No More?

The business with Miranda, and my desire (not requested by my daughter - she wanted to make it clear that she didn't ask me not to talk about Miranda) to preserve my daughter's privacy, and the increasing feeling I have that my blogs are turning into some sort of bad reality TV show, lead me to question the blogging premise. I started blogging because I like to write, and writing for me is a way of examining and thinking about my experience. Even if people like to read this stuff, and I know people do, I'm feeling more and more that what I write is self-important, sometimes sanctimonious, and really a bit too much. I'm no expert on anything that I do, but I get into this "I have to talk about this" like somehow I know something, which I mostly don't. I'm not sure what blogs should be about, and there are many great ones out there - I particularly like the ones where people just talk about what they're doing, and seeing, and thinking, without preaching or trying to tell people how to do things - although there are some very knowledgeable people out there, for sure, who do have good things to say. I also enjoy the illusion of community, although I'm old-fashioned and to me the virtual community can never be a satisfactory substitute for a real community or relationships, although sometimes it's possible to fall into the illusion that it is. Fundamentally, blogging may just be a form of entertainment. Why do you blog? Does it make sense and are you happy with where it has taken you? How do you feel about the time you spend on blogging and reading and commenting on others' blogs? Is this activity really worthwhile, and what purposes can it serve? Are there aspects of it that are harmful (or at least not helpful)? What do you think?

No To Rollkur

Billie over at camera-obscura has posted the logo and text, and invited us to do the same in solidarity with Dr. Heuschmann and his message at the meeting on Feb. 9th. Please consider adding your voice to this important debate, and adding logo and text to your blog as well.

The FEI is holding a closed-door round table meeting on Feb. 9th to discuss the training method known as rollkur, or hyperflexion, which involves pulling and holding the horse's muzzle to his chest. This practice is known to have many negative effects on the horse, both physically and psychologically. Gerd Heuschmann, the lone voice for the horse at this meeting, has my support and appreciation as he presents his case "for the good of the horse" along with petitions and letters saying NO TO ROLLKUR.

Please take a moment today and again tomorrow to think positively about the outcome of this meeting. It will make a difference.

Rollkur is but one example, in one discipline, of abuses perpetrated against horses in the name of "training" and "competition". All principled horsepeople need to speak out when and how they can against the abuses that exist in their own disciplines.

Review: Animals Make Us Human, by Temple Grandin

I enjoyed reading the new book by Temple Grandin (and Catherine Johnson), Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals. She starts out (page 1) with the 5 freedoms all animals should have:

Freedom from hunger and thirst

Freedom from discomfort

Freedom from pain, injury, or disease

Freedom to express normal behavior

Freedom from fear and distress

As Temple Grandin points out, much of our industrialized approach to producing meat, milk and eggs falls woefully short on most of these counts, sometimes in ways that are truly appalling, and even in the case of pets, or pleasure animals like horses, things we do with or to them may fall short as well. She also points out that avoiding animal abuses by workers in farms, feedlots and slaughterhouses isn't just a matter of training workers to use non-abusive practices, it's also a question of how the workers are treated on the job and it's the responsibility of management to set and enforce standards - to manage. Serious abuses happen when management lets "bad become normal".

A couple of quotes to set the stage:

I believe that the best way to create good living conditions for any animal, whether it's a captive animal living in a zoo, a farm animal, or a pet, is to base animal welfare programs on the core emotion systems in the brain. My theory is that the environment animals live in should activate their positive emotions as much as possible, and not activate their negative emotions any more than necessary. If we get the animal's emotions right, we will have fewer problem behaviors. (p. 3)

. . . usually . . . the more freedom you give an animal to act naturally, the better, because normal behaviors evolved to satisfy the core emotions . . . . But if you can't give the animal the freedom to act naturally, then you should think about how to satisfy the emotion that motivates the behavior by giving the animal other things to do. Focus on the emotion, not the behavior. (pp. 3-4)

She then sets out the basic emotions - and yes, there's no doubt in her mind that animals, all animals, feel all these emotions:

Positive - lust (reproduction), care (maternal and caretaking), and most importantly for animal welfare, play, and seeking (starting with the orienting response [you know - when your horse stops and stares and decides whether to explore further or bolt]), and including searching and investigating the environment.

Negative - rage (to escape a perceived predator or entrapment; frustration is a milder form of rage due to physical constraint), fear, and panic (when social attachment is disrupted - think herd-boundness or barn-sour behaviors in horses).

She states that 18.4% of horses exhibit some sort of stereotypic behavior, and since they're grazing animals, these behaviors are often oral - think cribbing, wood chewing, mouthing objects - and are sometimes movement-related - weaving or pacing in the stall or along a fence line. She says that these behaviors indicate that the animal is suffering some sort of distress right now, has suffered in the past and the brain developed in a way that the stereotypic behavior persists (there is certainly a genetic component), or the animal is using the behavior as a way to cope with the stresses of the environment. I found this very interesting, as we have had several horses come to our barn with stereotypic behaviors, and the behaviors have become less or disappeared entirely.

Her basic rule to create good mental welfare for animals:

Don't stimulate rage, fear and panic if you can help it, and do stimulate seeking and also play. Provide environments that will keep the animal occupied and prevent the development of stereotypies. (p. 23)

She has a substantial section on horses. She debunks the theory that we often find in the horse-training world that horses cannot transfer information from one eye, and one side of the brain, to the other. They do transfer information and have the neurological structures to do it - the reason a horse may spook when encountering an object from the other side is that the object looks different, and horses don't generalize all that well - they respond to the specifics of the object, and we all know about how horses react to something, even something very small, that is out of place or slightly different from what it has been. (For example, sometimes late in summer the milkweed plants get heavy and bend down over the trails - my Maisie finds this very alarming!)

She says that fear memories in horses have two main causes - an abusive experience, or having a new thing or situation introduced too quickly. She also has an interesting insight into why some horses may tend to buck at the transition from the trot to the canter - it's because the saddle moves differently on their bodies, and they find the change alarming!

Since horses are high-fear, high-flight animals, yelling at them will almost always be a problem. And she thinks people are often not very clued in to what is motivating certain behaviors:

A common mistake people make is mixing up fear and aggression. Most behavior problems that occur during handling, veterinary procedures, loading and riding are caused by fear or pain - not aggression. The worst thing that can be done to a frightened horse is to punish him by hitting or yelling. Frightening or painful punishment makes fear worse. (p. 115)

Punishment can also shut down the horse's innate ability to solve problems that are presented to it.

She has some positive things to say about the use of clicker training - it turns on the positive seeking and problem-solving system, teaches emotional self-control and in fact it's not the reward itself but the anticipation of the reward - the interval between the click and the reward - that is the most pleasurable part for the horse.

She has some good insights on how to present new objects and situations to horses:

When you're working with animals, novelty can be attractive or scary depending on how it is presented. The single most important factor determining whether a new thing is more interesting than scary is whether the animal has control over whether to approach the object. Animals are terrified by forced novelty. (p. 147)

And there are sections on cats, dogs, cow, pigs, chickens and zoo animals - it's all fascinating stuff. Her perspectives on animal behavior and animal emotions are full of insights, and she credits part of this to her autism, where pictures and details are much more important than language. This is a valuable book, and has many useful insights for all who have or work with animals, including horses.

Snow Ball Day

Today is one of those really beautiful winter days - it's not too cold - high 20s - and there's almost no wind. We're having some snow flurries, and the big flakes are drifting down just as if someone had shaken a snow ball. It's just glorious, and most of the horses are out without blankets and really enjoying it.

I know I really appreciate everyone's supportive and helpful comments about Miranda. She seems somewhat less worried this morning. I've decided that I'm not going to post about Miranda any more, at least for now. Miranda's story doesn't really belong to me, it belongs to my daughter at this point and I'd like to protect her privacy.

I sure hope all of you in the areas hard-hit by snow are OK and safe!

A Set Back

It's clear that the incident in the stall with our PM feeding lady has really set Miranda back. She's reverted to the angry, aggressive horse of many months ago who only wants people to leave her alone, and thinks of all people as the enemy. She no longer nickers to me, and in fact, looks right through me. She still halters and leads well, which is a blessing. On the cross ties, when I remove her blanket and groom her and pick her feet, she is displaying many aggressive behaviors - angry glares, head shaking, bared teeth and swinging her butt as if she wants to kick. It's clear that her trust, which was slowly rebuilding under my daughter's consistent care, has been seriously damaged. But I can't undo what has happened and can only work with what we have now. I'm hoping that being in an outside paddock will help her calm down some. I'm going to grit my teeth and make sure I lead her in once a day to groom and pick feet, even though I have to do it ever so carefully to avoid reinforcing any negative behaviors she has, or getting hurt myself. I'm also going to be sure that I'm the person who feeds her consistently every morning and evening, although evening feeding isn't my job - I think this consistency can help to build trust. It's clear that Miranda has been overwhelmed by the new situation and people, the fact that my daughter, whom she had grown to trust, has abruptly disappeared from her life, and what has happened. It's pretty discouraging, and I'm just hoping to recover some ground before my daughter gets back at the end of the month. She left me a horse who was recovering and making good progress, and now she's back to being a basket case. I keep telling myself to breathe and take one step at a time, but it's hard - sorry for the whining!