Why can't I be Gods favorite? It's not fair.

I'm kind of on a John Lyons kick after I heard Alexandra Kurland talk about him as having a focus on conditioned behavior. I can't afford his manuals or to go to his $18,000 certification class, but I started taking a second look at his materials.

Hmmm... it's a mixed bag. John Lyons says that the horse is "God's most favorite creation". I kind of hope that's true because I have seen a lot of people antagonizing God's personal favorite in ways that Hell would a fitting consequence. I don't know, though, what if the wallaby is Gods favorite animal? What if the banana slug is? I just don't think we can safely say that God has a favorite. If he is a good God, he wouldn't have a favorite, would he?

Well, be that as it may. I've been working on a little conditioned relaxation in the right hind foot of my favorite BLM mustang. That is a pretty good protocol and remarkably effective in unlearning a post-traumatic response. Okay, Cisco, tip your foot up to a full relaxed posture, collect the reward. If you un-relax, you have to step two steps sideways. Tip your foot up again, little mustang. Stay relaxed during a cycle of petting and I will come back with your reward: face, neck, shoulder, ribs, hip, gaskin, cannon bone, fetlock, hoof, adding each body part to the cycle sequentially as you relax. Is the foot actually tipped up? I merely look at the leg joint just below the stifle to tell for sure.

Cisco's hoof is resting on my knee now. Just targeting the foot up and into my hands wasn't enough to break through his learned barriers and fear. When I changed over to requiring his leg remain relaxed, then things started to fall into place.

John Lyons talked about this recently on Rick Lamb's The Horse Show. Of course his "reward" was just petting and he declined to mention conditioned relaxation at all. Instead he said, "I don't know why it works."

That is the thing, right there. You can't possibly say you use scientific methods around most horse people. They are traditionalists and it doesn't even matter that it's fake tradition, invented like some Santa Fe style. John Lyons couldn't risk being perceived as a behavior modification technician, but he knew very well why it works. I have an old-ish tract from the American Quarter Horse association published in the 1960's from all appearances. It's about starting colts as done on four of the largest ranches in the west. It's the inception of today's Natural Horsemanship. Three of the ranches used (hold your breath here) positive reinforcement to get the colts thinking positively about humans and being led. On the King Ranch, "a little sweet feed or sugar is a big help in building friendship." "On the third day," at the 6666 Ranch, "the foal or weanling is lead by the man who pulls him lightly first one way and then the other, giving him a taste of sweetened feed each time he responds." It's a similar story at the Lippan Springs Ranch where, "As soon as he even takes two steps toward the man, the pull eases up, he is petted and given a taste of grain."

Here in the bastions of traditional Natural Horsemanship, we find positive reinforcement in the toolbox. Hey, if you have a death wish, just show up at a Buck Brahannaman clinic with a clicker in your hand... he might not care but the traditionalists in the crowd are going to kill you.

The American Quarterhorse Association had some good things to say way back then:

The qualities of a superior horse trainer are keyed to the following: kindness, patience, firmness, consistency, courage, consideration, intelligence and determination. When you have developed these traits to the extent that you have become a good trainer, you will also have become a better, more understanding person.

May it be so!