Facebook Privacy

I must say I find Facebook's adjustable privacy settings really rather admirable. I have  loosened up quite a few of the settings so more people can be offended by my opionion that using whips with ponies and horses is unneccessary, dangerous, counter productive, cruel, stupid etc. I will expand on this  subject ad nauseam, but this is a good moment for those who are offended, or embarrassed to be associated with someone whose views are so offensive, to unfriend me before I go any further.
This is a final warning.

The Godmother Concept

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.

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.

More offensive comments. Blocked by facebook.

Just checking which words Facebook finds offensive.
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.

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?

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.