I thought it was only appropriate to have my first blog post be about cooperative care, as it is a part of my business name and is what I strive to use in all interactions with my own horses.
What is Cooperative Care?
Cooperative care is teaching horses to be fully involved in the process of a procedure, whether it be in relation to medical needs or everyday handling. They have the opportunity to say yes or no throughout situations presented to them. Horses trained with cooperative care will communicate to their handler when they are ready to move forward with a procedure. This enables horses to be active participants with us instead of being passive and merely tolerating what is being done to them.
With cooperative care we always give horses a way to say yes or no, which is communicated to us by horses through the use of start buttons. With a start button, we teach horses to perform a behavior which indicates to the handlers that they are willing to move forward with the next step. We also teach our horses a stop button. Meaning if they perform the specific behavior that signals us to stop, we stop. This is a crucial part in teaching cooperative care as it gives horses a safe way to communicate to us that what we are asking of them is too much. It is important that we always listen to our horse’s “no.” This is how a trusting relationship is created.
Cooperative care creates a wonderful back and forth conversation with our horses where we ask, they answer, we ask, they answer…
Is Cooperative Care New?
Cooperative care has been widely successful in many aspects of animal training for many years. It is most well known for its use in zoos and aquariums, but cooperative care is also helpful when training horses and all other animals kept in captivity.
Animal trainers at zoos can teach hippos to hold their mouths open for teeth checking and cleanings, teach dolphins to hold still for long periods of time to perform ultrasounds, and teach polar bears to show different parts of their body for examination. It allows the trainers to take exceptional care of these powerful wild animals without ever having to use restraints or sedation. Can you imagine physically restraining a bear to poke it with a needle for a blood draw? The humans would risk injury or death and the animal involved could be injured and be left with emotional trauma due to struggling. As a result of the trauma, the animal would not allow that action again easily.
Let’s put this into perspective. Many people, including myself, are not fans of going to the dentist or doctor's office. How would you feel if you were dragged into the dentist office against your will and not knowing what was to come, forced into and strapped to a chair while asking for it all to stop, but not being listened to? That sounds awful, doesn’t it? Would you be willing to go back? In contrast, being able to choose to walk into the office, sit in the chair, hear what will happen to us, and have the ability to say yes or no makes the event more tolerable.
If we can teach a bear to volunteer for a blood draw, we can do the same for our horses making it a much more pleasant experience for everyone involved.
How Can Cooperative Care Help Horses?
There are unlimited examples of behaviors we can teach our horses cooperatively. Teaching cooperative care eliminates the use of harsh restraints, twitches, and risk of the horse being over their stress threshold.
We can teach horses to be excited about and volunteer to/for:
accepting shots
accepting dewormer and oral medications
haltering
hoof handling
getting mouth and teeth checked
eye and ear care
temperature taking
udder or sheath cleaning
fly spray application
body clipping
grooming
tacking up
The possibilities are endless!
Cooperative care is a great and well tested approach to use when working with our horses. It reduces the risk of injury and emotional trauma for horses, handlers, and vets during medical treatments.
Cooperative care is all about empowering horses to have choices in their participation. By having choice, our horses are given a sense of control over what is happening to them, which in turn, helps us care for them in a low stress and pleasant way. I strive to bring the philosophy of cooperative care into all aspects of my training, not just when working on medical behaviors.
If you want to learn more about how to train using cooperative care with your own horses and in everyday life, please contact me. I’d be happy to assist you in your journey!
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