Separation Anxiety is one of the most common problems that horse owners face. It is a natural behaviour for horses – millions of years of evolution have taught them to be very scared if they find themselves alone and to rectify it immediately. Being alone is how an animal gets attacked easily by a predator and being alone means you are in danger and vulnerable to attack because you don’t have the safety of numbers to protect you. A horse cannot rest or sleep or eat properly alone and their goal will always be to re-join their herd as soon as possible. When you observe a horse experiencing separation anxiety, there is usually lots of running, pacing and weaving as they work hard to return to the safety of the herd.
The first experience of separation anxiety for domestic horses is usually at weaning. Many abrupt and sudden weaning practices cause mare and foal much distress and fear. Experiencing this kind of fear and trauma in their formative years, can affect a horse for the rest of their life and make them more susceptible to severe separation anxiety later in life.
Many training approaches that deal with the behaviours associated with separation anxiety focus on Punishment. Popular approaches are ‘making the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy’, ‘working’ the horse near other horses, circling and causing discomfort, fear and pain when the horse gravitates towards other horses. Keeping horses living in isolation to prevent them bonding or forming relationships with other equines is another popular approach.
The problem with these approaches is that they are working against the nature of the horse – against their basic instincts and biology that have been developed and successful for the horse, over millions of years.
Instead, we can work with the horse and teach them! Oftentimes we have to undo a lot of fear and trauma that they have already experienced, so we need to be patient to begin with. But as we help the horse to learn and never trigger their fear response, we will be rewarded with a horse who’s able to leave their friends or have their friends leave them without fear and stress.
Humane force free approaches to separation anxiety utilise Desensitisation and Counter Conditioning.
In order to do this, it’s important to note the point your horse starts to go over threshold ie shows subtle fear responses, or hypervigilance and hyperarousal and plan your training to start well before this point.
Training literally involves very small steps and we pair each step with food to create a good feeling/association with leaving the herd.
I found yet another fantastic blog from Eileen Anderson that discusses fear and how Desensitisation and Counter Conditioning can help you overcome it in yourself, your dog and this also applies to your horse. There’s some great examples of how small and detailed the exposures/steps need to be in a DS/CC program, to give you an idea.
Finally, if anyone gives you advice that seems to work against the horse or tries to change the horse’s feeling of wanting to be with other horses via some kind of discomfort, then smile and thank them and walk away.
Do you have a horse or donkey that is really “in your face”? For example, are they always first to greet, even hunt you down, sniff, nibble, even push on you? But by the same token, they don’t seem comfortable when you try to touch them, they nip and guard themselves and there’s something about them that makes you feel not quite comfortable or safe?
I’ve got a donkey called Dorothy and at first, she seemed like the most friendly “in your face” asking for scratches type of donkey.
But I’ve learnt otherwise since that first impression.
I’ve learnt that she doesn’t like or trust people and a lot of her behaviour seems to be learnt and reinforced through what I imagine was a lack of choices and control. For example, if she can’t remove herself from people and situations, perhaps her behaviour can make the people go away??
When she first came to me, she seemed reasonably friendly, once she got over her initial fear. She would solicit scratches, but try to touch her outside of her soliciting and it was a big kicky “no!”
I think we need to be careful that we don’t just assume that if a horse or donkey comes to us, that they necessarily like us or want attention or to be touched. I think this concept is similar to the post I did earlier about being able to train a horse to move towards something they don’t want to go near, by using Negative Reinforcement. Moving towards something gives them control or an attempt to control the removal of an aversive stimulus (in this case us). I feel an animal can find ways to make things go away, by moving towards them, pushing, nibbling and generally being aversive and annoying.
The problem is that people think that a horse moving towards them is wanting to be with them and engage with them. I’ve even seen a video of one of those cowboy trainers saying a mouthy horse wants to engage, so we should engage! That’s a pretty big assumption and interpretation of behaviour. But what I saw happen and what supports what I suspect, is that the “engaging” involved smothering the horse’s muzzle and face with touches and rubbing and guess what happened? The horse “engaged” ie. mouthed and tried to bite the human less or stopped altogether, as that was the plan as an antidote for a mouthy horse. But hold on, if a horse wanted to engage and we engaged with them, wouldn’t the behaviour increase ie. be positively reinforced and therefore increase? But it didn’t, it lessened or stopped, therefore the horse’s mouthy, in your face behaviour was punished.
So next time you think a horse wants to engage, is friendly and doesn’t carry any fear, worry, anxiety or distrust of humans, think again. Just because they move towards us, try to interact with us, doesn’t mean they like us, it could well mean they want us to go away and that’s how they try to do it. It most likely works with their equine friends, but us humans tend to think that it’s all about us and our horses always love us and want to be around us and that’s not always the case.
Check out gorgeous Dorothy, she’s very vocal because she loves to train, BUT she still has reservations about a lot of the things I want to do, like trimming her back hooves. I’m giving her the time she needs, because I realise that although she seems joyful, there is an unhappy history to overcome as well.
I think it’s important to show real life training, rather than carefully edited, scripted and captioned training. I also have to live up to my own encouragement to everyone to be brave learners, be prepared to make mistakes and that ‘the animal is always right, so how can behaviour be wrong’. I think various trainers have said different iterations of this message, from Skinner to Bailey to Ramirez.
There isn’t really mistakes in this video, but it may look like it to some people. I’d like to explain and if you watch til the end you’ll see a rather funny blooper I’ve left in there.
Firstly, note there are 3 points in this post and video, the first is regarding Mercedes’ behaviour, the second is about being mindful of how you deliver your reinforcers, look after your body and your horse’s body and straightness and also how you deliver the reinforcer affects whether your horse is more or less ‘in your face’ and ‘muggy’. Thirdly, I wanted to talk about and demonstrate Feeding for Position and that learning happens after the click.
In regards to Mercedes behaviour, let me say that horses need to move, they are designed to move and domestic horses don’t move enough generally. Many domestic horses are often overweight or prone to becoming overweight, understandably. Therefore when I started R+ training, I was focused on movement and exercise, not standing around and giving a lot of food. This hopefully explains what’s happening with Mercedes’ behaviour in the video. She has a long and strong Positive Reinforcement history with movement, with doing things. She doesn’t do standing still very well in certain contexts. She’s very happy to stand still for certain things, but overall my training is about movement and I like that and I think it’s good for my horses. But if I want to do explanatory videos like these, you can see where this becomes problematic if you watch Mercedes’ behaviour.
The first point I’m demonstrating in the video is about HOW you feed. Looking after your back and your horse’s back requires some attention to detail and practice. Think about being ambidextrous and feed from both sides, both hands and in a way that is cleaner, smoother and easier for both you and the horse. You’ll notice how much straighter Mercedes is when I feed from my left hand on her left side and also how I’m not twisting my back. These small details can make a big difference.
This leads into what I also wanted to demonstrate and talk about and that’s the subject of Feeding for Position and more precisely, Bob Bailey’s famous words “The Click doesn’t end Behaviour, learning keeps going ie. Click for Action, Feed for Position.”
I often explain it as these glowing dots in space that the horse can see, they are places where there is R+ history, where the horse has been fed, reinforced for a behaviour specifically. The horse, any animal, gravitates to places of value where they’ve been repeatedly fed. They can also be super specific about the place, the body part, etc. You’ll see that in my video, I think it took about 2-3 trials and Mercedes kept her head at the ‘red dot’ ie. the place where reinforcement was last delivered repeatedly, down low and then up high.
This is exactly why it doesn’t worry me if she’s a fidget head and can’t stand still (such as in the video), because it would take very little for her to learn that standing still has value and she will quit asking, “when are we going to move??”.
Feeding for Position can be a very useful tool in your force free tool box. I feel that is where the art comes into the science of what we do. Some examples might be when we are teaching a behaviour, but then also using the food delivery to ask the horse to move away from you or to go somewhere else to get the reinforcement. This can be a way to teach a ‘go to a station/hoof target’ behaviour, where you would feed on the station, but then start to offer food away from the station, so that they learn to leave and go there and eventually on cue. Another example might be in Reverse Round Pen training, in order to encourage movement and really hammer home the message of voluntary movement. We would click for behaviour ie. more speed or a nice head or body shape, you might then offer the food/reinforcer ahead of the horse. Although you clicked for behaviour, the horse has to walk (another behaviour) to acquire the reinforcer.
Can you think of any times you’ve clicked for action and fed for position?
I hope you enjoy the video and I’ve given you some food for thought.
I had a wonderful time with Seymour tonight. All clicker training was done, dinner was delivered via training and hay nets were hung and there was a lovely warm low lying autumn sun that Seymour was snoozing in, that he was glowing in, his hair was shining like fine expensive silk. Everyone else was busy.
I pulled up a stool to admire him from afar, watch the others and soak up the general ambiance of the last bit of the day and lowering autumnal sun.
But Seymour believes in admiring up close apparently and strolled up to me slowly while I was admiring the others. I felt eyes on me and found Seymour parked right in front of me.
I alternated between admiring the view, (he is pretty handsome) and poking out a finger to see what he thought of it. He let me touch his face, his eyes and even his nose and lips. He even started to play with my fingers and mouthed them with his lips and teeth, that’s a first. He lifted his head and I could literally see his incisors and his tongue and touch them, another first. He must be a mind reader, because the dentist is coming tomorrow!!
I looked away for a while and I was watching Dorothy lying down to give her sore foot a rest, when Seymour stepped forward and was even closer to me. It was nice and companionable and I loved it, because I love him.
I was then engrossed in watching Kaspian and Paddy graze and felt a warmth on my shoulder and realised Seymour had stepped sideways to get closer and was leaning in to me. He then brushed my shoulder with his cheek and neck, another first. I twisted around to see his face and saw a sleepy half closed eye.
I didn’t dare touch him and break the spell and he stood there, leaning lightly against me. It was like a gift, a donkey magic gift! He was showing me he trusted me, that he wanted to be with me and that he felt safe with me. I don’t think there’s a greater gift from an animal that was scared of people and actively disliked people, who would drive them out of his paddock! He wanted to be with me, he chose to be with me and he actively touched and engaged with me. I did nothing and he gave me something, something special.
I admired the sun shining off his fluffy hair that was preparing for the cold weather. It shone like silk and was velvet to my touch. I admired his beautifully trimmed hooves, all neat and tidy, not quite perfect thanks to years of neglect, but a shining example of a lost soul resurrected. I admired his legs and ran my hands down to feel his muscle and bone and the silky hair that had regrown over his previously scab infested legs. I stroked and tickled him in the soft spots between his legs, in his elbow and the soft underbelly, where the hair was so soft and fine and so special, only to be felt by the most trusted of friends.
I looked back into his eyes again, into the depths of those deep brown eyes, into those imperturbable depths, into one of the wisest creatures I have ever met. One of the most communicative and yet secretive and emotional and yet he has the potential to be so distant. But not anymore. Now he is like a magnet to the flame. He wants to connect, to touch, to be with and to breathe together. I let out a lot of deep sighs and let go of a lot of the burdens I was carrying and Seymour was there with me, to witness and to help me release the worry and pressure of the world. Not to carry them of course, but to ease their passing and bear witness.
Seymour helped me instead of me helping him. Yet another gift.
There is one really important message I’d like every trainer to burn into their brain.
If you are dealing with fear, trauma, phobias, worry, reluctance, avoidance, escape, “lack of motivation”, or any kind of difficulty around your horse training, consider Classical Conditioning, rather than Operant Conditioning (Positive Reinforcement).
Basically, if there is any kind of perceived emotion involved, your ‘go to’ needs to be Classical Conditioning, not Operant.
This is because, as my meme states, Classical or Respondent Conditioning involves how our horses feel and react (without thinking/instinctively) to things.
Whereas Operant Conditioning, as the name suggests, is how we operate on our environment. We (hopefully) have choices and control over outcomes, we behave in a certain way based on our learning history and preferences and we manipulate either our behaviour or the environment, for valued outcomes or to avoid aversive outcomes.
Therefore, if we want to help a horse with something they are concerned about, we don’t get out our target stick or our mat, we sit down and work out a Systematic Desensitisation and Counter Conditioning (SD/CC) plan.
Classical Conditioning is also about the pairing of stimuli. As I’ve said in previous posts, there is always Skinner on one shoulder and Pavlov on the other. Therefore, whilst we may be actively training a behaviour via Positive Reinforcement (Operant Conditioning), there is always a Classical component. This could be the pairing that we have worked on whereby the click = food, or the prompt to get the behaviour is then paired with a cue, or simply that repeated positive emotional experiences in the training means that we ourselves have been paired and coloured with Pavlov’s brush, to become a walking talking appetitive stimulus to our horses.
The danger of using Operant Conditioning for things the horse is scared, worried or previously traumatised by, is that we create Approach Avoidance Conflict. This means that although we are trying to get behaviour, we have forgotten that we need the horse to FEEL ok about the thing. It is less about *doing* and more about how they *feel* about the thing.
I can see how people become unstuck with this, because it’s easier to *do* than to see how the animal feels. That can take a lot of skill and also to take the time it takes for our horses to feel ok. Behaviour shows results, feeling better about something can be much less tangible to many people. We need to hone our observation skills to be able to see when our horses are worried about something and when they feel better about something, rather than see when they are doing something.
I’ll share a link about Approach Avoidance Conflict, but bear in mind that it is written in relation to humans, who have much more choice and control than animals. It basically means that there is a conflict between what is scary to the animal and what they can gain or the human is offering for them to approach the scary thing ie. “click and treat” for approaching the scary (or potentially scary) thing. Rather, we can feed for only just noticing the thing, staying under threshold and progressing in teeny tiny steps.
Operant Conditioning is for modifying/training behaviour when the horse feels safe, has their needs met and has no problems or issues whatsoever with everything in their environment and that we ask them to interact with during training. Classical Conditioning (SD/CC) is for changing how the horse feels, helping them cope with stimuli and pairing stimuli.
Finally, we can change an emotional response during a R+ training session. But it takes careful and mindful shaping, allowing the horse choice and control over reinforcers and most importantly teeny tiny approximations, much like we would do in a SD/CC program. We don’t say to the horse, “do this and you get that”, instead we say, “here’s some food no matter what you decide and if you decide to offer more, great, here’s even more food”. In this way we can avoid the Approach Avoidance Conflict, because they get something of value to them and the freedom to choose, no matter what they decide. But it’s an extremely fine line to walk.
Here’s an example of where we are shaping behaviour, but allowing room for the horse to go at their own pace, choose what they want to do (or not) and have no restraint (or compulsion) if they choose to do something or not. There is also other reinforcement available literally at their feet (grass). We are not offering a target to entice them towards the scary thing, in order to get the food, we are asking a question, whilst being super generous with the food.
Much like “force free” is part of the philosophy and mindset I embrace as a trainer, Errorless Learning is as well. It’s part of my overall approach to training and is always my AIM, much as force free is my AIM as well.
Catchphrases are great, but often don’t explain or operationalise what that means and looks like in real life to people starting out. A good example is simply wearing your food pouch on the opposite side of your horse when training and switching it over when you switch sides. This is less important for an experienced horse, but when starting out, it’s essential to “setting your horse up for success”. We do this to prevent unwanted behaviour and avoid tempting the horse by having the food pouch close by or right under their nose, which makes it so much more tempting to try to help themselves, if we are a bit slow.
For me, similar to my post about an attitude of generosity with the food “click them for being a horse”, I want to set my horses up to not only enjoy the training, but to feel successful and avoid frustration.
Traditional aversive training methods use trial and error learning and there’s science that shows that repeating and practicing errors means we do more of them.
I love that yet again R+ training is the opposite, in that we use our skill as trainers and shapers, to arrange the environment, the antecedents, etc to make it as clear as we can to the horse, what the first approximation towards the goal behaviour may be.
Some good questions to ask yourself before and during a training session are:-
“Are my expectations of my horse too high?”
“Does my horse really know what to do?”
“Can I use some non aversive prompts to make the next approximation clearer?”
“Is the environmental arrangement helping my horse?”
“Does my horse feel comfortable, safe and “confident”?”
I have some great quotes about Shaping and Errorless Learning, that may help explain the overall concept, attitude and most importantly, that there is science behind this approach. An Errorless Learning mindset makes training more successful and effective.
“In [Skinner’s] system, errors are not necessary for learning to occur. Errors are not a function of learning or vice-versa nor are they blamed on the learner. Errors are a function of poor analysis of behavior, a poorly designed shaping program, moving too fast from step to step in the program, and the lack of the prerequisite behavior necessary for success in the program.” (Rosales-Ruiz)
“We also know that what makes possible the exclusive use of positive reinforcement is the program. Every time that we find ourselves correcting or waiting too long for the response it is time to reconsider the shaping program.” (Rosales-Ruiz)
Some people may think the Paddock Paradise or track system concept is anti grass and anti grazing. It’s true that some horses just cannot tolerate grass, but there are many horses who just cannot tolerate grazing modern improved pastures. Therefore, we can work towards safer grasses and more diversity and allow dormant native seed to sprout.
Overstocking is a common problem on agistment/boarding as well and also on small horse properties. We get a bit greedy with how many horses we want to squeeze on to small acreage. Private paddocking rather than herd living tends to create high intensity grazing with no rest for the pasture. Whereas keeping horses in a herd, on a PP, means we can rest and rotate paddocks.
There’s something really beautiful about letting pasture grow, mature, develop seed and reproduce and watch the whole cycle start again through the seasons.
We build diversity in plant life, healthy soil through attracting bugs and microbes that live and feed off the humous and we crowd out invasive weeds. Plant debris that falls to the ground creates a layer that traps moisture and creates its own little micro climate.
We slash regularly in spring, which encourages even more growth. This also contributes to organic matter to build up the soil profile and support all the little organisms living in the soil, that make it healthy for the plants and grasses.
Even if you don’t get a lot of native species growing straight away, many introduced species can be lower in sugar and starch and safe to graze during certain times of the year, when rapid growth has finished.
You can also be providing homes and protection from predators for various native pollinators, insects, small animals and we even have visits from turtles.
There is a 3.3.3 rule that applies to rescue dogs and I thought that we need something similar for horses. Obviously the ideal would be that horses are not continually changing homes, but the reality is very different. Therefore I feel that it needs to be acknowledged and recognised what a traumatic experience moving homes is for horses, so that we can make the best out of a bad situation for the horse. The source of this concept is from Dr Patricia McConnell and Dr Karen London, in their book, Love Has No Age Limit, Welcoming an Adopted Dog into Your Home.
I love this concept and I feel this can equally be applied to horses and probably many other pets and animals. I would go so far as to say that horses would need a lot more time than some dogs, but it’s most definitely meant to be a guide, not a rule and needs to be adjusted accordingly for the individual.
When a horse changes homes, it’s important to remember that this will be one of the most stressful events in their life. Just as it is recognised that moving is one of the most stressful things a human can experience, it is even more so for our horses.
This is because they have no warning, no preparation, no choice, it happens suddenly and worse, usually everything that is familiar to them is gone forever.
This can be completely de-stabilising, disorienting and quite frightening. It’s amazing most horses handle it as well as they do.
Imagine a complete change in diet, everything from the grass you eat, the taste and smell of the water, the hay and hard feed are different, the containers you eat out of look and smell different and if you had to protect your food from being taken away or stolen by other horses or animals. Imagine then experiencing digestive upset, cramps or you have trouble eating the food because it tastes so strange from what you are used to, or just tastes really bad.
What if you came from a small handkerchief sized paddock with just dirt and were thrown into a vast expanse of grass and trees and water and hills, or vice versa, it could be so overwhelming. What if you lived in a herd with plenty of room to run and was forcibly moved to life in a stable or stall. Everything would sound different, the wind, birds and other animals, machinery, traffic and even surrounding human sounds. What if there were obstacles in the paddock you’d never encountered before, what if you hurt yourself.
Imagine leaving all your friends behind, forever. You probably don’t know what a family is, having a mother and father or siblings or aunties and uncles. This is because you were suddenly removed from your mother and lived your whole life with strange horses and tried to get along as best you could. Some of them acted quite strangely, were over friendly, or aggressive, some were calm and some were fun, so you got by the best you were able.
Imagine starting afresh where you don’t know anyone and they don’t know you and you were desperately missing all that you left behind. What if you happily lived in a big herd of friendly horses and then found yourself all alone, not even another (strange) horse in sight. What if you’d resigned yourself to living alone, was pretty depressed about it, but got food and water regularly and were then thrown into a herd of completely strange horses. A herd who all knew each other and had their friends and knew where they fit and didn’t particularly appreciate you being thrown in the middle of their settled and organised herd.
Then there is this strange human who wants to interact with you, touch you, brush you, put gear on you and ride you. How very unsettling and scary would that be, especially when they seem to speak a completely different language with their bodies and their gear, compared to the previous human you had known.
Think about it for a moment, what we do to horses and what we expect from them.
We can’t “train liberty”, because liberty is a state of being, with choices, control and freedom to express and to leave.
Liberty:- The quality or state of being free: – the power to do as one pleases – freedom from physical restraint – freedom from arbitrary or despotic control – the positive enjoyment of various social, political or economic rights and privileges – the power of choice (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
This is Seymour’s story, so far. I’ve known him for about a year and a half, but I don’t know much about Seymour’s life before he came to me. I met Seymour briefly in his paddock with his friend Dorothy and talked with their owner briefly. The 2 donkeys desperately needed help, especially with their long overgrown hooves.
Once I decided to bring Seymour and Dorothy home with me, getting them on the trailer was traumatic for everyone involved, most especially for Seymour and Dorothy. It was hot, humid and we were all sweating and exhausted by the time they were on board the trailer. Rather dramatically, we drove through a big storm and arrived at my place to flooding rain and torrents of water running across the ground.
We walked 2 shaking, sweaty, shocked and now drenched donkeys to their new paddock. They refused to cross any of the rivers created by the storm, so we had to keep backtracking until we could find a safe way forward. Dorothy kept stopping and would not budge and we would change direction to get her going again. Seymour seemed to walk much better than Dorothy, but he was shaking like a leaf, no doubt still in shock.
We finally got them safely into their paddock and made sure they had lots of hay. We showed them where their water was and had to leave them to deal with our flooded home.
Over the days, they seemed to settle. They lay down and rested a lot, which I assume was their way of coping with the shock of the move and how they got there. But they were eating well and really enjoyed the branches and weeds I picked for them.
Seymour and Dorothy sharing some weeds and overgrown herbs from our garden
I already had a plan etched out in my mind and I started to enact it from day one. This was because I had seen how Seymour and Dorothy behaved in their old home, how difficult it was to catch and halter them, particularly Seymour. The owners had to creep up and throw a rope over his neck and when he froze, they forced his halter on.
The plan was that I would arrive, bring nice hay and greens that I had foraged, check their water, pick up manure and leave. I would call out gaily to them “helloo!” every time. I didn’t expect them to do anything for the food and I consistently ignored them and went about my business.
At first, if they were nearby, they would scoot away and wait until I had left before enjoying my food gifts. After a while they started pricking their big gorgeous donkey ears when I called out gaily, but stood cautiously at a distance when I brought their hay and other surprises. It didn’t take long before they were waiting at the gate when they heard me coming, but still scooted away to give me room.
I started to note that Dorothy appeared much less scared than Seymour and it didn’t take her long to creep closer and closer when I brought their hay. Eventually she was brave enough to stay at the gate and even block my entrance in her enthusiasm to get to the food I’d brought. Seymour always stood well back and scurried away when I moved around casually, doing the same thing that I did every day.
Dorothy “talking” excitedly to me when I arrived!
In Dorothy’s enthusiasm for the food, I started to get to know her, was able to hand feed her and eventually touch her. I found out very quickly that she loves scratches and was not shy in coming forward and asking for them. Seymour always stayed back and watched from a distance.
It took some time, but eventually Seymour started coming forward as well and he would carefully take branches from me at a safe distance. With even more time, he started to take food from my hand. But he was very frightened and head shy and any kind of movement on my part would send him scuttling away.
I continued to be predictable, consistent in my routine, always brought them nice things to eat and moved slowly around them.
Eventually I got to a stage where I could hand feed them both and started to train them to touch their nose to my hand in a formal training session. Once I started doing this, they both became very enthusiastic to participate and there was also a fair amount of bickering and resource guarding. I set up a barrier for Protected Contact to keep myself safe, but I could also move them a little further away from each other as well, using the nose target to direct them.
Seymour and Dorothy learning about nose targeting via Positive Reinforcement training
It became apparent very quickly that Seymour was massively head/ear shy. My hand or arm movements caused him to flinch uncontrollably and repeatedly. It was very distressing to watch and at times made it quite hard to train him, as I needed to move and offer a nose target to begin with and had to do it all in slow motion. Now that he was closer, I could see how truly overgrown his hooves were. I could also see that his legs were covered in bleeding sores from repeated fly bites. But the good news was that he wasn’t running away anymore and was quite enthusiastic about training with food.
Seymour flinching
Now the real journey with Seymour could begin.
I started training him to move towards a rope – something that also really frightened him. But my training always allows him to do as much as he feels comfortable. Having that control and the clarity of this type of training, meant it wasn’t long before he then poked his nose into a loop of rope and then later, into a large sized halter. Despite being head and ear shy and also being very afraid of ropes, he made great progress. He did so well that he came to love his halter and he would come when I jingled it.
Slowly but surely the flinching and twitching of his head started to subside. I deliberately didn’t set out to cure him of his fear around his head and ears. Instead, every single time he chose to move towards my hand and arms holding out the halter, he chose to brush against me, including his beautiful big soft ears. Every time that happened, his behaviour got reinforced with food, as well as being able to control how much or how little he chose to offer. His fear was also countered with pleasure from the food.
In contrast to his friend Dorothy, he nearly always remained quiet, wary, even suspicious. I was not allowed to touch him unless it was within a training session and the most interaction he would offer me was to sniff my hand. Yet he made great and consistent progress in his training. Ducking his head in his halter, then adding the lead rope, then using the target to shape forward movement, transferring the walk cue to the lead rope and also walking at liberty. We worked on touch acceptance all over his body, beginning with a soft duster for the harder to reach places and my hand for his neck and body. I shaped him to step up on a mat and then later on a raised pedestal. Then I systematically desensitized (SD) and counter conditioned (CC) him to my looking down at his feet, bending down and then finally touching his legs and feet. I could not even take photos of his feet in those early days. I worked within his comfort zone, below his fear threshold and paired every tiny touch and step with food. Finally, I could start shaping hoof lifts!
It was an extremely long and sometimes frustrating process, with many set backs along the way. First of all I had to SD and CC everything! Myself, my movement, my tools, such as the duster, the look, the smell, the touch of it. Using the duster as a nose target and also methodically touching, stroking, tapping, poking him (simulating what might happen during a trim) and working my way all over his body. I conditioned myself, the duster, my hand and their touch as an appetitive stimulus, it only ever meant good things happening, ever.
I ensured I was able to touch him all over with the duster and also with my hand and that he was comfortable with various kinds of touches. The next step was that I would then touch and pause either with the duster or my hand and click and reinforce any weight shift or movement. I merely paused my touch, asked a question, left a little space for him to insert some kind of behaviour and when he did, I marked it with a click and reinforced it with food. I flipped things around so that I encouraged him to move and offer behaviour that I could reinforce with food.
I shaped his hoof lifts from that first small weight shift. Finally, when he was reliably lifting his hoof, I added the cue. The lightest touch of my hand on his shoulder and then lightly running my hand down his leg, became a cue for him to lift his hoof. There was no pressure, no pinching or squeezing, I asked and he offered. If he wanted to or was scared enough, he could have kicked me in the head, but he didn’t, because I never pressured or caused him discomfort or held on to the hoof.
What he learnt to do as well, was communicate with me and I listened. Whenever I asked too much, he would let me know. From a full on kick out with the back hoof, he graduated down to slowly lifting his back foot to let me know I was asking more than he was ready to give. We went back and forth, we had a conversation and a negotiation. He also offered me a Start Button very early in the training. This is a signal he gives me when he is ready for the next repetition in the training. Starting with a very big nod of his head where his nose nearly touched the ground, he now gives me a barely perceptible nod. It has been immeasurably useful in the trimming process. My trimmer watches for his head nod, which gives her the green light to proceed each time. It’s truly amazing that I can enjoy such a dialogue between Seymour, myself and also others involved in his care. Seymour had his first trim of just the one front hoof, 9 months after his arrival.
I would also spend time sitting in the paddock with both of them on a little stool I sometimes used for training. It was really pleasurable and soothing watching them eat, roll, bicker, snooze and on the rare occasion, even play. There is something about donkeys that is truly good for your heart, I always walked away from my time spent with them, feeling lighter.
Dorothy was quite confident in coming up to me and sniffing me and requesting scratches. Seymour stayed back most of the time, except a few brief times he came up and stood quietly resting companionably next to me, at a distance. Once he came close enough to sniff me very gently and carefully and brush me with his whiskers. Another time I dared to touch him and instead of moving away, he positioned himself where he wanted to be scratched, which was behind his elbow. That was a rare treat indeed for both of us. I glowed afterward with the sheer thrill that he felt safe enough to stand so close to me and let me scratch him.
Seymour carefully and bravely sniffing my leg
Fast forward and Seymour and I recently passed a couple of huge milestones in his training and care. I did enough training to prepare him to have his teeth floated by a mobile dental vet. He needed to feel comfortable being haltered and tied, have strangers moving around and near him and after lots of practice on my agility course, he walked voluntarily into the mobile crush. It turns out he’s quite needle phobic and we were unable to sedate him in the crush. We had to quickly release him as he was panicking and trying to escape and could easily hurt himself. A change of plan meant I set up a training session where I could introduce the vet touching him, introduce the needle and eventually have him sedated in his neck muscle. Finally, he could have his teeth floated and vaccinations given and this happened 15 months after arriving at my place. He reacted very strongly to the vaccination needle as well, even while he was still sedated. But I successfully trained and gave him his follow up booster vaccination injection myself weeks later. I also successfully trained him to lift all 4 hooves willingly and voluntarily and hold them up with enough duration for me to clean them. He’s also offered to lift his hooves for my trimmer and allowed her to trim all 4 hooves. Finally the last back hoof was trimmed 1.5 years after Seymour came to me. He lifted them gently, knowingly and willingly for my trimmer, with me providing a continuous flow of food and encouragement, with a tiny joyful tear of relief in my eye.
I’ve succeeded in training amazing and life changing behaviours that enable Seymour to participate in his own care. But he is still an enigma.
He’s learnt to feel relatively safe, to trust my consistency and predictability, to have control, by being listened to when he ‘talks’ with his subtle behaviour. He’s learnt to gradually de-escalate the way he communicates, because he knows he has a voice. He’s slowly learning to be curious, to be bossy at times to Dorothy and even sometimes initiate interaction with me. He’s learnt that not all people are scary or need to be chased out of his paddock. But he still needs more time to really like people, even me.
It’s hard not to take it personally when he doesn’t want to interact, accept affection or be touched, or even vocalise and speak to me. But I understand that all the things I’ve trained him to do, are of no value to him. He doesn’t understand that he needs his teeth floated, his hooves trimmed regularly or his eyes cleaned. That’s of no value to him.
But he does value all the food I give him to counter his fear and reinforce his participation. I’m a patient person and he’s a donkey who deserves that and more. He’s given me so much, the skills and experience I’ve gained in his training has been life changing for me, as well as him. The pleasure and satisfaction I’ve gained in seeing him transform physically has been hugely rewarding and reinforcing. I’ve also made a very special friend.
I cannot wait to see his transformation mentally and emotionally as well, when he truly believes all people and all things are good and wonderful. That life is wondrous and also, I hope, pain free. When I get to meet the real Seymour waiting quietly, or maybe not so quietly, beneath the layers of literally years worth of fear and pain.
I cannot wait to see when he can choose to interact without suspicion or fear. When he can show his enthusiasm and love for training, without scaring himself. When he feels safe enough to ask for scratches and show me where he wants them, with no fear of the consequences.
When I can show him how much I love him, without scaring him away.
But maybe I’ve already shown him and now all he needs is time to heal and then he can reveal his own heart.
