What do you think of this training?

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tess1

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I spotted this link on another forum, and wondered what people's thoughts were ...

http://mysafecobs.com/videos

apparently it is the third and fourth vids down (introducing leadership to Pip) that have caused the most discussion.

Personally I don't think this sort of training would make a horse 'safe' - but would be interested in others' thoughts/experiences.
 
Okaaaaaaaaaaaay:( Well, I guess he will get used to having a plastic sack tied to his tail - when he's too exhausted to care anymore.

I can see the theory behind it, he gets so scared that in the end he realises it isn't going to kill him.

Isn't that something like they portrayed in The Horse Whisperer when they laid the horse down and stood on him?

I didn't watch the full 11 minutes.
 
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Interesting!
I suppose it can have its place with certain types but I couldnt see them do this with many.
I have a very strong minded pony who will not be hosed/clipped /sprayed and would probably kill them or himself rather than give in.I have dealt with various
"problem" equines over the years and felt this pony was best left,as you can do most things with him .
I "get" the traffic work that seemed to be done calmly and with purpose.
Most of the videos showed what seemed to be well handled animals being put into stressful situations for IMO no real reason. They dont have to be sprayed most people can work round one issue.
Getting a horse used to plastic bags can be done calmly over a period time no need to terrorise it for 10mins until it gives in through exhaustion.I imagine it would be a very different story if they tried to do this with a big quality horse!
They claim the " foundation course" takes 3 months ,I would rather send a horse to a professional ie. Janet George for training rather than risk this "training method.
I did hear about a horse that was sent to be broken and fought against the saddle ,so tied to a telegraph pole to learn some "manners" left alone it was found dead, broken leg and had died of shock! I am not suggesting these people would do such a thing but there are similarities with the "you will accept" way.
I am not sure it is Natural Horsemanship, I prefer to work with my horses and try not to put fear into them.
 
Found that really unplesant to watch and only looked for a few moment and skipped forward and the poor thing still kept taking flight.
Not something i will be doing with my lot thats very much for sure, but as i always make sure the chopped carrots are in a nice noisey carrier bags and they get a handful straight from the bag which makes a lovely rustling none of mine think they are scary at all.
Did have a moment the other week out riding when a bag was blowing across he road and thought i was going into orbit but nope horse trod on it with front hooves and did not bother when blew up around hind legs just kept strolling on till it blew away, so i must be doing something right without having to tie bags to their tails
 
This is awful, it's no way to teach a horse not to be scared. I doubt they've let the horse have a good look, doubt they've let him adjust slowly to a bag being there. It's not a way to deal with a scared horse, they need time and compassion.

Horses are built to run away from things they're scared of, that's one of only a few things they do in the wild! They don't suddenly realise, 'Hey this mountain lion's not caught us yet, must be safe!'
Silly to think they'd ever come to that decision.
 
!?! not pleasant. I'm not entirely sure either when in real life it would be helpful to have a horrse who wasn't scared of a plastic bag tied to his tail. It isn't exactly a common thing!
 
Although the rest of the videos seem sound enough, I think all this horse is going to learn from this is "Learned Helplesness".
 
I would definitely class this as flooding...

I dont think their reasoning for not using normal desensitisation made any sense either.
 
Would it be a good idea to get a horse used to fireworks by tying a firework to its tail? Hmmm. Anyway, I don't like this attempt at flooding at all.
 
I'm really amazed that they think this training is so good it is worth putting on their site and it's going to get them customers.

tbh, I'd be pretty nervous riding a horse after he's been through something like this, I don't think there's any solid evidence to suggest that if a plastic bag did blow towards him when being ridden out he'd just stand still - more like he'd remember this experience and be off hell for leather down the road :-(

and yes, I felt very uncomfortable watching it as well ..
 
I can tell you the point, you want your horse not to startle at every little thing. A local ldy was out riding her young horse, her husband saw her and stopped to say hello, as they were near a road side flower stall he bought her a bunch of flowers and handed it to her. the crackly plastic caused the young horse to take fright - lady fell off and now a quadraplegic.

Is that enough of a reason.

I do this kind of training because they learn to accept things they may meet when out.
 
Not impressed with this at all.

It's flooding nothing else.

Not sound NH, it's the release that teaches, no release here at all.

I'm always very suspicious when horses are supposedly trained in a high sided arena like the one here. If people are worried about the horse jumping out and bogging off, it's too much pressure.

Horses taught like this will always be a bit suspect and may well be a real problem in the future.
 
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Whatever happened to the good old days of tying a carrier bag or feed sack to a fence and letting the horses figure it out themselves? Or am I the only one who still does this?
 
EKW said:
Whatever happened to the good old days of tying a carrier bag or feed sack to a fence and letting the horses figure it out themselves? Or am I the only one who still does this?
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not the only one EKW, have done it with the orange boy, he's been fed with a plastic bag under his bucket, had bags tied near the water buckets, i've had screwed up bags in my pocket and just scrunched them while doing daily tasks to get him used to the noise, much kinder and less stressful way than tying the thing to his tail, that would have given him a coronary and probably made him unwilling to let me touch his tail while still being terrified of a plastic bag!!:rolleyes:
 
I am a great believer in facing fears and getting horses and ponies as bomb proof as possible but to terrify them is another matter.

I would want more control and would never tie a bag to a horse's tail and let it gallop around to the point of exhaustion.
I have tied bags and cans filled with stones, to ponies that came off the moors but they were in the stable so they couldn't get a move on but it had the same effect without the real panic.
Far better to have the bag on a long whip and 'sack them out' whilst standing in a safe area.

Just to add, one of my two year old TBs in the loose barn at the time, reached over and grabbed an empty feed bag from the ATV, he snatched at it and ran back and then was terrified of the bag hanging from his mouth and took off around the barn but never had the sense to open his mouth and let it drop. The other horses in there were all stood watching and I swear they were all saying, "Idiot!"

I left the paper sack with them whilst I was working in the barn and it was a matter of seconds before they were all tugging it, shaking it, and tearing it up. Took me longer to clear it than it did for them to wreck it.

The choice was theirs and they took no time to destroy a fun toy.
 
EKW said:
Whatever happened to the good old days of tying a carrier bag or feed sack to a fence and letting the horses figure it out themselves? Or am I the only one who still does this?
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Your not the only one, a tarpaulin hung over the fence works well too. They can explore the object in their own time then, some straight off others after a few days. None of mine are scared of tarps now and will walk over them with no coercion, parelli or otherwise ;) I put plastic bags in my pockets too when dealing with youngsters especially. I will grab a treat from my pocket and said bag will rustle, the youngster may startle a little but the noise will soon be forgotten as instead of a scary threat there is a tasty treat.
I had a 2 year old that was terrified of velcro, I let him play with some (being a teething youngster he couldn't resist the temptation of pulling it) after scaring himself repeatedly (at his own insistence) he soon realised that his fear was unfounded and was never an idiot at the sound of velcro again.


As for the bunch of flowers argument people get hurt in all circumstances whether there is an obvious trigger or not. However tragic the accident flooding an animal is not the answer, lady's husband should have known better than to hand her a bunch of flowers in the first place and the lady should have considered that her horse was a youngster before accepting them.
 
Foxhunter49 said:
Just to add, one of my two year old TBs in the loose barn at the time, reached over and grabbed an empty feed bag from the ATV, he snatched at it and ran back and then was terrified of the bag hanging from his mouth and took off around the barn but never had the sense to open his mouth and let it drop. The other horses in there were all stood watching and I swear they were all saying, "Idiot!"

I left the paper sack with them whilst I was working in the barn and it was a matter of seconds before they were all tugging it, shaking it, and tearing it up. Took me longer to clear it than it did for them to wreck it.

The choice was theirs and they took no time to destroy a fun toy.
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I'm sorry, I had to laugh at that! They say TB's are supposed to be intelligent!
 
jeeve said:
I can tell you the point, you want your horse not to startle at every little thing. A local ldy was out riding her young horse, her husband saw her and stopped to say hello, as they were near a road side flower stall he bought her a bunch of flowers and handed it to her. the crackly plastic caused the young horse to take fright - lady fell off and now a quadraplegic.

Is that enough of a reason.

I do this kind of training because they learn to accept things they may meet when out.
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Flooding, may or may not have stopped the accident you describe happening, but a horse that has been properly familiarized with scary things is far less likely to have an accident.
No one can show a horse everything that may scare it, so it needs to have the confidence to be able to rely on itself and on the rider, and flooding does not achieve this.
 
Yes, it is flooding - in some circumstances it may be the only option but IMO only used as a last resort.

I remember reading an article about the training of police horses and the use of heart monitors to determine what their actual stress/fear levels were as opposed to how they visually reacted and whether they 'looked' scared. Those trained with flooding techniques were a lot more frightened than those gradually desensitised. In effect the horses that had been flooded were still sacred but due to learned helplessness put up with what was going on around them. However they did have a tendency to explode when pushed past their limits making them bad police horses.

I would rather my horse was gradually desensitised to things using his own natural curisoity and building a bond of trust with me.
 
I have not watched whole clip, but part of 2 clips, and would not describe any of what i saw as flooding. I have heard the process of flooding described, but have not seen it. What was shown in the clips I saw did not fit the description of the process I understand to be flooding. I usually use an approach and retreat type process myself.

There was nothing in the bits of clip I saw that I found disturbing, but maybe I missed something?
 
Horses live in the moment and if they're in familiar surroundings, near their 'herd' or with a trusted handler life is much easier for them.
I have one who is terrified of whips/hoses but I always hose him down after riding on a hot day and he still tenses up but he's better.
Someone schooled him last week and tried to hose him down afterwards at my request, he's used to it now and should have been fine. He went up, panicked and tried to bolt, I stepped in and he was fine and stood still once I had the hose.
Now this girl is a much better rider than I ever was and can handle most horses but he didn't know her and therefore didn't know what she'd do.
It's not about flooding it's about familiarity and trust IMO.
 
jeeve said:
I have not watched whole clip, but part of 2 clips, and would not describe any of what i saw as flooding. I have heard the process of flooding described, but have not seen it. What was shown in the clips I saw did not fit the description of the process I understand to be flooding. I usually use an approach and retreat type process myself.

There was nothing in the bits of clip I saw that I found disturbing, but maybe I missed something?
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Hi Jeeve,

Some of the clips were ok. Did you see the 3rd and 4th ones down the page?
They tied plastic bags to the horses tail and to saddle and then the horse was left to charge away from it in full flight mode, whereby he couldn't get away from it as it was attached to him.

I am planning on attaching plastic bags to the fence and am currently taking velcro into ponies stable and just sitting playing with it. Progress was made within 15 minutes whereby I could stand next to her and play with it although she's not yet brave enough to approach me. Good enough for a first session :)

I love the idea of a plastic bag in pocket and rustling it to get treats :) Thank you.
 
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