Humans are a predatory species, which means when it comes to horse training, our instincts are all wrong. Horses, of course, are a prey animal, and if we approach them in a predatory manner, they will become convinced that their life is at risk. The key to good horse training is to think like the horse, and communicate with him in a way that he can understand.
Something that can be rather easy for us as predators to do, is bulldoze over our horse’s opinion. While you can get away with this on some horses, others will let you know, in no uncertain terms, that this is unacceptable. These are the horses that often get the bad labels, when in fact it is human error creating the trouble. Horses who will tolerate being pushed around by a human may develop other issues down the road; becoming shut down, randomly explosive, or both, are the most common results.
There is a certain stigmatism around the idea of allowing your horse to say no. Many trainers believe this to be a negative thing, and assume that in order to be a respected leader, they should force the horse beyond his no. This can also happen accidentally when the horse’s no is more subtle and someone misses the signs completely by accident.
Now, I am in no way negating that some horses will challenge your leadership and need to be reminded they are number two. By all means, keep yourself safe! But with that said, more people need to recognize when their horse is saying no, why he feels that way, and respect his voice. For example, when approaching a horse who has not been handled or perhaps abused, the horse will oftentimes walk or even run away from you. What is the common reaction to this? Stupid horse, won’t let me catch him! Wrong! Smart horse, doesn’t know if he can trust you in his space yet! Horses need to interview you, make sure you are a trustworthy leader because they are a prey animal and this is literally life or death to them. They have to feel confident that in a scary situation they can trust you to protect them. It’s a little bit like choosing a President for us humans, we don’t want just anyone, we want someone we can trust to lead us well with our best interests in mind.
So, continuing this example, when we first approach a horse, and they start to turn away, we must back off. This goes against our predatory instincts, but for the horse, this is intriguing. The goal is to keep the horse focused on us, believe it or not, you can have a conversation with him from a distance away. As soon as the horse takes note of you, the conversation has begun, and remember, horses don’t speak English and they don’t speak Spanish, they speak body language.
Horses have a comfort zone, an invisible bubble around them that as soon as you enter, they will feel pressured to leave. The goal is to stand at the edge of the bubble, putting enough pressure to keep their attention, but not enough pressure to force them to leave. If the horse turns his head or shifts his weight away from you, these are signs that he is telling you no, I’m not comfortable with you there. Respect that, and take a few steps backward. This is known as approach and retreat. It will intrigue your horse because a hungry predator will not ever retreat, so perhaps you are not here to eat him after all. After a moment, you can step closer to your horse again. Slowly but surely his bubble will grow smaller and you will be able to get closer and closer to him.
Depending on the horse and their past experience with humans, this process may take ten minutes or ten sessions. The important thing is, when you finally touch your horse, it has to be his decision. He should want you to touch him, be curious why you’ve been so patient with him. In this way, we have turned our horse’s no into a yes. Not by forcing past his opinion, but by helping him to alter it himself. Good education is crucial for the horse. Teaching him to fear you may work for a while until he finds something, he’s more afraid of then you. Teaching him to trust you, however, will stick through all sorts of scary situations. You can’t trust a horse who has been educated by fear and you can’t work with a horse while he is mentally and emotionally shut down. You can only have a conversation with him when his mind is open to conversing. If you want your horse to feel safe, he must feel that his opinion matters to you. That doesn’t mean we let the horse bulldoze over us, or put ourselves in a dangerous situation, it means we treat him with the respect he deserves. Pat Parelli says: “The horse doesn’t care how much you know until he knows how much you care.” In this way we become more than just horse trainers, we become horse educators, who care about the understanding more than just quick results.
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