How do you evaluate advice?

[jawa]

In real life, I watch how people interact with horses and how they interact with people. Do they create a relaxed, happy animal that is willing to work and learn? Do they speak respectfully and do they explain themselves in a way that I can understand them?

Asking for advice and giving it over the interwebs? It is very hard. You are not there to evaluate what is truly going on. You are only able to go by what is written, and as I’m sure we have all seen on many of these threads, things don’t get mentioned, or exaggerated, or lessened. When folks give advise, they are doing so from there own personal experiences and biases.

On this bulletin board, I have read MANY, MANY threads. Some advice resonates with me and my experiences. Some of the advice is less than stellar, and I take it with a grain of salt. Some of it I file away, it won’t work with the situation I’m in now, but it may be a tool that I can use at another time on another horse.

Reading, experiencing, and reflecting on the outcomes are the tools I use to become a better horsewoman, for me and for the horses I interact with.

[nu2u]

Live n Learn baby, live n learn. Observe others, only ask professionals, trust your gut at least a little bit and do not be afraid to get a second opinion. OH always remember…horses survive in the wild with no electrolytes, wraps, supplements, fly wear…so sometimes doing less avoids a mess.

[TWH_Girl]

10 years ago, I was a newbie. I learned by experience. Experience is the best teacher for any subject. It takes TIME. When I had didn’t know what to do in situation after I first got my horse, I would take a little bit from everyone, do your own research, ask a vet/trainer, and then go with your gut after that.

I used to have one friend that got MAD that I didn’t just “take her advice”. I said that’s not how I operate…I get lots of input, evaluate and listen to my gut. Then over time, you learn and have better instincts on how to handle situations.

[Gumby80]

The same way you evaluate any advice in life! Work your way down the reliability chain…

Starting with science is good. Peer-reviewed papers if they exist. Also, highly trained professionals: vets, doctors. Recognizing that they usually have general expertise, and may or may not be highly experienced in your particular problem.

If that’s not satisfactory, less-trained-but-still-professionals: farriers, chiropractors, trainers etc. Bearing in mind what they’re trained in: your trainer has doubtless seen a lot of lame and injured horses, and probably has valuable advice, but it doesn’t make them a vet.

Next down the list, people who just have a lot of experience. Doesn’t mean what they do is right, but they’ve probably seen a lot. If they have horses who are well cared for, well trained etc, bonus points

Somewhere near the bottom: people on the internet! Forums are a great way to get some alternative viewpoints, and ideas that you haven’t thought of, but then you take those ideas to your vet/farrier etc. There’s an awful lot of people who sound knowledgeable, and aren’t.

At the very bottom: anyone who uses the phrases “I’ve done my research!”, “I don’t believe in traditional medicine”, “qualifications are just a piece of paper” or “well it’s not strictly illegal…”

[candyappy]

I was a newbie back in 1976 and all on my own. I read a lot. Several years later as a 17 year old, I found myself at my first boarding stable which was run by a very trustworthy man with years of knowledge who not only explained it, but got on the horse and showed me . Then I worked and rode till I got it.

I’ve never had a trainer or lessons, but I learned the bulk of what I know from my 12 years with him. I try to evaluate the advice given by the life of the person who is giving it. That must be from someone I know.

Taking advice here is a whole different matter. If you read on here often enough the “wise ones” shine through and by the way they consistently post , I would value their advice.

[OverandOnward]

One good piece of advice I got when young that stuck with me: A smart person learns from experience; a very smart person learns from other people’s experience. :lol: You can avoid some of the harsher learning experiences by observing what happens to others.

Re Internet Research …
It’s what, at least 2 decades into popular internet usage, and it’s still a bit like a library with books that are classified by topic, but not by quality. There is great info on the internet, but it is never complete. And the good, bad and the ugly are all piled in together.

Too often people don’t remember that articles in publications both print and online are strictly edited for length. They are, at best, a summary or a snapshot, but not a complete and thorough review. Information that is not printed anywhere, but only based on personal experience, has to be round at the source: the good professional practitioner.

When I was a professional analyst/researcher I was taught that the true data is always in the human experience, not the numbers and printed information. But it takes a lot of extra effort to find and listen to the human part.

[MidnightWriter]

The more horse experience I get, the more I tend to evaluate advice by how well it agrees with the majority of other advice I have gotten from other sources.

I was interested in your comment that your family had years of horse experience, and then you story about your grandfather and feeding chewing tobacco.

I have known a number of people in the horse world whose families had years of experience OWNING horses (not training, not schooling, not lessons) and I have wondered how their horses ever managed to survive such ignorance!

That was not a comment at all about your family, OP! Your comment just made me think of OTHER people I have known who have had horses. I have also known a lot of people who sound more like you, who have had years of good horse experience and are knowledgeable and realize we never stop learning.

I tend to balance the advice I get from horse books (fiction as well as nonfiction) and magazine articles and conversations with other horse people, with what I hear from horse people who are self-taught and have learned purely by experience and trial and error. I see what works for me, that works for other people. It is a sort of majority-opinion method, mixed with my own judgment and wanting to learn all I can.

[NancyM]

It’s a harsh situation…being too green to know if you are being fed bullshit or not. Being too green to know if a person has more knowledge than you do. The person handing out the advice makes claims that they DO have the knowledge, the one being advised feels that they don’t. So they are vulnerable. Some get led down the road to poor horsemanship, bad decisions, and giving money away to someone who wants to take it. The horses pay the price, as they always do, for the decisions and ideas of their owners.

Green horse owners are liable to “like” different things than long term horsemen, and thus pursue different goals. The goal to have a western pleasure horse “shuffle”. The goal to have a horse hold it’s head in a “headset” with it’s nose held in to it’s chest. The goal to have a horse do tricks like a dog. Any of the number of goals that people pursue with their horses. How much damage happens to the horse along the way? Perhaps somtimes not that much different than those who pursue other goals, racing, jumping, competition, recreational riding with a lot more knowledge and horsemanship. Other times, a lot more damage.

How does a green owner learn to distinguish between good advice and poor advice? Through time and experience, and the ability make independent assessments, the ability to learn. Not every one has these things. Some never learn, or don’t care to learn. Because simply “listening to your coach” or “listening to your farrier” or “listening to your vet” as catch all advice is never going to be 100% good advice, because in every group of professionals, there are always those who graduated at the bottom of the class, or who have alternative motives to their own benefit.

Getting advice of the internet is both scary and helpful. Try being a green person, and read about the Strasser method of farriery. Or “natural horsemanship”. Being green, you can’t tell if these people are kooks or not. They claim not. Try listening to a h/j coach who tells you that your horse needs draw reins and spurs. Is this person a kook? They claim not. And you have selected them as your coach because their horses have nice head sets, in your opinion. It’s hard to break out of a mindset that is built on poor foundations. Some do though.

I guess I don’t really have any useful answers for you. But yes, this is something that I have often thought of myself. I try to see horsemanship as a journey. Where some people are today, I used to be there but perhaps have moved on. Perhaps they also will find their way, and also do things differently in time.

[Countrywood]

If one reads enough books /articles, one sees certain “mainstream” advice repeated over and over…so it at least has been vetted by a number of people (or accepted by them). Advice from the most accomplished riders and trainers tend to apply to beginners equally well so why not read the top people?

On a bulletin board esp with fake names who knows what experience someone has…but if one reads a few posts by the same person one starts getting a general idea.

The problem with all advice, no matter the source, is acting on it…and the fact that horses ( and riders/owners ) are different and what works great for one might not work well for another.

I do have one tip to pass along…advice in person ( and perhaps over the internet ) from those who brag about their accomplishments and sound so sure of themselves often turns out to be terrible. Truly accomplished or competent people are aware they are fallible, plus have nothing to prove, thus are typically more low key when offering advice.

[merrygoround]

Advice is like criticism, you take it from whence it cometh. After shades of the Black Stallion, and Black Beauty, came Will James, came a friend with a horse, came a chance to ride with an old time horseman, came a chance to take a BHSAI course, all in the days when computerese was 1, and the computer filled a room or two. But intelligent management books were appearing. Riding Logic was there, and Podhajsky was out and about, but it wasn’t until the last few years that some people are actually sitting down and writing the “how to” that otherwise takes a good instructor and a lot of lessons to get. An observation here though, most times it’s hard to understand what you’re reading until you can do it physically. So good instructors are still quite handy to have.

And the good instructors part can be a large part luck, and trial and error. I’ve only met a few who can do very well, and can also teach very well.

[ReSomething]

Well, there’s advice that I seek out, and unsolicited advice. Two categories.

I seek stuff out in the peer reviewed, printed publication vein first, HOPING that someone will have thrown out the completely false and out of date stuff. If I read something I do check the age of the publication and I try to verify against another source, so when I read about fecals I’m going to come on here for example to get the latest anecdotal information about fecals. I don’t pose the question so much as do several searches and winnow through what I get to apply it to my issue.

I also have a trainer, who will tell me what to buy but hasn’t got a real recipe for success for my issue,the elder horse, and got lucky with a COTHer local to me who had at the time an elder horse and shared her feeding recipe and her vet contact. So the internet can be a useful resource.

So I’m using a cascade method starting with print and working down to local knowledge, for general horse health issues.

Obviously I’m going to toss that out and head straight to local professional knowledge if it’s a veterinary issue, If I can get up to date vet care, and maybe I’ll educate myself using the cascade method so as to have half an idea what the vet is talking about.

Unsolicited advice, say,“you need to clip him”, that gets trashed whether it’s the truth or not, unfortunately. Unless it’s a comment that comes with a solution attached that is a reasonable, workable solution, such as a reliable pro groomer.

[thatmoody]

[QUOTE=MidnightWriter;8283920]
The more horse experience I get, the more I tend to evaluate advice by how well it agrees with the majority of other advice I have gotten from other sources.

I was interested in your comment that your family had years of horse experience, and then you story about your grandfather and feeding chewing tobacco.

I have known a number of people in the horse world whose families had years of experience OWNING horses (not training, not schooling, not lessons) and I have wondered how their horses ever managed to survive such ignorance!

That was not a comment at all about your family, OP! Your comment just made me think of OTHER people I have known who have had horses. I have also known a lot of people who sound more like you, who have had years of good horse experience and are knowledgeable and realize we never stop learning.

I tend to balance the advice I get from horse books (fiction as well as nonfiction) and magazine articles and conversations with other horse people, with what I hear from horse people who are self-taught and have learned purely by experience and trial and error. I see what works for me, that works for other people. It is a sort of majority-opinion method, mixed with my own judgment and wanting to learn all I can.[/QUOTE]

Right, exactly. Years doesn’t necessarily=competence. You have to practice competence. My family, btw, trained racehorses, so even though they had some weird horsekeeping ideas, most of them were somewhat based on reality (like the deep bedding method for stalls - this was in Maine, and yes, the muck DOES produce heat). It seems strange to us, and doesn’t translate here, but some of them were maybe not so weird. The worming thing, for example - this was back in the 30’s, and the wormers that were available probably did MORE harm than the worms. So chewing tobacco, while not really effective, at least didn’t do too much harm. My uncle’s horses won quite a bit, so his training methods at least were sound enough :P.

[Red_Barn]

I agree that this can be really problematic, and I often feel very sorry for noobs being pulled hither and yon by warring “experts”.

Having said that, though, I can’t help but point out that way too many people buy horses way too soon, which is really the root of the whole problem.

I mean, seriously: if a person rushes out and buys a horse before she’s capable distinguishing Ingrid Klimke from Linda Parelli then the whole situation is probably doomed to begin with.

[TB_or_not_TB]

It took decades for me to realize that the horse world is filled with generations of authors, trainers, and teachers who are informed by lore more than fact. That’s not a knock to anyone in particular, it’s just that most people learn from those who are echoing the beliefs and experiences of those who came before them rather than questioning and challenging and experimenting on their own to find the method of greatest success. It’s an oral tradition and storytelling that is justified through history rather than practicality. Some of this is centuries old and hasn’t even been questioned, and let’s face it: veterinarians and farriers are not immune to this. It was only in 1996 that they even questioned the age-old methods of cooling horses, and look at how wrong that information was. Because so many trainers subscribe to this lore and replicate it, they adhere to it and speak with authority when talking about it not necessarily because it is “correct,” but because it is “known.”

That’s a hard thing for a greenhorn to walk into. It’s a hard thing to sort through even if you have decades to do it. The best conclusion I have come to is that there is only one source that is completely honest, true, and reliable, and that is the horse himself. He cannot lie, cheat, delude, or pretend, or act with dishonest intention; anyone who says otherwise is themselves a victim of the lore.

So when I evaluate information and experts, I am only interested in one thing: what is going on with the horse. Is the horse relaxed, willing, content, and eager to participate? Is the interaction respectful and harmonious? Even a greenhorn can figure this out. Does it make them cringe or feel uncomfortable or even have just a twinge of “Is that okay?” or does it make them feel good and say “THAT is how I want to be!” If everyone did this, the lore would be replaced over time with true horsemanship. JMHO of course

[China_Doll]

I think common sense needs to come into play and research what someone says. I don’t think I’ve ever gone to the Internet to ask for advice. I use my brain and seek medical help from a vet. I then do lots of research when neccessary.