Teaching a Horse to Trust is Pushing it in Training

I just saw a woman go on the warpath on a Facebook group I'm in. This group is dedicated to draft horses, but this woman's remarks are easily blanketed to all horses. Now, I'm not sure what happened to cause this outburst, but I can guess. You see, earlier in the day, the woman posted a photo of her horse tied to the trailer and her stating that after hours of being there, he never climbed on. And she asked for suggestions. (This really set her up...) I would assume after that she got all sorts of responses, and I'm sure many of which she did not agree with. I assume too that she said as much and it started nasty arguments. No, I was not part of any of them. I am learning to train horses right now from a VERY knowledgeable woman who's methods I really enjoy because it's all about you AND your horse enjoying yourselves. (Her name is Jennifer Smith, her website ListensToHorses.com) I am just learning, but I can tell you, I don't agree with this woman, nor her outburst. From everything that I gathered, between her method of training the horse to load into a trailer and her outburst, she's one of the people who think you shouldn't push a horse to do a thing. In any way. Essentially, stand back and wait for the horse to do the action, and then reward that action. In her mind, this builds a very strong bond with the horse that will be the most trust worthy. I however, would never trust a horse trained that way.

Why? Because that horse hasn't been trained to trust anyone. It is only rewarded for doing its own thing. It is not challenged and taught to trust people. You see, a horse's natural reaction to something scary is to balk and run away. On a trail, that is down right dangerous and quite possibly dangerous. The entire point of training a horse, isn't to teach it to do some action. It's to teach the horse to trust your instructions. To trust that the person riding it knows what they're doing, and to trust them enough to follow through with what the person is requesting. The horse is being taught that instead of listening to it's instinct to run, to instead listen to the person on it's back, and trust that it won't lead them to any harm. Her version of training a horse, isn't training at all. It's rewarding the horse for doing things it chooses to do. It isn't learning to even take directions of instruction. It is simply learning that it only has to do as it chooses to do. You cannot trust a horse like that on the trail, because he has never been taught or shown to trust you and your judgement. She tied this horse to a trailer and waited for it to load itself. Waiting for the horse to choose to jump into the trailer isn't accomplishing anything. I have seen horses loose in a pasture happily jump into a horse trailer and peak around. Heck, I've even see them hop onto flat beds and teeter totter on them. BUT if I had then gone back and led any of those horses up to those trailers, they'd have balked and acted a complete fool.

Pressuring a horse is fine. It's actually very good for them. Gets them thinking, using their brains, instead of just reacting. And when they have done as asked, and haven't been killed and have been rewarded, they start learning to trust in you. They learn that doing as you ask isn't going to kill them, and so it isn't scary. No, you don't need to beat your horse to train it, but standing around waiting for it to train itself is quite insane and plain dangerous later on. With Eclipse (that pasture buddy we bought for Elsa), I nearly had her loaded in 3 minutes. I didn't do anything scary or mean to her. And she hasn't been handled since she was likely a baby. All I did was walk her up to the trailer, and applied pressure via keeping her leadline taunt. She walked up to the trailer, sniffed it, even got her two front feet into the trailer. At this point she stepped on her leadline. When she went to pull her head up, there was a "scary" pull keeping her head down. She of course balked and jumped back, but it was an amazing first approach. After that I grabbed a nearby paddle they use to move the auction animals about. All I did was tap her butt ever so lightly to encourage her to move forward. I'd have had her loaded on that trailer in another couple of minutes and she'd have learned her first lesson in trusting me. (However that asshole auction owner came up behind her and shoved her into the trailer....no I was not happy). Horses don't need a buddy. They need a leader and instructor they know they can trust. If they haven't been taught to trust you, you cannot trust them. And the only way you can teach a horse to trust you is to push them. Tell them, "I want you to move here. Now move." And they need to trust you enough to respond immediately, because for all they know, you're telling them to respond because it's life or death. I wouldn't trust a horse trained by this lady any more than I would trust a wild mustang.

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