As spring roles around there are more and more people searching for trainers to help desensitize their horse. Some want to desensitize their horse to loud noises, bridges, things waving in the wind, and so much more. But, what if instead we changed the wording to helping build confidence in my horse.
Instead of looking to desensitize our horses we start looking to help them find confidence in stressful situations. We have this tendency to throw things at horses expecting them to be able to emotionally handle the over-stimulation. But, what happens is instead they automatically go into their sympathetic nervous system.
This is the part of the nervous system that control the fight, flight, or freeze response. This part of the nervous system is very important in staying alive in the wild or during times of threat. What is trying to be accomplished by desensitizing a horse is in simple terms making a horse not react when in reality they probably want to book it out of dodge to stay alive. So instead of a horse learning how to handle uncomfortable situations we condition them to automatically go into the sympathetic (fight, flight, or freeze). This becomes so ingrained that they don't learn how to manage or "think" through the situation, but what if instead you taught them to find confidence in the person that is putting them into a situation. Some horses end up staying in the sympathetic and not coming out of it because the brain has now considered everything threatening. Some fly off the handle all the time, some don't want to move, or some become so angry at life that it just is now considered part of their personality. Some become "well-behaved" horses that we think are dead broke or bombproof..... guess what some aren't .......some of these horses are actually shutdown. A shutdown horse is a horse that just goes through the day to day activity not reacting.
So....what if instead we take the time to show horses that they can confidently trust that a human wouldn't put them into a situation that could cause them to get hurt. That when a situation does arise that is scary and uncomfortable activating that sympathetic nervous system they can seek refugee in us. That we will be there to help them get through the situation and make sure that it doesn't harm them. Once they realize that the world is actually safe when were around we can assist them in going back into their parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest). This is where they can process what actually is going on in the world. I find that horses that have confidence not only in humans but their own decisions they are calmer and quieter when things do go array.
So what if we changed what we're looking for in training to; we would like to build confidence in our horses instead of desensitizing our horses.
