Pony training.

 

Please go to http://ponyaccess.com/ , my new website covering the saddlechariot/iBex and it's uses. This is where you will also find links to all my articles on training, safety, vehicle design and even the weird stuff on cooking and politics.

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For safety, pony training isn't necessary with the iBex, as at the first hint of danger, you pull the release rope and let the pony go. This is fine in theory, but in practice you are going to have a lot of very bored, very dissatisfied customers as none of them move more than a couple of inches without the pony being released to gallop off into the distance. But you will note that safety has not been compromised. You no longer have a business, but nobody has been injured.

So if you want to be safe and provide pony access, training is necessary.

Training ponies to do useful things is really easy and relies on the principles of leadership. This unfortunately is one of many topics that produce huge volumes of hot air. Leadership is not about dominance, respect, bonding, empathy or any of that stuff. Leadership is positional. It can only be done from in front.

There are lots of things you can do from behind a horse or on top of a horse or off to one side of a horse but none of them are leadership. You can only lead from in front. But this makes it really easy, just set off to where you want your pony to go, walking in front. That is leading.  If you have a rope and a halter you are all set.

You do need to understand the principles of pressure release, and elementary body language. Pressure release is simple. When you put pressure on the rope to make a pony move towards you, it is vital to release the pressure the instant the pony starts to move towards you. The release of pressure is the reward for moving.

Body language is even simpler. IF you want an animal to follow you, look as though you are moving to somewhere attractive. If you look bored or hesitant about moving, why on earth would the pony want to follow you. If you look keen and enthusiastic, the pony will go with the flow.

Why they follow you is basic mathematics. All ponies, horses, donkeys etc evolved in an environment where the major immediate threats were large predators. Many more animals die of starvation, disease or parasites, but they have not evolved to run like hell when threatened by any of these, because it wouldn't work. But if a lion approaches, running does work.

This is where a bit of simple mathematics is essential.  If the pony is on its own, and approached by a lion, the lion is aiming to make that pony lunch. If the pony is accompanied by another pony, the lion is aiming to make a pony lunch. The risk of being lunch is immediately halved.

No person can function as a pony. In a pony's eyes you have the wrong number of legs, your ears don't work properly and you haven't got a tail. Other than that you move wrong, smell wrong and sound wrong, and when you get up close, you feel wrong, but you are just as good as another pony when it comes to offering a lion an alternative lunch. In fact you may be rather better as you are slower. When you are around and a lion attacks, the pony no longer has to outrun the lion, it only has to out run you.

This is how leadership works. When you are in a new environment, the pony is looking at everthing as a possible hiding place for a lion. If you are walking in front, the technical description of leading, the pony can relax.  If there is a lion lurking, you are lunch. And while the lion is crunching you, the pony can head for safety.

There is a further stage of training, the Godmother Concept which is discussed in these posts. But the simple leadership principle makes it possible to work effectively with the iBex, taking people with mobility problems to places they would never otherwise reach.

Leadership is simple, and logical. Ask yourself whether you are more likely to follow someone who is nice to you, or someone who hits and kicks you. This should give you a few clues on how to behave with your animal.

Driving an animal from behind is easy. You just have to persuade an animal that you are more scary than whatever it thinks might be up ahead. Whips work. I said it was easy, not nice.

Leading is easy. The animal knows that any lurking lion will eat you, not him. And that is all he really needs to know. Again not nice. Your pony isn't going to save you when the lion jumps out, he's going to leg it, but then, he isn't making you go in front. He isn't making you face down your terrors. He is merely taking advantage of your stupidity.

The more you work together, the easier it gets, and as the pony's confidence in your judgement increases,  (six months and you've managed to avoid all the lions in Devon) he starts to work ahead of you when things look safe. All you have to do is lead when he gets nervous.

It really is that simple.




Then when you want to drive up Rowtor in a wheelchair, it is easy because Obama has done so much lion free work, he is beginning to think I might just know what I am talking about.
He is wrong, but I'm not going to tell him.