Humanity, Evolving

I apologize for the language in this article. I chose not to edit or filter it for the purpose of authenticity.


Sometimes I think the real purpose of teaching other people is to deepen your own learning. There is no better way to understand yourself than to have to explain your own knowledge to someone else. Even though I am known in some circles as a biomechanics riding teacher, I frequently get to explore the core of my own beliefs when I teach, mostly because riding is seldom just a mechanical, technical experience. Horses tend to steadily bring us to the threshold of our own humanity and as a coach and teacher I believe these are the opportunities for the real learning to start.

Recently I was helping a student, whom I will call Laura, understand her horse. She wanted to know why he was behaving in a certain way.

"Is he doing this just to be an asshole?" She asked sincerely.

This question is very, very common among equestrians. Often it's not even a question, but rather a statement: he is an asshole.

I calmly explained to Laura that horses did not know how to "be assholes."

Okay, I can see some of my readers rolling their eyes now. A few may even be thinking that if I'd met their particular asshole horse, I would not be making such bold statements. But I do believe that no horse could change my opinion about this. Seriously. As I told my student, horses are not out to annoy us or upset us deliberately, they are merely trying to communicate. Perhaps they are in pain. Or they don't like what we are doing. Or they know our emotional landscape and don't like the fact that we are actively working to hide it. Or something else. But there is always a reason and it's not "being an asshole".

In general horses tend to choose the behavior that is the most profitable for them. If you are leading your horse to the arena and he drags you over to a patch of grass, he's not doing it to be mean, but because eating grass is rewarding the behavior. And when something is rewarding, the horse will continue to do it. The same applies to many, many other scenarios.

I admit, I could see why Laura felt tempted to call her horse an asshole, she was stuck in a vicious cycle with him. She used most of her energy to correct and reprimand him for his "bad" behavior. I am deliberately using quotes with the word bad, because using this kind of terminology always comes with the assumption that we as humans make the rules. Meaning that we decide what is good or bad behavior. Because from the horse's point of view it is all just behavior for which it either is getting rewarded or not.

"Stop it!" "Don't!" "No, no!"

Laura was trying to tack up her horse. Her verbal cues were accompanied with slapping and pushing, which seemed to only augment matters, leading to a whole new host of problems such as nipping and biting. After observing all this for a moment I suggested that instead of focusing all the attention on the horse's unwanted behavior, Laura should look for the behavior she desired and find a way to reward the horse for that. Because, as I said previously, horses will choose the behavior that is the most rewarding.

I briefly explained the principles of negative and positive reinforcement to Laura. It is always interesting to discover how little people really know about operant and classical conditioning even though they have operated in the world of horses for decades. On the other hand, I was in the same boat some ten years ago. Perhaps I had a bit more knowledge than your average Jeo, but I definitely could not put that knowledge into words and explain why I did what I did with horses, which was mostly negative reinforcement in those days. (if you are not familiar with operant or classical conditioning, please google them!)

"In principle I do understand what you are saying," my student said. "With children it's the same idea, using the carrot is more effective than spanking. But this is a horse. I tend to think that there are moments when it's best to just smack it to get the point across quickly."

"Like take my seven year old daughter and her pony," my student continued before I could comment. "The pony is constantly going for grass when my daughter is leading him. Isn't it better to teach my daughter to smack the pony in the face to prevent him from doing that? Not only should the pony not go for the grass, I hate watching my daughter yank and pull to get him off it. I mean, there are some moments when smacking the horse is just better for the horse, too, right?"

You have perhaps guessed that I don't believe in using violence with horses. But how do we define violence? Because truth told, sometimes it really seems to be a matter of interpretation. My Webster dictionary says it is "physical force used so as to injure, damage or destroy; extreme roughness of action." It is also an "unjust or callous use of force and power, as in violating another's rights, sensibilities etc."

So is smacking a pony an act of violence? Are we violating against the pony's sensibilities, causing it injury? I believe the answer to that question is deeply personal, particularly in the equestrian world where the line between violence and schooling is sometimes blurred. The evolution of my own answer to this question is a good example of that. There was a time when I would not have considered smacking a pony a violent act, although in my own defense I must state that it also never crossed my mind to even question the act or it's justification. Which in hindsight is not only proof of my ignorance, but also my sense of entitlement.

Psychiatrist James Gilligan who has written a series of books on the subject of violence, claims that "all violence is an attempt to replace shame with self-esteem." I certainly think this was often true in my case. I hit horses because I desperately needed to control them. And why did I need to control them? Because if I didn't, I looked bad.

Okay, perhaps it was a bit more complex than that. It usually is as we are complex human beings. I was taught at a young age that violence was the answer with horses in certain situations. The power trip came much later. I do, however, believe there is a lot of truth in what Gilligan says even though he is talking about violence between humans. But I did not bring this up in my conversation with Laura, because complex matters such as these take a while to unravel. And although my own story resonates with Gilligan's words, perhaps hers doesn't. It is always good to start with the aforementioned operant conditioning and how positive punishment as a training method does not work long term. But once the learning theory is covered, we are left with deeper issues. Especially because in Laura's case, this involved her young daughter as well.

"Laura", I said after thinking about it for a moment. "I believe the answer to your question depends not only on the way you want to train your horse, but on your parenting philosophy as well. Do you want to teach your seven year old daughter that violence is a justified method of solving a problem with her pony? Or do you want to help her find a non-violent way to communicate with the animal?"
It was interesting to follow to the expression on my students face as she took in what I said. I realize that although helping horses is definitely one of the reasons I am an equestrian coach, more importantly I want to help humans find their way to connect with personal questions such as this one. Finding answers may not be in the cards immediately, but awareness is a start. I'm not sure yet which direction Laura will take with her horse or her daughter, but I know that our lesson gave her a lot to think about. Which is my main goal. Heck, it gave me a lot to think about, which means killing two birds with one stone (ugh,what a horribly violent metaphor, wish I could recall another, more positive one!)

Understanding is one of my core values in life: I want to understand rather than judge. Therefore I can honestly say I'm not judging Laura or anyone else who struggles with these questions. Quite the contrary, I commend them for finding their way to a place of struggle. If you are struggling with it, you are perhaps ready to question what you are doing. And we need to continue to question, that is how we evolve has human beings, that is how we cultivate our humanity.

Horses have been my teachers, but so have my students. I feel that I am constantly challenged to find a novel way to navigate these important issues and just as often I am learning new ways to read the road map. It is clear that although my starting point may be to teach people how to sit on their horses correctly, it is often just that, a starting point. What happens then, is out of my hands and mostly up to the horse and his person. I merely hope I am taken along for the ride towards kindness and compassion.

"The next evolutionary step for humankind is to move from human to kind."  - author unknown

Live The Questions Now

A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with several strangers on Facebook. The subject matter revolved around a video someone had posted of Monty Roberts "training" a horse. I use quotes, because I personally didn't feel this was the way to go about introducing a horse to a plastic bag, which is what Monty was doing on the video. He had the plastic bag on a stick and every now and then would whip it out from behind his back causing the horse to nearly fall over from fear and the attempt to escape. But of course he couldn't escape, because he was in a halter and who else was holding the other end of the lead rope than Monty himself.

There is actually a term for what Monty was doing on that particular video and it's called flooding. Flooding occurs when the animal feels it cannot escape a scary or painful situation. It is psychologically damaging to a horse and often leads to learned helplessness. Learned helplessness unfortunately looks a lot like the state trainers like Monty are looking for. The horse is calm and seemingly nonreactive to stimulus, like the plastic bags. This is not because he no longer is afraid, but because he has shut down emotionally. You could see the horse on the video was heading that way, he was fiercely trying to control his reactions to the bag, but fear itself was still very visibly present: when Monty touched the horse with the plastic bag he did his best to stand stock still even though he was shaking all over.

As you may know, there are several schools of thought on this matter and although some years back I was all for Monty's way of doing it, I have since then jumped ship and  found other ways that feel more humane and do not involve scaring the horse to death.

The discussion around the video was lively and good points were made from both sides.

Was the horse really feeling like it didn't have any options? What about the option of standing stock still? Because it was a viable option and the one that Monty was looking for. Every time the horse stopped, the plastic bag stopped, so doesn't that mean that the horse gets a choice?

Sure, it's like choosing between someone pointing a gun at you or diving into a swimming pool full of alligators. Which one would you choose?

Someone chimed in and argued that horses are often afraid in nature and therefore we should definitely not coddle them, but rather arrange scary situations in the name of training. I agree with  this, as long as we aren't specifically looking to scare the horse. If a horse is afraid of something, say an umbrella, I believe we should definitely introduce him to umbrellas in several different environments. When I say introduce, I mean letting the horse stay as far away from the scary object as necessary for it to remain relatively calm and relaxed. This is important for learning and I don't believe anyone can learn in fear, at least nothing constructive. You can definitely "learn" to be afraid in certain situations, but isn't that the last thing we want the horse to accomplish? So when training a horse, we should always look for sings of worry or anxiety so we can "back off" before the horse crosses over into fear.

Desensitizing takes time. Often I use positive reinforcement, which in practice usually means using a clicker and treats. Sure, it takes longer perhaps this way, but the effects last a life time. I don't believe in ever scaring the horse. Freaking a horse out on purpose does not build trust and trust is key to my relationship with horses and humans alike.

The discussion continued. Someone posted a video of Kyra Kyrklund, a world famous Olympic rider and horse trainer, helping a student train her horse to walk calmly forward during loud applause from the surrounding crowd. This was done by bringing the horse in the arena and asking the crowd to clap very, very quietly. When the horse walked forward in a relaxed manner, the crowd stopped clapping. As the horse progressed, the clapping intensified.

Although the horse on the video never became fearful, Kyra did state that "sometimes we must scare horses" while training them. I'm not sure what she exactly meant with scaring a horse, but the person who posted it used this as an argument against me and my opinions. He wrote:

"Let's see, you state that we should never scare horses when we train them and Kyra Kysklund says we certainly have to sometimes scare the horse in the name of training, who do I believe? Sorry, I think I'll pick the Olympic rider."

Interesting argument. I did not take it personally, because really, everyone has the right to believe whatever and whomever. The truth is: I stopped believing every word Kyra says a long time ago. Just because she is an Olympic rider, does not mean she knows everything about horses. And just because I'm not an Olympic rider, doesn't mean I can't know somethings Olympic riders don't know. I dare say there are not many Olympic riders who spend hours and hours just hanging out with horses doing nothing, learning about their inner world. Nor are there many who have ridden dozens and dozens of horses in bitless bridles. Or tried clicker training. Just as I know an Olympic rider could teach me many things, I believe I could return the favor.

People are so inclined to blindly believe "the authority" especially in the equestrian world. I think perhaps this is the reason it has taken so long for positive change towards compassionate horsemanship to take hold. People don't dare listen to their hearts or think on their own. They would rather believe the trainer, even if she is using questionable methods to get results. I don't know how many people I have met who can't believe some of the stuff they were involved in just in the name of training. The regret is often overwhelming.

"I didn't know", they will say in despair. "If I had understood/said something/known it was wrong/realized/questioned..."

But we don't question. And I know exactly how that is because I used to be this way, too. I believed everything my riding teachers and coaches told me without having the sense to question them. Or to listen to what my gut and sometimes even common sense was telling me. It took me decades to get over that and start thinking with my own brain.

There have been several telling and slightly disturbing studies around our innate need to believe and obey the authority. Perhaps the most famous one is Stanley Milgram's social psychology experiment from 1961 in which a man in a "lab coat" ordered the subject to administer electric shocks to another person when they gave the wrong answer in a test. I have watched a few hours of video footage of the experiment and it is incredible how far people will go in hurting another individual just because a person they perceive as the authority told them to do so. Even when they hear the other people screaming in pain and they themselves are visibly distressed with following the orders, most people will continue the morbid task.

The results of this study, which have been replicated several times in different cultures with similar results, are truly unsettling. But it does explain a lot, doesn't it? We would like to think that we are the individual who would not follow the authority or would at least question their orders, but according to the studies most people don't (even if they think they would). So in that light it is not hard to understand why so many gurus in the horse world are not questioned, even when people clearly witness them abusing a horse.

I do believe everyone has something valuable to add to our learning experience no matter what their background. Sometimes we can learn from a child who looks at our familiar world with new, curious eyes. I'll never forget the moment when my then three year old son asked me why my student's horse had his mouth open. I had never even noticed the horse opening his mouth under saddle! Of course, my knowledge and awareness have increased ten fold since that day, but it is still incredible to think that I did not have the sense to wonder or even notice about the horse's mouth when it was the first thing my son saw.

And what comes to the gurus, experts and professionals... Yes, there are people who know so much and who can give us incredible knowledge. I spent many, many years admiring Kyra Kyrklund and learning from her, and for that I am forever grateful. And I still admire her riding skills. I believe she knows very much about horses. But, even Kyra doesn't know everything. Nobody does.

I believe we should continue to educate ourselves, no matter who we are. We should also continue to look at all the information we receive with a questioning attitude. Is it humane? Does it cause the animal pain or distress? Do I believe it to be correct? Do I believe this is correct because it makes sense to me or do I believe it because someone I think should be an expert said so? There can be a vast difference between the two.

Sometimes, when we look at things from a new angle, everything changes, even the things themselves. And this encourages us to keep finding new angles, new lenses to look through. Or at least that is what happened to me. I sometimes wonder, where does my evolution end. Or is there an end? Sometimes I am acutely aware of my own ignorance and yet other times I feel my progress in my bones.

"Be patient with all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."   - Rainer Maria Rilke

The Journey, Yours and Mine

After a four year break I find myself sitting at my computer, writing this blog again. It is about time, I would say. At first glance not many things have changed in my life since last time, but with closer inspection it is evident that the journey I started with horses many years ago has taken me deeper into the core of humanity than I ever dreamed of. And thanks to all the horses and people in my life, that journey is far from being over.

The journey I am referring to has not been a walk in the park. In fact, sometimes it has felt like I was single-handedly cutting a path in the jungle with nothing but a pitiful butter knife as my tool. If you, too, have at some point in your life started to challenge everything you ever knew about a particular subject (in my case horses and riding) just to discover a whole new - and in my opinion, better - world, you might be able to identify with what I'm about to say. Especially if by searching for the truth, you have gone against prevailing practices and stepped on a few dozens of toes.

Let me explain.

Approximately six year ago, when I was still living in Europe, I was in an indoor arena working with a student's mare, who had serious issues not only with trailer loading, but relaxing in small, enclosed spaces. I was asking the mare to walk, stop and stand between two cavalettis, something she had found very difficult in the past. That particular day, however, the mare was very relaxed and calm, something that is always a priority for me when training a horse.

When the mare offered what I asked/hoped for (for ex walked between the cavalettis or stopped from my cue between the cavalettis) she was - after the click that marked her correct behavior -  rewarded with a small piece of carrot. Often when doing clicker training I work horses in liberty, but that particular day it wasn't possible because there was another horse in the arena. It was a young Friesian stallion ridden by his owner, a lady, who had taken a few lessons with me in the past. I wasn't paying attention to what the pair was doing, but did notice at some point that the ride was not perhaps as smooth as the rider had hoped. The horse was young, only four, and it didn't always understand what was expected from him, a fact that was often lost on his owner.

I finished my short session with the mare and took her back to her stall. I was satisfied with our work together and was noting this in her training diary when the lady from the arena showed up in the tack room. She immediately made a bee-line towards me.

"What were you doing in the corner of the arena?" she snapped with a loud voice. Her body language was defensive. Here we go again, I thought to myself and took a deep breath. As calmly and clearly as I could muster, I explained the basic principles of positive reinforcement.

"Are you insinuating that I am not positive with my horse?" the lady said loudly.

What? How she had managed to configure that from my explanation, I had no idea.

"No, no, definitely not. I'm just attempting to explain what I was doing in the arena," I tried to say, but was hopelessly late. The lady was offended. She proceeded to tell me exactly what she thought of me and my clicking device. How dare I show up at the barn to do such strange things with a horse. She also made sure to stress her own positive training methods over and over again. Had I not witnessed with my own eyes how much she loved her horse and does her best to keep him happy?

I knew that there was nothing I could say or do to convince this woman that I had not criticized nor would I ever criticize her methods in any way. So I opted to nod a few times before slipping away apologetically. Unfortunately this "conversation" did not end there, because for the next month the lady felt inclined to bad mouth me to anyone who would listen and send me text messages in which she gave examples of her positive horse handling.

I was at a loss. I had only done "my thing" quietly in the corner of the arena, but somehow had still managed to offend another person's training methods. And all this merely by existing in the same space.

This blog post, however, is not about operant conditioning or even about training horses. In fact, instead of clicker training, I could have been leading the mare "from the wrong side"or desensitizing her for days to a saddle pad/halter/wash rack,  Or, I could have taken her on the trail in-hand instead of under saddle or alternatively ridden her, but with strange tack or no tack at all. Or low and behold, I could have just sat with her in the pasture, talking to her like she understood every word instead of "putting her in her place" when someone else thought it was absolutely necessary. The point is, I was doing something that was not mainstream.

Does this sound familiar? Perhaps you, too, have experienced or are currently experiencing something similar. Maybe you are the odd-one-out at your barn, the one whose every move is mentally recorded and later dissected among your so called barn buddies. These same buddies are often questioning out loud why you aren't doing things the way they are supposed to be done. This makes you feel like an outsider, alone, under a microscope. Perhaps you even vaguely remember how it was when you were more like them, going with the flow, not questioning, not looking for answers. But there is no going back. Once you have taken the road to compassionate, horse-centered equitation, the only way to go is forward.

Or perhaps you aren't quite "out of the closet", yet. Your barn buddies suspect you are onto something, but they don't quite grasp how much your thinking has changed. Only you know this, and the horses, of course (because horses know everything about us, even when we try to hide it). And the horses are definitely the hardest part of this equation. Since becoming aware of the horse as a sentient being it has become exceedingly difficult to ignore the suffering that surrounds you at the barn. Some horses are suffering from pain, others from boredom or simply from being misunderstood. And you feel helpless and alone.

On top of all this, you are experiencing one or all of three things:

a) Guilt
Perhaps you used to hit and kick horses. You, too, were angry and impatient. Or simply ignorant. You didn't have a clue how your emotions affected a sensitive animal and that there are alternatives to forceful handling of horses. The guilt you feel now for your past actions is suffocating.

b) Uncontrollable urge to preach
Because your eyes are now wide open and you see the world differently, it is impossible to keep your mouth shut, especially when the horses clearly need someone to speak for them. So you open your mouth (if you dare), first in a diplomatic manner, and finally all but diplomatically, in your attempt to explain your point.

c) Anxiety and stress.
Someone wise once said that stress occurs when our values don't match our time management. Meaning that we spend a lot of time doing something that is against our values. Which is exactly what you are having to do, if you are stuck in an environment where people don't treat their horses with the respect you know they deserve.

Why is it upsetting to see someone do something differently? Why do I have to constantly explain what I am doing? Why does it seem like there are several different approaches? How to survive in the midst of it all?

Whether you are the person blazing your own trail and feeling like an outsider or the person supporting traditional views and pointing a finger at the ones who don't, here are some of my thoughts on the subject matter.

1. People inherently resist chance, it is part of our DNA. We are scared shitless of change and fight it tooth and nail, some more violently than others. This resistance to change is part of our biology and is closely connected to our propensity for negativity. These traits saved our lives in the stone ages when we were able to note subtle changes in our environment and avoid potential dangers.

For a long time the equestrian world supported a culture in which everything was done a certain way because "it was always done that way." This has changed, lately at an accelerated pace. People have started to question and look for answers. New truths have emerged through science to replace old "truths." For some people it has been significantly harder to accept these changes than for others. As the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said over 100 years ago: "All truth passes though three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

2. We can only change ourselves. We cannot change others, no matter how much we would like to. However, when we change, it automatically affects the people around us. This can scare people (see #1) On the other hand, people may not even conscious of the change that has happened, they are merely subconsciously reacting to the new. So that said, if all goes well, the positive changes in you may prompt similar changes in the people around you. But it can also go the other way as well (see #3)

3. Sometimes when we change, we lose relationships, even close ones. I experienced this first hand over the years as I changed from a driven dressage rider and competitive vaulting coach to the person I am today. My journey did not please everyone around me. I heard, for example, that one of my old trainers thought I had "drank the cool aid". Even though she had played a big part in my life for almost a decade, our paths diverged. Sometimes journeys no longer continue in the same direction even if they have traveled hand-in-hand for years.

4. The world will change, no matter what. Change is part of humanity, of life; without change there is no growth. Change is inevitable. You can practice having an open mind by taking small steps at a time. You don't need to chew everything right away nor is there a need to shove everything you have learned down other's throats this very second. If you are the pacemaker of change, proceed with courage. Sow "seeds" as you go and trust that they will "sprout" when the time is right. Maybe you won't be around to see it because some seeds take decades to crack. And some never sprout. Embrace this fact, if you can. Everybody embarks on their own journey when they are ready and every journey is different, not better or worse than the other.

5. According to my own experience, the best way to deal with the nay-sayers, backstabbers and finger-pointers is through empathy and understanding. I know personally that if you have, without questioning, done something one way for thirty years, and not only done but perhaps taught others to do as well, it is not easy to let all of it go in a heartbeat. It can, in fact, be very, very scary, especially if your whole identity, career and life is built upon it. Everything could be threatened. Therefore it should be no surprise that people can react as strongly as the lady in my story above. Sometimes just the mere presence of someone representing a "threatening new method" can stir up emotions that are hard to control. 

Although your life under the microscope might feel difficult, usually it is even more difficult for the backstabbers and fingerpointers. It often shows in their horses and their horses' behaviors. That is something important to keep in mind and heart.

6. If your journey has come to a point where you feel anxiety about how horses are treated/how horses live/how horses manifest their unhappiness, and you can't help them, because these horses are not yours, I recommend telling the said horses that you can see their anxiety/pain/apathy/boredom. Talk to them as if they understand every word. Everyone wants to be seen and heard, people and animals alike. You may be the only person who sees a horse's attempts to communicate and the fact that you do see it, can be important to that particular horse. The value of emotional support can not be measured, but it is real. Send the horse love and strength from your heart to help it endure whatever life delivers on his plate. And if you have guilt over past deeds, apologize. Horses are the most forgiving creatures on earth.

6. Dare to walk your own path and believe in the things that feel right to you, even if there are skeptics along the way, even if the journey seems impossible. Because it will be worth it in the end. Because of your journey, you will be smarter and many experiences richer. Yes, there will be emotions, even hard ones. Life is to be lived and felt whole-heartedly.


I trust that this blog post finds the exact people who need it and who can apply it to their own life and life's journey. Because it cannot be denied, we all do have our journeys, be they conscious or unconscious. And if  this piece of writing feels a bit "out there", no worries, you can let it go and tell everyone I drank the Cool Aid, if you want. I'm just happy you read all the way to the end, because it tells me that your "soil" is ready for the "seeds"! 

Just for Encouragement

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. ~ Mahatma Gandhi


Last fall I met a lady, who had just recently gotten back to horses after years of having nothing to do with riding. The woman owned a big gelding with which she rides trails. She had a kind attitude towards her horse, but was nevertheless going down the traditional route, more or less. We were having a conversation about Little Love’s abusive past and how it affected the present day. I was telling her that it was extremely hard for Little Love to witness the abuse of other horses.

“You mean people at your barn hit their horses?” the woman asked.

“Yes, some do,” I said (this was when I was not yet Lilo’s owner and she was still boarding at the big barn close to my house).

The woman shook her head in disbelief. “I have never hit my horse. Ever.”

Ten minutes later, she showed me one of her many crops. “I always carry a whip when I ride though, but it’s just for encouragement. Like if he stops on the trails, I just tap him with it – to help him.”

Everything is relative, I suppose. Violence is not a black and white issue, but rather another one of those grey matters. Nobody wants to say they hit their horse; it is much easier to use words like encourage, guide, correct, help, tell, tap and even smack. And it is true, there are different levels of abuse. To take a four foot whip and hit the horse as hard as you can surely is different than giving him a few slaps on the shoulder.

Or is it really? What are the mental and emotional consequences for the horse that is subject to such actions? Especially when often this sort of behavior is coupled with extremely bad timing and human emotions that are running high?

Horses, unlike other animals, are trained mainly using negative reinforcement instead of positive reinforcement. In positive reinforcement a desired behavior is rewarded by adding a pleasant stimulus, a reinforcer - such as food, and thus making this response more likely in the future. So, in a nutshell, when we use positive reinforcement training, the animal goes from a neutral state to a positive state. This training method has been highly successful with animals ranging from marine mammals to dogs.

In horse-training, however, we apply pressure to the horse and remove it when the animal gives the desired response. Therefore, the horse starts in a negative condition, but ends in a neutral state. So in a way, you could say that negative reinforcement involves the use of a “pre-punishment”. Of course, the goal is to use as little pressure as possible, but because people don’t know any better, are impatient or have a hard time understanding the principles of this method, they often revert to excessive pressure and even punishment.  In addition, the timing of the release is essential for learning, but often becomes equally muddled, leading to severe communication problems. And a confused horse is often subject to more abuse.

I also believe that a training method that is based on using pressure often paves the way to abusive behavior; if a person has already learned that it is alright to kick the horse, the next step i.e. hitting it with a crop is all too easy to take.

While I was in California over the holidays, I ran across my old trainer. She and I have grown miles apart when it comes to horses, but we still greet each other as old (but perhaps a bit apprehensive) friends. Conversation turned to horses, what else, and soon I realized I was listening to my trainer reminiscing about an old acquaintance of ours, a student we once shared.

“Remember how she just couldn’t get the horse to move off her leg,” she laughed. “It was terrible, she kept nudging and nudging and nagging and nagging and the horse just stood there. It took her forever to learn to give the aid and then the correction, then another aid and another correction, and so on, until the horse got it. In the end she barely needed the aid and didn’t have to give the correction.”

Nudging and nagging? Aid and correction? This is smart horse terminology. And with smart I mean it makes everything sound less abusive than it really is. What my old trainer was talking about was her student repeatedly kicking the horse to get the horse forward (nudge and nag). Her advice was to give a lighter leg signal (aid – as if the rider is somehow helping the horse with her leg) and then hit the horse immediately afterwards, if and when he didn’t react (this is called the correction). In the end, as the horse is now anticipating the abuse, he will undoubtedly move off the light leg “aid” out of fear and thus the rider won’t “have to” (as if we had no choice in the matter and it was the horse forcing us to take this route) beat him.

In general, talking about “aids” is slightly misleading. In dressage, this word is used frequently to signify the cues the rider gives to the horse with her leg/reins/seat/whip/spurs. In real life this means the pressure the rider/trainer puts on the horse.

In Equitation Science McGreevy and Andrew McLean (my new holy book, it seems) put it well when they comment on the use of the word “aid” in current horse-training, especially dressage: “This word is antique in origin, derived from the French verb ‘aider’, meaning ‘to help’. The notion that cues in any way offer assistance to horses is anthropocentric and… nourishes the notion of the ‘benevolent’ horse, the horse that is a willing partner. Horse-trainers should respectfully recognize that training is an act of equine exploitation rather than equine enlightenment…”

I find the term “equine exploitation” to the point. Because isn’t that really what current horse-training is? Unfortunately, to train a horse in the competition-driven world, it is hard not to rely on negative reinforcement.  Yet, unlike positive reinforcement training, the effects of this method have not been studied much.  Many trainers don't even know they are using negative reinforcement, as they confuse it with positive reinforcement. In any case, using such a training method without really understanding the principles of learning theory can lead to the use of excessive pressure and punishment.

The other problem in the realm of competitive equestrian sports is that the rules permit hitting horses with whips. When the FEI states in their General Regulations (2007) that “whipping or beating the horse excessively” is forbidden, they imply that hitting the horse is alright, as long as it’s not excessive. And what exactly is “excessive whipping” and how can any outsider be the judge of that? How can we justify any kind of violence, even if it is not “excessive”?

The FEI is the authority in many parts of the equestrian community. Perhaps they don’t directly affect the majority of riders in the world, but indirectly their violent attitude towards horses is significant, because it trickles down to the grass root equestrians, many of whom are children.

How is it possible that the governing body of competitive equestrian sports is supporting punishment as a training method? What good can ever come from the use of punishment? If it isn’t common sense to realize the long-term disadvantages of abusive training, science backs it up. B.F. Skinner, the American behavioral psychologist, concluded years ago that positive reinforcement was greater to punishment in altering behavior. According to him punishment was not simply the opposite of positive reinforcement; positive reinforcement results in lasting behavioral changes, whereas punishment changes behavior only temporarily and presents many detrimental side effects.

So many people claim they don’t hit their horses.  I did, too - once upon a time. And if I did hit them, they certainly “deserved” it (which somehow didn't count as hitting, right?). It is easier to hit a big animal than something smaller, say a dog, which on top of cowering down onto the floor will make pathetic whimpering noises. Horses don’t do that – unfortunately.

A while ago I witnessed someone brushing their horse. The horse was extremely unhappy, pinning his ears back and making threats to bite. The person brushing the horse ignored all this and carried on as if nothing was out of the ordinary. And perhaps nothing was; maybe this was how the horse always reacted to brushing.

Finally, after several minutes, the horse crabbed the woman’s arm and bit into it – hard. She yelped in shock.

“How dare you bite me,” she hollered and stared at her horse incredulously. “That’s it, I won’t talk to you anymore,” she continued.

Then, as an afterthought, about ten seconds after the fact, she hit the horse on the neck with her fist. The horse turned his head away; his eyes were tired and there was a sort of accepting look in them. Or was he merely dissociating from the situation? After all, he had tried his best to communicate his feelings to the person brushing him. 

Little Love, who had witnessed the whole scene, sighed and chewed and lowered her head. It seemed that she, too, sort of shrugged the incident off. If that horse had flinched or yelped out loud or cowered away from the human who hit him, had it made a difference? Would she have then perhaps seen the consequences of her actions? I’ll never know, because the horse took it like only a horse does, silently, stoically and without an ounce of blame or anger. And before I opened my mouth to share some of my thoughts with the owner, I sent him a message of love – just for encouragement.

~ K

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. ~ Salvor Hardin