This is from my old website, it will now be incorporated into this one.

Natural Horsemanship – a personal perspective.

Natural horsemanship seems to be based on misconceptions of horse herd dynamics. Horse herds are fluid and what we see in domestic settings is more to do with resource holding potential than leadership. So horse A might need water more than horse B so will argue and sometimes threaten the other horse. In other scenarios they may be best friends.
Horse like to stick together for safety in the wild, so if one horse is needs to go to find food or water the others tend to follow. It is not always the oldest or wisest that instigates movement.

Horses are an affiliative species, they do not like conflict and only fight for rights to mate or if they feel threatened.

Most natural horsemanship methods rely on the use of excessive negative reinforcement and positive punishment. So it is often a “do as I say or else” kind of training. 

Another thing to consider if training horses in a manner that simulates how horses interact, we are not horses and horses know we are not horses.

Horse to horse interactions are different to interspecies interactions. If you are going to treat a horse like another horse then the least you can do is let them treat you like another horse! That in my opinion would be dangerous, I do not wish to play rough games with my horse. nor do I wish him to bite or kick me when he doesn’t want me near him. Yes, horses do these things to protect resources but we are supposed be able to reason and find solutions to problems that don’t rely on force and aversive stimuli.

Negative reinforcement – the removal of a stimulus, to increase a behaviour. 
In horse training you first have to apply that aversive stimulus. So add pressure to make the horse do something, and the instant he does what you ask release the pressure. 
Pressure applied to train a behaviour must be removed immediately he performs that behaviour. It is the removal of the pressure (aversive stimulus) that reinforces. The horse often relaxes as he learns to avoid the pressure by watching carefully for the command to perform the behaviour. So he learns to avoid the pressure, but what if he doesn’t perform the behaviour, what have you got in your tool kit? Escalating the pressure is what many people do, so tapping, rope wiggling – often with huge movements intended to cause the horse to respond. Why does he respond to these stimuli? Is it because he likes them? No it is because he doesn’t like them.

Paul Chance, in Learning and Behavior, 7th edition, defines aversives as:

“Stimuli the animal would avoid, given the option.”

Negative reinforcement can be escape or avoidance learning.

Escape is when the horse does anything to escape from the aversive stimuli, he may run – as in round penning, or go in to flight mode if we use excessive aversive stimuli.
Avoidance occurs when we use a command before the behaviour to give the animal time to avoid the onset of the aversive, so a verbal “back” or a finger wag. In negative reinforcement we use the command as we teach the behaviour not after the behaviour has been taught. E.G lunging we say “walk”, “trot” and “canter’ as the animal is subject to the aversive stimuli we use to form the behaviour. That way the horse can avoid the whip or our energy and walk, trot and canter on a command.


One way to use negative reinforcement, if we feel it must be used, is to use a mild pressure and remove that pressure immediately the horse does any approximation of the behaviour we want – so shaping the behaviour in small steps. If we give a food reward at the same time it may even counter condition the aversive stimulus. As with everything we have to be mindful of how the horse feels and our timing has to be very good. Also be aware of poisoned cues if you mix quadrants.