While we can’t know what our horse is feeling, we do know that there are a lot of biological similarities that allow us to make educated assumptions in what might be going on in our horses.

As the science delves deeper in to the brain and nervous system functions, we start to understand what a lot of equestrians have already known. Horses are incredibly emotional animals. Ratio wise the emotional center of the brain is larger in horses than humans, compared to the rational, thinking, problem solving part. So if anything horses are more emotional.

An industry peer 18 years ago told me horses can’t be sad because they don’t cry.

But horses have the same neurochemicals and limbic pathways for sadness that humans have. They have serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin. The pathways for some emotions are incredibly complex but some of our basics are easily covered and the horses have these hormones, neurotransmitters and neural pathways so its easy to see that they would experience emotions like sadness like we do.

The state of being shut down is a self preservation mechanism for mammals feeling threatened. It is a dampening of the nervous system for when fight or flight hasn’t worked. The brain perceives a threat and the nervous system responds unconsciously to that threat to increase the chance of survival. #triggered

You would likely recognise this experience in yourself. The cortisol surge when a driver dangerously cuts you off in traffic sends tingles down your hands. Going on a holiday and feeling the tension melt out of your body as you escape the stress of the daily to dos. Being confronted by your boss and somebody that is cause intimidation and feeling your anger seethe under the surface or you tune out and go to your happy place. Our survival instincts are just that instinctive, reactive and primed to fight, run or shut down.

People who have experience severe trauma will have these survival modes previously wired in to their body during the trauma triggered just by smells, noises, colours, sights.

So why is this relevant to horse training?

1.      Horses are prey animals and we are predators. Natural law suggests that they should be scared of us and feel threatened and intimidated.

2.      We are in control of everything that happens to our horses. Where they live, how they live, who they live with, when they eat, what they eat, whether they eat, whether their needs are met and their ailments treated. We are in the position of power.

And whilst you might be saying “of course all my horses needs are met! They are well cared for, I couldn’t stand anything bad to happen to them,”, this might not have been their experience their whole life and that doesn’t innately give you permission to ride them and freedom to make them do whatever you want.

Think about that in terms of people. The husband goes to work and provides the finances and food to meet the basic needs of the family while the wife stays home. Does that give him the permission and freedom to do whatever he wants to his wife? Use positive punishment if he resists her? Of course not. So why do we want our relationship dynamic with our horse to look like this!?!?

Of course it is frustrating when we do ALL THE THINGS for our horse and then we ask them what they want to do and they say hang out in the paddock with my mates and eat grass but that just means we need to think more outside the box on how we can motivate and engage our horse to participate in the work with us.

And this is where shut down in training really becomes important. Is your horse shut down or is their social engagement system online?

Now this is the trick right. We spoke about how shut down is feeling threatened well the social engagement system is a feeling of connectedness. You go out to dinner with friends, you relax and connect. You go to coffee for a catch up with a friend from high school, you relax and connect. You dance with your children, you relax and connect. This is the social engagement system coming on line.

See the branch of the nervous system responsible for protecting you when you feel unsafe and threatened also makes you more approachable and warming and feel safe to others. But the social engagement system doesn’t come on line with the person that makes you feel threatened. The fight, flight or freeze part does.

So who do you want to be to your horse?

• The person that provides and expects in return?

• Or the friend that genuinely is excited to see you?

We kind of end up in the “parent territory” where we can relax, connect and engage with our horses but are also able to set boundaries, expectations, follow through on our ask and give direction because sometimes our horses don’t make great choices for us (cue running across a highway on a trail ride to escape a plastic bag or running through a fence to escape a kangaroo. Most of our horses bad choices include running of some sort)

When we talk about shut down in horses we are talking about submitting to power.

• “Push your horse into it, make them down”

• “Let them know who is boss”

• “They’re just taking the piss, don’t let them get away with it”

And while, as we said, boundaries, expectations, being able to give direction and follow through on the ask is important, what is more important is what tools we are using to communicate this and how our horses nervous system is responding to the ask.

What to look for in a horse that is shutting down

• Wouldn’t give you eye contact

• Braces against your touch

• Doesn’t respond to your cue or practically leaps out of their skin to respond to the cue

• Seems like the perfect bomb proof horse until the buck or bolt out of nowhere.

• There eyes don’t follow you and look for you when you move around

• They don’t approach you, you have to go to them

• They hold tension in their body when they are around you, there is no relaxation cues of the whiskers twitching, gentle tail swishing our shaking out the head and ears.

All these signs indicate a horse that has given up trying to communicate to their human and are prepared to just tolerate what happens to them.

It doesn’t end here though…

• Our shut down horse can only stay shut down for so much. When the fear comes too great our they are starting to connect they come out of shut down and feel the fear and/or pain they have been avoiding and then the behaviour can become explosive and feel like its come out of nowhere. Every ask they have submitted to, everything they have felt before shutting down is no back on the table. We call this emotional unpacking and we have to work with the horse to reshape how they experience humans and training.
  
  We can rewire their brain and their nervous system to experience their training positively. As something that is fun and makes them feel good. This is what we do in our holistic horse handling program.
  
  Are humans the threat? Are you the threat?

• Compassionate leadership? Are you comfortable giving direction, are you someone your horse wants to take direction from?

• Communication. Are you communicating clearly, do you and your horse understand that the training tools are for communication not control, submission or punishing behaviour?

• Emotional agility. Recognising our horses have emotional responses to our ask and shaping out a positive emotional response to the cue.

We don’t want to work with horses that are shut down

Working with horses that are shut down is unpredictable. You never know what is going to be their tipping point. You can’t see in their body language whether they are relaxed and accepting or just in a dissociative state.

A lot of trainers prefer to work with horses by shutting them down. They see horses that are shut down as good horses. These kind of trainers are scared of horses that are comfortable expressing their likes and dislikes and show emotion because they rule with an iron fist mostly horses won’t like them but learn to obey.

It can be one thing to work with a horse and trust them because they are too scared to say anything but yes and to work with a horse that is comfortable negotiating how they would like to be worked with. In the second instance we have to be flexible and adaptive, understand our horse on a deep intuitive level. Present the ask as something they will enjoy doing. In the first instance, the horse will still do it but not like it and not want to.

When we are reading the body language and tensions our horse is holding, if they are saying no to everything but doing it for fear of retribution it is really hard to see the escalation towards the big dangerous behaviours. Our horses are already mentally there, it just takes one thing to tip them over. When we work with our horse as a team, they are allowed to tell us what they like and don’t like and it’s a lot easier to see the tension building in their body language because they started out feeling so safe and relaxed with us.

Lets take a standard natural horsemanship practice of desensitisation:

Conflicted trainer:
Takes the scary object waves it all around and touches and even hits them with the scary object and when the horse stands still they remove it. Repeat until the horse stands still.

Horse:
Scary object is being swung around their body. Nervous system unconsciously perceives the threat and reacts. Horse spooks and tries to get away and can’t. So stands still and the scary object goes away.
Scary object returns. Nervous system unconsciously perceives the threat. Problem solving kicks in and remembers that standing still made the object go away so stands still. Object goes away. Now if we’re lucky in this moment the right horse will realise that it has control of the scary object going away just by not moving. But has it learnt what to do with its fear? And do all scary things go away when you stand still?
Inevitably this horse is still tense, close to threshold, still scared, hasn’t learnt how to let go of fear out of their body and just knows that freezing is an option. Freeze is still a state of fear and feeling threatened though. We haven’t shifted them out of this nervous system state and we can’t desensitise them to every possible environmental stimulus.

Alternatively… here is option 2:

Powerfully connected horse woman:

Prior to presenting the scary object does work on establishing a deep state of relaxation with their horse and recognises their tension holding and relaxation cues.

Brings the scary object out and first invites the horse to stand with relaxation and then to curiously investigate the object they are scared of whilst paying attention to their body language cues.

Horse:

Feels a deep sense of calm, relaxation and security with their human.

Human brings out a scary object and feels fear and thinks about running but is quite relaxed so it will take a bit to get them up into flight mode.

Sees the human see their tension and stop. Again feels safe and trust and confidence in their human. The human can see their fear.

The human has invited to touch the scary thing. Feels unsure but has trust and confidence in the human and curiously reaches out to investigate.

Horse touches the scary object realises that it isn’t bad but overcoming fear is a fun game and may even feel more confident or chuffed in themselves for overcoming their fear. Knows next time it is scared to curiously investigate the scary thing and seek out the human for support and guidance.

Option 2 is the ideal scenario of avoiding causing shut down!

Option 2 is what we teach in our Holistic Horse Handling Program:

• How to get down in to a deep state of relaxation with our horses so they feel safe.

• Compassionate leadership skills so that our horse can seek us for support and direction when it doesn’t know what to do.

• Using our conditioning tools as a way to communicate to our horses that support and direction, not control them or gain submission.

• Emotional agility skills to take them out of how they are instinctively and unconsciously experiencing their environment in to an experience that is more conducive to have safe horses that know how to look after their rider.

If that is the type of horse you want to work with, and the type of person you want to be, click the button below to learn more about joining the program and what’s inside.