Working with Amigo has consumed at least three hours of my day this past week -- usually an hour in the early morning, and another two after dinner. Spending that much time together allows me to build a unique relationship with this horse, who has never trusted a human before. To clarify, he's also never had reason to need to trust a human, or even to have a relationship with one. He ran with his herd; humans were peripheral to his real life. Only when gathered did he interact with people, and in those cases, he worked to protect himself.
There are several ways I am building trust between Amigo and me:
* The most basic way is by feeding him enough food; Amigo has discovered that he likes grain! He is still not a healthy weight, although we can see a positive change. Some trainers would not feed as much as I am; a weakened horse is not as likely to buck, and is therefore easier to "break." However, those horses are never truly gentle, because they never have a foundation of trust that allows them to develop a working partnership with humans.
* Each time Amigo encounters a new obstacle, sight, sound, feeling, I am giving him time to think about it and process it. For example, one evening I spent nearly an hour leading him around our enclosed yard and onto our wooden deck. The sound of his hooves hitting the wooden boards was not something Amigo had encountered before; he needed time to smell the boards, to place his feet, to hear the "clop." I kept firm pressure on the lead line, communicating through it what I expected him to do, but I never forced or used violence to accomplish that. Instead, I released the pressure any time he made a move in the direction I wanted him to go -- it was therefore a dance between pressure and release, the release becoming Amigo's reward. Once he had stepped up onto the deck, I further rewarded him with physical contact and words; then we repeated the exercise over and over, gradually increasing the difficulty.
* Amigo's day has begun to take on a shape that he remembers. We start with round pen work in the early morning; I have been able this week to saddle him, and so after we work, he stands in the barn, saddled, while he eats his grain. Standing in a stall exposes him to all types of new stimuli, from baby kittens darting between his feet, to dogs barking, to people walking in and out. While we people attempt to use soft voices and no startling movements, the animals do not. Amigo is therefore being desensitized to sights and sounds that do resemble the unexpected things that can happen when I eventually ride him outside a pen. This desensitization, plus the structure of a daily routine that is becoming familiar, help Amigo to learn that the world here is not such a scary place.
* Besides developing a partnership with me, Amigo is learning to rely on the mare I use to train him. She is calm enough that he can look to her for reassurance; yet, as in the wild, she will nip at him when he is not behaving as he should. This type of relationship is undoubtedly quite familiar to Amigo, even if the mare isn't.
It may seem that I am spending a lot of time working with this horse before actually attempting to ride him; that will come. I believe the foundation of trust is critical, and so I believe this time is well-spent. If this were a domestically-raised horse, accustomed to human interaction and the sights and sounds of the human world, I could move at a much faster pace. I don't want to frighten this horse, nor over-stimulate his mind. Fear teaches nothing -- for horse or human. The horse will still respect me, but his respect will not be based on fear of my punishments. By taking the time Amigo needs to learn to trust me and this new world, I am giving him the ability to become a gentle, useful, working horse. I am giving him a chance.
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