Touch and the Spirit of Scratching an Itch

Have you ever been touched by someone against your will? Has someone's touch ever made you uncomfortable or felt distinctly unpleasant?

I'm not talking about instances of sexual abuse or harassment, or being manhandled by someone with the intent to do harm. I'm talking about ordinary, everyday situations with essentially well-meaning people. For example, perhaps as a child you had someone in your life -- we'll call her great Aunt Griselda -- who insisted on smothering you in bear hugs whenever she visited, even though you --- allergic to Auntie's perfume and unable to breathe while in her embrace -- tried your best to avoid her. You did not want to offend her -- she was mother’s favorite aunt and all in all a very nice lady -- but you really wanted to stay out of hugging distance because she was oblivious to your discomfort. Or maybe you've been to a fancy hair salon where you get a shampoo-with-shiatsu-massage before your haircut. This is pure bliss when the shampooer/masseuse is sensitive, perceptive, and tuned into you... and a tension-inducing, uncomfortable ordeal when she is not.

It’s the same thing with scratching an itch for a horse. When we are sensitive, perceptive, and tuned in we help Horse experience "scratch ecstasy" -- shown by an upper lip pursed and stretched forward just as far as it can go, the craned neck, the body leaning into our touch. If we are insensitive, oblivious, or mechanical in our approach or in our actions... we create tension and unpleasantness.

Sensitivity and awareness need to come into play before we ever lay fingers on the horse's body. Why are we choosing to do this? How do we approach Horse to make the offer of a scratch? How does he feel about our being close to him, about us touching him?

It seems to me that best reason for offering Horse a scratch is to bring him relief, comfort, and pleasure in our company. It's a simple act of kindness, done out of genuine affection. The side effects of this are that it helps improve communication between us and brings us closer to one another. That’s great, and much to be desired. But I need to beware, to be aware of what is going on with me, so that I do not start unconsciously using this pleasurable activity as a "technique" to somehow manipulate horse. Turning what should be an act of kindness and an intimate act of affection into a “tool” or “trick” for better horse “training” is a perversion to be avoided at all costs. So, in my eagerness to form a friendship with Horse, to have him like me, I need to be continually aware not only of what I'm doing, but why I'm doing it.

In all my interactions with horses it is helpful to continually ask myself -- as Imke Spilker recommends - "why do I do what I do." In the proper spirit of scratching an itch the best answer is probably something like: " I'm doing this because I like Horse and want to do something nice for him that shows him how much I like him." If that's not my honest answer, then it might be better to do something else.

It should go without saying that we would never force a horse to submit to having us scratch his itches by holding him or tying him up or otherwise restraining him. And yet, far stranger things have happened in the relationship between human and horse. Countless horses every day are forced to submit to what should be pleasurable activities -- being groomed, being massaged, being bathed. How must it feel to be given a massage against your will? Can you imagine anything beneficial resulting from that?

There's a damaging attitude or underlying belief (often unconscious) that has to be chucked if we are to stay in the proper spirit of scratching an itch -- namely, the belief that says I have the absolute right, or “should” be able, to touch Horse whenever, wherever, however I please. That attitude is a hangover from countless centuries of treating Horse as property, as an unfeeling piece of "livestock," and it is completely incongruent in a relationship of courteous acquaintance, let alone a genuine friendship. Just as with another human being -- I touch Horse only with permission. I enter his personal space only with his permission.

It is easiest to “understand” horses when they have plenty of room to move. When a horse is in an open space and he knows he is free to walk (or run) away from me whenever he pleases, it is usually pretty clear when he is saying “yes” and when he is saying “no”. But, in close quarters, a box stall, for example, it is not always so easy for a horse to freely express himself. Such situations require me to be especially attuned. I must be extra alert for any little sign that Horse is not welcoming my approach -- a slight tensing of his body, or perhaps only of his lips, or chin, or jaw, or ears; a slight turn of his head away from me, ignoring me, etc. I must be careful, too, to avoid blocking him with my body -- cornering him.

Certainly I do not want to play the role of Aunt Griselda to the horses in my life, nor do I want to be the oblivious masseuse. So, the offer to scratch an itch, must always be just that -- an offer which Horse is free to accept or refuse. And, when I’m actually touching Horse, I owe it to him to stay as aware, as open, and as receptive as I am able, to ensure that I am indeed giving pleasure rather than causing distress. "Where do you need me to scratch?" "Is this hard enough?" " Too hard?" "How does this feel?" Those are the sorts of questions that should be running through my mind as I try to sense what Horse is feeling as I touch him.

How does it feel to do something for a horse without wanting anything in return?

Scratching an Itch

This blog entry is a collaborative effort. Lynne Gerard and Eva Knodt very kindly permitted me to use their photos here (see captions for photographer). Alene Sibley generously allowed me to publish the story identified in the text. Heartfelt thanks Lynne, Eva, and Alene!

Mutual grooming. Photo by Eva Knodt

Please take a few moments to imagine yourself in a horse’s body. You are suddenly without arms, without hands, without fingers.... without fingernails. Imagine all the places you can reach on yourself with your teeth, or perhaps with a gentle rub of your hoof. Now imagine all the places you cannot reach -- your ears, the top of your head, your withers, the mane line, the insides of your hind thighs, the dock of your tail, the midline of your belly..... The list of places you cannot reach is long and all those places are particularly susceptible to being itchy. What’s a horse to do?

You can perhaps find a tree or a rock to rub up against. Or, you might call on a friend to help you out. Another horse will know right where you need scratching, and with how much pressure, and for how long. A human friend has those wonderful appendages with fingernails, and can get to places with them that another horse cannot -- the insides of ears, under the jaw, in the center of the udder, .... But, most human beings -- even the best intentioned ones -- don't have a horse's innate sense of what another horse needs. So, a horse has to make an extra effort to let his human friend know that he needs to be scratched, and show him where.

One friend helping out another. Photo by Eva Knodt

Some of you are probably rolling your eyes right now as you see the length of this post and are wondering what on earth I can find to say about something as everyday, as ordinary, as scratching an itch. Everyone knows that horses do this for each other, and sometimes a human will scratch an itch for the horses in his life. What’s the big deal?

Part of the answer is that this ordinary little act, the scratching of an itch, is actually extraordinarily powerful. It can be a wonderful gift to a horse. It’s a way of putting our love for horses, or for one particular horse, into action. In other words, scratching an itch is an act of love.

Here is a story that illustrates this. The author is Alene Sibley, a friend to horses and other animals as well as a friend to me. We met at NHE (Nevzorov Haute Ecole - Alexander and Lydia Nevzorov’s forum and online school). Alene kindly gave me permission to share this excerpt from her NHE diary entry of October, 2007.

“I was away this past weekend in New York City for a wedding. The weather was astounding--summertime all over again. Before we left on Monday morning we went for a walk in Central Park. Central Park is one of the most wonderful places I've visited EXCEPT: surrounding the park, walking through the park, waiting at all entrances, are the carriage horses. So many of them, and it makes for a crushing and helpless feeling. I imagined that there must have been people walking by human slaves over a century ago with feelings like I was having.

I was walking along a sidewalk as we were leaving, and there was a lovely black Percheron standing idly as his driver waited for the next fare. A boy with some friends walked up to the horse and was sort of laughing, teasing the horse not to scare him, and the horse turned his head to look at the boy who then screamed and dashed away (what must that be like to have people popping up to you from outside of your blinders, shrieking at you?). I walked up to the horse and stood at his face, then reached out and asked if I might touch his nose. I chose to not shroud him in sorrow and sympathy, but rather to tell him the news that there are a lot of people working very hard on behalf of horses, and that change was in the air, and that I was sorry it had to be this way now. He looked at me so deeply, wise and kind, and not totally lost as some horses can be. After some mutual tiny nuzzling, he turned his head and threw it back toward his girth in a clear message that there was an itch back there which, due to all of his equipment, was unreachable to him. Somehow he understood this to be the one thing which I have mastered! I started searching, found the spot and OH, he was so pleased for the help. So pleased. Too soon it was time to leave, but I resumed scratching twice when he asked me to, although I had to turn my back on him finally. And he returned to standing there with all the grace in the world. I will not forget him, or all of them, lines of them, in their carriage "finery," smelling of the pungent stalls to which they return at the end of the day. I want each little act of love that everyone here in NHE is making to keep spreading and spreading. In fact, if I hadn't been in this forum this year, I would have just petted this horse but never given him a moment's help with his itchiness. And so I won't go on and on at this moment about how bleak is the plight of these horses, and what this makes me feel, but I will keep looking forward.”

Kevin Droski and young Silvestre. Photo by Lynne Gerard

What a lesson in being fully present in the moment! And, what a gift such presence is for the one embraced by our mindfulness. As Alene's beautifully written story makes so clear, it is all well and good to be saddened at the plight of horses and to be overwhelmed by feelings of despair and outrage -- especially if your feelings move you to contribute to, or join, organizations that are working to better horses‘ lives. But, all that does absolutely nothing for this particular horse in front of you right here, right now. Alene gave that noble Percheron the greatest gift anyone could have given him in that moment -- she acknowledged him, she listened to him,... and she scratched his itch. She gave him relief and likely some pleasure, too. She put her love for horses into action in the moment, and thereby brought some love into that horse's life. That act of kindness made the world a slightly better place.

That’s part of the big deal of scratching an itch. And there’s more...

On page 155 of “Empowered Horses” there is a 3-photo series of Reno of Stonebrook in reclining position being scratched by Imke Spilker according to his directions. The caption is entitled “On the Art of Finding the Right Spot” and reads: “How does a person learn the ‘feel’ for the right aids? Reno begins our first lesson in how to sense a horse by lying on the ground. This way he is less intimidating and can indicate the right spots calmly and with great patience. In the beginning we human beings must learn very concretely with our hands how what we do is received by the horse, as Reno demonstrates here with me. His pleased expression gives clear feedback.

In time, with such groundwork, a person develops a comprehensive feel and is able to sense the spot where a horse needs human aid, even when the horse is moving.”

So, there is another part of the answer to “what’s the big deal?” Learning to sense a horse -- to know where he is itching -- develops our ability to listen, to understand what he is "saying" to us. This improves communication between us -- a powerful aid to building a friendship. And this ability to communicate with our friend, to sense his needs, is very necessary if we want to begin working with him to develop his strength and suppleness.

This is affirmed by Alexander and Lydia Nevzorov. A few years ago, when I was a member of their forum and online school, the first active lessons were -- playing and mutual grooming. (Playing, also discussed extensively in “Empowered Horses,” is a subject for other entries.)

The people who came to NHE thinking they’d be handed some secret tricks of Nevzorov’s for getting a horse to perform haute ecole movements at liberty were sorely disappointed in these deceptively simple lessons. They couldn’t see the sense in it -- after all, they were "serious,", they came here to learn haute ecole, not game playing and grooming. They wanted to go right to the “real” lessons. Those folks left the school pretty quickly.

What they didn’t “get” is that it is in those apparently simple lessons that “the secret” lives. Those lessons are the heart of matter. The work of NHE (like the work described in “Empowered Horses”) depends on intimate, trusting communication between horse and human -- communication that can only take place between close friends who know each other well. The purpose of these simple lessons was to help students develop a close friendship and a certain quality of communication with their horses. Everything else, EVERYTHING, rests on that foundation.

Fada (behind Kevin and Silvestre) seems to be asking, "What about me?" Photo by Lynne Gerard

Kochet taught me a lesson about the power of scratching an itch. Initially, I had some issues with NHE's “grooming” lesson. I could not separate that word from the act of using a currycomb and brushes of varying stiffness in a certain order to get a horse clean. Whether the horse wanted to be groomed, how he felt about it, had nothing to with the matter. In traditional horse keeping practice grooming is a necessary thing -- often done mechanically or completely absentmindedly -- to which a horse is expected to submit. Khemo and Desna quite like being groomed, so that was not a problem. However, Kochet had always HATED being curried or brushed. I had tried firm currycombs and brushes and the softest ones I could find and the ones in between. It made no difference. Kochet wanted no part of it.

In the time before I entered NHE, I had made Kochet a promise that he would never have to do anything he didn’t want to do (unless it was a health emergency). This included grooming. So how was this grooming lesson going to fit in with that promise? What follows is an excerpt from my NHE diary entry of July 6, 2007:

“...Strangely, and much to my amazement, I have been able to both keep my promise to Kochet and follow instructions to spend time...grooming. .... As I thought more and more about grooming, I realized that when horses “groom” each other, it has nothing at all to do with getting each other clean. So I could forget about my brushes and sponges ... and the idea of having a clean horse. All I needed to do was figure out where Kochet itched and scratch him there. Thanks to the millions of vicious bugs we have this summer, Kochet has itchy bites on his belly, his inner thighs, his chest... places Desna can’t reach easily, and anyway, she doesn’t have fingernails. Kochet nearly always accepts my offer of a good scratch session...

Lately, Kochet seems to like having me around. He has begun to show me affection, and just last night he offered to groom me. I accepted... and Kochet scraped his teeth very gently all across the crown of my head, ruffling my hair a little. It felt wonderful and I thanked him profusely when he finished. As I said, for horses, grooming is not about cleanliness. When I was typing my diary entry last nigh after I had come back from the barn, I noticed my head felt a little itchy. I reached up and my fingers closed on a small clump of something that turned out to be a bit of partially chewed grass.. a little tangible souvenir of Kochet grooming me."

So many horses, so few hands. Photo by Lynne Gerard

So to sum up, the big deal about the simple,ordinary, everyday, act of scratching an itch is that it is a tangible expression of our love for Horse, an act of kindness and consideration between close friends. It is a powerful -- perhaps indispensable -- aid in improving communication and building a friendship. It helps us humans improve our "listening" skills by developing our perceptiveness and sensitivity. It brings us into the here and now, into a state of mindfulness. All in all, it brings us closer to the horses we love.

Author Neale Donald Walsch wrote: “What you should do is answer the simple question: 'What would Love do now?’" I've made it part of my practice to ask that question in my life when I'm unsure what to do next -- including times when I'm interacting with Khe-Ra, Kochet, and Desna. Very often, especially at coat shedding time and in bug season, the answer is: Scratch an itch!

Kevin and Zeus - Finding the "sweet spot." Photo by Lynne Gerard