How do you come across to your horse?

There is a lot of focus on obedience in training horses and not much discussion around how they feel about it. Many training videos use escalating pressure that the horse is finding scary or horrible with compliance being the only goal. There is more nuance to training than whether you can get a horse to “do the thing” or not.

A horse that is standing still because if he doesn’t he gets yanked on or has a flag flapped in his face is having a very different emotional experience to a horse that is standing still because he feels comfortable doing so. How you get the result matters.

I used to be very strict when training my horse, I did a lot of natural horsemanship moving his feet and he was extremely obedient. On the surface he seemed calm and willing, I wasn’t aware how shut down he was and how unpleasant he found me to be around. If he didn’t do as I asked I would get on his case, so he just always did as I asked regardless of how he felt about it.

As I’ve moved over into more ethical training, our relationship has completely changed and I realised how much the other day. I was feeling stressed and he was a bit anxious and spooky. I unfairly tried to chase him forward with more pressure and he exploded for a few seconds then stopped and looked at me. He found it so offensive and it almost felt as if he was saying “you don’t treat me like this anymore, what the hell?” It made me realise just how shut down I had made him in the past.

It made me pause, get over myself, stop making my stress his problem and go back to working on having him feel safe in that environment. He then did what I was asking him to do no problem with nice flow instead of braced against me and anxious.

What are your daily interactions like with your horse? Do you think they find you pleasant to be around?

Here are a few things I would recommend trying if you’d like your horse to feel better around you.

🐴 Be aware of how you’re handling the rope. I see so many people leading their horses around with constant pressure on the rope, we cannot expect our horses to be soft if we’re not even aware of what we’re communicating to them. Make sure there is always slack in your rope unless you are actively trying to communicate something to your horse.

🐴 Don’t use equipment that is designed to cause pain. When our horse only behaves when we use pressure halters, chains and chifneys they are only doing so to avoid pain. They are not feeling comfortable.

🐴 Let your horse look. If your horse wants to look at something allow them and look with them. Then when it feels appropriate quietly and smoothly ask them to bring their attention back to you. I see people being taught to yank on their horses for daring to not focus on them for a second. That’s a pretty horrible way to treat someone.

🐴 Do things your horse enjoys. Think about what your horse might choose to do left to his own devices and do them together. Hand grazing walks, treat scatters, no-pressure enrichment games and just hanging out together in the same space.

🐴 Don’t do things your horse doesn’t enjoy. This sounds so obvious and yet we are conditioned to ignore their communication every day. For example I come across so many horses who really do not like being touched or groomed, and yet we continue to do it every day because we’re “supposed” to. If your horse has an aversion to touch, keep touch to a minimum while we address the underlying issues there. Continuing to groom a horse who is telling you they hate it is just flooding and is not going to make them feel safe with you.

🐴 Set your horse up to succeed. This is probably the most important one. Learn to make better choices so we aren’t putting our horses into situations that are going to cause them distress in the first place.

It takes time but if we can become a consistently pleasant and predictable person to be around, our horses will start to feel safer and happier around us. 🐴