There is No Need To Fight

I was asked for my perspective on a training method used by “Brandon”  (Name has been changed)

Brandon, I don’t know you in person. From all your posts,  you really do seem to be a very kind-hearted, compassionate person. I hear your sincerity when you ask for feedback.

What I also hear and see is a not so secure level of confidence in your ability as a trainer.

I can hear the struggle you are going through.

What I see, when a horse presents you with a behavior that you may interpret as a challenge, instead of accepting it just as information and looking for what came before the unwanted behavior that might have precipitated the incident so you can better set the horse up for success, you react by harshly punishing the horse.

The incident with the little QH and the situation when you tied a gelding’s head to his tail to discipline him for biting  are two specific instances that I see illustrating what I described above.

Behavior is a horse’s only language. Horses do not want to fight with us !  If they protest by biting or bucking it is because we put them into a situation in which, even though they tried to tell us there was a problem, they see those behaviors as their only choice. It is not the horse that needs to change, it is us.

The problem with “making the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy” is that no one pays any attention to the second part.

I would really encourage you to learn Clicker training. If taught correctly, you will learn how to “make the right thing easy” instead of letting a horse make a mistake and then punishing the behavior. You will learn to look for the good stuff and reinforce it.

Punishing away unwanted behavior does work. Not by showing the horse that the unwanted behavior is not needed, but by convincing the horse that no matter how hard he tries, it will not work, no one will hear him so he’d better give it up.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Training horses does not need to be a battle of wills in which the trainer must win.

Horse training can be a win-win situation. And it is us who need to stop picking a fight.