Re: RC: Use of restraint [My Broken Jaw & Arabian Stereotypes]

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated Sun, 17 Jun 2001 10:43:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Lif Strand <fasterhorses@gilanet.com> writes:

<< I have a simple and easy to understand rule that I apply to the use of 
restraint on horses, especially any that causes pain:  If I wouldn't do it 
to a human child under the same sort of circumstances, I won't allow it to 
be done to my horse. I'm not saying there's never a place for restraint, 
even the painful kind, just that with my rule, there's lots less fuss, muss 
and trauma.  Vets and other practitioners can be replaced.  A horse's 
memory of a rotten experience is notoriously difficult to undo.>>

I look at it from a different perspective, Lif.  First of all, most restraints are not painful, unless wrongfully used.  Secondly, use of pressure points is very useful in humans as well as in animals--not necessarily as restraint, but for relief of pain.  Thirdly, and most compellingly, for me--judicious use of restraint can usually keep a situation from getting out of hand, and becoming precisely the very sort of "rotten experience" that is, indeed, so difficult to undo.  If the horse learns from restraint that he CAN survive what is happening in a mannerly fashion, then the situation does not escalate, and the next time around, he is usually much more accepting about it.  The secret to successfully using restraint is to use it BEFORE the situation gets out of hand, and to use it in a calm and businesslike manner, rather than reacting in anger to something the horse has already done.

Heidi