At a guess, I’d say 90+% of horses I have met were pretty rude or pretty stressed when offered treats. Yet, we take it for granted that all our horses are relaxed and polite to be hand treated.
Our expectations of our horses tell the world something about our expectations of ourselves. Every horse and every rider has issues – that’s normal and it’s okay. But to be content to leave those issues inside our horse is not being a good horse person practicing good horsemanship.
I want to talk briefly about a technique that I see quite a lot from students and a few other professionals. It’s the use of pressure in a tugging or ‘on/off' fashion.
I believe negative reinforcement principles offer the best pathway for providing clarity to a horse. In my opinion, this makes it at the top of the list of kind and gentle training principles.
