I think
that this discussion we're about to have regarding "baby behavior" may be one
of the most oft-repeated topics at my clinics. It seems to me that most horse
owners are unaware of how the horse is basically designed to move from babyhood
to adulthood and the affect that can have on training and horse/human
relationships.
Understanding
how baby behavior works in horses is really important for a horseman, I think.
The great thing about baby behavior is that it is not a permanent character
fault and does not mean that a horse is a "bad" horse in any way. He's just
hanging onto some baby behavior. Horses who are hanging on to baby behavior are
often called "disrespectful" or are said to "have an attitude" or to be "lazy"
or "unpredictable" or "fun loving". If it's baby behavior, it doesn't have to
be permanent.
So let's
start at the beginning. Horses are herd animals. Left to their own devices,
they'll live in groups, and in their world, the community is more important
than the individual. This is unlike humans, especially here in America, where
we tend to value the individual over the community. It's shocking to us that a
feral stallion would kill an ailing or weak baby horse so that the mare would
leave it and the group could move on to feed or water or safety together. I
think this can be a very fundamental misunderstanding between people and
horses.
When a
baby horse is born, he can do whatever wants, whenever he wants, pretty much.
He can eat whenever he wants, sleep whenever he needs to and he can play however
he wants. Babies are allowed to crash into other horses, to put their feet on
other horses, to climb on their mothers. There just aren't a lot of rules,
boundaries or limitations early on. Being a baby is great!
So here
we have this baby horse who is just having a bang-up time getting into all
kinds of cute mischief, and he is mostly being tolerated by those adult horses
around him. In a wild or feral horse herd, this would all change at about a
year old or when the mother chose to wean her baby. Right then, the baby would
become a member of the herd, a grown-up with grown-up responsibilities. In a
herd, this transition is done very quickly and with very little drama.
The herd
(community) would show the new grown-up horse how to become a functioning member
of the herd. He would learn about boundaries. He would fit into a slot in the
herd hierarchy and would then be expected to yield to the horses above him in
the hierarchy. He would be expected to eat when the others ate, drink when the
others drank and to not draw the attention of predators to the group. If he
became a liability to the community, he could be ostracized or killed.
The
grown-up horse who functions in a community understands how to take direction
from others. He feels good about taking direction, and he follows well. He
yields when he's asked to yield and does not draw undue attention to himself
with flamboyant or irresponsible behavior. He fits in and blends in.
It is
important to understand that the baby horse is supposed to become a grown-up in
order to survive. But he is not equipped to do that transition on his own. He
is designed to be grown up by the community, by the herd, who shape, modify and
model grown up horse behavior. With horses, it does truly "take a village" to
grow a baby into an adult horse.
What does
this mean for us in a training or relationship context? Well, most of us own
domestically-bred and raised horses who were maybe born in a backyard or at a
breeding farm. If they were the product of a backyard or small-farm breeding
program it's possible that when the baby was weaned, he went by himself for a
while, and then maybe went in with one or two other horses, stayed by himself
or maybe even went back in with his mother once her milk dried up. If the baby
grew up on a big breeding farm, he might have gone into "the weanling field"
with all that year's weanlings. Then it would become "the yearling field" and
then "the two-year old field".
In
neither of these common domestic models is the family unit intact nor is there
a sizeable community available to teach, shape and model adult horse behavior
to the weanling or young horse.
The
upshot of this situation is that by the time training starts, many young horses
have had few rules, boundaries, limitations or experiences of yielding their
decision making to others. They have not had their community to grow them up,
and therefore it's possible that they've just stayed babies. And in a baby's
mind, he can do whatever it wants, whenever he wants.
Horses are
experts at being horses. They are not, though, born experts at being horses
around people. That's where they need our help. In order to be safe and useful
around people, a horse needs to understand rules, boundaries, limitations and
the yielding of decision making.
What
horsemen tend to see is a lot of young horses with baby behavior. It's worth
mentioning that even young horses should be checked for physical issues ,
saddle fit and teeth trouble (a given with young horses!). We don't want to
mistake pain, stiffness or discomfort for baby behavior. Baby behavior can look
similar to any of the following, among others:
*Extreme
curiosity and desire to go see/touch/mouth interesting things.
*Pushiness, lack of personal boundaries with people, "poor ground manners"
*Nipping/mouthing/chewing on people's belongings
*"Emotional" behavior or reactions, "drama"
*Frustration in the form of head shaking, foot stomping, kicking out
*Extreme distractibility, "ADHD"
*Inability to take direction without frustration
*Making seemingly arbitrary executive decisions about speed, direction, etc
* Sometimes absolute refusal of requests
*In extreme cases, aggression toward people
So what
can we do to help a horse with baby behavior? If you ever get a chance to watch
a herd (7 or more horses, in my opinion) in action, take it. Watch how they
give each other direction and what behavior they see as acceptable and not.
Watch a horse ask permission to eat or drink or be in a space.
If you
can't do that, understand that as long as you have a picture of how a grown up
horse is supposed to behave and operate around people, you can start to shape
baby behavior. A lot of dealing with baby behavior is about showing the baby
horse how a grown up horse would do it. "This is how we're going to need you to
do that," will become a familiar refrain. Since a baby doesn't have any idea of
what the finished product is supposed to look like, it's not necessarily useful
for him to have a lot of creative input. Leave that to the well-broke, grown-up
horse.
We have
to remember that the "baby horse" can be any age - even in his teens or
twenties. They can just go through life like that if the village never shows up
to grow them up. Also remember that the adult horse is in there, and it wants
to come out. But again, the village needs to show up. The baby horse raised
with no role models or direction from a community has no picture, nothing to
shoot for and no idea how to be different.
Some
babies will really struggle to stay babies, and it seems like it's hard on them
to leave the baby behavior behind. I think that in the horse world, this
transition isn't very hard for horses emotionally, as the herd is very
unemotional, absolutely consistent and direct about it. They do it early,
usually around yearling time. I think we people are not nearly as unemotional,
consistent, direct or early about it. We think baby behavior is "cute" or shows
"personality" or "creativity". We think the horse, like a human teenager, will
seethe with self-righteous indignation at being asked to yield decision-making.
We think we're taking the joy of childhood from the horse.
The
horses I tend to see who are struggling with baby behavior are not happy,
joyful horses. They are often confused, unsettled and generally stressed
horses. They don't know where to be or how to do the things grown up horses
need to do in a world filled with humans. They want direction and help growing
up. They want the skills that will enable them to negotiate their way through
the human world they live in. It's our job as I see it, since we put them in
this world, is to give them the tools to operate safely and usefully in it.
