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| BUILD A TRUE CONNECTION The first time I saw Jerry Tindell work with a troubled horse in the round pen - and saw the improvement that followed immediately afterward - I knew that something profound had happened. But I didn't know what it was. It was like "psychotherapy for horses." With Jerry's expert guidance, the horse seemed to use the Round Pen Session to work through all his past traumas and "knots." When the horse came through it, he was soft and willing, relaxed and affectionate. I also learned that "Round Penning" isn't just for disturbed horses - it's for any horse. And the same work can be done without a round pen, too - you can do the same work in a square pen or any other shape. So I signed up for a clinic to learn how to do it myself, to learn more about it.
Round Pen work is a system that works with the horse's natural mind , to build a strong foundation for all horsemanship endeavors. Round Penning is often misunderstood to be simply a way to exercise the horse, to get the horse to "run off steam." Not so.
Through working with our horse in the round pen, we learn to assume that leadership, to which a horse is "hard-wired" to respond naturally. Round Pen Work lets you safely work on 3 important things: Movement, Direction, and Connection.
Note about the use of ropes and whips: Stop thinking of whips as whips (tools for punishment) Think of them as simply a safe extension of your own hand and arm, as a means for giving a signal that the horse can understand. We do not whip with the whip! We do not at this point actually make contact with the horse using these tools - we just energize them in the direction of the horse's hindquarters to induce movement. In the case of an extremely balky horse, we might find that a little contact is temporarily necessary, but in this case we are careful that the contact is only enough to "give the horse the right answer" - NEVER to punish or express our own frustration! As the horse learns to move at our request, we can scale our request down to where it is barely perceptible to a human onlooker. We continue asking for movement until the horse's movement becomes smooth and relaxed. Some horses will move rapidly, even frantically, at first. Others will be balky and "shut down." Either way, we ask the horse to move until it can do so softly, calmly and easily, with the same relaxed and flowing gait the horse would use to play in the sunshine on a spring day. If you're a Softie like me, you may have some trouble getting used to the idea of Pressure. Keep in mind that "pressure" is just that - not punishment, not venting. Remember how the lead mare moves her herd! Sometimes just a look in another's direction will accomplish her goal; other times she may become temporarily quite direct and seemingly harsh - then back to being friends! She just does what needs to be done, then moves on. No Hard Feelings! When the horse begins to move softly, we'll notice a light cadence to the feet, and we'll see the first signs of connection: an ear cupped toward us, the head dropping to a more relaxed carriage, and we should see the horse occasionally licking and chewing. Licking and chewing is an outward sign that the horse is thinking about it, "digesting" the experience.
It is important to eventually get both an inside and an outside turn, although you may only get one or the other at first. The inside turn allows the horse to focus both eyes on you. The outside turn makes the horse "change eyes." Remember, the horse has two sides to its brain, and you have to train both sides. The ability to change eyes - that is, to be watching you with the eye on one side and then to turn and switch to the other, is very important in horse training. When the horse realizes that it is you directing its movements, not just its own idea, it is ready to accept leadership from you. It is "connecting" or "hooking on." Monty Roberts calls it "Joining Up."
Without connection, you are simply either dominating the animal into "submission", or conditioning the animal's autonomic nervous system to respond to a given stimulus. While there is nothing wrong with the latter, and if we are to be absolutely honest, our relationship with our horse DOES have aspects of dominance and submission (horses are hard-wired this way - look at their herd pecking order), we may want more than this. Connection allows trust, safety, and willing partnership to develop between horse and human. WHAT IF YOU DON'T HAVE A ROUND PEN? No problem. Use the same concepts of Movement and Direction to build Connection, regardless of pen shape. In Jerry Tindell's video, "Starting Over With Rachel, The Troubled Mule" he does most of the work in a rectangular paddock. When we worked with "Red Filly" we also were restricted to a very muddy square pen at first.
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Round Pen work is very effective for gentling wild horses. The horse "hooks on" to you and becomes willing to follow you. Here, Lesley Neuman is gentling Ruby at the Vallejo Fairgrounds in October 2000.
