I have spent hours discussing behaviour with Nick Sanders, a really great horseman, and the inventor of the Magic Rope. ( I can sell you a cut price version, if you are interested) and we came to the conclusion that horses and ponies just weren't fooled by us pretending to talk horse. We are clearly missing a couple of legs and proper ears.
Given these deficiencies, trying to pretend to be the alpha male, while being the human equivalent of a unidexterous deaf mute, is going to be exceedingly hard work. But pretending to be God is a lot easier. Gods always look a bit weird, and their behaviour is not what you would expect in polite company.
Try asking your host to sacrifice a couple of virgin daughters and throw a few thunderbolts at the slightest provocation, it doesn't go down well in Notting Hill.
So the trick is to persuade your pony that you are omniscient, all powerful etc. This is done on a regular basis by parents, throughout the animal kingdom. For some considerable time, children believe in the magiclal power of their parents.
But there is another factor. Richard Dawkins in the selfish gene looks at the selfish interests of the gene, and the concept that from a gene's point of view, sacrificing your life to save the lives of three of your children, makes sense. This is based on each child having half of your genes, therefore three children is one and a half of a parent.
It is this logic which makes parents defend their children, even at great personal risk. The fact that you like the little creeps might factor somewhere as well. But parenting is not about dominance for the sake of it, or for the extra food and sex as in alpha male dominance. Parents use force to keep the brats safe, not to establish dominance. They just are dominant.
By combining the attributes of a supreme being, ie being allowed the wrong number of limbs and wiggly appendages, like the Great Spaghetti Monster, and the loving, caring, but forceful if necessary attributes of a parent we get
THE GODMOTHER
Then tacking on another complete layer of complexity, the PANIC concept from Animals Make People Human, (Grandin's book), which suggests that PANIC is separation anxiety, we have a really useful training and working tool for ponies. Stand close and be kind, and positive, and occasionally ask the pony to tidy its stable, and you are THE GODMOTHER. Therefore no separation anxiety, therefore , although fear may be present, PANIC won't be.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Facebook, nervous times
I had a really nervous couple of hours this morning when i couldn't put anything on my facebook page, or send messages, because apparently someone finds my comments offensive. Now since almost all my recent comments have been about trying to persuade people that the horse's status as the only animal you can buy a whip for, and the only animal that animal welfare charities encourage small children to carry a whip to deal with, iIreckon the problem is the other way around.
If asking people not to teach children to hit horses and ponies is offensive, I would rather be considered offensive. Unfortunately I also think facebook is a brilliant communication device. I hope that facebook will not ban me for trying to stop whips being used on horses and ponies.
If asking people not to teach children to hit horses and ponies is offensive, I would rather be considered offensive. Unfortunately I also think facebook is a brilliant communication device. I hope that facebook will not ban me for trying to stop whips being used on horses and ponies.
More offensive comments. Blocked by facebook.
Just checking which words Facebook finds offensive.
whips, bits, spurs
whips, bits, spurs
I just tried to put this comment on my note about Temple Grandin's book, and apparently Facebook users find the content offensive. This is what I wanted to say. Maybe the typos are the problem which is why I left them in.
Just in case there is any doubt, I would like to point out that weapons are ways of increasing the level of pain or damage you can inflict with your own body. Whips are the most obviuos weapons, but whips, bits, boots (if you intend to kick the animal) even hard hats if you are gojg to headbut it.
Just in case there is any doubt, I would like to point out that weapons are ways of increasing the level of pain or damage you can inflict with your own body. Whips are the most obviuos weapons, but whips, bits, boots (if you intend to kick the animal) even hard hats if you are gojg to headbut it.
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
Question Time
Which Animal based charities encourage children to use whips on animals?
Which Child based charities encourage children to use whips on animals?
Which Charity ostensibly working with both animals and children, tests 10 year old children to see they can
# Mount and dismount # Hold the reins correctly and carry a whip in either hand.
Is this in the best interests of the animals?
Is this in the best interests of the children?
What definition of charity are they using?
Should anyone care?
Which Child based charities encourage children to use whips on animals?
Which Charity ostensibly working with both animals and children, tests 10 year old children to see they can
# Mount and dismount # Hold the reins correctly and carry a whip in either hand.
Is this in the best interests of the animals?
Is this in the best interests of the children?
What definition of charity are they using?
Should anyone care?
Temple Grandin does it again.
Temple Grandin has done it again. Just when I thought it was time to launch my training program, heavily based on Animals in Translation, some creep lends me Making Animals Happy, (originally published stateside as Animals Make People Human), and I have to do a complete rethink.
I haven't got to change much of what i do, which as a matter of principle is as little as possible, but the reasons why I do what I do, have changed. And an awful lot of the complicated bullshit I had written can be safely ignored. I am back down to some very simple principles. To get ponies to do what you want there are certain simple rules. First the don'ts
Don't use weapons.
Don't use violence.
Don't deliberately frighten the animal.
Pretty much anything else goes. It may not work, but that isn't my problem. As long as you aren't armed, aren't using violence and deliberately frightening Obama, I can stand back and watch his reactions.
Being Obama, he will probably do what you want really easily, just to annoy me. But that's cool.
The positives in my training system are also pretty simple.
Be nice and give loads of rewards. If your pony sees you as a nice person to be with, he won't disappear into the distance.
If you want him to go somewhere, lead him.
Leading can only be done from in front. It is positional. If you are on top of somebody, you aren't leading, behind them, you aren't leading, running off to safety, you aren't leading. The reason the animal follows, is safety. If you are wrong and there is a lion behind that shop sign, you are being eaten while the pony legs it back up the road. Respect doesn't enter into it, if you are in front and you are wrong, you are lunch. On this basis Obama will follow anyone.
Now back to Grandin, and she introduces the concept of PANIC as separation anxiety, ie the emotion is the same and follows the same path in the brain as an animal that has lost its mother.
Combine this with the new research on wolves which suggests the standard social group in the wild, is the 2.2 kids and a Volvo model of suburbia. On this basis the whole alpha male stuff becomes less relevant.
With Obama, when he is really scared, he wants someone he knows and trusts, close to him, and the closer you are to his head, shoulder area, the better. But this isn't a positional thing, it is proximity based. The closer the better. This fits in with the PANIC / separation anxiety theory. As long as Obama is with someone he trusts, he may be scared, but he won't PANIC because he isn't on his own.
The person can even be riding the pony and still provide the reassurance, as the rider can lean close and stroke and reassure the animal. If the person is kicking and using a whip and fighting with the bit, the animal is less likely to see the person as a parent, ideally the mother, and calm down.
This comes back to a discussion with Nick Sanders where we basically agreed that most ponies count the legs, and wiggly ears, and decide people make pretty poor ponies, but we can be Gods. Excess body parts or weird biology don't stop you being a supreme being.
So you can lead without building a bond, because your sole role is to be lunch if wrong, But to stop PANIC, you need to be a substitute Mother, calm, omniscient, source of food and all good things, scratches and confidence.
Persuading your pony that you are the Mother God isn't that difficult. No need for stone tablets, lightning or earthquakes. An abilty to produce parsnips, scratch the bits the pony can't reach, stay calm, and show the pony that you care about his safety and happiness, is enough. Mother Godesses aren't into all this aplpha male dominance rubbish, a bit of love and the milk of human kindness (a rare commodity), is all that's needed.
With these two techniques I will take Obama through city centres, work prototype agricultural machinery, provide all terrain disability access and blat around on the beach at high speed.
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Beating addiction.
Addiction is back in fashion, celebs are giving up, or failing to give up, or attending incredibly expensive clinics to publicise the problems of giving up almost everything. But non celebs, aka homo sapiens, also have problems.
I smoked, at an industrial level, for years. About nine years ago I stopped. I am still waiting for the withdrawal symptom. And I was admitting to my doctor to sixty a day.
I got some praise for giving up smoking and compliments on my willpower, which I pointed out were undeserved as a stopping distance of one minute for sixty to zero, was just a matter of deciding to leave a larger gap before the next fag. It was not a problem, I don't preach, I just stopped, and am quite prepared to tell anyone how to stop. But Cassandra like, I no longer expect to be believed. And I don't want payment. Instead I intend to sue ASH for all the cigarettes I bought, deluded into believing I was addicted to the evil weed.
I used to consume serious quantities of alcohol. Most years went by without a single dry day. I might admit to a drink problem but I wasn't an alcoholic. I stopped. The beers were still in the fridge, I just wans't drinking them. That was about fifteen months ago.
I suppose I operated at a steady level of 4 pints a night, unless I decided to drink, ie 4 pints was normal, like a morning cup of tea.
Stopping drinking impressed almost nobody, but then most of the people I know drink, and I was challenging a lot of their assumptions. I wasn't going the Lordy, Lordy, saved sinner, AA route, I just stopped. I still go to pubs, I attend parties, but I don't drink. I don't preach or criticise, but suddenly all the character traits that could be blamed on alcohol, can't. I am me, for better or worse.
And then a year ago with Obama, I tried to give up whips. And I am winning. I am, to coin a phrase, beating the habit. And I am fighting every inch of the way. It is incredibly difficult, as a regular, habitual whip user to give it up. Not only does it feel natural, but whip use gives clear and obvious satisfaction. The pony moves forward or sideways or backwards.
If cigarettes are the answer, what was the question? Tricky.
If Alcohol is the answer, what was the question? Ditto.
If a whip was the answer, what was the question. How do I make my pony speed up, move over, jump or whatever.
And it works. Check it out, you don't need to be a horseman, hit anyone with a whip and they will speed up, move over or jump. Then they will probably clock you one or call the call the Police.
Give up whips, and even worse, say you are giving up whips and you are a serious pariah. So you not only have to fight the twitches when you know that just a quick hit would solve all your problems, but when you don't hit, and say you don't, the horsey world will lay into you big time.
What is the question that cigarettes answer? How can I belong, be part of the group, be accepted? It is a simple portable bribe. You can't offer ten pee to someone at a party to talk to you, but you can offer a cigarette. Steinbeck's "In Dubious Battle" sums up smoking as the old agitator tells his protege he had better learn to smoke to make contacts. If you want to join the group hanging round outside the entrance, you need a fag to belong.
Alcohol is the same. We have a society based on shared mind altering drug use, and if you don't join the rituals, you aren't one of us.
By giving up tobacco and alcohol I had finally accepted that I don't belong, but I hadn't joined another group, AA or ASH, where giving up was the entrance fee.
I got Obama, a smallish rescue pony and failed child's mount, just as Barack Obama was being inaugurated. I "trained" him using only one rule, no whips, and while not smoking and not drinking may make you feel a bit of an outsider, just try going the whip free route. One thing it has done is made me reassess the response to me giving up the demon drink and filthy fags.
Cigarettes are generally accepted as addictive, therefore those who continue are helpless slaves to the addiction, and can't be blamed. They are therefore, prepared to praise the occasional escapee, and wish they had the will power, expensive clinic, charismatic guru, etc to make giving up possible. But nobody who drinks is a helpless slave to the stuff, they enjoy the taste, have earned the right to relax, it's only an extension of their arm, oh sorry that's whips isn't it. Because drinkers aren't addicts, could stop at any time, don't need the stuff etc, they can't praise me for stopping, because they could any day of the week. Only one of my friends has admitted he couldn't, and I thought he was one of my more restrained drinking buddies.
But whips, give those up and the muckheap is going to hit the windfarm. It's an extension of your arm, well, so interestingly, is a cigarette, and to a degree, so is a drink. It's what your right arm's for. Lets raise our glasses, cigarettes and whips.
Well I won't raise any of them so where does that leave me. Well out on the edge. It is perfectly possible to belong without booze fags and whips, you just have to choose a different method of joining, but booze and fags were the easy ones, no training, no qualifications, a classic no brainer.
I didn't choose whips, they were just part of my background, ponies, hunting, fishing, shooting, flogging, booze and fags. The ponies weren't compulsory, but if you had a pony, you got a whip, like you have a rod for fish and gun for pheasants.
The flogging was obligatory if you went to that sort of school in that era, and although the school at which I received all my beatings, was basically a good school, staffed by good people, its problems stemmed from the attitude, spare the rod and spoil the child. They gave up beating shortly after left, and the same group of people still send their children away. They just have to do the hitting themselves these days.
But despite reaching the age at which criticising modernity is the norm, I don't think the kids have got any worse because the head master can't take a flexible bamboo cane to their pyjama clad backsides.
This page is tailing off indecisively, but that is where I am with whips. I know giving up is right, but I still get the twitches. I have given up three very visible signs of belonging, three signalling extensions of the arm, cigarettes, glasses and whips, and to be honest, it gets lonely out here on the fringes. And I am scared of asking people to join me because I know just how nasty groups can be when you reject them and their symbols.
But if anyone wants to talk privately, feel free. ponyaccess@gmail.com and 07510 736518 normally get me.
edited 6/1/15 to correct typos and give correct email and phone number.
I smoked, at an industrial level, for years. About nine years ago I stopped. I am still waiting for the withdrawal symptom. And I was admitting to my doctor to sixty a day.
I got some praise for giving up smoking and compliments on my willpower, which I pointed out were undeserved as a stopping distance of one minute for sixty to zero, was just a matter of deciding to leave a larger gap before the next fag. It was not a problem, I don't preach, I just stopped, and am quite prepared to tell anyone how to stop. But Cassandra like, I no longer expect to be believed. And I don't want payment. Instead I intend to sue ASH for all the cigarettes I bought, deluded into believing I was addicted to the evil weed.
I used to consume serious quantities of alcohol. Most years went by without a single dry day. I might admit to a drink problem but I wasn't an alcoholic. I stopped. The beers were still in the fridge, I just wans't drinking them. That was about fifteen months ago.
I suppose I operated at a steady level of 4 pints a night, unless I decided to drink, ie 4 pints was normal, like a morning cup of tea.
Stopping drinking impressed almost nobody, but then most of the people I know drink, and I was challenging a lot of their assumptions. I wasn't going the Lordy, Lordy, saved sinner, AA route, I just stopped. I still go to pubs, I attend parties, but I don't drink. I don't preach or criticise, but suddenly all the character traits that could be blamed on alcohol, can't. I am me, for better or worse.
And then a year ago with Obama, I tried to give up whips. And I am winning. I am, to coin a phrase, beating the habit. And I am fighting every inch of the way. It is incredibly difficult, as a regular, habitual whip user to give it up. Not only does it feel natural, but whip use gives clear and obvious satisfaction. The pony moves forward or sideways or backwards.
If cigarettes are the answer, what was the question? Tricky.
If Alcohol is the answer, what was the question? Ditto.
If a whip was the answer, what was the question. How do I make my pony speed up, move over, jump or whatever.
And it works. Check it out, you don't need to be a horseman, hit anyone with a whip and they will speed up, move over or jump. Then they will probably clock you one or call the call the Police.
Give up whips, and even worse, say you are giving up whips and you are a serious pariah. So you not only have to fight the twitches when you know that just a quick hit would solve all your problems, but when you don't hit, and say you don't, the horsey world will lay into you big time.
What is the question that cigarettes answer? How can I belong, be part of the group, be accepted? It is a simple portable bribe. You can't offer ten pee to someone at a party to talk to you, but you can offer a cigarette. Steinbeck's "In Dubious Battle" sums up smoking as the old agitator tells his protege he had better learn to smoke to make contacts. If you want to join the group hanging round outside the entrance, you need a fag to belong.
Alcohol is the same. We have a society based on shared mind altering drug use, and if you don't join the rituals, you aren't one of us.
By giving up tobacco and alcohol I had finally accepted that I don't belong, but I hadn't joined another group, AA or ASH, where giving up was the entrance fee.
I got Obama, a smallish rescue pony and failed child's mount, just as Barack Obama was being inaugurated. I "trained" him using only one rule, no whips, and while not smoking and not drinking may make you feel a bit of an outsider, just try going the whip free route. One thing it has done is made me reassess the response to me giving up the demon drink and filthy fags.
Cigarettes are generally accepted as addictive, therefore those who continue are helpless slaves to the addiction, and can't be blamed. They are therefore, prepared to praise the occasional escapee, and wish they had the will power, expensive clinic, charismatic guru, etc to make giving up possible. But nobody who drinks is a helpless slave to the stuff, they enjoy the taste, have earned the right to relax, it's only an extension of their arm, oh sorry that's whips isn't it. Because drinkers aren't addicts, could stop at any time, don't need the stuff etc, they can't praise me for stopping, because they could any day of the week. Only one of my friends has admitted he couldn't, and I thought he was one of my more restrained drinking buddies.
But whips, give those up and the muckheap is going to hit the windfarm. It's an extension of your arm, well, so interestingly, is a cigarette, and to a degree, so is a drink. It's what your right arm's for. Lets raise our glasses, cigarettes and whips.
Well I won't raise any of them so where does that leave me. Well out on the edge. It is perfectly possible to belong without booze fags and whips, you just have to choose a different method of joining, but booze and fags were the easy ones, no training, no qualifications, a classic no brainer.
I didn't choose whips, they were just part of my background, ponies, hunting, fishing, shooting, flogging, booze and fags. The ponies weren't compulsory, but if you had a pony, you got a whip, like you have a rod for fish and gun for pheasants.
The flogging was obligatory if you went to that sort of school in that era, and although the school at which I received all my beatings, was basically a good school, staffed by good people, its problems stemmed from the attitude, spare the rod and spoil the child. They gave up beating shortly after left, and the same group of people still send their children away. They just have to do the hitting themselves these days.
But despite reaching the age at which criticising modernity is the norm, I don't think the kids have got any worse because the head master can't take a flexible bamboo cane to their pyjama clad backsides.
This page is tailing off indecisively, but that is where I am with whips. I know giving up is right, but I still get the twitches. I have given up three very visible signs of belonging, three signalling extensions of the arm, cigarettes, glasses and whips, and to be honest, it gets lonely out here on the fringes. And I am scared of asking people to join me because I know just how nasty groups can be when you reject them and their symbols.
But if anyone wants to talk privately, feel free. ponyaccess@gmail.com and 07510 736518 normally get me.
edited 6/1/15 to correct typos and give correct email and phone number.
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