A Fluffy Bunny visited my Youtube account recently and criticized me for using a whip and was obviously extremely angry that I had turned comments off on my own account.
There is a part of the horse-loving population that is afraid to take control of their horse. I call these people – fluffy bunnies. They want to believe that horses are cute little stuffed animals they can tote around, fall asleep on, and when they are sad, chew on their felt ears.
I’ve posted about these type of people before and why, viewing horses as some sort of stuffed toy, is a completely dangerous idea from the get-go: the type of damage a horse can do with a kick to the face.
Now I will tell you two stories where a whip could have saved someone from getting hurt and the horse would have learned that PEOPLE are not a STUFFED TOY!
First story: the BO of 3HF is a Fluffy Bunny who owns mustangs (these BF types are typically attracted to hurt, damaged, rescues, and basically any horse that is completely above their skill level) including one mustang gelding (we will call Byte).
With no provocation, Byte attacked a friend (DH)’s horse over the fence. I also suspected he was involved in Big Guy’s pasture accident (pelvis fracture) since it occured the night after Byte was installed in the adjacent pasture to my own horses.
DH had taken her horse up to the BO’s barn to have his hooves done by the farrier. During the work, the BO decided to move Byte away from the gate that opened into the barn aisle. As soon as she opened the gate, Byte pushed her aside, and attacked DH’s horse (who had a hoof raised for farrier work and had shown no aggression whatsoever).
DH was shoved to the side by the horses’ brute force, resulting in a DISLOCATED SHOULDER. Her horse had a bite taken out of his neck – I saw the damage four weeks later and it was about the size of my fist. It was the farrier who got the horse under control – not the Fluffy Bunny owner.
This incident happened due to extreme poor judgement on the part of the BO and because the horse felt he could push past his owner.
Second Story: Husband is not a “horse person”; he hangs out and helps me but horses are not his passion, neither does he have years of experience with them.
While working on a gate, Z kept coming over to investigate to the point of being a pest. He shoo’ed her off and she would always leave and then come right back to him. This is a horse that pushes the limits of boundaries all the time, and if she had done this to me, the accident that followed would never have happened.
The last time he sent her away, she kicked back, and he was too close; if he had used a lunge whip to tell her to leave he would have been at a safe distance from her. The blow hit his glasses pushing them into his eyebrow, causing a split producing a fountain of blood. The injury needed stitches and we are damn lucky that he didn’t lose an eye.
Let’s return to whips…
Most trainers who are moderate in their beliefs (such as I) don’t want to post out there about how they use whips. They fear the Fluffy Bunnies will come down on them and accuse them of in-humane treatment. They fear their actions will be misconstrued as some sort of sadism.
My advice to you: if you don’t like whips, don’t use them. But don’t come crying to me when you find that one horse, that has decided that it eats Fluffy Bunnies for breakfast and you end up in the emergency room.
Anyone with half a brain, who has seen my videos, knows that my horses do not see me as abusive. Anyone with half a brain can see they feel very close, safe and secure with me.
And if you really, really have to get on a soapbox about my whip-use, then I suggest you send me a private email, come to my town, and I wil put you in the ring with Z. You would last all of five seconds - or however long it took you to climb out via the round pen panels – because she eats Fluffy Bunnies for breakfast and coughs up what remains into owl pellets.
How often do I use them? I probably have a whip in my hand less then 40 percent of the time when I work my horses.
How often do they strike my horse? By strike, I mean an emphatic “you must do as I ask right now” strike. With Big Guy and Dee, not at all. With Pandora, perhaps once in her entire 8 years with me (she reared and charged me). With Z, about a handful of times. This is because these horses have WILDLY different temperments and Z, of them all, is the most strong-minded and dangerous.
What purpose is the whip in your training? I try to use it as the extension of my hand, to guide or give signals – not to punish. The only horse that I have had to really strike to save myself has been Z.
If I had truly ever used a whip to harm my horses – or they thought it was unjust – then none of them would come to me when I called them (see evidence of them coming when called on the Youtube videos). None of them would feel comfortable with me handling a whip or approaching them, carrying a whip.
For those that have used whips as torture tools or unfair punishment, this translates to a horse who keeps their distance and who reacts quickly and sometimes, violently, to the appearance of a whip. I can tell watching a horses’ behavior what the handler has done when no one is looking – horses do not hide how they feel.
