028 | Jumy on no longer wanting to be the only R+ horse trainer in the U.A.E.

We can learn so much by getting curious about neighbouring fields.

Jumy is a positive reinforcement horse trainer from Umm Al Quwain in the U.A.E. about 30 minutes out from Dubai and I wanted to pick her brain about the similarities and differences between the horse and the dog world.

Jumy opened her own livery yard, malath paddock paradise, 3 years ago, but she’s been in the industry for 13 years already.

I ask lots of no doubt cringe worthy questions, as I know nothing about horses, and we touch upon tons of different things.

Jumy explains how bitless and tackless work with horses doesn’t always mean positive work.

She illustrates how you can move away from training a behavior like getting the horse to move using negative reinforcement in the form of leg pressure (the horse moves forward in order to get away from the uncomfortable feeling of leg pressure) by teaching the behavior first using positive reinforcement and simply letting a leg touch become a cue for the horse to perform that behavior.

We touch on hackamores, which to me come across as something similar to a head halter as is used on dogs, and competition rules, which do not always allow horses to compete bitless.

Of course I want to know how Jumy ended up in the force free training world.

Unlike the road many dog guardians take, it wasn’t because she had exhausted punitive methods or because her horse had behavioral problems.

Rather it was trick training that sparked the idea of using positive reinforcement training to train all kinds of behavior. If you can use it to teach a horse tricks, why couldn’t you use it to teach other behaviors after all?

View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Tango (@tangotheminiature)

Being a trailblazer had both upsides and downsides.

The biggest positive was that she never fell into any kind of trap of wanting to be able to do it all and know it all at once. She simply had to follow a try-as-you-go path of discovery.

When her clients find her though, it usually is because they are experiencing problems with their horses. This leads us to discuss how Jumy’s approach to dealing with horse guardians who may be using tools on their horses that she doesn’t necessarily agree with.

Her assumption is that the guardian loves their horse. She never wants to shame them or make the feel guilty about their choice of tool. Rather she lets them draw their own conclusions.

In her words:

If I teach the horse to walk, trot, reverse, counter, stop using only voice commands, do you think the owner would not use those voice commands riding? And then what do they need the bit for? It will then be their idea to go bitless.

She does draw the line at the use of spurs, but it’s her reasoning as to why that’s the most interesting to me.

In another similarity to the dog world, there is a lot of emphasis on ruling out pain (through for example a bad-fitting saddle) as a contributing factor to behavioral issues.

So what about the differences? With the horse being a prey animal and the dog being a predator, Jumy explains how that affects the required rate of reinforcement.

Then there is natural horsemanship. Jumy explains her views on that and how horses who are trained with that method can mentally shut down.

Naturally I ask about her dogs who live at the stables and are allowed to free roam. Funnily enough they chill most of the time, unless they are breaking up horse fights or they decide to come along on a hack with the horses, that is.

Finally Jumy explains her criteria for canceling a session with a horse when she isn’t in the right mindset herself, and what the alternatives are, such as adapting the type of the session to her energy levels.