I am very fortunate to be able to meet and work with many different types of horses. Every single one of those horses without exception has a brain. Horses are capable of understanding an enormous amount of information and are very good at retaining it. Yet sometimes when I watch people work with their horses they are trying to make the horses’ body do things. They want to move that leg over, send the body backwards etc., so they expend an enormous amount of time and energy finding ways to get the horse to do something while totally ignoring the actual ‘horse’. The way of training horses by forcing them to do something, sometimes with pain as the coercer, and then repeating it hundreds of times so the horse remembers it, is luckily now mainly a thing of the past. For a while this method may work, as the horse doesn’t want the pain and has worked out a way to avoid getting it. But they still don’t actually ‘understand’ what’s going on, so as soon as they’re left alone for a while they forget the lesson. Then the next time their human wants that behaviour, they have to go through it all again.
The alternative is to recognize that the horse has a brain and train that. If we break the behaviour down into small steps and explain each step to the horse until they understand, before progressing to the next step, we end up with a horse who actually understands what we want. They have a chance to think about it and make a decision to do it. For this reason they retain it. I have found that if I explain what I want in a way the horse understands and then ask them for it, they pretty much always say yes. It’s almost a case of ‘well why didn’t you ask before?’, because they have no problem at all if they are clear with what’s going on.
Here's a case I was recently involved with. I was asked to float train two young brumbies. At the end of the process (done in 2 one hour sessions) both horses had to be held back as they tried to beat each other onto the float. There was no fear at any stage. Every single tiny step of floating was taught to them until they understood what I was asking and how to do it, then the next element was added, until it all came together and they knew exactly what to do. Although I am fine with using food rewards for many situations, in this case I didn't as the horses went fine without. The following week the owners, novice horse people, loaded both horses onto a different float, without me there, and moved them to a new paddock without a hitch. A different brumby from the same herd (who had different custodians) was floated by someone else but in this situation by forcing their body onto the float with ropes and whips. This brumby also floated but arrived covered in sweat, their eyes bulging and obviously terrified. The next time this horse needs to be floated it will not be easy, as they had learnt nothing except how bad the float is. This brumby had no understanding of the process at all. The two I floated will be happy to see a float again as they understand every component of it, I floated their brains, the bodies just came along.
To try and get any horse to do things by forcing their body is never going to work well in the long run. It’s so much easier to train the brain for both the horse and the human. If we train the brain and the horse doesn’t understand we need to look at how we explained it and try and find another way so they do understand. The onus is on us, not the horse. This process in itself is heaps of fun and is full of learning opportunities for us.
Happy Horses Bitless
Considerate Horsemanship
Ph: 0401 249 263
Email: suzy@happyhorsesbitless.com
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