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Hi Diane,

Oh, don't worry...I abandoned the "soothing" tactic long ago.   But 
again, (third time I've typed this, LOL) I can get Shahtahr past scary 
stuff just fine.  He may cock an ear and sidepass by or what not, but we 
get by because he will trust me to get him by it.  Sometimes I growl, 
sometimes I laugh.  But those are situations where the scary thing is 
sitting there in our path and Shahtahr is letting me know way ahead of 
time, by tensing up or in some other way, that he's gonna be scared of it.

The spins happen when unexpected stuff happens.  A dog bounds out of the 
brush...birds take flight out of the bushes....something shiny catches 
the sun just right (this happened...I was trotting by a big mound of 
dirt and a car bumper was sticking out of it.  Just as we passed, the 
sun hit it just right, making it flash in the sun - rode about 50 feet 
on his neck in front of the saddle on that one!).

So, you see what kind of scenario I'm talking about?  He is way too 
easily startled.  The spins he does are always followed by an immediate 
stop, look, and an "oh, that's nothing" kind of attitude from him.   As 
I'm clinging to the side of his neck..... :(

Jennifer

Diane Trefethen wrote:

> Warning:  this is long.
>
> I know there have been some light-hearted discussions about how our 
> Arabs spook but as Jennifer and Mary Ann have indicated, trying to 
> ride a big spook can be dangerous.  Instead of looking to a metabolic 
> reason for the spooks, and thus a chemical cure, stop to consider that 
> a spook is a behavior and like any other behavior it can be modified 
> and often eliminated.  If spooking is a big problem with your horse, 
> ask yourself, "What do I do when my horse spooks?"  The answer may 
> surprise you when you realize that YOUR behavior could be contributing 
> to your horse's MISBEHAVIOR.  Am I saying that all spooks are 
> misbehavior?  No, but when a horse ROUTINELY spooks on most trail 
> rides, especially at things it has seen before, then the spooking IS a 
> misbehavior.
>
> I have a friend who bought a 4 yr old Arab mare.  Cricket stumbled and 
> as the weeks passed, her stumbling became worse and worse.  We all 
> know that Arab + Walk = Stumble (just like Arab + Log = Spook), but 
> this horse was stumbling so much, on every ride, that my friend was 
> afraid that her Endurance horse-to-be might have a neurological 
> problem, or a subtle leg deformity.  Then the truth dawned.  She, my 
> friend, was teaching this horse to stumble.  Every time Cricket 
> stumbled, my friend would lean forward, pat her on the neck, tell her 
> not to worry, she was a good horse, blah, blah, blah.  By sympathizing 
> with her horse she was rewarding the stumbling BEHAVIOR.  She changed 
> tactics, and when Cricket would stumble, she would growl at her and 
> bang the mare's sides with her legs.  Within a few weeks the stumbling 
> was gone.
>
> Do you empathize with your horse when he worries or gets nervous, even 
> if there is nothing there that is a real threat to him?  Do you try to 
> calm him with a gentle, loving tone of voice?  Do you offer him a 
> carrot or other goody to relax him in a "tense" situation?  If so, 
> then you ARE rewarding him for his behavior and there is no way on 
> God's green earth that a smart Arabian isn't going to continue a 
> behavior that gets him rewards.  T'aint rocket science.
>
> Even if your horse is wired a bit tighter than others, he should NEVER 
> get a reward for behavior that is inherently dangerous to his rider.  
> When a young horse starts with the spooking, often just laughing at 
> him is all it takes to stop the behavior. A human laugh is relaxing to 
> horses (if he really is nervous) and the fact that you are laughing AT 
> his behavior is not lost on the horse.  However, with a horse that has 
> been rewarded for misbehaving (spooking), the better course is to 
> follow my friend's lead... growl at him, smack him, show displeasure 
> at what he does.
>
> I have a new horse whose previous owner said was bold and great on the 
> trail except he spooked at logs.  I live in a National Forest.  We 
> have logs... everywhere.  I am too old to ride spooks every 50 feet!  
> So from the getgo, when he STARTED to sidle away from a log I growled 
> at him, got after him with my legs and if he continued, I'd stop and 
> put him almost on top of the log.  Then I went back down the trail, 
> turned and trotted him back up PAST the log again.  Now he LOOKS but 
> just keeps trotting. He knows that if he hesitates, Mom is going to 
> make a federal case out of it.
>
> So if you are being understanding, empathetic, NICE to your horse when 
> he spooks, STOP IT!!  Holler at him, put him on top of whatever he 
> spooked at or if that is not feasible, dismount and walk him up to it 
> and around it and if it is inanimate, smack it.  Do it every time he 
> acts foolishly (spooks) and do NOT let him get one ounce of joy from 
> spooking; give him grief.  When he realizes that his behavior is just 
> going to get him a lot of hassle, he will stop.  Will he WANT to 
> spook?  Probably, but if you TRAIN him not to, he will learn.  Police 
> horses learn to put up with aggressive people threatening their 
> riders, firecrackers, waving banners, surging crowds. Certainly our 
> highly intelligent Arabians can learn not to spook at NOTHING.
>
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