Lee Pearson vs Monty Roberts

[SadKen]

I wish Lee had commented on the Ben Maher debacle instead. If he doesn't like join up, I'd love to hear his opinion on that.

In the interests of fairness I should declare that I've lately watched a lot of Jeremy Kyle due to being incapacitated, and it's possible that I'm now only entertained by a modern facsimile of gladiatorial combat. Yo mama...

 

[bakewell]

I think Lee Pearson's public persona may not have the PR gloss of some other riders. Doesn't mean in person he's any worse, just someone isn't there to press delete/ tidy up after him. From personal experience he's a very engaging and sincere guy. Then again the unusual drive and unwaivering focus that makes a professional sportsperson great may make them challenging in other everyday ways. The ones who can switch it off and on are very rare.
Does rather seem that he's citing a slightly wrong end of the stick paper though.

 

[fburton]

Many thanks for the translation, talkinghorse!

To be honest, it raises more questions for me than it answers - not necessarily a bad thing, especially if one is a scientist.

Questions like... Is noise vs no-noise important, and if so, why? Why is it so important that the horse dictates the very first move? What is the role of 'eye contact'? Is it just a coincidence that the horse shows some of the diagnostic signs of Join Up in the pressure-release protocol? What does 'licking and chewing' indicate? In what ways did Cath Henshall et al. acknowledge the responses to be different from Join Up and how do they explain them now? To what extent does the fear of being isolated/banished from the herd play a role in Join Up? Is this factor absent from the toy car scenario? How would one prove this to be the case? How does dominance (or other perceived social position) fit in? What practical differences in outcome are there between a Joined-Up horse and one that has been trained to follow by pressure and release, and how can one show that?

At least the end result has been a most productive one now that the researchers, Monty Roberts and his instructors are all learning much more by working in collaboration two years on.

Do you happen to know if anyone is planning to give an up-to-date / state-of-the-art explanation of how Join Up produces the results seen? Are there more trials planned? It would be nice to think that the science is now "done and dusted", but to my mind it clearly isn't (at least not yet in published literature).

 

[Erin]

I don't know if either Monty or Kelly responded to that article, but I believe that their methods have been compared to others using heart monitors and measures of stress, and Monty's methods were better or no worse than any other breaking methods.

But that study has plenty of flaws too....

http://epona.tv/blog/2014/october/joining-up-the-dots

 

[Casey76]

I really don't like join-up or any form of round penning. The pressure:release ratio is far too skewed to the "pressure" side of the fulcrum.

The "licking and chewing" which is said to be the signs of submission is actually a stress response, and is nothing to do with submission.

 

[TrasaM]

Using the Masterson method licking and chewing are indicators of stress / tension release in the horse. I'd imagine this is why it's one of the indicators used by MR that the horse is relaxing as would be with the head stretching down. Maybe relaxation and acceptance are better words than 'submission'

 

[Orangehorse]

Does it matter? Making a prey animal loose its fear of being ridden is going to be against nature however it is done.
The method appears to be very successful.

 

[Swirlymurphy]

In the interests of fairness I should declare that I've lately watched a lot of Jeremy Kyle due to being incapacitated, and it's possible that I'm now only entertained by a modern facsimile of gladiatorial combat. Yo mama...

I'm sorry you have been incapacitated but you have just made me laugh a lot Yo mama indeed

(hope your recovery is swift!)

 

[SadKen]

I'm sorry you have been incapacitated but you have just made me laugh a lot Yo mama indeed

(hope your recovery is swift!)

Hehe thanks! I'll be here all week

 

[talkinghorse]

Many thanks for the translation, talkinghorse!

To be honest, it raises more questions for me than it answers - not necessarily a bad thing, especially if one is a scientist.

Questions like... Is noise vs no-noise important, and if so, why?

… only in as much as you are trying to start a conversation and you don't want to have to shout. If the horse charges off bucking, you need to slow him down so that he pays attention, making a noise — by slapping the rope on your thigh perhaps — is used to move a slow horse who is paying attention, but not much notice of what you want, not to move an inattentive fast horse. You're not actually 'chasing the horse away', your aim is to move him in a controlled fashion.

Why is it so important that the horse dictates the very first move?

I see many parallels with Monty's work and mine as a classroom teacher. That first lesson with adolescents sets the scene for future lessons. I don't mention my behaviour expectations to the co–operative pupil or student. I do do it to the first one to step out of line, and I do it firmly and immediately, with as much reinforcement as it takes to get a classroom environment established in which 34 pupils can learn. That first encounter is important, for the future co–operative learning environment. The same aim is established with the horse.

So if the horse sticks with you, and pays attention to what you are doing. Moving the moment you step forwards, stopping exactly when you do, even though you have unclipped his head–collar, you can probably move on to the next step. Just as with a class of sixteen year olds, however, if you don't give them a meaningful experience from the start, their attention wanders and you have to get it back. If the horse's attention wanders, you send him off, to 'explain' that he needs to pay attention to you for the time he's in your 'classroom'.

What is the role of 'eye contact'?

I play this game every morning with next door's dog. I appear at an upstairs window, she stares intently at me, from the garden below. Dogs rarely look directly into each other’s eyes because this is considered threatening behavior. A dog who averts his gaze when you look at him is signalling that he’s submissive. She knows me, so her stare seems to be curious, not that she thinks I'm a threat, but it fascinates me how long she can keep that stare. No matter how hard I have tried, I cannot outstare her, she only stops when I am joined by a cat on the window sill, or she by her companion.

So the predator can keep eye contact for a long time and does not avert the eye contact unless the prey submits. The horse knows this, he can see your eyes on his eye, so he thinks he'd better keep moving. This doesn't mean that he thinks you're going to kill him, just that he'll keep moving, at a speed dictated by you, which conserves his energy, as he knows he can outrun most predators because he's fit, if he needs to. The eye stays on the horse in Join–Up until you invite the horse into your space.

Depending on the horse, you keep your eye on his eye, unless you want to slow down his early moving–away, in which case, you keep your gaze on him, but move it down from the eye, along his body towards his tail. The eye stays on a slow horse's eye, but you might want to speed up his flight: it is important that you can show that the horse 'needs to keep up with you' — as you're not actually moving in front of him so that he follows, you have to use noise or throw the row — never to hit him, just to speed him up as it falls behind him.

Is it just a coincidence that the horse shows some of the diagnostic signs of Join Up in the pressure-release protocol?

Not to me at all. I don't know full details of the twenty horses that they used, but I assume they were fairly normal: didn't have behaviour or health problems, had had some human contact that wasn't violent or aggressive … In such a case, horses will avoid or fight what they perceive might be a threat. Fight isn't necessary, flight is possible, they have no reason to freeze in fear. The choice they made was to move away from the car; at a steady pace, and if it slowed they slowed, and if it stopped, they stopped. So effectively the researchers seem to have used a process of advance and retreat, pressure and release, until the horses were confident enough to approach the car. Not unusual as horses have a curiosity that enables them to investigate new things, unless you scare them off.

I'm writing much of this as a bare summary relevant to what I know of the research. I think you might have heard it all presented at a conference, or maybe read the full paper two years ago, so if I'm off the mark concerning the actual protocol, please make due allowance. What it means in terms of the diagnostic signs of Join–Up is that the end result may have looked similar, but they achieved it without replicating the full and detailed process of Join–Up, they just used some of the bits. This is what Dr Andrew McLean discovered after he invited Kelly Marks and Rosie Jones–McVey to demonstrate Join–Up and explain the differences

What does 'licking and chewing' indicate?

That is a question I would dearly like answered. All I can tell you is that it always occurs at the end of a Join–Up, equally with horses that already know the handler well, ones that have never been handled, and ones that previously had a problem.

When I have handled an untouched horse and got him to accept contact and a head–collar, I haven't seen licking and chewing. When I once had an untouchable horse, who wouldn't be caught either, but had been brought up tethered, and herded into a box loose, to get him to his current home, when I eventually got him to allow touch and head-handling, he didn't exhibit licking and chewing. I had abandoned my early attempts at Join–Up — before I knew he had been kept tethered and thus hadn't learned the necessary herd behaviour — when I saw that he didn't understand me and display the responses to the Join–Up signals. I worked on his curiosity with advance and retreat instead, to earn his trust and respect.

Interestingly, this horse did learn the same Join–Up signals when he was long–reined: he moved away on posture and eye contact, and came in when the posture changed and the eye contact was dropped, but here the signals became cues, and his responses were learned and not innate. I would conclude from this, and what happens when you long–rein horses after Join-Up, who also don't lick and chew, that the licking and chewing is a sign of some sort of relief that you've haven't sent them out of the herd forever, as it also doesn't show, in my experience, after other forms of stress in the adult horse.

From an animal communicator, asking a horse that knew his handler well during a Join–Up, when the horse licked and chewed: "The horse said, "Isn't that nice," with a feeling of contentment." The same person had a response from a severely traumatised horse who joined up with Monty Roberts that was: "Okay, I'll agree." However she noted that the same horse had a number of conditions and would reserve the option to opt out of co–operation at any stage if he wished to. Don't forget that the lady who ran Monty Roberts' home facility for many years, Anna Twinney, is an animal communicator of many years experience, so there was always the horse's 'verbal' opinion available when needed. In her videos she may actually comment on the licking a chewing, but I haven't watched any for quite a while.

All this is anecdotal, not scientific. All we can really say is that licking and chewing is a replicable part of Join–Up® so it will always occur when the horse decides you are safe to be with. What it means, you'd have to ask more horses.

In what ways did Cath Henshall et al. acknowledge the responses to be different from Join Up and how do they explain them now?

Kelly Marks said last Saturday, when Lee Pearson CBE made his comments: "my now good friend, Dr Andrew McLean, confessed to believing the same thing (even wrote it in books!) until I did a Join Up with one of his horses at his beautiful property in Australia and he saw how the communication actually worked." It will be interesting to hear from him, or Kelly or Rosie, how he explains it now.

To what extent does the fear of being isolated/banished from the herd play a role in Join Up?

It is a cornerstone. There are plenty of studies that show that horses don't like to be alone and even legislation, in some countries that insists that horses must be able to see, smell and touch other horses. In Join–Up you use this to advantage, without causing the horse the stress that isolation brings. The situation is highly controlled and takes minutes to complete. The curious thing that always occurs is the switch between the horse seeing a possible predator a few seconds earlier, become a protector. Monty will always walk a horse to the gate at the end of a demo, then move to the other side of the pen: the horse associating the gate as its exit, lingers there, but as soon as it is brought under pressure from audience applause, he runs to stand beside Monty, now his safety zone. Another replicable part of Join–Up.

Is this factor absent from the toy car scenario? How would one prove this to be the case? How does dominance (or other perceived social position) fit in?

I would say that as the car doesn't consistently replicate any aspect of an annoyed mare, or a human predator, the factor isn't replicated. The scenario to me seems like one of flooding. A heart rate monitor would have been interesting to give an indication of what was going on from the horse's point of view.

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[talkinghorse]

… continuation:

What practical differences in outcome are there between a Joined-Up horse and one that has been trained to follow by pressure and release, and how can one show that?

The only study that has been done is the one that compared Monty's work with a conventional trainer. The results showed that Monty's horses had a lower heart–beat during activities and that they scored higher in tasks than the other trainer's horses over the 20 days. The panel of judges concluded that, the efficacy of the Monty Robert Training for initial training of riding horses is greater than that of the Conventional Trainer. It would need you to look at how the Conventional Trainer worked, to see whether his methods were pressure and release.

Do you happen to know if anyone is planning to give an up-to-date / state-of-the-art explanation of how Join Up produces the results seen? Are there more trials planned? It would be nice to think that the science is now "done and dusted", but to my mind it clearly isn't (at least not yet in published literature).

It would be wonderful if it could be continued, but it is costly to fund, as you well know, so we will have to wait and see.

 

[talkinghorse]

Using the Masterson method licking and chewing are indicators of stress / tension release in the horse. I'd imagine this is why it's one of the indicators used by MR that the horse is relaxing as would be with the head stretching down. Maybe relaxation and acceptance are better words than 'submission'

Then I lied in my previous post just now. I have seen licking and chewing elsewhere, not every time, but a lot of the time when my horses had their six–weekly Equine Touch treatments. Thanks for the reminder TrasaM

 

[Tern]

Lee Pearson is a prat

Have to agree with this.. he was on Celebrity Come Dine With Me.. and he was a prat there too.