How to read basic equine behaviour should be the first thing anyone learns about horses, not just something that you talk about once you have a problem. Unfortunately the industry has a really long way to go.
I have started running online talks for young people/riding clubs/various groups based around reading very basic horse behaviour. Part of the talk involves showing a variety of images and getting people to tell me what they see in terms of how they think that horse is feeling or what could be going on in that scenario. A huge number of people cannot recognise very basic indicators of stress and yet they could name and put together every piece of a double bridle or jump round a XC course. Why are we not prioritising teaching this stuff?
The difficulty is the instructors don’t know it either, the amount of misinformation being spread surrounding behaviour being taught by highly-regarded people with industry-recognised qualifications is so frustrating. And its not their fault, because that is what they have been taught, this is the industry standard. Its all about getting horses to comply and if you’re good at doing that and you say nice things to the horse while you’re doing it then you’re a great horseperson. How can anyone learn about stress if seeing highly-stressed horses is normalised?
While I appreciate there is much more talk around looking for pain as a reason for behaviour now, things are still very lacking and a lot of horses are still being treated like crap despite people’s good intentions. We’re still describing their behaviour away as dominant, cheeky and stubborn instead of recognising a horse under stress that is not coping with what is being asked of them.
I used to think I was a great trainer and thought I knew all about horse behaviour because I practiced some natural horsemanship techniques which basically involved moving their feet until they did what I wanted. I would get results and compliance and I did encourage people to go to the vet to look for pain when it didn’t work, but it was very basic level and I now realise I missed so, so many subtle behavioural cues. My information was false, I had just believed what someone else had told me and discounted anything that made me feel uncomfortable about what I was doing. Once I really studied behavioural science I had to change what I was doing and the way I was looking at horses if I wanted to be more ethical.
My friend told me an interesting memory of her first riding lesson as a child. She remembers arriving and being upset because the pony was tacked up in the arena waiting for her and they wanted her to mount straight up, she said “but the pony hasn’t met me before, he doesn’t know me? I can’t just get straight on his back?” I would imagine the majority of people who start riding horses do so because they love horses. Wouldn’t life be so much better for our horses if we were taught to treat them as sentient beings and respect them as animals from day one instead of indoctrinated into dominating them as if that is the only way.
This isn’t a traditional vs natural horsemanship debate, a lot of the natural horsemanship stuff is full of behavioural pseudoscience and its just making horses do stuff with flags and ropes instead of whips and spurs while using fluffier language. We praise training when we hear kind words and stories that make us feel good, even if the horse we’re looking at is telling us otherwise. How can we hear what the horse is saying if someone keeps mistranslating their words to us?
This isn’t meant to be a negative post, I just really want to offer resources to anyone who wants them. Interestingly I find the people who are newer to horses are much more open to listening and understanding this stuff. There is so much amazing content available online now to open up doors to people who want to do the best for their horses. Please DM me if you’d like to organise an online interactive talk for your group. 🐴
Comments