I cannot get my head around sending away

[Wobblydeb]

Okay, I think I understand the theory of sending away. In breif - within a herd a dominant mare would be able to send away other horses with body language. And then allow them back in again when she chose. We can imitate this, and thus establish ourselves as the leader.

BUT.... I don't understand why we would want to do it when our horse is not misbehaving. Surely it sends out confusing signals about what we are like as a leader?

For instance - if my cat claws the wallpaper I shout and chase her :o She knows why, and nowadays I don't even need to move for her to run off when I shout. BUT... she would be totally confused and scared if I did the same thing when she was just mooching about. Does this not happen with horses? :(

Anybody? :)

[Yann]

I don't think we would do it if our horse wasn't misbehaving would we? In a herd situation it might only happen if a youngster for example was making a real nuisance of itself, normal herd discipline is maintained in a much more low key fashion. If you're thinking of a formal join up or similar situation then it's something that would normally be used to establish a relationship, or to try and help redress the balance when one was going wrong, not something you'd do every day as a matter of routine (I wouldn't anyway).

Of course a lot of exercises we do with horses involve an element of sending away, for example free schooling, lunging and long lining, and aren't normally detrimental to your relationship with your horse.

[Wobblydeb]

Yep, it was the use of sending away as the start of join up that I was wondering about in particular.

[chev]

This is where it's so important to understand the dynamics of join-up and exactly when and how it should be used. There's so much more to it than just sending a horse away.

I very rarely use it aggressively, to be honest. An example of when I do is when Glefy goes through one of his idiot phases. As long as I work on keeping myself on his sighted side, join-up works very well just to keep him in his place, as it were.

But it can also be very useful as a trust exercise - running through something familiar and re-asserting the relationship you have with a horse before introducing comething new, for example. In that instance, it's less of a sending away, and more of a reaffirmation of how things are. You wouldn't use such aggressive body language in that case, so the horse is simply doing what is asked, rather than being punsihed or sent away for doing nothing wrong. Horses are pretty good at working out what's being asked, as long as we're clear about it too.

That's why it's so important to work on join-up with someone who's experienced in using it in training; if we miss the point and confuse the focus or the signals, the horse doesn't have much chance either!

[Supercali]

Yes, I think you have to be careful as if you give the wrong signals to your horse then you can actually break his trust in you - which is the opposite of what you were wanting to acheive.

Join up and sending away has to be done for the right reasons and not just because it is 'what you do' if you want to use NH methods. (I also thought I would try this after I had seen a demonstration by Monty Roberts quite a few years ago now - my mare just looked at me as if I was a raving lunatic!)

To build on your trust with your horse it will probably be better to start with ground work such as the the Parelli 7 games or perhaps read up on Mark Rashid's work as he promotes 'passive leadership'.

[Yann]

Unless I'm very much mistaken there are quite a few elements of 'sending away' in the seven games aren't there? Groundwork and gaining respect are all about having control over the horses's feet, nothing wrong with sending away or anything else in that context if it's appropriate to the horse and how you wish your relationship to be with it.

[Esther.D]

The seven games are slightly different...there are some elements of sending away, but only in the physical sense, the focus, as you rightly point out, is control over the feet...there is no delay to allowing back, no waiting for a response from the horse - it is more similar to lunging/longreining than join-up really..except for the catching advice Parelli gives which is much more similar to that of Monty Roberts. For example in the yo-yo game the aim is to get the horse to leave the security of your space when asked (particularly an issue for the Rupert's of this world who are very clingy :rolleyes: ) but they are invited back in immediately (at level 1 anyway, cannot comment on higher levels as don't know), it is a vital part of the exercise, the horse leaves you and then is invited to return straight away - they have to leave you when asked but as soon as they do so you allow them back into their comfort zone (in the case of insecure horses)...there is usually very little resistance to yo-yo in bold horses, it is the insecure clingy ones, often with a tendancy to be bargers and nappers, that find this exercise threatening. Rupert was unhappy with this at first (no rearing or force etc though, just persisted rewarding the slightest try until we got there) but it was a big breakthrough in our relationship when we had achieved it - he seemed to change his attitude once he had realised it was safe to leave me and I would let him back straight away.

[cvb]

Isn't this where we get into the "join up" versus "round pen work" conversation again ? Not all round pen work is "join up"...

But I still need a way to ask my horse to go out, go round, come back. The horse knows that this is a direction, not a "punishment" (exclusion from the herd). In this case I am simply having a conversation with my horse.

[Yann]

Interesting - how much is down to routine and familiarity as well as attitude or the strength of the send? If you do round pen work regularly the horse will know the score after a while and get on with the job. A new horse wouldn't see it the same way though would it?

You could also argue that a properly done join up is a conversation too, the ones I've watched were more akin to that than an outright punishment and the horses apparently remained pretty unconcerned by the whole experience.

[cvb]

Yann

On that basis you'd be doing jojn up everytime you worked loose ? In fact everytime you caught the horse ;)

I guess I was trying to distinguish between JOIN-UP (TM) and join up in terms of the horse coming to you when loose ?

[Yann]

Not sure I follow you?:)

That TM makes me cringe big time, I'm sure I'm not the only one:D

[Skib]

As everyone knows I have no experience of sending a horse away - or not.
But the question you ask Wobbly Deb is discussed seriously by Anne Wilson in her book which I have just taken back to our public library (meaning you could now order it through yours).
Discussing NH trainers from her stand point of classical dressage, Anne Wilson says this element (sending away) is one of the hardest for her to come to terms with - both in Parelli and in join up. This is one reason she pays close attention to the alternative approach used by Gawani Pony Boy, a writer not usually mentioned so seriously on this list. His book Horse Follow Closely has no index (UGH!!!) but the suggested training starts by teaching the horse to follow. Then through body language teaching the horse when you do not wish him to follow.
This is not unlike Kelly Marks and several other trainers. It is very easy to create imaginary rifts between the work of one trainer and another. But it is also possible to overlook the fact that some trainers offer a slightly different approach. Because sending away troubles Anne Wilson, she asks each trainer about it and several of them tell her that they would not use it in every circumstance with every horse particularly where the relationship was already very good.
I cant explain this to you very well wobblydeb, except to say (my view) that one should never do anything with one's horse that does not feel right, with your horse and your particular relationship. If some point of conventional wisdom bothers you, there is probably someone else out there who is asking the same question. And even offering an alternative approach for your consideration.

[Yann]

Wise words as usual Skib :) My horse is one of those, she seems to be very attached to me and I have to say I'm reluctant to do anything to send her away, join up or otherwise, it just doesn't feel appropriate. That isn't to say I can't ask her to stop following, or move away out of my space, because she does both very nicely for the most part.

[Wobblydeb]

Thanks everyone for giving this your time and thought. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who has wondered about this aspect of join-up. I can really see that it needs to be applied on a case by case basis :)

[cvb]

Not sure I follow you?:)

That TM makes me cringe big time, I'm sure I'm not the only one:D

Yann, I guess I was just trying to say that the words "join up" cover a whole spectrum from the formal "getting a problem horse to communicate" to the everyday just being with a horse you have a relationship with.

But that breadth means it can be very different things in different circumstances, so we need to specify which one we are talking about in order to be clear.

And in trying to clarify, I made it worse :rolleyes:

I have a feeling my mare does "join up" on me :p

[Est]

I have only read a little about NH and therefore don't consciously follow any particular approach. But I totally understand wobblydeb's point about feeling that it could be construed as telling the horse it has misbehaved etc.

I like Yann's and cvb's points about "sending away" versus asking your horse
to move somewhere else as I find, thinking about it, that this is a distinction I make.

When Ria is doing something I think she shouldn't - like trying to rub on the wheelbarrow as I poo pick, with her eyes getting dangerously close to the handles :rolleyes: - I will actually send her away with "aggressive" body language - head jutting forward, "big" body language, stamping my feet down as I move etc. She knows I'm not pleased and makes a speedy escape, then keeps a watchful eye until I soften up and let her come back over for a scratch.

When I'm loose schooling Merrick, we'll do some "following work", and then gradually I'll change how I'm standing, and where I'm directing my focus on his body, and he will start to loose-lunge and be directed away from me around the school. I'm still controlling where he goes, it's just that I'm asking him to move away from me rather than with me. Again though, as soon as I soften up and invite him back, he comes straight over to me for a rub between his ears (favourite place!). He never appears to be upset by this or to feel I'm sending him away as a punishment.

While I doubt any of this is as "correct" as you more knowledgeable guys will do it, the different emphasis is definitely there - driving them away versus moving them away.

Is that the kind of thing you mean wobblydeb?

[katefarmer]

I'll probably get myself lynched now.... but in my opinion the Monty Roberts type "join up" is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut - and usually destroying the nut in the process as well as giving a misleading impression of how horses really act and think.

Don't think of it as sending away - think of it as changing the size of your personal space. That's how horses really use it. Horses have no sense of "punishment" because they have no moral sense of right and wrong. There is an action and a consequence. What we call "misbehaving" in a horse is usually the horse trying to say it is higher in the order than we are. We can show it it isn't by increasing the size of our personal space to emphasise that we, like a higher ranking horse, can decide how big the space between us is going to be. Chasing round in circles is not in the equine vocabulary - nor is "misbehaving". A horse just behaves like a horse - and the others interact with it accordingly.

A higher ranking horse can change the size of space it wants at any time and the others respect that - it's not necessarily a consequence of what a lower ranking horse has done. Thus if we increase the size of our space the horse won't feel offended or punished - but we must be careful to have a clear idea of how much space we want and stop when the horse gets to that - otherwise we will appear predatory.

Think lighter and finer - think about working with the horse's mind and offering it leadership - and don't forget that Monty Roberts style "join up" was designed to get QUICK results around the "starting a horse in half an hour" claim and uses far more pressure than is necessary or desirable to get the full benefit of the hook on phenomenon.

Cheers

Kate
www.harmony-project.net

[Yann]

and usually destroying the nut in the process

I ain't going to lynch you, as what you've written is all fair and reasonable apart from the above IMHO. I watched him do several joinups at a demo earlier this year and did so with a critical eye, but as I've previously posted saw very little in the join up part of the process to suggest that the horses found it at all distressing or stressful. But we can all watch the same things and see something different and I'm no expert:)

[cvb]

Don't think of it as sending away - think of it as changing the size of your personal space. That's how horses really use it. Horses have no sense of "punishment" because they have no moral sense of right and wrong. There is an action and a consequence. What we call "misbehaving" in a horse is usually the horse trying to say it is higher in the order than we are. We can show it it isn't by increasing the size of our personal space to emphasise that we, like a higher ranking horse, can decide how big the space between us is going to be.

No lynching here either :D I really like that as an insight - it puts in back in horse language rather than an anthropomorphic interpretation ;)

[Kate F.]

Thanks Yann and CVB! Sorry Yann - the nut wasn't a very good analogy, was it? - :o - I was thinking more of the "nut" as the opening up of the communication and understanding, which tends to get harder if too much pressure is used. They'll hook on - but more out of trying to get you to stop pushing rather than really reaching out to you mentally. I didn't mean it would damage the horse or cause any serious stress :D

Cheers!

Kate

[Yann]

I'm with you now ;)