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Mary Robinson Reynolds

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Naked Liberty by Carolyn Resnick

Reviewed for Zen Horsemanship by Kris McCormack

 At first glance, the title and cover illustration of Naked Liberty might give you the impression that you are holding a steamy novel.  But, for a lover of horses, this rich and moving book is better than any steamy novel could ever be.  Why? Because this is a true story about a young girl’s education by horses.

Carolyn Resnick is a lifelong horse trainer, a former breeder of Arabian horses, and an expert in wild horse behavior who has developed and teaches a method of working horses at liberty.  She calls her program “Liberty Training Beyond the Whisper.“  This is true liberty work.   Horse and handler are in an area large enough that the horse can, if he chooses, escape the person’s influence…something that cannot occur in a round pen or picadero.   There are no halters, ropes, reins, or other implements of bondage.  The core of the program is the 7 Waterhole Rituals which are designed to progressively develop the horse’s acceptance, trust, submission, willingness, focus, a desire to match energy in movement, and an ability to perform quickly in all circumstances.   The Rituals enable the person to enter the horse’s world and assume the role of leader, as that is defined by horses.  Since horses are hard wired to follow a leader, if a person is behaving as one, his horse will gladly follow him.   When horses are not being pressured or forced into doing something, but are following a leader of their own free will, they become engaged, enthusiastic partners. This leads to brilliant, expressive performance.  The foundation of this system, of Carolyn’s life’s work, was laid during her childhood experiences with horses.  Naked Liberty details how this gifted horsewoman learned much of what she knows and teaches. 

Carolyn grew up in the desert around Indio, California in the 40’s and 50’s – before the landowners in the area fenced their property.  The horses of Carolyn’s childhood were free to roam.  They did not stray too far from home because, in the desert, they were totally dependent on their humans and their small plots of irrigated pasture for food.  Nevertheless, there were no fences, and if a little girl wanted to go for a ride on her pony, she had to find a way to make that pony *want* to be with her and want to carry her around the desert.   Otherwise, she was plain out of luck.    

How Carolyn got various ponies and horses to do what she wanted or needed them to do of their own free will is the “plot“ of this extraordinary story.  In the course of the book we meet several ponies and horses and confront the problems and challenges they presented to this young trainer.  Through Carolyn’s experiences, we learn the lessons she learned from each of her equine teachers.  And we are beside her in spirit as she begins the task of achieving a goal she has set for herself: to join a band of wild horses and work her way up in the herd hierarchy.

I do not want to write too much, for fear of spoiling the experience for you.  Naked Liberty is a book to be savored.  It is not a how-to book although there is a lot of horse wisdom in its 200+ pages.  I am reading the book for the second time and am amazed at how much “new“ material I am finding.  And I am surprised to find myself moved to tears, even the second time around.   It is one of the few books I think I will be reading again and again.                 

 You can find out more about Carolyn's work at her website http://www.beyondthewhisper.com/. 

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Making Two Ends Meet - Some Thoughts on Equine Dentistry

Birgit Schipper 

Can you tell a horse's approximate age by looking into his mouth? Sure, basically the form of his front teeth indicate its age, right? In a young horse, the front teeth are aligned almost vertically, while the older horse the smaller the angle at which the front teeth are meet, isn’t it?

Well, according to recent findings not necessarily: the front teeth (incisors) of wild horses will usually be aligned in a way that the front teeth meet almost vertically - regardless of the horse's age. So what, you might say - does that make any difference? Oh yes, it makes a world of a difference to the horse! 

Let us consider for a moment the function of the front teeth: they primarily serve to bite off grass, lots of and different types of grass. This cutting of the grass is most efficiently performed by teeth with sharp edges, i.e. when the incisors meet more or less vertically. So if nature provided this efficient system for a young horse, why would it fade out this efficiency in an older horse? Well, nature does not, us humans do!

The unnatural conditions in which we keep our horses do this. In the wild, the horse would feed on grasses of much less nutritional value than the grass in our pastures, which means it has to cut off much more of it; and, these grasses are usually made of much harder fibers than pasture grass. Add to this that a horse (in the wild) will use its front teeth also to nibble off bark from trees as well as dig for roots and minerals. All these factors contribute to a natural wear of the front teeth. In other words, the front teeth for cutting (incisors) and the back teeth for chewing (molars) the food get worn down evenly. In order to balance the wear, the teeth of a horse continually erupt by about 3 mm per year. 

Things are quite different for our domestic horses:

¾          The least percentage of their daily food involves actual biting off food (eating hay does not include cutting off the grass!)

¾          On the pastures, the grass is much softer than in the wild (and also of much higher nutritional value).

¾          The share of grain and corn in what we daily feed our domestic horses is much higher than in the wild, both being hard materials which add to the wear on the molars.

¾          Some horse dentists file down sharp edges and hooks on the molars, while neglecting the length of the incisors. 

Can you imagine the result? There is lack of wear on the incisors, while on the same time the molars get worn down. In other words, the front teeth will get too long, actually holding the molars too far apart to meet.  

Try this for a moment: In your own mouth, place your upper front teeth right on the lower front teeth. Can you feel the gap between the chewing surfaces of the molars in the rear of your mouth? Now take a strip of chewing gum, put it between the chewing surfaces of your molars and start chewing, while still keeping your front teeth aligned on each other! Can you feel the pressure on your front teeth, while at the same time chewing is really hard and yet quite ineffective, because you just cannot bring the teeth of the upper and the lower jaw into contact? Can you imagine That is exactly the situation for our horses, when their front teeth get too long!

There is even more to it: after some time, the long front teeth will no longer be able to withstand the continuous pressure and begin to yield forward, slowly but steadily. Until in an older horse, the long-time pressure will have pressed the front teeth visibly forward. 

The tension created in and around the horse’s mouth will also affect a horse’s well-being in numerous aspects, some of which you would never have attributed to his teeth. For more details you may want to read  Nancy Camp‘s “What Every Rider Needs to Know about Equine Dentistry“. 

Does Positive Reinforcement Really Work?

Kellie Snider  

“You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.“  -Everybody’s Grandma

 “Positive reinforcement is defined by what the other person does, not by what you do.“

Aubrey Daniels, author of Other People’s Habits

When my children were at the potty training age, I looked high and low for a good guide to potty training.  There weren’t many to choose from.  One book suggested giving a child an M&M every time he sat on his potty seat and claimed that pretty soon he would begin to relieve himself there.  Right.  I doled out quite a few M&Ms in the bathroom, but my first child did not seem to have any clue that there was a relationship between the candy and his bodily functions, or else he didn’t care.  (And since he really preferred fruit to chocolate, I ate way too many M&Ms in the process!)  The worst thing was that pretty soon he began to resist going into the bathroom at all.  Clearly the book overlooked teaching me some fundamental details about positive reinforcement.   

 “Oh, I tried positive reinforcement.  It didn’t work.“  I have come into contact with several people who claimed to have given up on clicker training with their dogs or on using positive reinforcement in changing their children’s behavior because they tried it and nothing happened.  But did they really use positive reinforcement?  Or were they just doling out M&Ms? 

 The definition of positive reinforcement states that a behavior is followed by a consequence called a reinforcer and results in a future increase in the rate of that behavior.  The consequence, of course, must come after the behavior happens.  And the consequence must cause the behavior to happen more often in the future.  Otherwise it’s not positive reinforcement in the first place. 

 A reinforcer can be anything that follows a behavior and makes the behavior’s rate increase.  It’s not just food.  It’s not just toys.  And especially it’s not just praise.  It could be any of those, and just about anything else you can think of.  Every individual has a unique collection of experiences that will reinforce certain behaviors for that individual.  One reinforcer may not work in every situation or at different times in the learner’s life.  And one individual’s reinforcer may seem just weird as can be to someone else.  It has to be something that really works to increase the rate of behavior for that person in that situation to be called a reinforcer.   

 The consequence must come after the behavior happens. In every day lingo, the term ‘consequences’ is sometimes loaded.  When we hear someone say, “There will be consequences!“ we have learned to expect something unpleasant to happen.  But consequences are really just events that happen after and in relation to some behavior.  So the behavior and the consequence have to be related in time.  

 The behavior must happen more often in the future.  More importantly, the consequences must result in an increase in the behavior.  If the behavior doesn’t increase, no positive reinforcement took place.  You can’t accurately say it didn’t work if it didn’t even happen to begin with. 

But why wouldn’t giving a child an M&M increase his doing his business on the potty, especially if he likes and will eat M&Ms?  Why wouldn’t giving a dog a Milkbone increase his sitting on cue?  There are several things to consider.  In his directed learning textbook for college students, Principles of Everyday Behavior Analysis**, Keith Miller describes four principles of effective reinforcers.  They are Deprivation, Immediacy, Size and Contingency.  To make it easier to remember, their first letters spell the word DISC.

 Deprivation.  In order to be effective, your learner must be deprived of the item you plan to use as a reinforcer.  When we talk about deprivation, it doesn’t mean that he has to be starved for 2 days before you can train him.  It just has to mean he hasn’t had so much of the thing you’re offering him that he’s not tired of it, too full or just not interested in it any more.  Your dog may love Scooby Snacks, but if he’s just eaten the whole pot roast you left on the kitchen counter, chances are he’s not going to be that hungry.  He has to be at least a little bit deprived of the thing (or type of thing) you’re offering him.  If your dog has just eaten a lot of food, you’ll have to find some other kind of reinforcer to use that he hasn’t just had too much of.  Attention, a favorite toy that he doesn’t usually get to play with, going on a walk or riding in the car could work.  If your learner is not deprived of one reinforcer think of another thing he likes and see if that works.

 Immediacy.  The sooner the reinforcer is delivered after the behavior, the better chance there is of it being effective.  If you deliver a reinforcer too late, you might accidentally reinforce what the learner was up to when you finally got the prize delivered.  For example, if a student, Little Kim finally succeeds in getting a math problem right and her teacher gives her a sticker 5 minutes later when she is talking to Little Josie, what behavior is most likely to be reinforced?  Yep.  Talking with Josie.  Not the behavior the teacher wanted to see increased. 

As adults we are used to waiting for our reinforcers.  We work for a week or two… or even a month… before we see a paycheck for our efforts.  As a freelance writer I've sometimes waited 7 or 8 months, or even a year to be paid for writing I've done!  The paycheck works to keep us going to work.  But with young learners and animals time is of the essence.  The truth is that with adult learners the very same thing is usually true, even though we’ve learned to wait for reinforcement in some situations when the reinforcer is really valuable.  We may persist at working for pay that won’t show up for several weeks, but what happens to our day-to-day work quality if that’s the only reinforcer we get?  If you want the reinforcers you deliver to be effective, get them to your workers and learners as fast as possible.

Size.  Well, you have to give Dr. Miller credit for finding a word that works in the DISC acronym, but size isn’t all we’re talking about here.  Size is only part of it.

Size refers to how worthwhile the thing we want to use as a reinforcer is for the learner.  How large or how many pieces of a reinforcer there are is part of it.  Most learners will choose the larger reinforcer.  If your horse won’t work for a 1/2“ slice of carrot, try a 1“ slice.****               

But size isn’t the only thing that makes a thing worthwhile.  If you’re using an activity as a potential reinforcer, it should be something the learner enjoys doing.  If it’s food, it should be food the learner likes a lot.  (In my potty training example above, had my overall training skills been better, I probably would have had better luck training with bits of fruit rather than M&Ms with my son.) 

 But liking it ain't enough.  Even if your learner really likes what you’re trying out as a reinforcer, it has to be something he is willing to work for.  If he’s not willing to work for it, it’s not a reinforcer.  Sometimes a learner will appear to be quite fond of something, but still not work for it.  In that case it isn’t a reinforcer.  Try something else! 

 Contingency.  This is an important one!  When we’re talking about behavior, contingency refers to a relationship between behavior and the consequence.  What Miller says is that the consequence has to happen if and only if the behavior occurs.  If a teenager does the dishes and his mother says, “Thank you!  Now you can watch TV!“ the television viewing won’t be very effective as a reinforcer if the kid has free access to the TV any time he chooses to watch it.  He can always watch TV, so what’s the big deal about doing the dishes?  But if there is a family rule that TV viewing is doled out in relation to performance, and if the child enjoys watching TV (remember the size/worthwhile principle!) then it is much more likely to act as a reinforcer. 

The bottom line is that positive reinforcement always works.  You just have to be sure that what you’re delivering is really positive reinforcement.     

Copyright, 2004  Kellie Snider December 12, 2004 Reprinted with Permission of Author

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What about the Book?

Dolores Arste 

When we learn a horsemanship method, there is a tendency to treat that method as universal truth. And as part of any learning process we may encounter a certain amount of frustration or . "Stuckness". Part of the learning entails how to get beyond that place of being “stuck“. How does one learn how to cope and/or deal with such difficulties and frustration. Learning horsemanship is a lifetime process. We'll never get it done because within each new learning is the desire to learn even more. What we do with that, whether we let it carry us on to a new level, or whether we let it hold us back, is completely up to us... and more specifically, a matter of our perception.

Robert M. Pirsig wrote a book which many people claim has changed their lives, titled " Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values." An interesting book, on the quality of "Stuckness." , he uses the process of repairing a motorcycle as a sort of metaphor for the larger issues of life.

"A screw sticks, for example, on a side cover assembly. You check the manual to see if there might be any special cause for this screw to come off so hard, but all it says is "Remove side cover plate" in that wonderful terse technical style that never tells you what you want to know. There's no earlier procedure left undone that might cause the cover screws to stick.

"Your mind was already thinking ahead to what you would do when the cover plate was off, and so it takes a little time to realize that this irritating minor annoyance of a torn screw slot isn't just irritating and minor. You're stuck. Stopped. Terminated. It's absolutely stopped you from fixing the motorcycle.

"This isn't a rare scene in science or technology. This is the commonest scene of all. Just plain stuck. In traditional maintenance this is the worst of all moments, so bad that you have avoided even thinking about it before you come to it.

"The book's no good to you now. Neither is scientific reason. You don't need any scientific experiments to find out what's wrong

" It's a miserable experience emotionally. You're losing time. You're incompetent. You don't know what you're doing. You should be ashamed of yourself

"It's normal at this point for the fear-anger syndrome to take over and make you want to hammer on that side plate with a chisel, to pound it off with a sledge hammer if necessary.

"It's just outrageous that a tiny little slot of a screw can defeat you so totally.

"You need some ideas, some hypotheses. Traditional scientific method, unfortunately, has never quite gotten around to say exactly where to pick up more of these hypotheses. Traditional scientific method has always been at the very best, 20-20 hindsight. It's good for seeing where you've been. It's good for testing the truth of what you think you know, but it can't tell you where you ought to go,.

"We're still stuck on that screw and the only way it's going to get unstuck is by abandoning further examination of the screw according to traditional scientific method. That won't work. What we have to do is examine traditional scientific method in the light of that stuck screw.

"The difference between a good mechanic and a bad one, like the difference between a good mathematician and a bad one, is precisely this ability to select the good facts from the bad ones on the basis of quality. He has to care!"

"If you want to build a factory, or fix a motorcycle, or set a nation right without getting stuck, then classical, structured, dualistic subject-object knowledge, although necessary, isn't enough. You have to have a sense of what's good. That is what carries you forward. This sense isn't just something you're born with, although you are born with it. It's also something you can develop. It's not just "intuition", not just unexplainable "skill" or "talent". It's the direct result of contact with basic reality, Quality, which dualistic reason has in the past tended to conceal."

"The solution to the problem often at first seems unimportant or undesirable, but the state of stuckness allows it, in time, to assume its true importance. It seemed small because your previous rigid evaluation which led to the stuckness made it small.

"But now consider the fact that no matter how hard you try to hang on to it, this stuckness is bound to disappear. Your mind will naturally and freely move toward a solution.

"Stuckness shouldn't be avoided. It's the psychic predecessor of all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors."

We can relate all of these quotes from a point of  “what works“ and how well is it working for us and the horse. If its not working, we need to look outside the box or outside the book or outside the method. Sometimes the answer will be found in the passing muse that we heard years ago. Maybe it didn’t make sense then. But all of a sudden that though comes racing back and we make it our own in our own situation that we find ourselves in. Nothing is really new. Its just restated, reprocessed and put into a format that we can understand in the context of what we know now.

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And, Don't forget to contact us for all of your saddle fitting needs - Saddle Fitting by Dave

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Just remember - "keep it light - and in the light!" and have lots of FUN!

" And that's the way it is ...unless it isn't."  - Dr. Mary Lynch
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Come visit us at:  Pa Horse Expo - Feb 24 - 26, 2006

3-Days 3-Horses 3-New Presentations

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Exploring Rabbit Holes and Investigating the Impossible
(Click the Universe)

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MAKE YOUR WILDEST DREAMS COME TRUE.
This is a great time to hire a coach to get support in clarifying and making your dreams come true. Our Energy Mirroring and Coaching will help you to create a life free from fear and worry. In this process you will be supported while overcoming all blocks and beliefs that no longer serve you. You can wake up every morning with a smile and the energy to create your day.

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