Herd Evolution & Ground Training

Mio feeling at home on the mountain.

Mio has turned out to be a profoundly positive influence on the herd, primarily among the two would be bullies, Valeroso and Griton. In Valeroso's case, he no longer has anyone that he can push around. Mio actually likes Valeroso but when he gets aggressive, Mio has no problem putting him in his place quickly and decisively. The result is that with no horse to pump up his ego, Valeroso is becoming increasingly social, even with us. There are very few skirmishes anymore and not a single time out for Valeroso in weeks. Several weeks ago it looked like Valeroso might be colicking and even though he hadn't had a halter on in about two years, with little effort Mike and I were able to halter him and check him over. Fortunately he wasn't colicking but his sudden lack of aggression and increased security with us after living here for four years is amazing.

Mio offers friendly grooming to Valeroso but does not tolerate aggression from him.

For Griton's part, herd-wise Mio has figured out that making friends with him is his best course. It has been fascinating to watch Mio slowly courting Griton by following him to the water trough, standing increasingly closer during nap and drinking times and holding his ground at the hay bags. Even though I haven’t been able to get a photo yet, Mio has even been spotted standing right next to Griton and swishing flies. And something else amazing...sharing hay! No one ever shares hay with Griton because he is such a butthead about it.

Mio goes to water with Griton and slowly moves into his space.

The result is a much happier and mellower Griton who isn't harassing anyone or chasing them away from their food. It's just possible that he is learning to expand his sphere of friendship to include Mio instead of Corazon and only Corazon. The peace in the Star's Rest Band is expanding...can you feel it?

Mio moving his way into the Inner Circle of Corazon, Llego and Griton.

I also recently promised to talk about how we teach our horses to keep their feet still unless asked to move them. As it always seems, there aren't any simple answers to questions like those since so much of what we do is intuitive and instinctual. This behavior has been developed in me since I was a kid, running wild with the horses in Arkansas. We don't relate to our horses as 'bosses' or as being 'dominant'. We relate to them as trustworthy leaders and peaceful herd members. Just like they keep peace among their own ranks by sending away aggressors, we send them away when they get bossy or crowd us. When all is calm and body space is respected, we stay together. If we tell them a perceived danger is safe, they believe us because we have never lied to them.

Putting in our arena involved bringing backhoes, bulldozers and dump trucks in with formerly wild horses. I didn't want them to be frightened, so spent time touching each of the pieces of heavy equipment so that the horses would understand they were safe.

We listen to them and allow them to teach us as much as we teach them. We share affection and company and that happens all day long, not just at feeding times or when it's time for them to work. A happy social life is fundamental to a horse herd and we make the time to spend with them with no other agenda other than sharing company. As a result, our horses want to be with us, are happy to see us, and eager to find out what new thing we might do together.

Valeroso gets up close and personal with a backhoe after he was assured by me that it was safe.

On a more practical and explainable level, we use something similar to clicker training to teach each horse the basics of ground manners. I wrote a whole series about this at Life at Star's Rest and you can read those posts by selecting the 'clicker training' label in the right side bar at that blog. The difference from what most people do with clicker training is that we only use a food reward in the very beginning as a way to explain the concept of request and response to the horse, after that it is only voice and touch reward.

You can tell by Griton's expression how much he does not enjoy fly wipe, yet he stands without moving his feet because I have asked him to.

If there is a situation where we don't want a horse to move his feet, we give a previously taught request of 'stand' using a voice and hand cue. If he moves out of position, we don't punish him; we just move him back into position, wait a moment, give the hand and voice cue again and go on about what we were doing. When he holds the position, we praise and touch with a consistent word and stroke to reinforce that he is indeed doing what is wanted. Our horses want to please and cooperate so it doesn't take much to get the response we want.

Mio at peace in his world.

Mio is a case of a horse that was over round penned and as a result has some behaviors that are innocent but actually dangerous. He is one who was taught to ‘face up’ and ‘hook up’ no matter what. In the beginning, he was very anxious about having me on his left side and would constantly turn to keep facing me with his head at my shoulder. Or if I was working at his hind quarters, he would back up to try to keep his head in the position he thought was wanted of him.

Besides being a frustrating issue, this was also a potentially dangerous one. As an example, while he was still wearing a blanket in the spring snow, I noticed that one of his blanket straps had come unfastened and I went up the grade to refasten it. He was on a narrow trail that fortunately didn’t have a drop off and each time I tried to move past him to catch the strap, he backed up in an effort to keep his head even with me. Had this been a trail riding situation where there was a steep drop off on one side or the other, his backing up would have put us both in possibly extreme danger.

Mio recently got a nail in his foot and I knew our lessons on not moving his feet until asked had been successful when he stood quietly the entire time his foot was soaking whether I was standing near or not.

When I first began working with Mio to teach him to not move his feet unless asked, he was very anxious about it. He has such a strong desire to please and ‘facing up’ was so deeply ingrained in him that he felt not moving was disobeying. Once he understood that all in the world I was asking him to do was keep his feet still and relax, he became a big believer in doing nothing! He was trimmed by our barefoot trimmer two days ago and the trimmer was amazed at what a different horse Mio is now as he stood quietly and almost went to sleep during the trim process.

Mike spending social time with Griton, Corazon and Llego.

Your horse needs just as much social time with you as work time. Being willing to listen to your horse and learn from him is as important to him as training is to you. Developing a relationship of cooperation instead of conflict will create a place of trust and safety for your horse who will then believe you when you say there isn’t anything to fear and who will eagerly work to please you.

I'm pretty angry right now.

It has been brought to my attention that someone I know, someone within my own circle, has been taking my copyrighted horse photos and using them for their own personal gain. This isn't the first time this has happened and I don't quite know how the copyright notice in the right sidebar can be misunderstood. I guess I'm going to have to go back and embed a copyright symbol on every one of my photos that are print quality, and do the same with everything new I publish.

I don't know why this person thinks it won't get back to me. It's a small world thanks to the internet. I've even had people in other countries contact me to tell me when someone was selling a version of one of my designs on eBay. Things get back to me.

And it isn't just my photos or my designs. Someone else I once exchanged a series of trusting emails with is now paraphrasing my concepts on horse behavior and teaching and claiming them as her own, as well as publishing articles with phrases that came directly out of my emails. She even went so far as to contact my students after I was diagnosed with cancer last year to let them know her services were available as an instructor and unlike me, she would come directly to their houses. Geez.

Now one thing that cancer has done for me is to make me acutely aware of the value of every single day and that wasting a single minute being angry is pretty silly. But enough. You know who you are. I have software that tracks who visits my blogs and my websites so I know when you've been to one. If you aren't creative enough to take your own photos or do your own art, then stop taking mine. And if your knowledge of horses and teaching is so poor that you have to steal someone else's then you are a menace to the students who trust you. Stop it.

Play Bonding ~

Life is good for the mustangs of Star's Rest.

Herd Smarts

Mio's first two weeks on fulltime turnout with the herd reminded me of a socially savvy frat pledge working his way up the ladder. In Arizona, Mio was living in a fair sized dry lot situation with one other gelding, a paint quarterhorse. I was told by everyone that he was 'the boss' and I think that applied not only to his pen mate but to his humans. I was also told that he was constantly into everything, loved and needed toys and was a gate opener and rope untie-er.

Keeping a herd balanced is a lot like match making for a group marriage and you always walk a fine line when bringing in a new horse. I had already made two mistakes with the domestic horses we brought in, which is not to say they were bad horses, they just didn't fit in well with what we want to be a lifetime stable herd. From his description, I knew that Mio was very intelligent, easily bored, and not a submissive horse. The gamble was whether or not he was truly a bully or just frustrated. If he was a bully, which I didn't believe, then I hoped he would be slowly modified by the herd as Griton was.


His first stop was a Valeroso instigated confrontation. It didn't amount to much because while Valeroso may be unpredictably aggressive and constantly challenging, his small stature of just over 13 hands keeps him from being a true adversary to the big horses.

Next came Llego which resulted in several very, very mild skirmishes where they established themselves as equals in spite of a five year age difference, and they quickly settled into a friendly relationship. So friendly that Mio's constant following of Llego and offers of play seemed almost annoying at times. It's been good to see Llego with a more lively companion than Corazon and the two of them have done a great deal of running and playing together. I remarked to Mike recently that because of his quiet and reserved demeanor, many people might miss just how intelligent Llego is. He is a horse who is constantly thinking and learning.

Mio moved on to Corazon where he quickly learned that he could move Corazon, but it was only with Corazon's complete distain at his rude behavior. There seems to be no satisfaction in challenging a horse who doesn't fight back and walks slowly away as if you don't even exist. It didn't take Mio long at all to realize that Corazon is the only horse who Griton will not move from food and further, that Griton is the only horse Corazon will not allow to eat with him. Now as soon as he is released from his pen to eat hay, Mio goes straight to whatever feeder Corazon is eating at for a completely peaceful meal.

There was no question of Mio attempting an approach to Griton since Griton had already made his position of Enforcer perfectly clear over the fence. The horse who was supposed to be 'the boss', kept his distance, stayed polite, and made sure he didn't put himself in a position of being cornered.

Mio's offers of friendship and play quickly wooed Llego into his court, and his polite behavior with Corazon won him over as well. Now Griton must face and adapt to the idea that his former Inner Circle of three, has added another calm and balanced horse. Griton has seemed pleased that while Llego and Mio play he has Corazon to himself, but he isn't so happy that Mio is accepted into the afternoon nap space.

With the balance turned further against him in the form of another peace seeking herd member, it will be interesting to see if Griton further modifies his behavior in order to hold the approval and acceptance of Corazon. His role of Enforcer is important to the herd for keeping the peace and maintaining good manners in Valeroso. He is also the one who most often acts as lookout, being the first to notice a squirrel, fox or coyote. As a herd stallion, Griton would probably have ruled as a bully, but his herd would have been safe due to his constant vigilance and order keeping skills. I am hoping that he will become even less assertive to his herd members but maintain his alert protectiveness.

Valeroso has also changed since Besol left in that he has become increasingly less aggressive. With Besol, he had a submissive horse that he could constantly bully and challenge. This caused a steady escalation of his bad behavior and a lot of time spent on time out up the mountain. Mio made it immediately clear that challenges would not be tolerated, and yet he shows a clear liking for Valeroso. On the rare occasions that Valeroso lies down, Mio will stand guard over him, often so close that his hooves are touching Valeroso's body. In the last month, Valeroso has slowly become more calm within the herd and even more interactive with us.

As for Mio, I think his former owners might see what they think is a completely different horse. He doesn't feel the need to 'boss' anyone, especially not the other horses. With so much room for activity and an interesting environment, he has not bothered with available toys and like the others, spends much of his time eating, napping, rolling and playing, or climbing the mountain with the rest of the boys. He quickly figured out the feeding process and like each of the other horses, quietly goes to his feeder to wait for his bucket without fighting or chasing. And his relationship with us humans has become one of quiet and friendly respect. He has actually become pretty much my shadow, following me around whenever I am out in the group, his head at my shoulder and greatly interested in whatever I am doing.

Any change in the herd affects each member of the herd and I am increasingly pleased to see the balance that is happening from the introduction of Mio. There have been no conflicts and so far, many benefits and positive changes in the herd dynamics. It will be fascinating to watch the continuing evolution of this small herd of bachelors as they continue to incorporate the strengths and weaknesses of their newest member. My next post about Mio will focus on his previous training and how he is learning to relate to the human part of his herd.

El es Mio! (He is Mine!)

Mio is an eleven year old reservation mustang from the Navajo Nation in Arizona. He is a desert horse and in that, very different from our other mustangs. He is so different in appearance that I began to do research on the origins of these southern horses. What I found is that they genetically test high for old Spanish markers, the Barbs, the Criollos, and the Andalusians.

After we placed Besol in a new and domestic situation better suited to his temperament, we specifically looked for another mustang, or herd raised horse, to replace him. The other mustangs we had brought into the band had been quickly assimilated and added to the structure in a positive way and we hoped that would continue to be the case. Mio was a good and interesting choice in that he is a herd raised mustang, but from a completely different part of the country from our other mustangs, and also from genetically different stock.

He looks to me like an Anglo Arab, a cross between an Arabian and a Thoroughbred. He has the thin skin and fine coat of both breeds and also the refined head with both a dish and a convex rise above his nose like the old Spanish horses. His legs are long with low set knees and hocks, giving him lots of elevation and suspension in his movement. He is tight through the barrel with that water heater shape we look for in endurance horses. His withers and hip are well defined with easy, fluid movement through his shoulders and good reach from behind.

The effects of desert genetics are clear in Mio's more refined appearance with the lean, slow twitch muscle mass of a distance horse. Our northern mustangs are heavy boned with bulky draft or quarterhorse type muscling. This makes sense when you consider the long distances and open spaces desert horses travel over to get to water and food. The bulky muscles and dense bone of our northern horses would better allow them to negotiate rugged moutain terrain and sprint short distances from predators.

He is also more expressive with his face and body than our other more placid and stoic mustangs are. He scrunches his nose, twists his ears, cocks his head and tenses and curves his body to express what he is feeling. More than once I have thought this desert mustang sign language was an indication of colic, only to find he was just making a statement of some sort with his flexible body.

Mio has two brands, one on his right shoulder and one on his left hip. They are 'running' brands, drawn on roughly with a hot metal wand. The brand on his right shoulder appears to be a 'D' along with the '- N' that indicates he is property of the Navajo Nation. On his left hip is a large 'S U E'. My research told me the first letter, S, indicates the grazing district he was in and the next two letters, U E, indicate the grazing permittee who owned him. These are not attractive brands, being rough and deep, and they must have caused him a great deal of pain, along with being gelded at the same time. Some horses would not have come back mentally from that kind of treatment at an early age. Corazon is one of those who would never have trusted again. But Mio clearly likes people and wants to connect with them which says much for his temperament.

As a desert horse, Mio is used to open vistas, dry rocky terrain and heat. We have asked him to adjust to a nearly 6,000 foot change in altitude and to live in a forest with limited sight range and nothing that smells familiar. Based on his reactions, I don't think he had ever seen snow before and he was clearly disturbed by the white, wet stuff falling from the sky. He had already lost most of his winter coat and making a change to snow and temperatures in the teens, we had no choice but to blanket him, and sometimes even add extra blankets. A layer of white over a familiar trail left him anxious and he would wait for one of the other horses to break trail and then would follow them.

We kept Mio penned for the first week so that he could meet and become familiar to the rest of the herd over a fence. Griton can still be a jealous bully when it comes to new horses and I wanted to be sure there would be no injuries to a horse adjusting to both a big altitude and climate change. And, we wanted to personally make it clear to Griton that this horse was under our protection. This week would also let Mio know that this pen and feeding station are his and no one else's.

As the end of the week approached, I first brought Llego into the pen to spend the day with Mio and become acquainted without a fence to separate them. This turned out to be a non-event and they calmly spent the day together sharing food and getting to know each other. The next step was to introduce Mio to Corazon, the group's leader. To achieve that, I moved Mio into Corazon's pen where Corazon is fed due to his constant diet. They spent the night together sharing hay without incident. My intent with this was to have Mio first directly connected to the two horses who would neither attack nor bully him, and with their acceptance Griton would have to accept him as well.

On the day we decided it was time to turn him out and let him join the herd, there was much joyful running and exploration by Mio, but almost no aggression from the herd, and limited rejection from Griton. My next post will explore Mio's efforts to become familiar to his new surroundings, to understand the individual herd members and us, and to establish his place within the bachelor band. This is a slow process and it will take six months to a year to clearly see his final position, even though the foundations are being established now.

Our Balanced Herd

As I was beginning to organize my thoughts around Mio's introduction to the herd, it occurred to me that I should probably start with what makes our herd balanced and healthy. We have been blessed to have the opportunity of living with a stable and natural herd of feral origin, which has helped us to understand so much more about the social lives and relationships of horses. Out of necessity, modern horses are usually boarded with little control over social structure or stability, or the space for free fulltime movement in turnout. Plus, the average domestic horse was not born into a natural environment with a stable herd group to provide his education in being a horse true to the actual nature of horses.

One of the first and most important aspects of the Star's Rest band is that they live in a completely natural environment. They have room to roam over greatly varied terrain and even though there is little to no grazing available here, they have access to quality grass hay on a nearly free choice basis. We do not interfere with their social structure or their daily wanderings other than during work time. We interact with them on their terms and use their language as much as possible. Aggression and crowding are not allowed and will quickly cause a horse to be sent away from the group, just as they would do themselves with an unruly member. As a result, visitors can safely stand in the middle of a group of formerly feral mustangs without worrying about being run over, pushed, bit or kicked.

When we brought Besol into the group two years ago, it was our second attempt at integrating a domestic horse into a formerly feral herd group. The first was a complete failure as we tried to bring a pen raised and overly human imprinted horse into a completely natural environment with feral born horses. The mustangs reacted as if this horse was from Mars and made no attempt at all to accept him. When we found a home for him in a more civilized situation, not one horse even raised his head as he was led away.

Besol did much better and he clearly was born into a more natural environment and grew up with other horses. The only real problem with Besol was his neurotic behaviors. The herd attempted to take him in, but Besol's constant return to cribbing in stressful situations left the others unsettled and uncertain. They would have accepted him; but Besol's own internal conflicts kept him continually on the outside. Once again, when Besol left not a single horse raised his head or called out.

When we decided to find a new situation for Besol, it was after careful consideration. We would have allowed him to stay on the fringes of the group and live his life out, except that his unpredictable behavior had become dangerous for me following my last surgery. It may seem odd to those who have never been around mustangs; but I was and am far more safe with them than with the average domestic horse. The mustangs understand body space and body respect and even in high stress situations, they will do everything in their power to run around us rather than over us. That wasn't the case with Besol and after yet another near miss, we decided it was in everyone's best interest to find him another home. We didn't realize until he was gone just how much his high stress behavior had impacted the herd.

The group that Besol came into consisted of the Inner Circle of the Quiet Leader, Corazon, his best friend, Llego, and Griton, whom we call the Mustang Police for his order keeping role. On the outside of the group is Valeroso, the little New Mexico mustang who is unpredictable and seldom able to maintain the peace required by the herd. Valeroso is always allowed to come into the Inner Circle, but only if he remains calm and unchallenging. If he begins to disrupt things, Griton will put him on what we call 'time out', sending him up the mountain and keeping him outside the group until he settles again.

Besol was welcomed by the entire group, yet more often than not, he maintained his own 'time out' by staying outside of the group. His only real companion was the always unpredictable Valeroso, and much of his time was spent with his two stress relievers of excess water drinking and cribbing. Contrary to the popular myth, none of the other horses picked up his cribbing habit. The first few times they saw him cribbing on a tree, they came over to investigate, thinking he had something to eat. Once they established he did not, they would often move away and avoid his behavior that was so foreign to them, or even send him away in frustration.

Once Besol was gone, it was like a collective sigh went through the herd as they all relaxed again. When Mike and I talked about it, we compared it to a friend or co-worker that you don't really realize creates tension in a room until they finally leave. The core and heart of our herd is Corazon, whose name ironically translates as 'Heart'. Corazon does not want conflict and will only fight if given no other choice. He does not lead by force, instead the rest of the herd follows because he is wise, fair and generous in spirit. Every other horse is allowed to share food with Corazon as long as they are being polite and well behaved. If they become disruptive, he will walk away, denying them his company.

Llego is the youngster of the group and yet he was immediately chosen by Corazon to be his closest companion. I feel this is mostly because Llego is much like Corazon in his desire for peace and calm. Even though he is the youngest and was the fourth of the group to arrive, he still has taken his place as favored by Corazon. Llego will share food with everyone but Griton, who still jealously reinforces his position of second in power.

We know from the person who had Griton before us, that he was one of what I refer to as the 'Bully Faction', constantly sparing for position and pushing around less strong horses. Griton was one of those horses many people mistakenly think of as the 'Boss' of a group primarily because of his constantly harassing nature. Had anyone suggested to me that a Bully could modify his behavior as much as Griton has, I wouldn't have believed it. It took many months, possibly several years, before we really noticed how different Griton was from the horse who first arrived here. The reason for his gradual change was to stay close to Corazon. Griton could have remained an outsider like Valeroso, but instead he learned to moderate his behavior.

All horses eventually gravitate to Corazon and in order to stay in his grace, they must be calm and non-aggressive. In order to maintain acceptance and a place next to Corazon, Griton became an enforcer rather than an aggressor. These days, unless he is feeling challenged by a new horse, Griton is only a bully to the extent necessary for keeping the peace by sending away a disruptive Valeroso. He is not 'friends' with Llego but knows the only way to stay close to Corazon is to not harass Llego. As a result, the three are constantly together and almost always standing one on either side of Corazon. Griton will not share food with Llego and will move him from his food, yet without any serious show of force.

The Star's Rest band has found a solid balance formed by the triangle of Corazon at the top with Llego and Griton as the base. They keep peace and support each other, taking turns as lookouts, at leading and as constant companions. Valeroso is a satellite member of the herd due primarily to his roguish and disruptive behavior. Any new horse that attempts to join the herd will first deal with being aggressively challenged by Valeroso, then by being cut out and separated from the group by Griton. If they can stay humble and calm and achieve the acceptance of Corazon, then acceptance by the entire band will follow.

I have not had an opportunity to experiment with this outside of our own herd; but I believe if we each aspire to be the kind of leader that Corazon is with our horses, then we can provide them with the stability and balance that exists in the Star's Rest band. This group of bachelors is the most peaceful group of horses I've been blessed to work and live with. There are seldom conflicts at feeding time with each horse going to his own feeder and patiently waiting for meals to be served instead of fighting to be first. Turns are taken at the water trough and mountain trails are kept safe by horses who do not challenge each other on dangerous terrain. I will continue to talk about this in future posts and would love to hear of anyone else's experiences and efforts at being the Quiet Leader for their own herd.