Fundamentals With Phoenix: How to Train Your Human
Lesson 2: Get Good at Spooking, Like Olympic-Level Good
Dream of a life in which you lounge in the pasture all day and the only human interaction you face is when your two-legged servant chucks some grain or hay at you? It can be a reality if you make your human believe you’re half crazy. If you have your human thinking that you’re a stick of dynamite set to go off at any moment, they’ll spend more time tiptoeing around you than asking you to be at their beck and call (read move your feet and work!). Or better yet, they won’t even bother getting you out of the pasture at all because they’ll be too afraid of what could set you off into a fit of hysteria. Admittedly, the bigger you are, the better this tactic works. But us little guys can get the job done, too.
To pull this maneuver off, you’ll pick an object and spook at it as if it were a fire-breathing dragon. If you want to really take your human off their game, spook at absolutely nothing at all or spook at an object you’ve seen a hundred times before. The more spontaneous you are, the better.
To ensure you get the full effect of a good spook, I recommend taking a few moments to practice in the pasture or stall by yourself. The tiniest of details are what will earn you crazy status and a lifetime of ease. Perfect the glimmer of worry in your eye and the nervous snort right down to your eyes rolling in your head and your tail raised above your hindquarters.
When it comes to orchestrating the perfect spook, the more spontaneous you are the better!
Be cautious of the humans who arrive at the barn with a “desensitizing” plan. If there’s one way to get a horse to use the thinking side of his brain and to stop spooking, it’s desensitizing. This usually starts off innocently enough with the Fundamentals Series exercise Desensitizing to the Lead Rope. Be warned: Once the desensitizing process begins, it’s a slippery slope to you becoming a full-fledged safe, calm partner and completely loosing the urge to spook so bad your human pee their pants. Before you know it, your human will go full Clinton Anderson on you and be desensitizing you to plastic bags, pool noodles and running chainsaws.
I decided to work with Clinton to produce this short video showing the horrors that await you if your human learns the Fundamentals Series exercise Desensitizing to the Lead Rope.
Stay Sassy & Free,
Phoenix
