Communication and training

A week or two ago, I decided to re-visit J. Allen Boone’s “Kinship With All Life” after many, many years.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this amazing little book, it is the true first-person account of Mr. Boone’s education in communicating with animals. His teacher was Strongheart, a German Shepherd cinema star of the 1940’s and 50’s. Boone is asked to care for Strongheart when both the dog’s caregivers are unexpectedly called out of town for an extended period. Boone has several experiences with Strongheart that demonstrate to him beyond doubt that the Shepherd is able to read his mind at will, and he wonders why he -- the “superior” human -- cannot read the dog’s mind in the same way.

In an effort to truly understand the extraordinary character who is sharing his home, Boone at first reads books about dogs and consults traditional authorities. He learns much about the physical attributes of “good examples” of various breeds, and he learns certain theories of dog training... but finds nothing that brings him closer to his goal of understanding Strongheart the way Strongheart understands him. The “experts” all deal with the purely physical, and whatever “communication” they discuss is all one way, from man to dog, in the form of commands. There is no guidance in how to establish a true dialog -- in fact, the implication is that it is unnecessary. What could a “lower animal” have to say to a human being? Furthermore, a dialog is not what is wanted in “training.” What is wanted is obedience, submission.

More than 50 years later, this still sounds sadly familiar to those of us who have looked for guidance in learning to understand the silent language of horses.

Boone decides to consult his friend, Mohave Dan -- a desert recluse of few words who is able to effortlessly communicate with animals of all kinds. Dan tells Boone: “There’s facts about dogs,.... and there’s opinions about them. The dogs have the facts and the humans have the opinions. If you want facts about a dog, always get them straight from the dog. If you want opinions, get them from the human.”

As "Kinship" progresses, it becomes clear that what Mohave Dan said about dogs, is also true about the other creatures of the world. So, we can take his advice with respect to understanding horses, and go straight to them for the facts. Getting ourselves into a state where we can truly listen and understand what they’re actually “saying” -- rather than projecting our desires and expectations on them and hearing what we want to hear -- that is the real challenge, at least for me.

Back to “Kinship” -- Boone takes Dan’s advice and commits himself to being the student of Professor Strongheart. So begins his learning of silent speech, the common language of all creation, the “simple universal language... which moves without the need for sound from heart to heart”.

It is not all smooth going. After a time of conversing effortlessly with Strongheart, Boone runs into an impasse in which the dog again becomes a complete enigma to him, as though something were blocking the way. Boone soon realizes that he himself is the one who has blocked genuine communication with Strongheart, because “I had mentally assigned myself to the upper part of this relationship of ours because I happened to be ‘a human,’ and had mentally assigned him to the lower part because he was ‘a dog’.”

Boone found that two-way communication flowed smoothly as long as he kept his mental contacts with Strongheart as “high, as horizontal, and as wide open as possible.” However, when he lapsed into old habits and attitudes and communicated “down” to Strongheart as though from a superior being to an inferior one, the unity was shattered and real communication came to an end.

Boone’s experience teaches us that if we want to learn the language of the heart, if we want to have intimate two-way conversations with our fellow beings, with horses, then we must view them as equals in the Grand Scheme of Things. And we must speak from the best in ourselves.

We meet the “Other” be he horse or dog or housefly in a “place” of togetherness where the boundary between us blurs, or even disappears -- a place where we are in unity. I think this “place” is real -- a field of energy, a frequency or wavelength to which we can learn to attune ourselves. Boone speaks of a bridge from mind to mind. Imke Spilker has referred to it as a “bubble” around a horse and a human in togetherness.

What a truly radical notion this idea of equality in unity is to anyone conditioned by western culture or indoctrinated with the philosophy of the various permutations of traditional and/or so-called “natural”horsemanship -- culture and philosophy absolutely grounded in and permeated with the notions of hierarchy and human superiority to the animal kingdom. If we’ve been taught that man must dominate horse, must let him know who's boss, if deep down we still believe what we have long been taught -- that humans have an inborn right to control horses and to expect submission and obedience from them -- then we are going to have quite some work to do at letting go of those notions. The same goes for those of us who have bought into the idea that humankind is the “crown of creation.” (How very outmoded that notion sounds to me these days!) We might find it a bit of a challenge to shed that belief -- but I think it is something that needs to be done before we can see our fellow beings as equals and truly communicate with them.

We’ve got our work cut out for us, because many of these kinds of beliefs are so much a part of us that we are not even conscious that we hold them. To let go of them, we first have to realize we have them; we must bring them into the light of awareness.

Since re-reading “Kinship” I have been asking myself a lot of questions, among them: “What is it that I believe about horses?” “What do I believe about communicating with animals, with horses?” “What do I really mean by communication?” “How does “training” -- of whatever kind -- fit into all this?” “What about discipline?” “Obedience?”

Boone has this to say about training, (he’s writing about the typical dog trainer in his day):

“ ... his primary ambition is so to dominate the animal that it will be completely subservient to him, obey his every command, and treat him with idolatrous attention at all times....

Most of the animals that man has used to serve his own selfish ends down through the centuries have been products of this training-without-education system. A minimum of intelligence and a maximum of force are employed in order to compel blind obedience.... The animal’s resistance is so broken down and its spontaneity and initiative so dulled that it supinely does whatever the trainer demands. With its thinking and natural impulses walled off, it becomes a four-legged slave, submissively serving the moods and whims of the human ego that is playing God to it.”

Does that remind you of anything? I thought immediately of a horse in a round pen being forced -- completely “non-violently” of course -- into “joining up.” (Some time we’ll have to talk about the meaning of non-violence.)

Typically, when we speak of “training” a horse we mean conditioning him to reliably obey certain standardized commands. Sometimes we call the commands “requests” or “cues” -- but the interaction is the same. We tell the horse what to do and we expect him to do it. His compliance is enforced by the threat of negative consequences (the pain of a bit, the lash of a whip, the jab of a spur, being forced to run to the point of exhaustion, etc.) if he resists or refuses to obey our orders, and/or the promise of a reward (release of physical or psychological pressure, food, etc.) if he submits promptly and correctly.

Does this have anything at all to do with genuine communication, with dialog?

Not that I can see. First of all, no matter how kindly the training is done and how positively it is reinforced, whatever communication occurs is one-way and strictly hierarchal -- from the human in charge to the subservient horse.

(The fact that horses so often manage to figure out what we want by our pushing and pulling and chasing and babbling and gesturing says much more about their intelligence and perceptive abilities than about any skill on our part in getting across what it is we want them to do. Horses read us fluently ... and usually we do not have even a clue about what they're thinking and feeling. What does that tell us about ourselves?)

Second, and most important, in addition to being two-way -- a dialog-- true communication is fresh and alive and in present time. It cannot be rehearsed or practiced in advance. One creature always giving orders and another creature always obeying orders is not a conversation. Conditioning an animal to reliably obey certain signals, commands, or cues no matter who gives them and under whatever circumstances is clearly not the same thing as having a dialog with him, listening to him, hearing/seeing him, responding to him and his feelings and opinions in the moment.

In an interview with Horses For Life e-magazine (2009) Imke Spilker said the following (my translation) about this:

Horses know very well that they have a voice. But they assume that the human being has no interest in what they have to say...

... A horse lives shut-up in his stall or behind a fence and the human being comes by sometimes and wants something. Depending on what prior experience the horse has had, he has learned to do something particular during these encounters in order to avoid unpleasantness, or to get a treat. In principle, he learns to adapt himself to our demands in the same way he learns to avoid the shock from the electric fence or the way he learns to rub against an apple tree so that a few pieces of fruit fall down. He adapts, and tries to stay out of the way of aggravation.....

Communication is a very much used word. For me it means much more than being an apple tree or an electric fence, depending on circumstances. Is the interaction between the horse and the electric fence communication?

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The other questions that were raised from my re-reading of “Kinship” are still percolating within me. Discussions of them may be material for other entries here. For right now though, it is clearer than ever to me that what we commonly call “training” has absolutely nothing to do with the “simple universal language... which moves without the need for sound from heart to heart”.