The Five Primary Problem Solving Perspectives
Whether it be in life or in horsemanship, our perspective is always shaped by our experiences… And how we problem solve with our horses is directly shaped by our perspective. The simplest way to summarize all perspectives of the horse industry are these five categories: breeding, medical, training, therapeutic, and farrier. Often, the area you prefer to troubleshoot with is a direct result of the role you play in the industry. Terral and I are trainers, so we see how problems are rooted in training issues. Our vet sees problems as medical issues. We work with multiple therapeutic practitioners, different farriers, and breeders and they often perceive challenges through their perspectives.
Challenges with horses are always multifactorial and rarely isolated to just one of these areas. In this day and age, we recognize we need to work in teams to bring out the best in our horses, for our horses… Self reflection of our own bias can be integral in creating successful collaboration between professionals. We also need more practitioners that have professional knowledge across these five fields. Just as well, horse owners need to cultivate an understanding of how different problem solving perspectives may influence the advice they receive.
Let’s discuss the importance of these five different areas and the importance of each in our industry.
Breeding: The horse’s genetics is the template for the horse’s existence. Appreciating the importance of breeding often grows with age and years in the industry. Once you’ve worked with multiple generations of horses and observed how certain traits clearly follow different bloodlines, you start to understand the importance of breeding. A horse’s lineage often predicts their character, conformation, gaits, and overall health. When I first started training horses, I was a real believer in nurture over nature. I nearly always attributed problems in a horse to a lack of good early handling and training. Through the years, my perspective has really shifted on this, especially as I have had the opportunity to ride and train multiple generations of related horses. Each horse is born into this world with a unique set of traits. This is why the why best horse trainers use a vast array of methodologies and tailor their training approach to each individual horse. You also see different horses progress at very different rates through training. A horse’s trainability and general tendencies under saddle can oftentimes be traced to their breeding.
2. Medical: Whether human or equine, we are all subject to the slow march of wear and tear on our bodies. Accidents happen and life happens. Some of these medical issues are fully treatable, others only manageable, and some may even be terminal. There has been truly monumental progress in the veterinary field when it comes to diagnostics and treatments for horses. We are very blessed here in KY to have world renowned vet clinics and veterinarians at our disposal. Access to these clinics have proved to be life saving for some of our horses through the years, and it has definitely taught us to appreciate the value of the medical perspective. Pain due to medical issues is a huge limiting factor for many of the “problem” horses we are sent in training. A great example of this is dental issues. Terral and I have encountered multiple cases of undiagnosed dental issues causing extremely dangerous behaviors. I mean, if I had an intense toothache, I would bolt with my rider, too!
3. Training: Every interaction with humans is training. Our horse’s lived experience as they go through all types of handling and riding shapes their behavior. Many of these behaviors are very quickly learned (or unlearned). Other experiences result in trauma, which can be very challenging to re-train. The older a horse becomes, the longer these experiences have to establish a mentally & physically balanced (or unbalanced) horse. Since horses can’t talk, it can be very difficult to unpack what has shaped their behavior overtime. As trainers, Terral and I lean towards perceiving problems through this lens. We often see how inadequate most peoples’ interactions are with their horses, especially when it comes to fulfilling their horse’s emotional and physical needs. Many people are not able to recognize the role they play in making their horse stressed and nervous. Many riders are also not schooled to a level where they can truly balance their horse’s crookedness and self carriage. Our life work is, in many ways, helping people understand the impact they have on their horses. We have spent our entire careers developing training methods so that horses can more easily understand humans, and humans can more easily understand horses.
4. Therapeutics: This category involves everything from massage, to supplements in the horse’s feed, to saddle fit. Therapeutics have become a huge industry unto themselves in the horse world, with all sorts of alternative treatments for mental and physical issues. The quality of the product and practitioner service vary wildly due to very little regulation. Here at Taktur, we have found equine massage to be one of the most important supplemental modalities for troubleshooting issues with our training horses. Therapies like massage can help us better understand the location, intensity, and impact of various issues.
5. Farrier: the saying “no hoof, no horse” is age old in the horse world. There is definitely some overlap with the medical and therapeutics category, but farrier work has its own set of professionals - farriers! It is just too critical a topic to not be its own area. Our horse’s shoes directly impact everything about their movement. Small changes in the angles and balance of hooves (or type of shoe) can totally reshape a horse’s gaits, quality of movement, and ultimately, soundness. We are lucky here at Taktur, because Terral is an Icelandic Horse specialized farrier and trainer. This allows us to make small adjustments, from a farrier perspective, and then feel their impact in both the short term and long term of our horses’ development. It also means we have had the opportunity to observe the catastrophic impact of some shoeing options on a horse’s welfare. In our performance horses, imbalances can even cause interference injuries - especially in our pace horses. In our gait training, the quality of a horse’s gait can be impacted with as little as a 2 millimeter adjustment in hoof balance, length and shoes.
These five areas will always be interwoven. For example, a horse with a bolting issue may have a medical component such as a broken tooth, a therapeutic component such as muscular tension due to the pain, and hoof imbalances due to crookedness caused by the muscle tension. Of course, there will also be learned behaviors in training that have become habituated or even developed as traumatic experiences. The solution will never form from isolating only a single variable or area.
That said, there are some specific limiting factors when it comes to the issue and also specific modalities that are important priorities. In this example, a priority would be getting the broken tooth removed. Until that variable is resolved, no amount of effort in the training area will be effective. If the horse was treated abusively, that also may be a limiting factor on the horse’s ability to cope through this type of issue and truly recover long term. Good management of our horses involves figuring out the most important place to start and then developing an understanding of any limiting factors that may have an impact.
Medical, therapeutic, and farrier issues are often the most obvious and acute areas that need to be addressed with our horses. Issues in these areas can be extremely obvious, which can make addressing them very straightforward even if they may involve a big vet bill. Icelandic horses are extremely stoic, so accurately diagnosing and treating these issues can sometimes be very challenging. For example, ulcers can be an unseen cause of pain and stress that are impossible to diagnose definitively without medical testing/scoping. Often, the primary pitfall for horse owners is isolating variables and changes in care protocol so that you can better guess at causality. Often, owners throw multiple treatments at a horse at once which can make it difficult to assess what was actually the most efficacious.
I see breeding as often a limiting factor that can really determine a horse’s response to the other four areas. A well bred, highly trainable horse actually copes better with discomfort (due to medical issues and bad training) than a poorly bred horse lacking trainability. Ironically, this can mean that our well bred horses can often cope through more ill treatment with fewer behavioral repercussions than our poorly bred horses. Terral and I like to describe this using a scale analogy that measures a horse’s quality capacity. A well bred horse has capacity for Level 10 on the scale if perfectly managed, but even in a bad situation, they rarely fall below a Level 5. A poorly bred horse may only be able to reach to Level 6 with perfect management but can fall all the way to Level 1 in a bad situation.
I see training as often something that many horse owners are either unwilling or unable to come to terms with when addressing their horse’s issues. I see many owners throw endless amounts of money at medical, therapeutic, and farrier issues when the reality is, poor riding is the root cause of the problems. It can be easier to pay practitioners for treatments and get the latest and greatest tack than to show up for regular riding lessons and practice. The other reality is that some horses require much more skill to work with safely. Some trainers can make even the most difficult horse appear easy to manage, and of course, the opposite can also be true. I have seen the easiest horses turned into wild beasts by rough or inadequate riders. Good horsemanship takes years to cultivate, so horses need to be matched appropriately and goals need to be set in relativity to each horse-rider combination. Sometimes, the limiting factor is the owner’s willingness to adjust their goals for their horse and themselves. Some riders are just not willing to take full responsibility for their role in their horse’s poor behavior. Or they are unable to dedicate the time and energy to get to the point where they can be the rider their horse needs. These can be tricky realities to come to grips with and emotionally process.
The most important outcome in this discussion is perhaps this- recognizing our individual tendencies to lean towards certain perspectives when troubleshooting with our horses. With each new case, Terral & I always try to take a step back and see if there is a perspective we may need to consider further. Our tendency is to begin with attempting a solution in the training area because that is our speciality, but we try to always be quick to pivot and evaluate other areas as needed. We also put great value on our team of colleagues- from our vets to our therapists- because we know that teamwork is integral to a holistic approach and true success. I would like to finish these musings with several questions for you:
Which of the five areas do you tend to focus on the most?
Which of the five areas do you tend to forget about?
Do you have at least one or multiple professionals in all 5 areas on your team? (Even pros need fellow pros)
What is the area that you think is most important for you to address with your horse right now?
What are some limiting factors for your horse? And in which areas are those factors?