Post by Elaine on Dec 17, 2008 19:56:31 GMT
Myth No1: A horse Must Show You Respect - ross jacobs
(ok, haven´t read this, but thought would be interesting to start a discussion (in internet cafe dont have much time!)
www.goodhorsemanship.com.au/Myths.html
This is a pet peeve of mine, so I will begin with the issues of respect and disrespect.
We have all heard folks describe a horse as being disrespectful or needing to learn respect. Most often it is talked about when a horse is pushy to handle or when he rears or kicks at a person etc. But is it really fair or even helpful to think in terms of respect or disrespect in good horsemanship?
Firstly, what is respect and disrespect from a horse's point of view? To respect a person a horse would have to put a value on a person and what that person is doing with them. Clearly horses can't do that. A horse does not wake up in the morning and decide whether or not a person is worthy of their respect. The concepts of respect and disrespect have no meaning to a horse and really do not relate in any way to how a horse operates in his decision making.
A horse responds to us purely in the way they perceive their safety and comfort. If (in their eyes) we compromise their safety and comfort and as a result they barge into us or bite us or buck us off in order to restore their sense of safety and comfort, is it really disrespectful or is simply a survival strategy? If somebody tries to force a claustrophobic person into a closet, is it disrespect if the claustrophobic punches, screams and fights to avoid being shoved into the closet?
Horses only have one agenda and that is to survive the best they can. They don't plot and scheme on how to get the better of a human. They don't try to prove they are stronger or smarter than people. They have no interest in proving that we are weaker and incompetent. It is not in their make up to even consider these things. The way a horse operates in response to the world in general and people in particular is to try to maintain their idea of what is safe and what is comfortable. Nothing else matters to a horse.
It is not being disrespectful for a horse to do what he thinks will be in the best interest of his survival and comfort. In fact, it is totally disrespectful of us humans to try to make a horse do things that he feels threatens his survival and comfort. By putting him in that situation we are basically indicating to him that his survival and comfort don't matter to us.
In my experience, what most people really mean when they talk about respect in a horse is whether the horse sees the human as being higher than them in the pecking order or not. But since a horse will never see a human as anything akin to another horse, this concept is quite bizarre. In terms of herd hierarchy, it makes sense that a horse can only see another horse as having a place in the pecking horse - not a human - since humans have no place in a herd.
It seems to me that for many people, respect is really equated to submission and obedience and this is achieved by dominance over the horse. We often teach obedience by asserting dominance. When we fail to dominate a horse we also fail to achieve obedience and submission. So when a horse barges into us or threatens to kicks us or refuses to pick up a foot and our friends tell us that he is being disrespectful what most of them mean is that we have failed to be dominant. Dominance is not a virtue and certainly not something that a person imposes if they truly respect a horse.
In the end, I believe that thinking about horses in terms of respect and disrespect is really counter productive to good horsemanship. It puts blame on the horse for things that go wrong and validates the idea that forcibly dominating a horse with fear and strength to achieve respect is okay.
(ok, haven´t read this, but thought would be interesting to start a discussion (in internet cafe dont have much time!)
www.goodhorsemanship.com.au/Myths.html
This is a pet peeve of mine, so I will begin with the issues of respect and disrespect.
We have all heard folks describe a horse as being disrespectful or needing to learn respect. Most often it is talked about when a horse is pushy to handle or when he rears or kicks at a person etc. But is it really fair or even helpful to think in terms of respect or disrespect in good horsemanship?
Firstly, what is respect and disrespect from a horse's point of view? To respect a person a horse would have to put a value on a person and what that person is doing with them. Clearly horses can't do that. A horse does not wake up in the morning and decide whether or not a person is worthy of their respect. The concepts of respect and disrespect have no meaning to a horse and really do not relate in any way to how a horse operates in his decision making.
A horse responds to us purely in the way they perceive their safety and comfort. If (in their eyes) we compromise their safety and comfort and as a result they barge into us or bite us or buck us off in order to restore their sense of safety and comfort, is it really disrespectful or is simply a survival strategy? If somebody tries to force a claustrophobic person into a closet, is it disrespect if the claustrophobic punches, screams and fights to avoid being shoved into the closet?
Horses only have one agenda and that is to survive the best they can. They don't plot and scheme on how to get the better of a human. They don't try to prove they are stronger or smarter than people. They have no interest in proving that we are weaker and incompetent. It is not in their make up to even consider these things. The way a horse operates in response to the world in general and people in particular is to try to maintain their idea of what is safe and what is comfortable. Nothing else matters to a horse.
It is not being disrespectful for a horse to do what he thinks will be in the best interest of his survival and comfort. In fact, it is totally disrespectful of us humans to try to make a horse do things that he feels threatens his survival and comfort. By putting him in that situation we are basically indicating to him that his survival and comfort don't matter to us.
In my experience, what most people really mean when they talk about respect in a horse is whether the horse sees the human as being higher than them in the pecking order or not. But since a horse will never see a human as anything akin to another horse, this concept is quite bizarre. In terms of herd hierarchy, it makes sense that a horse can only see another horse as having a place in the pecking horse - not a human - since humans have no place in a herd.
It seems to me that for many people, respect is really equated to submission and obedience and this is achieved by dominance over the horse. We often teach obedience by asserting dominance. When we fail to dominate a horse we also fail to achieve obedience and submission. So when a horse barges into us or threatens to kicks us or refuses to pick up a foot and our friends tell us that he is being disrespectful what most of them mean is that we have failed to be dominant. Dominance is not a virtue and certainly not something that a person imposes if they truly respect a horse.
In the end, I believe that thinking about horses in terms of respect and disrespect is really counter productive to good horsemanship. It puts blame on the horse for things that go wrong and validates the idea that forcibly dominating a horse with fear and strength to achieve respect is okay.
