When the only tool you have is a hammer everything starts to look like a nail

I love this quote and it applies so well to horse training. With people becoming so much more educated on equine behaviour and much more interested in doing things ethically, there is a pushback from many who are perhaps feeling threatened and uncomfortable that the way they’ve been training for decades is being questioned. I understand that, its human to feel defensive, I’ve felt the same in the past, but its not an excuse to continue treating horses like this.

Boundaries has become a buzzword used to justify harsh treatment as necessary. There is talk of boundaries and safety, trying to scare/patronise people who want to be kind to their horses. Making it sound as if you don’t scare your horse with a flag every time he comes an inch too close to you he’s going to head out into the village and devour all of the local children.

I’ll try to give an insight into how I look at things now. Lets say we have a horse who is barging into their owner, dragging them all over the place, maybe setting their neck and tanking off. Previously my first thought would be to put on a pressure halter and do lots of groundwork until the horse learns “respect”. Instead now my first thoughts are what is contributing to the chronic stress in this horse’s life and how can we change that?

🐴 How is their management, is it species-appropriate? Do they get enough turnout/socialisation/forage?

🐴 How is their health/are there any indications of pain/discomfort (usually yes)?

🐴 What are their past experiences with training/people? Are there negative associations there (always yes)?

From here we will discuss and make changes and set the horse up to succeed so we don’t have to put ourselves in a situation where we’re battling with the horse.

This idea that adding high-pressure to a stressed horse and battling through with them until they comply is making them feel better is so mis-leading. Sure you can quite quickly get a horse under control but the notion that you’re making them feel safe with you by scaring them and pushing them around is a fantasy, you’re shutting them down.

I had a horse at one of my obstacle clinics recently who came in really stressed, he was barging and dragging his owner around and wasn’t responding to any pressure. At their request I took over for a few minutes to demonstrate how I wanted them to train with him. I took him to a place where he seemed to feel safest and just stood with him on a loose lead rope and fed him a few handfuls of meadow nuts. If he’d tried to turn around and leave to the gate I would’ve let him and gone with him. He didn’t. After a minute I taught him really basic hand targeting for a food reward. I then started taking a step and seeing if he’d come with me, he did. Within 5 minutes he was learning to approach the first obstacle, at no point did I use pressure on the lead rope, at no point did he barge into me or pull me.

He wasn’t barging because he was disrespectful and had no “boundaries”, he was barging because he was extremely stressed and scared and in a situation he couldn’t cope with. Just pausing and saying “hey lets just chill here and eat some meadow nuts, I’m not going to make you stay here” brought his stress down enough that he stopped trying to leave and could actually process what we were asking him to do. He started to see me as a place of safety, someone who was listening to him and someone who could help him feel better, rather than someone to get away from and fight against. Now I am not saying it is this simple at all for every horse, but it was for this horse and I hate that in another situation they’d have been encouraged to push him hard and move his feet to get him to comply.

Does pushing horses around with high-pressure get compliance? Yes. But lets not pretend this is ethical or “for the horse”. I’m not interested in compliance, I’m interested in safety for the horse and the humans. Stressed horses are the least safe to be around.

I know the way I look at horses now is very different to the industry- norm and that it can be hard to understand a concept that is so alien to how we’ve been conditioned to behave around horses. I can almost see people visibly recoil when I suggest allowing the horse to say no, or going with the horse when they choose to back away from something. We’ve been so conditioned that if we let the horse have any say we are going to create a dangerous monster.

I have boundaries with my horses and it looks nothing like causing them high-stress and scaring/threatening them with flags/ropes/sticks. It looks like making sure their needs are met so they are able to cope with the pressures and challenges of living in our human world. It also looks like not setting them up to fail by putting them in situations they aren’t equipped to cope with yet. They can cope with pressure just fine and they are safe for anyone to handle and be around.

I have so many more thoughts on this topic and I know it is derisive, but I am becoming more and more disillusioned with the industry and I just want to put a voice out there for the horses and for the people who are feeling conflicted due to the shaming and patronising tone that is being directed towards those of us who want to treat our horses more ethically. Horses are gentle animals and we need to change the narrative around how we treat and perceive them.

Are we talking about boundaries or are we talking about horses complying with everything we ask without question no matter the circumstances? 🐴

Pictured is my positive-reinforcement trained horse, with apparently no "boundaries" because I let him have autonomy as much as possible, playing a game I like to call Yeet the carrot™ before his evening shift devouring the locals.