A few words about Desensitization

The definition of Desensitization: The elimination or reduction of natural or acquired reactivity or sensitivity to an external stimulus, a behavior modification technique, used especially in treating phobias, in which panic or other undesirable emotional response to a given stimulus is reduced or extinguished, especially by repeated exposure to that stimulus.

In theory, use of techniques to 'desensitize' a horse to certain stimulous is not a bad thing. I believe there is a decided lack of awareness about how and when to put the theory into practice.

Many misunderstand the art and science of desensitization. In my experience when a a horse is "desensitized" arbitrarily or without consideration, a couple of things can happen.

1. The horse can cope by choosing to avoid the situation entirely by going deep inside himself to a "happy place". The horse is in essense blocking the entire situation out. When the horse wakes up and comes back to the present, he is startled not by the object or thing that he was originally frightened of, but by his surroundings..ie. "Where am I?" The horse owner then misreads the startled horse and inappropriately desensitizes some more. It becomes a viscious and unhelpful circle with no good end for anyone.

2. The horse becomes dull and apethetic from being over-desensitized or desensitized for no good reason by an over zealous owner. The horse just doesn't give a hoot anymore. Think of the string horse. He loses his spirit to protect his very soul. That is a very sad commentary.

So when and how do you decide when a horse needs desensitization? Ask a few questions: Is the horse dangerous? Is the behavior really terrible or just an annoyance to the human ego? Is it really a behavioral issue or is the behavior caused by the ineptitude of the human rider?

Something else you might want to think about:
What other behaviors are inadvertently affected by desensitizing the "problem" behavior? For instance, a person decides he wants to desensitize a horse to keep him from spooking at sticks on the path or trail. The human must first ask him/herself why is the horse afraid? The fear may be irrational or he might just have a healthy fear of snakes. So, the human beats the stick problem (pun intended), and ends up with a horse who is bitten by a rattlesnake because he then sees them as no threat. This is an extreme and very unlikely example. However, if you apply that kind of thinking before-hand, you can avoid a lot of problems for you and your horse in the future. First and foremost, consider the horse.