There’s no problem with a vagal response – it’s natural and useful.
But you need to acknowledge it. And if it’s long-lasting, it’s most productive to remove the cause.
Once your horse’s vagus nerve triggers him into ‘alert’, his eyes and ears are scanning for information, his head is up to let them see and hear, his body is filling his muscles with blood, and his legs are poised ready to go. There’s absolutely no chance of a shoulder-in at this moment!
The transition into this alert state is immediate, but the adrenalin drenching his system takes a while to reabsorb and let him graze safely again. So he won’t be back on line straight away, and there can still be raised adrenalin in his system for an hour. If you keep that in mind you’ll have more success (and avoid kicking your own vagus system into distress).
Mostly we don’t have lions strolling round the yard. So why the survival tactics?
Well, it could be a trigger we understand and sympathise with – a loud noise, a huge piece of farm machinery, a bouncy dog. Normally he’ll get some reassurance in this case.
Separation anxiety or shying at flapping pieces of paper might be understood but not create a great deal of sympathy, when we have a plan for the day. Now it’s not a pat on the neck he gets – it’s a dig in the ribs.
He might learn to ignore his worry, out of respect for something he’s even more worried about (is ‘most scary influencer’ the role you dreamed of playing?), but he’s still physically in a heightened state. His mind is elsewhere and you won’t get the best from him.
And then there are the live-in stressors. It can pay us to acknowledge that sometimes we don’t see the world the same way our horse does, and that a life of social isolation, stabling, convenience food, school work, leather bindings, travel, and constant obedience can create levels of chronic stress that we don’t even recognise. But just because we don’t recognise them doesn’t mean he doesn’t experience them.
Fight, flight and freeze are meant to be really short-term responses, not a way of life.
We just have to take his vagal state at face value. Anything we want from our horse will be more freely given if he’s not in a stressed state. So wherever we’re going, we need to start with normalising the activity of the vagus nerve. Get the green light, and you’ll get further faster.