We all know that horses are innately neophobic, any new stimuli or stimuli out of context may well trigger this fear.
We owe it to our horses therefore to learn as much as possible about equine behaviour, body language and emotions. I am just coming to the end of a course on How Horses Learn, Feel and Communicate – run by Jo Hughes.
Whatever variety of horsemanship you follow – it is an excellent course. I have had horses for over 20 years and ridden for 40 years but still learned a great deal.
The module on emotions (affective neuroscience) is fascinating so even if you can’t commit to a 12 week course then there are videos and articles by Jaak Panksepp to explore.
I was not aware of the 7 emotional systems and that any aversive stimulus triggers the FEAR system. So it does seem to bit illogical to train an already fearful animal with aversive stimuli, but this is what traditional and natural horsemanship and even the equitation science people teach.
So if you do nothing else go and learn how the emotions differ between positive and negative reinforcement and decide for yourself. Study equine body language – especially the subtle signs of stress and fear.
No-one is saying you need to change how you interact with your horses but it gives you more tools to decide what is best for any particular horse at any time.
I did find limitations in certain horsemanship programmes when confronted with a horse who so obviously hated pressure (as Benny did). Maybe that was due to my lack of understanding or skill but learning about how pressure/release works and the difference it makes to the horse when you use positive reinforcement made a huge difference to Benny.
Many traditional and natural horsemen and women do use positive reinforcement and the horse world is slowly catching up with the rest of the animal training world.
Science moves on all the time and the Skinnerian models of learning theory may well be superseded, as we learn more about the emotional minds of animals (ourselves included).
So we do need to keep an open mind, don’t be afraid of what you may learn. I learned a lot from traditional and natural horsemanship but it didn’t provide all the answers.
Positive Horsemanship. 