behaviour
Punishment
At recent clinic a subject came up at least three times with different people. It was in regards to the concept of punishment of a horse.
The first occasion involved a horse pinning his ears and giving a snaky expression to the owner. He was immediately give a sharp flip of the lead rope under the chin that quite frightened him. The second time was when a horse made an attempt to nip the owner and was rebuked with a slap of her open hand across his muzzle. The third occasion was in a round yard when a horse turned his hind end towards the owner and was given a whack on the backside with the lunging whip.
I know these things happen and I know many people believe that things like trying to bite or turning a hind end towards a person are considered totally unacceptable. I’m not sure why they are not acceptable but there is certainly a large proportion of the horse community that think they are. To me they are just different forms of expression and exploration by a horse to work out what works and what does not. But even if you don’t agree with me on that, the point is that I don’t believe punishment is ever a good option even for unacceptable behaviour. And in my experience punishing a horse for something rarely cures the problem.
As I said to the lady whose horse tried to bite her, “he is doing that because of the way he feels and you are punishing him for how he feels. It doesn’t seem appropriate or even good practice to punish a horse for how he feels when you are the one causing the bad feelings and you want to establish good feelings between you and your horse. How is punishing him going to help him feel better about you?”
Horses don’t plan on being mean. They do what they feel. If they feel bad they often behave badly. Punishing a horse for the way he feels has no place in good horsemanship. It is much more productive to ignore the bad behaviour (as much as practical) and get on with trying to change the bad feelings. If you can do that, you won’t have to be on guard about your horse taking out his feelings on you.
At recent clinic a subject came up at least three times with different people. It was in regards to the concept of punishment of a horse.
The first occasion involved a horse pinning his ears and giving a snaky expression to the owner. He was immediately give a sharp flip of the lead rope under the chin that quite frightened him. The second time was when a horse made an attempt to nip the owner and was rebuked with a slap of her open hand across his muzzle. The third occasion was in a round yard when a horse turned his hind end towards the owner and was given a whack on the backside with the lunging whip.
I know these things happen and I know many people believe that things like trying to bite or turning a hind end towards a person are considered totally unacceptable. I’m not sure why they are not acceptable but there is certainly a large proportion of the horse community that think they are. To me they are just different forms of expression and exploration by a horse to work out what works and what does not. But even if you don’t agree with me on that, the point is that I don’t believe punishment is ever a good option even for unacceptable behaviour. And in my experience punishing a horse for something rarely cures the problem.
Horses don’t plan on being mean. They do what they feel. If they feel bad they often behave badly. Punishing a horse for the way he feels has no place in good horsemanship. It is much more productive to ignore the bad behaviour (as much as practical) and get on with trying to change the bad feelings. If you can do that, you won’t have to be on guard about your horse taking out his feelings on you.
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