Is Your Horse Afraid of You

Do you sometimes battle to control your horse? Is he restless or pushy in his behaviour? Does he refuse to stand for shoeing or other treatment? Does he call and perform when he is taken away from his friends?

These are the most obvious signs of stress and fear, but there are also far more subtle indications that your horse might be afraid of you. Watch him closely in your interactions with him. Does he often lift his head above the level of his withers? Does he flex away from you? What is his tail doing?

There has been a lot of hype about the predator / prey issue relating to horses, but why does it matter?

It is really simple, but also really important. And like so many simple things, it is not obvious until it has been pointed out to you.

A predator survives by grabbing hold of its prey and immobilizing it, long enough to kill and eat it (not necessarily in that order). What do we, as horse owners, do? We “grab” the horse’s head. We hold him and try to immobilize him. He thinks we want to eat him! No wonder he doesn’t want to stand still!

As soon as we try to restrain a horse it feeds into the instinctive fear of predators that is inbred in horses. This is our natural instinctive behaviour, and while it works well with dogs, it creates stress and tension when dealing with horses

A prey animal, by contrast, is surrounded by food. The most important survival skill that a prey animal must have is the ability to detect danger early, and to escape from it.

A horse establishes dominance, by moving and pushing a subordinate - an approach that is diametrically opposed to the predator’s approach. Instead of controlling another horse, he directs him.

So what is the answer? We need to learn to act like a horse – to be the better horse. We need to learn to establish trust and respect by using our body language in a way that communicates as a horse, and not as a predator. The only way to do this is to develop an understanding of the body language of horses, and develop our own fluency at using this language to communicate with our horses.

Our aim is not to be natural horsemen – but to be super-natural horseman.

LEARN TO BE THE BETTER HORSE
Contact Shirley
084 7611643
Shirley@finworks.co.za