Join-up method

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The join-up method was originally developed to give horses confidence in humans and to induce them to see them as leaders . Today we know that this method is based on negative reinforcement and has nothing to do with the natural herd behavior of horses.

Young horse-drawn horses are in most cases used to people and therefore do not need to be tamed, but are broken in normally around the world. Wild horses, for example Dülmen wild horses , are gradually tamed in Europe by slowly getting used to them and then broken in like young horses. This process is comparatively slow.

In the USA, on the other hand , in order to save time , Mustangs are "broken" and broken into by force. The Join Up introduced by Monty Roberts is supposed to lead to the goal faster than "breaking". Both methods, however, still belong to the generic term “breaking horses”.

Will break

In the English language there is the term horse breaking . The horse is mentally and, above all, physically tortured for days or even weeks.

It's driven into a tight box where it can't kick out. A halter is put on him there . A heavy sack simulates the future rider and is attached to his back. A strong rope is attached to the horse's head. This will tie it to a post in the middle of a kraal . The horse panics during this treatment and, after being released from the narrow box, buckes against the sack and defends itself against the rope and the halter. If he does not calm down, he will be hit and one leg will be tied up so that he can only stand on three legs. One wants to weaken his resistance further. Injuries are accepted. If the animal is mentally and physically exhausted and has given up, it is saddled. The heavy sack is attached to the saddle. If he struggles again, he will be hit again and one leg will be tied up again.

It sometimes takes eight to ten days to get to this point. Until then, the horses often have abraded areas or even serious injuries, especially on their legs. Finally a rider gets into the saddle. This forces the horse its will and has several options. When a horse throws off its rider, it is tied up and beaten while lying on the ground until it no longer struggles. Then the rider mounts the saddle again. Another way to keep the horse under control is to use sharp bits, which the rider can use to inflict pain on the horse. It can take up to three weeks for a horse to break.

Join-up

Before the join-up, the horse must have come to rest as described above. Observation by humans and the human voice should also no longer panic the animal. The wild horse is driven in a circle by the trainer in a round pen , a fenced-in lunging circle. The theory of the join-up is as follows: Since the horse is a herd animal, after a certain time it always feels the desire to join someone, provided the trainer gives the horse the right signals with his body language and understands the signals of the horse. When the horse signaled its desire to connect, the trainer turned away from the horse and showed the horse his side. In this way he allows the horse to join him. There would be a so-called join-up, in which the horse would trustingly approach people of its own accord. After the join-up, assuming the appropriate expertise and skillful approach, you can put a saddle on the horse and ride it.

It was assumed that with this method, humans gain the trust of the horse and use natural instincts such as the flight and the herd instinct. Monty Roberts popularized this method. However, many people around the world have used this type of taming before.

Join-up , like Follow-up and Fix-up, is a registered trademark of Monty Roberts for a program for the behavioral training of horses.

Action

The horse that runs freely in the round pen is usually afraid of people and runs around them. This signals the horse by making eye contact, holding up a hand and throwing the lunge : "If you don't want to come to me, move!" So it is given the choice of constantly fleeing from people or connecting with them. Every turn to people, in the form of ear play or turning the head in, is intensified by an immediate reduction in pressure. If the horse turns his attention away again, the person reacts with a renewed increase in pressure. The horse learns so very quickly that its job is to get to humans. It can only avoid the aversive pressure by turning to the person. As soon as the horse turns his attention completely to the person, the person turns his side to the horse, hangs his shoulders and looks at the horse's hooves. He takes all energy from his body and signals to the horse that it should join him. Other signals that Monty Roberts mistakenly mistook as signals of submission are lowering of the head, licking and chewing. These are so-called calming signals ( "calming signals"). During the transition of the nervous system from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic , the horse produces more saliva and what is known as "chewing and licking" occurs.

This is followed by the follow-up, in which the horse follows the person every step of the way through the round pen . To reward it, the person stops in between and pats his forehead. To what extent this reward has a reinforcing effect is questionable, as the horse can also be driven into the learned helplessness by a join up and then does not perceive people as something pleasant.

criticism

Critics of the method complain that the horse is not given a voluntary connection to humans, but that this is prevented by the exclusive choice between permanent flight or subordination. If the person does not recognize that the horse is not yet ready to follow the person, it comes into the status of learned helplessness . Research by Konstanze Krüger also shows that the join-up method is a pure learning behavior. This evidence does not reduce the usefulness of the (correctly applied) method, but requires a reassessment of the mechanisms (... seeks proximity, protection of the alleged herd ...). Research also shows that the behavior learned is first of all person-related and location-bound. However, it can be generalized through further training with other people (see FIG. 4) and training at different locations (see FIG. 5). Even a person with a complete mask ((see Fig. 4) day 10 trial: first trainer, covered with sheet ) was followed by the horses after the generalization phase. The above-mentioned movements of the trainer are therefore not necessarily to be carried out in the same way, but depending on the situation, constant signals that the horse can understand are still essential. The trainer also needs a good feeling for the point at which the horse does not recognize what is being asked of him during the first training units. A study was also carried out with a toy car and it was shown that a horse also joins "this". This also refutes the theory of the “leader” to which the horse would “subordinate”. The theory of subordination and the leader is now largely disproved. The real herd structure has not yet been broken down.

Proponents of this method, on the other hand, argue that the horse is not forced to subordinate, but that “chasing away” is broken off under certain circumstances, for example when the animal is not yet ready to accept human guidance.

literature

  • Shy boy. Conversations with a Mustang. Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2003, ISBN 3-404-60466-0 .
  • The language of the horses . (Original title: A Hands-On Guide to the Monty Roberts Methods of Join-Up Horsemanship .) Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2002, ISBN 3-7857-2106-4 .
  • The knowledge of horses and what we humans can learn from them . (Original title: Join-up. Horse Sense for People .) Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2003, ISBN 3-404-60510-1 .
  • Horses of my life. (Original title: The Horses in My Life ). Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2006, ISBN 3-404-61589-1 .
  • Chris Irwin, Bob Weber: Horses Don't Lie . Da Capo Press, 2001, ISBN 978-1-56924-581-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Krüger, K .: Behavior of horses in the "round pen technique". In: Applied Animal Behavior Science . No. 104, pp. 162-170, doi: 10.1016 / j.applanim.2006.04.021 .