Trigger stacking in horses

could you record the noise and do a bit of sound desensitisation that way? Really tough that you have quads on the yard but no-one will help you-guess there's no chance they'd let your OH use it for a bit.
 
I imagine that the rider's reaction also plays a part too. I.e. if the horse spooks and the rider gets worried and stays worried, that will contribute to the horse's reactions. It may even be that the rider thinks they've relaxed but actually they are tensed up/ holding the horse too tightly.

I went to a behavioural talk which was interesting as they talked about the triggers and the stacking which is pretty obvious in many ways but it did really make me think about it. I agree very much with HashRouge - I love following LifeofBean on twitter - racehorse in training and she just pretty much laughs when he spooks etc and I found laughing or singing (poor horse) helps me relax which helps him relax. That isn't always going to help in the multi trigger issue but definitely helps at stage 1!
 
I used to live in a commuter village, complete with bus route down the high street. All the ponies I had were safe with just about anything. I used to take the children around the village most evenings after tea, and Sunday afternoon if we were not doing something, so they saw everything.
Skate boards, hedge clippers, car washing ,buses, bikes, all would go through the underpass, which although part of a bridleway was only made for people. We had a wind surfing lake, so we went and watched, the scariest thing was the wet suits drying. If there was an ice cream van or anything unusual we visited, including a helicopter landing in the school field.
With young ponies we started with a walk when there was less traffic, and built it up. I just think you have to train them like any other thing you train them for, make it normal and nice. The ponies would stand outside the shop on the high street, and wait for a sweet they would get.
I always say it takes two years to train anything, the backing may not take long, but all the firsts after that are just as much part of the training.

My fondest memory is taking my pony in a cart for a Sunday stroll in to town the back way, not realising the fair was in town. It was not open but he had to turn among the rides, then stood outside Woolies while my daughter went in and got him his treat. He spooked at a plastic bag he couldn't see properly, floating in the wind because of the blinkers, on the way home.
 
My little horse generally puts up with Mugdock Park, even on busy weekends. Mountain bikers, screaming children, a playground, mobility scooters, strollers, people doing weird things, flapping plastic, dogs under various degrees of control. He goes around the Milngavie Reservoirs, which have water running under bridges and high banks that you walk across and lots of people. The yard is busy as well, which has been a good thing. I think he would be trickier if we'd ended up at a quiet one. You have to go down a fairly busy road to get to the park. He is fine in traffic.

It's possible to ride into the town of Milngavie itself, but we're building up to that. He's happiest in wild places and a bit doubtful of urban space, although he is slowly improving. We went through a housing estate on Saturday, and he was good about it. My point is that he copes with a lot of "scary" things a lot of the time, but quads amp him up to a point where he can't deal with other things so easily. Maybe the golf reminded him of something frightening as well. His reaction to it was very extreme. Took me totally by surprise. A bit of Googling suggests that shooting parties use his estate. People vaguely "hiding," making sharp banging noises....maybe....

I try to use Warwick Schiller's "observing the ears" tricks to get him back when I lose him, but it doesn't always work. I wonder if owners of BLM mustangs find that it takes a while for them to lose that alertness they need to survive in the wild, if they ever do.
 
If this is a native type that is having kittens because of the golf, it is unlikely to be a quick fix. In his head, it is a twig snapping because of the stalking wolf that is about to pounce. A native's survival instinct is very strong and can't be easily over ridden.
 
If this is a native type that is having kittens because of the golf, it is unlikely to be a quick fix. In his head, it is a twig snapping because of the stalking wolf that is about to pounce. A native's survival instinct is very strong and can't be easily over ridden.

"Having kittens." I like that saying. He's a Highland pony who was feral until he was 7/8 years old (now he's about 11). He was gentled and backed, but then stuff happened with his owner, and she did not continue his education. He sat in a field, getting basic handling but nothing else for about two years. He's only had regular riding and slow, deliberate work at educating him since I've owned him.

That's why quad bikes are a thing. The herd was rounded up and chased into races by quads. If you've seen "UnBranded," you'll recall a part where the horses hear dirtbikes near the campsite and take off. The lads find them 20 or 30 miles down the road. I thought, "Been there, mate." I mean, I was trotting down the road with the horse, so it wasn't as bad as that, but I knew the feeling!
 
Ah - the one who protects you from wild boar (pigs)?
Friend of mine bought a Highland years ago straight off the moor. He had been herded into the wagon by quads, and remained a jittery lad all his life. Everything freaked him out, so to get to hacking out you have done amazingly well.
 
We seem to have a golf club. OH says it came with the flat (as these things do?). If we got a ball, I guess we could whack it around the outdoor, but gently. There's no safe place where we could really thwack it, plus it's not like either of us can do a proper golf swing anyway.

I should add that we have to do everything on lead. We are not allowed to turn horses loose in any arena. So we have to work around that rule, unfortunately.

In which case, I would be walking away, whacking as if whacking is the most interesting thing you ever did do, but paying no attention to the horse whatsoever. If he tugs the rope, I would be batting that away, as I would be far too interested in whacking. I find that focusing on them when also doing something potentially alarming makes the alarming thing more so. I would treat the horse as something of a minor inconvenience in my whacking interest, rather like a bluebottle would be.

I would still temper the exercise so it is low enough not to alarm too muck, but with peripheral vision, as I would be looking at the thing I was doing.

That is what I find works in may case.
 
Another perspecrtive on this though is that many horses left to their own devices are pretty good at letting go of tension after a fright. Being on constant high alert wastes energy which is bad news for a prey animal and therefore they have mechanisms for releasing the tension and chilling out quite soon after being in danger. And yet trigger stacking is clearly seen all the time. So somehow we get in the way of that natural ability to spook and then settle again quickly.
 
Ah - the one who protects you from wild boar

I think that's what he thought!

I find that focusing on them when also doing something potentially alarming makes the alarming thing more so.

That is a really good thing to keep in mind. It is so easy to become myopically focused on the horse when they're spooking at something.

Another perspecrtive on this though is that many horses left to their own devices are pretty good at letting go of tension after a fright. Being on constant high alert wastes energy which is bad news for a prey animal and therefore they have mechanisms for releasing the tension and chilling out quite soon after being in danger. And yet trigger stacking is clearly seen all the time. So somehow we get in the way of that natural ability to spook and then settle again quickly.

Yeah, AE. For sure. I definitely did that. Mark Rashid talks a lot about how we don't let horses process things properly when we try to restrain them near the scary thing. That can make them more easily wound up. But it's difficult because it's often not practical or safe for them to approach, retreat, approach again, adding the odd buck and spin to blow off adrenaline. When he spooked at the golf, I tried to hold him to walk. That made him worse. The trail we were on wasn't great for trotting, but it would have been okay. I probably should have let him go. However, once I got to a place where we often trot, I let him trot. When we finished our (lengthy) trot, he was calm again.

When he sees something scary, he slams on the brakes, freezes, and stands with his head really high, staring. I have seen photos of his herd in the "wild," and they all do that. The exact same stance. Sometimes, it's really hard to get his attention. He blanks you out. I am working on encouraging him to shift his attention to me, preferably by keeping his feet moving before the brakes come on. But sometimes he's quick, and we have stop-and-freeze before I can engage the feet. I've been working on lateral flexion and sideways aids (in calm situations, of course!), which is definitely helping. But it may be a long road before this behaviour goes away, if it ever does.

More outside-the-box suggestions always welcome!
 
My connie is trained to stop (dead) for a treat while out hacking. So if I spot a scary thing, or he spots something, or he's jogging and getting increasingly wound up, I put a hand in my pocket and immediately he stops and his attention is on the pocket / treat. Then he's chewing his treat and his brain is getting happy juice.
 
As a five year old my horse had a go to maneuver of spin, nap, buck, rear. I sent him to a pro to get on top of that but if he's stressed he still reminds me he knows how to do it and is considering it once in a while. The best thing to bring him round to feeling positive again is my voice. With hesitancy or nerves, chatting to him or singing really seems to make him more confident, and if something does cause him to kick off, a sharp, "what the hell do you think you are doing?" usually totally throws the program, he freezes, thinks, and then goes back to walking along tentatively.
 
When he sees something scary, he slams on the brakes, freezes, and stands with his head really high, staring. I have seen photos of his herd in the "wild," and they all do that. The exact same stance. Sometimes, it's really hard to get his attention. He blanks you out.

Yep. It's like sitting on a wooden giraffe, then suddenly you are doing 0 - 60 in the opposite direction! Some instinctive scary sounds or sights you may never completely eradicate. If you can convince him that he isn't going to get killed, the hacks will get better, but natives always trust themselves first, you second unfortunately. Given his background, you have come a long way already
 
Another perspecrtive on this though is that many horses left to their own devices are pretty good at letting go of tension after a fright. Being on constant high alert wastes energy which is bad news for a prey animal and therefore they have mechanisms for releasing the tension and chilling out quite soon after being in danger. And yet trigger stacking is clearly seen all the time. So somehow we get in the way of that natural ability to spook and then settle again quickly.
yeah my trainer pointed this out to a group of us watching a demo a few years ago, wild horses spook then go back to eating, of course they do otherwise they would die of starvation. Horses can often "get over" a fright very quickly.

it's interesting watching how different individuals deal with things though. one of mine won't look at a scary thing out of choice and would probably prefer never to look at what scared her ever again for the rest of her life. Deny deny deny seems to be her approach. i did manage to teach her to approach and nose-boop things on demand.
Others, most notably my 2yo are overcome by curiosity, i love watching her encounter new stuff because a quick startle and tail-over-back really quickly turns into nosiness, she approaches things that previously frightened her very readily. I am very very keen not to interfere with that attitude!
 
I try to use Warwick Schiller's "observing the ears" tricks to get him back when I lose him, but it doesn't always work. I wonder if owners of BLM mustangs find that it takes a while for them to lose that alertness they need to survive in the wild, if they ever do.

How does observing Ears work? I like a lot of what Warwick Schiller shares.
 
yeah my trainer pointed this out to a group of us watching a demo a few years ago, wild horses spook then go back to eating, of course they do otherwise they would die of starvation. Horses can often "get over" a fright very quickly.

it's interesting watching how different individuals deal with things though. one of mine won't look at a scary thing out of choice and would probably prefer never to look at what scared her ever again for the rest of her life. Deny deny deny seems to be her approach. i did manage to teach her to approach and nose-boop things on demand.
Others, most notably my 2yo are overcome by curiosity, i love watching her encounter new stuff because a quick startle and tail-over-back really quickly turns into nosiness, she approaches things that previously frightened her very readily. I am very very keen not to interfere with that attitude!

I love curiosity in a horse. Fab antidote to fear.

I think we get in the way of the natural reactions in many ways as discussed in some posts above:

- forcing the horse near or conversely, immediately avoiding/getting away from the situation. Whereas a horse likes to move away, then turn and look. We often don't let them do either.
- suppressing any movement by which they dissipate energy/stress, trying to shut them down, make them stand or walk etc.
- not allowing enough time to process
- reacting to their reactions by gripping, hanging on so they become more anxious
- being more tense ourselves after an incident

And probably loads more. Knowing that doesn't always help prevent it though!
 
You need their absolute trust for the triggers not to stack. Part of that is experience - you take them solo hacking and keep them safe. The other part is being that leader who does not react - except for the rare occasions when it is warranted (twice in my life so far). Just like a nanny horse does.

In a herd, whoever is ranked highest determines what to do about danger. The others just follow. I took our young pony out led from her herd leader for weeks before she was backed, and she copied the mannerisms of her ‘boss’ and reacted to nothing. I can now take her out behind me with my 7yo daughter on, off-lead, knowing that all that pony will ever do, is follow whatever the one I am on is doing - she is taking her confidence from my pony, not from her rider. In time, she will build her own.

Years ago, when my old girl was young and it was just me and her, I put myself on the ground between her and the ‘danger’. We had done plenty of ground work and she trusted me. I showed her I was willing to put myself between her and scary things, to touch them to show it was safe or to jump over the ditch myself to prove it was doable. In time, she learned that nothing I ever asked her to do caused her harm. Interestingly, this is exactly what our gelding does - he residual instincts to protect lead him to physically shield his mares in the field, and to try to out hacking if we pass herds of young cows (I understand their nerves there, I just like to point out the fence - the scary creatures cannot reach us!).

Even our old NF pony was was TERRIFIED of anything with a motor, learned to trust after I put myself repeatedly between her and whatever she was afraid of. I shielded her in driveways or lay-bys once we no longer needed another horse between her and the traffic, and we went out, time and time again until she learned that WITH ME she was safe. She never trusted traffic with anyone else, but she trusted me to be keep her safe. It took years though for her to be able to trot down a main road with a bus or lorry behind her though.
 
Wee update:

We revisited the golf today. I had not been on that trail since I posted this thread. We were riding with my friend and her mare, and friend's mom as a foot soldier. Nothing scary or exciting happened on the route to the West Highland Way, so Foinavon was in a pretty chilled state of mind when we got there. The golf was definitely happening. I could hear them thwacking balls. He got a wee bit worried, but not bucking/rearing/uncontrollably so, and I parked myself behind the mare, who gave zero f*cks. He's very switched on to the reactions of other horses. We trundled down the trail, changing gaits between walk and trot depending on footing and other people, and once we rounded a corner that let us see the golfers, Fin realized it was just people doing weird stuff, and he went back to being a relaxed trail pony on a loose rein.

I think "trigger stacking" was exactly the right title for this thread. He had seen too much scary sh1t that day, and he just could not process any more of it.
 
An aside; all of our hill ponies are gathered/rounded up by a quad and dogs. Once they have been brought in and get to start work, they have all learnt that a quad can mean different things - including food! I think using a quad to round up ponies is always going to be quite triggering tbh but ours have all coped perfectly fine with that after a while. Several of them learnt to follow the quad for food too...

We also occasionally do a gather on horseback; unfortunately whilst the hill herd find that perfectly acceptable, the ridden horses involved always find it very exciting once we are effectively 'chasing' the hill ponies. It is a bit more time consuming because the noise of the quad means the herd start moving; on horseback they are far less inclined to do that and more interested in performing horse stuff to each other lol. Once they are moving the ridden horses need discipline to keep their excitement under wraps!! For us, we find the most scary thing for our horses is backpackers with giant rucksacks walking on the hill. They are more scary than gliders overhead or all manner of other bizarre human activities. ALL of our horses find those hard to comprehend and deal with lol.

Oh and my OH's horse once jumped a tent (with somone in it - though it was one of those tiny low ones) because it was tucked under a hillock and when horse saw it as she came upon it, she had no option to do a giant leap; poor thing had never seen such a thing before and never really liked tents much after that. I hate to think what the camper thought too - it could have been horrendous.
 
I don't ride past the golf club any more. Assume the crack of the club hitting ball is the breaking twig that betrays the wolf that's going to get him. I do wish he didn't have such a good survival instinct/good imagination!
 
We are doing better with quads as well. The yard staff left one sitting in front of the hay barn last month, and I took advantage of the situation to walk him up to it and give him treats.

At least he isn't bothered by backpackers, or people with hiking poles. The WHW is full of those. He did get very worried by a child "cantering" after us, pretending to be a horse. I turned around and told her to please not do that. He's not in love with the playground at Mugdock, which is full of screaming children, but he will go past it calmly so long as you don't hang about.

Before I got him, I was riding my friend's horse, and she was riding her other horse. We approached the visitor's centre and encountered an open air opera concert. The horses were not opera fans, which was understandable. Neither am I. We hurried away, bouncing until we got out of earshot.

Re: Palo's husband jumping a tent. I bet that backpacker had a good story when he got home. "You won't believe what happened to me..."
 
We are doing better with quads as well. The yard staff left one sitting in front of the hay barn last month, and I took advantage of the situation to walk him up to it and give him treats.

At least he isn't bothered by backpackers, or people with hiking poles. The WHW is full of those. He did get very worried by a child "cantering" after us, pretending to be a horse. I turned around and told her to please not do that. He's not in love with the playground at Mugdock, which is full of screaming children, but he will go past it calmly so long as you don't hang about.

Before I got him, I was riding my friend's horse, and she was riding her other horse. We approached the visitor's centre and encountered an open air opera concert. The horses were not opera fans, which was understandable. Neither am I. We hurried away, bouncing until we got out of earshot.

Re: Palo's husband jumping a tent. I bet that backpacker had a good story when he got home. "You won't believe what happened to me..."

Um, yes though perhaps not in a good way lol!! It was very early one morning on a rather remote bit of mountain and the camper was obviously wild camping. OH may have been coming down the mountain perhaps a bit quicker than he would if he had known there was a tent ahead...
 
I once had to ask a father and his 2 sons to stop baseball practice in a random field next to a bridleway for a short while whilst we passed. The ball on the metal baseball bat was like a pistol shot (or a golf club hitting a ball)!!
 
I've been thinking about trigger stacking. I am moving to a new yard, with very different set up in a few weeks. I am assuming my horse will have lower tolerance for at least a few weeks. I am planning to lower expectations and requests for bit. Whilst keeping him working but just thoughtfully, especially about new exposures etc.
 
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