Professional trainers, ugh!

What lead to me finding and posting the links in my previous post was seeing this amazing video over at Teachings of the Horse.  I was pretty much in tears the whole way through.  At first it was knowing the same feelings of hurt and frustration it seems Carry must've gone through watching a horse she loves and cares for yank away from her so violently and seeing the absolute terrified panic in Pony's actions.  It hurt my heart wondering what on earth they must've done to that poor horse to make him so frightened.  Through the rest of the video they were tears of an emotional journey from hope as the first tentative bond began between Pony and Robin, to hopeful excitement as I saw that bond slowly grow, and lastly to grateful joy as the connection was made.

For many years of my life I ran an animal rescue and took in damaged souls like Pony.  I accepted any animal I had the resources and knowledge to care for which was mostly dogs and cats but we had a few ferrets, even one rat and pink-toed tarantula.  Over the years, though, I became well known for being able to find ways to communicate with even the toughest dog cases, especially those no one else would take because they'd been labelled viscious or aggressive.  I simply soaked up every bit of knowledge from every source I could find and spent time really watching the dogs, seeing what applied and how they interacted with each other.  I didn't follow any particular training method but instead simply let each dog guide me in what pieces of knowledge to use to help them work through their individual problems. 

(CAUTION: There are rather broad, sweeping generalities ahead!!  I'd like you to know ahead of time that I know that there are exceptions to each of the generalities scattered in the rest of this post.  Don't panic! lol)

The results of training my way were amazing!  It's hard to describe the incredible rush of joy seeing an animal that has been so brutalized by people healed, trusting again, and finally happy through your patient diligence and I honestly don't think I could've gotten the incredible results I did with any one method of training.  The real strength of the way I trained was if one thing didn't work I simply dipped into my store of knowledge to find or adapt something that would work.  This is the real weakness I find in most of every horse training method I've looked into so far.  They have a set way they train, step by step, and if the horse doesn't respond to a particular step in their program they try to force that step on the horse.  If that doesn't work they give up saying that the horse is just too damaged or untrainable for whatever reason.  In my opinion, it's a poor trainer that blames the animal for failing to grasp the lesson.  I believe that there is always a (non-abusive!) way and it is the trainer's responsibility to find that way!

My other issue with a lot of horse trainers I've seen is they try to convince you that their method and tools are unique and supremely better than all the rest.  I have seen some variation but overall it seems like there's really two training methods going on dressed up and labelled different ways in order to try to lay claim to being completely different from all the rest, the command-their-respect method and the sweet-talk-em-into-doing-what-you-want method.  And my friends, I believe that a string on the end of a stick is a string on the end of a stick no matter what color you paint it, material you use to make it, or how many pretty ruffles you put on it.  There are certainly different ameneties available on some, my husband particularly likes the little hook on the stick-n-string offered by Dennis Reis, but overall their claims to being so much different and better sound like nothing but snake oil to me.  I'm just the sort of person that not only refuses to buy snake oil when I recognize it but I'm offended by the insult to my intelligence, angry at the attempt to cheat me.

In the best of all worlds I'd learn all the methods from all the different trainers, the good ole boy down at the feed lot, the do-it-yourselfers working it out with their horse at home, the pros, blogs, dvds, in person, you name it!  I'm afraid that's not very realistic though in time or cost!  I could spend the rest of my life learning and never get around to actually training at all.  I guess all I can do is take a rather broad sampling of the most recommended pros then stir in healthy doses of common sense, determination, sensitivity, patience, listening to the horses, and lots and lots of love.