  Kathleen decided to canter.

  I didn’t notice.

  Cash did.

  Getting no instruction to stay or go, he practically leaped out from under me, rocketing from a slow walk to a fast canter in a split second. I asked for a stop and didn’t get it, so instinctively I went for the one-rein stop.

  We stopped all right.

  The circle I pulled Cash into forced him up into the soft dirt on the hill above the trail. He promptly lost his balance and went down on his side.

  Thankfully there were no rocks, just soft dirt and a hill to fall against, so you could say it was only half a fall. My instincts must’ve been in good working order because when Cash plopped into the dirt, I was already out of the saddle, and landed just above him, with only one boot slightly under his body.

  He was up in a flash, racing away, back toward our picnic hideaway. Mercifully, the reins were nicely looped over the saddle horn. I have no idea how that stroke of good luck occurred.

  Kathleen was about to disappear at a canter around a bend in the trail, oblivious to what had just happened. If she made it around the bend, there was no telling how long it might be before she would look back.

  The moment I hit the ground, I yelled as loud as I could, trying to snag her attention before she vanished. It worked. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to catch a glimpse of the situation before she was consumed by a grove of scrub oaks. I quickly climbed to my feet, knowing she was probably having a coronary wondering if I was okay. She reappeared as white as the mane on her palomino.

  “I’m all right,” I shouted.

  She froze in place, mouth agape. The reason was galloping up behind me. Cash had reversed his direction and was now headed toward us at full throttle.

  He raced right past me. Eyes wide. Nostrils flared. Definitely way over on the panic side of his brain. He passed Kathleen and Skeeter like a Thoroughbred at the track and disappeared around the bend in the trail. If he made the correct turn, the trail would ultimately lead him back to the horse trailer, which was maybe three miles away. I was checking all my limbs and digits when Kathleen trotted up.