01/15/2025
desensitize (verb): to make (a sensitized or hypersensitive individual) insensitive or nonreactive to a sensitizing agent
From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
I don’t like desensitizing- at least not in the traditional sense. Methods like flooding and the mindset of “you don’t like it? Now it lives in your stall” are outdated and have been shown to create anxious, shut down horses. So why do I constantly see trainers, especially those specializing in c**t starting, using these methods?
It’s because they work- temporarily. The horse realizes that the scary thing goes away when he stands still. But in order to find this, the horse has to go into a state of freeze. He disassociates and fools the trainer into thinking he isn’t scared so the stimulus is taken away and he can breathe again. When this is done repeatedly, the horse learns that disassociating is the answer, eventually creating the all too common shut down mentality. And when something inevitably becomes too much for even the most shut down of horses, all of that pent-up worry turns into a huge explosion that “came out of nowhere” and the horse is blamed.
Because there are a lot of negative connotations around desensitizing, I’ve chosen to use the term “confidence building” instead. Rather than trying to hide fear responses, I work with each horse to not get to that point in the first place. I encourage as much of the horse’s natural curiosity as I can, especially in the beginning, and gradually introduce increasingly challenging asks and stimuli as they are ready for them.
Amber, my 5yo Mustang, is a great example of how effective the confidence building approach is. Since she wasn’t exposed to everyday objects like a domesticated horse would be from birth, every single thing was new and scary. But by working with the approach and retreat processing instinctual to every horse and harnessing her natural curiosity, things became less and less scary. Eventually we reached a point where I could introduce something new and she was barely worried about it.
That’s not to say that she’s never anxious. There are definitely occasions when she hears something in the woods or is caught by surprise and has a reaction. She’s still a prey animal; expecting her to never spook is unrealistic. But the key is that these reactions are small, I can easily regain her focus, and she’s forgotten all about it a minute later.
This ability to process and let go of worry will especially come in handy when it comes time to take Amber off property. There’s no way to predict everything that she might encounter, but creating confidence is the best way to set her up for success.
