The "$5 Fine" is a scenario I give all the time when teaching. It is sometimes the only way I can logic people into being effective (soft enough or firm enough) with their horse partner.
Firstly, I look at everything as a spectrum, with the extremes on the ends...this includes people and their tendencies and/or personalities. When I talk to people I have to sometimes say completely different things. For example one extreme is for a person that is heavy handed, quick and hard with their signalling, I would have to say to them "never do this: x, y, z" to get them to break the habit or pattern that is natural for them, but destructive to forward progress with their horse. I couldn't say the same thing to a soft, timid and non-confrontational person because that would be destructive to THEIR forward progress with their horse...savvy?
Secondly, nothing with horses is absolute or finite, there is always a "slide scale" to what we need to do along that spectrum, and in the moment. Meaning sometimes we need to be extremely soft and delicate to be effective and not blow the situation up, and other times we need to be extremely firm to be effective, so things don't get worse...and even more difficult; all the places in between. I call it the "Goldilocks Rule" of horse training; not too loose, not too tight. Not to much, not too little. Not too fast, not too slow...it all needs to be "just right" for the horse to learn to the best of its ability. Horse training is very difficult, though many have tried to claim their "program" is fool proof and "McDonald's-like", it is not. It takes a very long time and hundreds of thousands of reps to become proficient enough to be called "good," much-less a professional, and even then the journey doesn't end.
In this article I want to address the correct "correction" when things are not going, well, correctly! Horses have all different temperaments, sensitivities and tendencies, we have to get good a "reading" what is necessary for the moment to regain balance, or a calm, sensitive state in the horse. My best analogy to help people to relate, is to talk about getting a speeding ticket, hence the "Five dollar fine" title of this article.
In this regard, we humans all have different reactions to being pulled over by a police officer for speeding, when we know we "broke the rule." Some people burst into tears immediately because they are absolute rule followers and would NEVER knowingly break a rule. Some would understand what they did wrong, and wait patiently for the officer to walk up and ask for license and registration to begin the process. And still others are impatient, think they are above following the rule and maybe even angered that a police officer pulled them over for it. So for "person #1" a $5 fine would not really be necessary, they are already punishing themselves beyond necessary, and would never want to be in trouble again without even paying a fine. "Person #2" would most likely stand corrected, pay the fine and remember not to break the rule next time. And "person #3" would probably roll their eyes and smuggingly hand the officer $20 to pay for the next 3 times they speed through the area, because $5 is not an effective amount to discourage them from breaking the rule again, and again. Most of my clientele are the "#1 person," and they own a horse that is the "#3 person," and the mismatch is a difficult one to make progress.
I feel like the "Five Dollar Fine" concept, helps people to adjust themselves to their horse, no matter what their personal tendencies are. To make progress we must be flexible enough in ourselves, to "slide the slide" along the slide-scale of effectiveness for the individual horse. As Mary Poppins says "Enough is as good as a feast." Too little of a correction is just as bad as too much of a correction, the dysfunctional outcomes are just different. And remember; horse training always follows the "Goldilocks Rule." It really is true, we learned everything we needed to know for life (and horse training), in Kindergarten ;-)
Happy Training,
Kalley
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