Читать книгу Horse Sense for People - Monty Roberts - Страница 8

People often ask me if horses are capable of such traits as loyalty, trust, care and concern for other species. I am asked during each “question and answer” session during my demonstrations if I believe that horses possess a sense of caring regarding people. Many academics inquire of me whether or not I truly believe that there could be an interspecies understanding.

My stock answer is that horses live within a social order that is based on the principles of trust, loyalty and mutual concern. I go on to say that they have taught me that without these attributes they could never have existed for their fifty million years.

I don’t know that any of us will ever be certain about how much horses actually feel a sense of loyalty toward human beings. I am not sure if anybody will ever know if there is a deep caring or concern on their part for our well-being. I only know what I have experienced with horses and it is with that background that I bring you a story that to me dramatizes these characteristics.

I feel it is quite possible that the story I am about to relate is one of the most important episodes of interspecies communication ever witnessed. I know the importance that this story has for all my work subsequent to its occurrence. I know firsthand the hundreds of horses that experienced a deeper understanding from me because of this experience.

If horses are capable of demonstrating this cross-species care and concern, then how many species are there on earth that have this capability? I feel that many animal behaviorists at work today would ratify my findings with experiences of their own. It seems strange to me that humans find it so difficult to comprehend this.

Each horse in the herd lives by the laws of absolute allegiance. A stallion is loyal and protective of his mares. I have learned about it from horses and I can attest to the fact that breaches of loyalty are far more frequent in the human spectrum than in the equine world. I am not sure if it is a function of their fifty million years of survival of the fittest or whether it is a conscious effort at the moment.

Over the many years that I have been utilizing Join-Up and developing its potential, I have encountered many interesting and sometimes surprising reactions. Each of these experiences allows me a further insight into the power of developing trust. As I go through the process of Join-Up I am engaging in a dialogue with the horse in exactly the same way I hold a conversation with a person. Our conversation creates that basis of trust. I carefully observe the horse as I work with it, assessing its responses to me and the environment it is now in.

We often make false assumptions about people and horses; it is our nature. I have done it in the past and from time to time still do. This story is a reminder of just how wrong we can be and how important it is to make correct and unbiased assessments of people and situations. Our ability to read other people’s body language is innate, but sometimes we can even get that wrong. This incident has led me to a greater understanding of the depth of the bond I make with the horse. This experience has brought home to me how deep maternal instincts run in most mammalian species. To my personal knowledge this is the first interaction of its kind. To think that this adult female horse as wild as a deer could so quickly adopt me and move to protect me was overwhelming. It would have surprised me greatly if a domestic mare had reacted in such a fashion. I now realize that it is more likely for the wild one to express this phenomenon because she is so much more acutely aware of the dangers in nature. Subsequent to the incident I have been much more confident when discussing interspecies communication than I was before. This mustang mare proved to me beyond any shadow of a doubt that there is a close interspecies connection most people have failed to observe or experience.

I received a call one day from a lady who had just adopted a mustang mare from the Bureau of Land Management. The mare had a foal at her side, which was not uncommon. The owner had heard about my methods and wanted her mare started by me. She felt strongly that my nontraumatic approach would enhance the genuine qualities of the mustang, causing her to be an excellent riding animal for herself and her family.

This was the first mustang I had started since those early days of working with them in Salinas. I advised this lady that she should wait until the foal was six or seven months old and then wean it. Once the mare had settled down, she could bring her to the farm.

They duly arrived. The trailer was backed up to the round pen and out of it charged the wildest animal I have ever seen in my life. I soon learned that she had gone through the adoption program and had just been turned out in a corral. Her only interaction with humans was when they fed and watered her. It was a daunting experience to watch this mustang from the small viewing platform. She was frantically trying to climb out and kept herself as far away as possible from our side of the pen.

Eventually I entered the pen to begin to work with her. I went through my procedure, sending her away, which is the first step, and she responded quite well. She gave me the signs I was looking for and was very demonstrative. After about forty-five minutes I could touch her. We were making excellent progress. By the two-hour mark, I had a halter on her and was leading her around. I could pick up her front feet, but when I tried to pick up her back ones, she resisted furiously by kicking. Mustangs are often paranoid when it comes to handling their hind legs and I felt certain that a few days of work would increase her trust in me so that this problem would go away. I decided not to force that issue.

Sean, my assistant, brought in the saddle, bridle and pad, placing them in the center of the round pen. While he was doing this, the mare was hovering really close to me at the south side of the pen. Sean left to the north, closing the solid wooden gate behind him.

I left the south side of the pen and started to walk toward the equipment, leaving the mare just to the right of me. She was facing north toward the door. I took about two steps from the south wall and she left me like a rocket. Running as fast as she could, she crashed into the saddle on the ground and started ripping it to shreds with her teeth. Pawing and kicking, she tore at the saddle. It was as if I had brought a lion into the middle of the pen. I felt she thought she was cornered and had to fight this predator for her life. I stood frozen in my tracks near the south wall of the pen. The air was filled with bits and pieces as they flew off the saddle. The effect was terrifying and I must admit at that moment I thought I was next on the menu.

I started moving around to my right, staying as close as I could to the wall. I moved along as smoothly and rapidly as possible. I had recently had extensive back surgery, so jumping out of the round pen was not an option. I managed to get about halfway round. I saw Sean was standing on the viewing platform near the gate, watching me and at that moment the mare broke away from the saddle and ran straight at me.

My heart almost stopped. I was scared to death. I crouched down against the base of the wall and decided that the best way to take her on was to ball up in a fetal position covering my head. She was coming and having seen what she had done to the saddle, I knew it was not going to be pretty. I could sense that Sean had jumped down from his perch into the pen right by the gate. I don’t think he was too anxious to get near her either, but the mere fact that he came into the pen said a lot for his courage.

As I was balled up there on the ground, I saw out of the corner of my eye her nose was right against the wall in front of me. She had not attacked me. Her hind feet were brushing against my toes. It was very strange because she was almost in a U shape, wrapping herself around me, her tail against the wall on one side and her nose the other.

I stayed balled up there for a while and Sean was out of sight. I saw her look over her shoulder directly at the saddle. As her head came off the wall to view the saddle she pinned her ears flat back and bared her teeth. As she looked back toward me her ears came forward and her mouth was closed. I called out to Sean. “Wait, wait, don’t come forward now.” Luckily she had not seen him as her attention was fixed on the saddle and me. He stopped in his tracks, frozen by my urgent command and stood up against the wall. The mare then made another dive for the saddle, attacking the remaining larger pieces. Like a whirlwind, she suddenly deserted this deadly enemy and resumed her protective stance around me.

I realized that this mare was adopting me. She had joined-up with me so intensely that in her mind I deserved the same protection as her foal. She was guarding me from this deadly predator that had come into our world. She was still lactating and the warm milk began to drip onto my legs.

Sean moved into the center of the pen and gathered up the shredded remnants that had been a saddle, retreated and closed the gate behind him. Once the potential danger was removed, the mare walked away from me. I got up, stroked her head and walked around the pen with her. Sean went for another saddle and returned to the pen. This time I kept her on a lead while putting the pad, saddle and bridle on.

Sean came in later and rode her with no trouble, finishing up in just over two and a half hours. The owner actually rode the mare within two weeks and was extremely pleased. Later reports reached me that this mare became a wonderful animal for both this lady and her daughter. It was the first mustang she had adopted and this experience was so positive that she became president of a mustang association.

Several times she invited me to come to adoption events and start mustangs, which I was delighted to do. She felt that they had a better chance of being successfully adopted if they were already “joined-up.”

The bizarre behavior described in this story has never reoccurred with me, nor have I heard of it happening to anybody else. While the occurrence may have been unusual, her desire to protect me amplified the potential for close human-to-horse attachment. The mare’s body language was there for me to read, but I was confused by the speed of events and perceived only the aggression with which she attacked the saddle. It took me a long time to realize that this was the act of a mother to protect what she now considered to be her family. I had not before realized the depth of bonding that Join-Up creates. In the mare’s mind I was to be protected from all danger and that included a possible attack from what she perceived to be “the deadly saddle.”

Surely one of the most important jobs a parent has to do is to protect the child from any kind of threat. This must be a deeply instinctual trait imbedded in the brains of all mammals. This mare exemplified the extent to which a mother will go to protect what she perceives to be her maternal responsibility.

A human being (predominantly a fight animal) will quite often act out in violence even when it is not in his best interest. I feel that most traditional horsemen would have stood their ground to this mare and wherever possible would have struck her, feeling it was the only way to protect themselves. Many of the horsemen I have known in my time would have literally beaten the hell out of her.

We all know now what a mistake an act of violence would have been at that moment in time. I believe that she would have instantly become a mare never again to trust a human under any circumstances.

We have been closely associated with the horse throughout almost the entire development of our species, and possibly this is why the concepts that I have explored in this book are as sound as they are.

This new millennium will be the first in the history of humankind without the horse as the mainstay of our transport system. The horse owes us nothing. They have fought with us in our wars, plowed our fields, fed us and remained the most faithful of servants. “Man’s best friend” has probably been an accolade preserved for our dogs for a few thousand years now. I’ve heard it said the Egyptian pharaohs were the first to use this term. I love dogs and I believe that people can love them deeply and that dogs try to please us far more than most people will, but there is also a case for the horse being man’s best friend.

The horse has been our partner in an incredible range of serious activities, and we must never forget the effort the horse has made to entertain us—racing, polo, dressage, jumping, rodeo and every kind of game or competition that you can imagine has been done in one form or another on horseback. The horse has served us as a pleasurable companion, to a greater degree than we realize. At the turn of the twentieth century the horse was our primary vehicle and practically the only power source on the farm. By the mid-1900s they were scarcely used in these ways, yet in the United States the total horse population at the turn of the twenty-first century was three times larger than it had been a hundred years before. How can this be when we don’t need them anymore? Because we do need or want them for our entertainment and pleasure.

But there is more to Equus than just the enjoyment of all the sports and pastimes with which we associate the horse. We can use his natural existence as a metaphor for our lives today. I once believed it was nothing more than a metaphor, but I have discovered that the horse has many of the same responses and needs as humans; and the horse and human have closer behavioral ties than I had first considered. The reason horse and human work so well together may be because they do share much in common—the horse’s behavior is not alien to us. It is little wonder that what the horses tell me in the language of Equus, their natural communication system, can be translated directly to the world of humans.

˙

Recently, we had two very interesting horses brought to Flag Is Up Farms, which gave me a unique opportunity to test the true nature of this language. One was born without hearing and the other had been blind from birth. As events progressed the blind horse regained its sight following surgery, but the deaf horse will remain so for life. The deaf horse understood all my communication (in body language) and joined-up well with me. The once-blind horse had difficulty in deciphering my movements; they meant very little to it. These experiments proved that their body-language communication is to a great degree learned, although partly instinctual, and that sound is not terribly important. Mares might call to their foals or vice versa, and sounds will alert horses, but they do not play a major role in their communication system. “Actions speak louder than words” is a nice saying and one we humans use quite often; generally, however, we do not live by it. The language of Equus is, in fact, one of actions, not words.

If you still find it difficult to believe that sound is not a necessary element in the language of Equus, you only have to look at the behavior of a herd of wild horses. Every time I bring wild mustangs to the farm, they run and hide in horror at the neighing of domestic horses because they fear that a predator will be alerted. It is clear to me that this language I have identified is silent—it is a body language that utilizes direction, speed and gesture to receive and pass on information.

The most common forms of communication on earth are silent. Bioluminescence is used by billions of marine animals. It is a light show. Their little bodies are equipped with a lighting system that flashes in patterns only they understand. Body language is used by literally hundreds of species. It may seem to uninformed human beings that many gestures are without specific meaning, but be assured, the more you learn about body language, the more specific you find it to be.

Since 1986, when I first showed my work in public, thousands of people have come to Flag Is Up Farms from all industries and walks of life to watch me demonstrate Join-Up. Most of them had no idea what to expect. I noticed an odd phenomenon and began to make a mental note of its occurrence. At the beginning of a demonstration I send the horse away into flight mode around the pen, and when he shows that he is ready, I communicate an invitation to join me. The horse turns toward me, walks in close and reaches out to touch my shoulder with its nose. At this precise moment I often hear a gasp from the crowd. On several occasions I have actually heard the commotion as someone falls. After the person affected has recovered, he or she has relived with me stories of mental or physical abuse. Oftentimes women are reduced to tears at the sight of a flight animal accepting and trusting a potential predator. This is no coincidence: it happens too often.

The animal at the fight end of the fight/flight spectrum is a predator, and the animal at the flight end is preyed upon. Based on this assumption, you can describe humans as predators, but humans can also be passive, nonviolent and nonaggressive. This curious and perhaps unique mixture of fight and flight, prey and predator is almost always present in our relationships and communications. Women, in particular, have a great ability to identify with the hunted and therefore with horses.

The traditional horse trainer who breaks a horse by tying him up and forcing him to accept saddle, bridle and rider is a predator. Male predatorial behavior is far more common than most people would imagine, and it happens in our apparently enlightened society on a scale that I find difficult to comprehend. In many parts of the world, women are still expected to walk behind their husbands and have few or no rights. Women in and out of the workplace are often preyed upon. It is little wonder that women identify with the flight animal.

The thousands of letters sent to me tell a sad story of the continuing existence of abuse of all kinds, predominantly in the home. How long will it take to raise awareness that violence is never the answer?

If the similarities between human and horse can tell us anything, it is this: the horse has much to teach us about social structure. He is asking not to be preyed upon. He is begging to Join-Up, to become a member of the human herd, a fifty-fifty partner on the basis of trust, and for us to leave violence out of the contract. Many women who watch my work will remark that they wish this lesson could be learned by the male of our species. When a man learns that a nonviolent approach can be far more effective—for himself as well as the prey animal—he understands how wrong violence is.

While I have learned the value of a good academic education, no hands-on work can be totally replaced by theory. It’s also true that at the time of my university training, there were no courses that approximated the work that I do. My teachers were a few people and many thousands of horses. I spent long hours with a pair of binoculars watching and learning about the nature, behavior and language of horses. I observed in detail and gradually translated it into a system that, coupled with my love for horses, formed the foundation for Join-Up. I am still learning, still discovering and still refining my approach.

It is my hope that Join-Up will one day be accepted as truly revolutionary in both the horse and human worlds. In my work, as in the work of other horse gentlers, the horse is given the opportunity to make choices, and to volunteer to cooperate with humans. It is my deepest wish that this discovery helps to change the nature of human interactions.

What is, I believe, unique in my approach is that I have recognized in the horse a language of communication from which we, as humans, can learn fundamentally important lessons. The last six thousand horses of the more than ten thousand I have started (that is, convinced them to willingly accept saddle, bridle and rider) averaged under thirty minutes to accomplish the goals described here. It is no great feat for me, and I should not be credited with inventing anything. I have only discovered what nature already had in place, a language and an understanding of how two species can get along without violence.