I’ve been tossing this subject around in my head for quite a while now. It’s a delicate subject, as there’s a fine line between a couple of different factors. One, is trying to avoid blame and shame, because I really don’t find that helpful or productive and we simply don’t know what we don’t know, I was there once myself. Two, is trying not to sound superior or ‘holier than thou’ (been accused of that a few times) or nasty, if I suggest that people who loved their animals were actually mistreating them from the animal’s perspective and from my own force free ethos. I don’t think that way, to be nasty, because what has happened in the past can’t be changed, I’m thinking about it from the equine’s point of view. Thirdly, not adequately describing and representing both sides of this story and of course, people are going to think what they think, I can’t control that. Worse, they will feel attacked, which is not my aim. I want to expose people to a different perspective, the other ‘side of the coin’, as it were and let them sit with it and really think about it, because I know most people really love their animals and want the best for them.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot more recently, as I’ve had quite a few instances where I’ve been asked questions about my horses and particularly my donkeys. Just recently I had another similar question about my newest mini donkey. Vets, visitors and people on fb, want to know if they are rescued and/or have been mistreated. Although seemingly simple questions, the answer is really complex and depends mostly on your perspective.
I feel the answer depends on how you view and train your equines. What ‘side of the coin’ training wise, you reside on.
In the ‘traditional’ horse and donkey world, Negative Reinforcement (R-) (pressure/release), restraint, flooding and Punishment is commonly used. More often than not, unwanted or problematic behaviour is blamed on the equine, that’s the culture, that’s what ‘everyone’ will assure you. Conveniently, it also lets the human off the hook as to the cause of unwanted behaviour, but it also makes it hard to find solutions. Worse, many people don’t understand how to use R- effectively and there can be some hit and miss approaches to handling and training. Miraculously the equines seem to figure it out some of the time. Sadly, there are also equines who are unfortunate enough to end up in homes where there is little knowledge, skill, resources or time to do much or any handling or training of their animals.
When an equine has little to no handling, training or education, it’s a recipe for disaster, they have not been set up to succeed in their life. Unfortunately this happens a lot. To multiply the complexity of the problem, if they have been frightened or hurt or both, through poor or unskilled handling, it makes matters even worse. There are many many equines out there that cannot be caught, handled and their basic health care ends up being neglected. You may be surprised how many of them are out there, because of course, no one wants to talk about these animals.
Often there are equines that’ve either never been trained properly or at all, or been really frightened or hurt by people, by accident or deliberately. Oftentimes they haven’t been trained to feel ok about what we ask them to do, just forced. If they have experienced what I would describe as routine distress by ‘traditional’ handling, training and lifestyle, what some may call “well handled” or “well broke”, the question is, have they been mistreated and need rescuing? Is it still mistreatment, if a person doesn’t know or understand the effect their treatment has on the equine? This is what I see happening with a lot of traditional horse and donkey people. They don’t know what they don’t know and some may care, and some may not and some may become very defensive. I’ve posted about Cognitive Dissonance before, as it is a common reaction.
I’m not saying all equines are traumatised by traditional training, scarred for their life and need rehabilitation. It is going to depend on the unique individual. It is not black and white and there will be degrees of discomfort, worry, fear, anxiety, shutting down, etc that the equine experiences. Some will just naturally be easier going, for want of a better word, than others, they are more optimistic. Some will experience some skilled R- training that will make things clearer for them, not fun, but clearer. It’s always going to be a “study of one”, based on each unique individual and their experiences.
But for those equines that fare less well with their treatment, but subsequently end up with a trainer such as myself, how we look at whether they’ve been “mistreated” and subsequently “rescued”, depends on your beliefs regarding handling and training, as I’ve said. If you’re happy with a compliant obedient animal and if they baulk, you are happy to follow up with some “encouragement” in the form of “pressure”, force, coercion, or punishment, you’re going to look at things differently than I do. Also, people think it’s the equine’s job or their responsibility to do as we ask, uncomplainingly, that they are here to please us.
This is the crux of the problem.
What also happens, and I’ve written about this before, is that even a seemingly compliant and willing equine in the traditional sense, goes through a physical and emotional transition, when we start listening and giving them choices and most importantly, stop forcing them. When we listen to their voice, their behaviour, we open a flood gate of emotion and behaviour. If the force free training is good, horses tend to pass through this phase fairly quickly, but for donkeys, it can be quite drawn out, as they are less trusting and what I like to call “deep thinkers”, because they are much more emotional than horses. Everything takes so much longer with a donkey.
What we start to see in their behaviour is how they truly feel and think about things. It’s a huge wake up call!!
Standing still for fly repellent in the “traditional world, is actually them shutting down and withdrawing. But when given choice, at true liberty, we see how truly frightened they are and given the opportunity, they will run away. This is because they may not have been trained to feel ok about these things, they were simply restrained while things were done to them, so they withdrew into their heads and blocked off their emotions.
Most likely a traditional horse or donkey person may not be able to differentiate between super fearful behaviour or shut down/frozen behaviour. Or worse, due to their conditioning and the general culture in the equestrian and donkey community, they laugh it off. The anger and arguments over the body language posters I’ve shared in the past, are testament to this! It may simply look like acceptance or compliance to them. I’m sure there are many people who have not even thought about their equines in this way and their behaviour. They don’t know what they don’t know.
So many people are not familiar with these concepts, so they can be quite alien and confronting. No one wants to admit they may have done things to their horse or donkey that caused long term issues for them. No one wants to admit that they may have mistreated their animal purely because they didn’t know what they didn’t know and that’s what everyone did.
We can’t blame people for not knowing what they didn’t know.
There are so many horses and donkeys out there, submitting, compliant, uncomplaining, dissociated with their faraway look or low head and “sleepy” expression.
Therefore, if they are given the opportunity of a new life, with fun, with food, with choices and control, with a voice and with joy in it, have they been rescued from mistreatment?
