Hi Tk,
I don't know your horse so in a sense it is wrong of me to surmise what is going on, but from everything you have told me, and that's quite a lot, I have some ideas...
I know that you have harmless intent, of course you do, you want only the best for your horse but he does not know that.
I am not really explaining myself well enough here. I will try better.
As you point out, he gets on adrenaline, and moves into survival mode. HE does not know that mane pulling is a fairly innocuous procedure, although it might be a bit annoying.
Lets look at it from his point of view.
He is just trying to survive. One of the most vulnerable places on a horse is the poll area. As you know this is the area the predator grabs as he drags his half dead prey away. This is one of the two areas of his body the horse is most protective of. Perhaps you think this sounds extreme but to the horse it is not. His prime concern is for his safety and anything done to him in this area is, by his way of thinking, not just potentially dangerous but deadly dangerous.
We often stand directly above this area and also often start at the poll rather than at the withers. Both of these factors put the horse on full alert.
I think what happened with your horse, please bear with me i am only surmising but there is a pattern here and i have seen it often.
At the first session of mane pulling he was not confident, in fact scared but just holding it together. The second session his tension grew even more and when you took that second step back up onto the box to continue he just could not hold the tension anymore and he blew.
As one of my masters taught me...and as i have learned to my cost many many times.. "Laura you have to learn to see what happens before what happens happens."
There are always signs. I just had to learn to look for them, read them and react appropriately.
I worked on a horse who was being twitched so that his mane could be pulled, but even this did not work. So they resorted to sedating him. This is how i proceeded.
Session 1and 2
After introducing myself to the horse, I proceeded to move the horse around the stable. I asked him to move his hindquarters, to come forward, and back up. The horse was not very responsive to pressure but was also reactive. He was very quick and sensitive and by making sure i rewarded his slightest try he quickly gained confidence in doing what he was asked. We also worked on flexion and head lowering and yielding at the ribs.There was lots of licking and chewing in this session and i ended it when i got several big yawns (horse coming off adrenalin)
The next session we continued with the same things and then started to comb the horses mane, starting at the withers and working my way up to the poll. Throughout the procedure i would be watching for signs of anxiety. This generally manifested itself in a heightened head carriage and the horse wanting to move his feet (escape).
Prior to either of these signs, if i was listening well enough, i could sense a tightness before the head went up and well before the horse felt he had to move his feet. This is what i call a threshold of anxiety.
The key was to try to take the horse to the edge of its THRESHOLD and then RETREAT back down towards the withers to the place where the horse regained confidence. With each retreat the horse gained in confidence and i was able to slowly get higher and higher. This retreat and re-approach procedure was used many many times within each session.
This is slightly different from "flooding" where the horse is subjected to the stimulus until a change for the better is made, then the stimulus is removed. The method i used generally takes longer but in this case with the horses history ( i had watched his behavior when twitched!) i felt it was both kinder and safer.
What was interesting was that his horse was not even confident having his mane combed. Less than half way up the mane he would start to get agitated.
What chance did i have of pulling his mane if i couldn't even comb it?
It took a further session using approach and retreat, being constantly aware of the threshold of confidence, before I was able to comb his mane right up to his poll while he remained calm.
The following session , which was one week later, he was really calm having his mane combed. He now seemed to be enjoying it. His head was low and his eyes soft.
When i started to pull his mane his anxiety returned but i was able to reassure him because of the foundation of trust and confidence we had already put in place.
I started to pull his mane from the withers. By this time i was able to keep him calm by asking him to lower his head. Once or twice this was not enough so i moved him in small circles within the box allowing him to move his feet as he felt necessary. I did the lower half of the mane in the first session and the top half in two further sessions, still using approach and retreat.
He was not totally calm all the time but each time I made sure we ended on a calm note, even if that meant i had to go backwards in the process. Each time we started again the horse was better than before.
Laying in a foundation like this takes time but it saves a huge amount of time and frustration in the long run.
One of the reasons why this procedure was successful had very little to do with my technique. The reason it worked had to do with my intent or perhaps a better word here is my attitude.
Which was..
a) My total belief that the outcome would be a good one.
b) Not blaming the horse for his concern.
c) Having no expectation of how long the task would take.
d) Feeling no frustration at how long it DID take.
This is what i mean by intent.
Hope this is of some help.
We have a saying which is very apt here
Its not about the trailer
Its not about the jump
Its not about the clippers
and in this case it's not about the mane pulling
Its about the horses trust and confidence.
laura
www.connectedhorsemanship.com
