"Natural Horsemanship"

"Gentling Horses" as opposed to breaking them

"Establishing Dominance"

"Licking and Chewing by a horse to show submission"

DO THESE THINGS ANNOY ANYONE ELSE?

I am a horse trainer and I feel that in order for my to stay sane and strangle no one, it would be beneficial for me to vent a little on this subject, so Enjoy.

I know that some of you on here endorse this kind of training, and I am not saying that there are not some instances where this has worked for a certain horse and rider. However, I feel that even those successes are laid on a shoddy foundation that has no real benefit. Now, I also know that not everyone is like I shall describe, but there are far too many from that school of 'we don't break horses, we gentle them' and playing games, and round-penning the horse to death, looking for signs of the horse giving control to you. I don't approve. I think people try too much to use equine psychology to work with horses, but what they dont realize, is that if you interact with a horse like another horse would (assuming a dominate role, trying to free lunge and use body language to convey dominance, etc) then you are opening the door for the horse to speak to you as if you were a horse. And how do horses talk to each other? They n**, bite, kick, jump on and rough house. Now, it might not hurt the usual thousand pound animal that they do it to, but it could kill the 100 or so pound person that tries it. Even Monty Roberts has said that he does not approve of other people trying his methods because of the danger.

In my opinion, you need to establish a few basic ideas in the horse that you are training, and one of them is that you are a human and they are a horse. There are ways that the horse is expected to behave and there are punishments if they disobey. They are not allowed to bite, or kick, or strike. I am the first to say that horses are incredibly intellegent animals, but they dont speak english, so your lessons to them should be clear. I don't think that taking them to a round pen and acting like you are their lead mare and establishing herd dominance and then taking them back to the stable and smacking them for nipping you in what they assume is a friendly way, is being very clear. Now, I am also not suggesting that we behave like the cowboys of old and tie the horses down or beat them into submission. Just like with parenting, you need a balance of fairness and firmness. Remember, we are not horses. So since we should not talk or aggress horses the way other horses would, we can praise them differently as well. You might feel like your horse will be distant from you if you arnt sweet all of the time, and some type of natural horsemanship will build that bond. But I assure you, if you use traditional training methods and are a firm but fair rider and trainer, and praise often your horse will love you. Remember other horses can't groom like we can with our vairety of brushes or a nice massage after a long work out. And we can't play with them the way that other horses do, but you can find something that your horse really enjoys and it can be such a treat to do that thing together, be it long trail rides or mounted games at the end of a lesson.

My biggest pet peeve is that Natural horsemanship tries to make you feel like if you use traditional methods of training and 'breaking' (come on its just a term people, they all mean the same thing) horses, then you are mean and harsh. As a trainer, I have seen more problems created by people trying to be sweet and letting their horses get away with things to such a degree that they have created a monster. They bring this fully grown animal to me that tries to break cross ties to fly at my face with teeth bared and contort their body to kick me with both hind legs. Now, you tell me, all of you natural horsemen, how would you fix that? You think a kind word and a pet is going to make this animal regain respect for you.

Horses are naturally scared of people for the most part when they are born, they are prey animals, its part of their nature. You can make them lose that fear and if you are firm that they can't push you or n** you, you can keep that respect from them. But when you lose that respect, and your repeated failure to correct your horses bad habits gives them confidence that they can control YOU, then it is a hard and not pleasant road back to rebuilding that horses sense of respect for you.