On Leadership and Relationship

Comment ... when he started circling around on the lead rope, she just followed him & continued to spray until he finally stood still. Again, this wasn't a brutal thing from the old cowboy view of doing things, but if I'd been determined to teach him the same, I would have taken him into the round pen & worked with the bonder, then trying the spray when I thought we'd made a connection, repeating if necessary.

Reply ... (Name has been changed) Hi Anne -- I've seen this done by a professional clinician with a garden hose to get a horse used to water. The horse was panicked but after 15 mins or so, finally succumbed and stood still. I go along with the premise of why is it necessary to terrorize the horse to begin with? Why not take the time that is needed to quietly and gently let the horse know that whatever it is it's not going to "eat" him? Emotional abuse can cause worse scarring than physical abuse - it's just not evident on the onlooker. I don't believe there really is any reason to cause a horse this kind of emotional discomfort but that's just my own, humble opinion. Obviously there are many others who would disagree but that's OK. *vbg* I also use positive reinforcement training and try to avoid any "punishment", per se. I don't believe that horses will deliberately set out to be "naughty" ... they are just horses and are conditioned by humans and other outside influences/stimuli to react in a certain manner given a specific set of parameters. A horse that is "misbehaving" (from the viewpoint of the human), is only behaving in the way it is conditioned to react because of training or instincts. I feel it is up to the human to try to fit in to the horse's world and way of communication instead of trying to get the horse to fit in to the human way of it all. A horse that runs from something is simply saying, "I'm scared and I need to get out of town." Well, what can the human do to diminish or eradicate that fear? Well, I suppose we *can* increase the fear factor until the horse "breaks" or we could gently show the horse there is nothing to fear and that we can be trusted to never hurt him intentionally or cause him undue discomfort. That, to me, is the basis of establishing a respectful and trusting relationship with a horse.

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