Going To Temple

After doing more work using clicker training to help connect with Elvis, we found more and more ways of entertaining ourselves and exploring our surroundings. It took a while but I finally realized that I needed to acknowledge his fears and anxieties and try and teach him to look to me to help him through difficult situations.

All of these interactions with Elvis made me appreciate how truly little I knew of how he perceived his universe. My friend Janalee told me about a great book she had read called "Animals in Translation" by Temple Grandin. To say that this changed my perspective is a huge understatement. Dr. Grandin is a high-functioning autistic who is on the faculty at Colorado State University. She has made a name for herself in the autistic community because she is one of the first autistic people to write down how she sees and experiences the world. She has also become an advocate of animal welfare because she believes that animals are more like autistic people. She wrote an interesting article explaining that fear is the primary emotion in prey animals, like horses and cattle. Her newest book, "Animals Make Us Human" gives a wonderful overview of which emotions are paramount in an animal's life dependent on if they are prey or predator species. If you haven't read any of her books and fancy yourself an animal person, you should get one straight away. "Animals in Translation" would be a great start.

The more I delved into this concept the more I understood about how horses in general, but Elvis in particular, interacted with their environment. Catherine Haddad wrote a wonderful article in Dressage Today last year about her horse Cadillac and his autistic tendencies. There are several articles on line about autism and horse behavior but one article in particular really hit home. It seems that there is a behavioral principle used with autistic people when they become distracted called the body parts drill. To help the person re-focus on the task at hand, the therapist will have the child point to different body parts. I unwittingly stumbled onto this technique with Elvis.

Janalee had shown me how to teach Elvis to target his ears, eyes, and nose when we were working on teaching him ground manners. This came in very handy when the vet came one day. I proudly showed off what we had learned but felt absolutely deflated when the vet said "Well, that's a cute trick but what purpose does it serve?" and proceeded to get ready to do a nerve block. Elvis was showing some lameness behind and she wanted to isolate the pain. We tried (very briefly) to put a twitch on him but that was unsuccessful. I asked if I could try to keep him still by having him target my fingers with his nose. She reluctantly agreed and I had Elvis focus on me by having him target first his eyes, then ears, then nose and kept him targeting his nose ( and clicking periodically) while the vet gave the injections into his stifle.

Elvis stood so still that she kept looking back at us wondering what I was doing. When it was over, she stood up and said "that was the easiest stifle block I have ever done!" "Well", I said, feeling vindicated, "I guess that's one purpose for the targeting."

Whenever he would start to get distracted or when I could tell he was starting to ramp up, I would have him target his body parts and make him move forward and back until I felt he was back with me. Then we could move on and it was as if nothing had happened. And I have found that if I forget about this technique, I pay the price in some way, however small. If I miss the cues and let him get too distracted or too nervous, it is virtually impossible to get him to completely calm down. The more I can do this on the ground, the easier it is to keep him focused on me when I'm in the saddle.

Lori Yearwood, of Skode's Horse Treats (which,by the way, are the best treats I have found) and I have had discussions about sensitive horses and their needs. We both feel that it is imperative to make sure that we leave our emotions at the door when we go to work with our horses. This may seem positively obvious but if your horse is of a sensitive nature himself, it's not fair to bring all of your baggage into the stall or the ring with you. There really isn't enough room...

And so, I find, that I must periodically re-read parts of Temple Grandin's books to remind me that Elvis' universe is much different from mine and that I need to respect those differences if we are to continue to communicate effectively.