08/03/2023
This (possibly hard-to-swallow) truth will set you free 🦅
Here’s what you need to know to make leaps and bounds in your horse-human connection 💫⤵️
Your training results are 100% your responsibility—not your horse’s.
You see, horses only know how to be horses: graze, search for water, play, fight, evade predators, mate… you get the idea.
Horses must be *taught* how to operate successfully in the human world: carry a rider, don’t fear everything you naturally would, give a predator your feet to hold, get into a trailer with no way to escape… the expectations placed upon horses in our human world are pretty endless.
And horses can absolutely thrive in our world!
❗️But it’s up to us to ensure that happens.
As a trainer (and if you handle horses, you’re training all the time!), you’re a bit like a behavioral scientist. The animal can do nothing “wrong,” because you know they are simply acting naturally. It’s you’re job to understand the behavior in front of you… and if you want something more or something else, it’s your duty to study and experiment with ways to create what you desire.
As behaviorist B.F. Skinner stated: “the rat is always right” 🐀
When studying training & animal behavior in rats, scientists learned to never blame the animals, because that route cannot lead to the desired outcome.
Imagine how silly it would be for someone to say “I want this rat to tread water,” then put him in water, only to be offended when the rat chooses to panic and swim around instead.
This example may sound like a reach, but if you think about it, it happens all the time in the horse world.
Stepping into responsibility in horsemanship is really hard. When you realize you can no longer blame the horse, you have to look in the mirror…
Where you may face fears of inadequacy, failure, and imperfection.
But when you accept responsibility, you also begin to step into your own power and freedom. You’re no longer at the mercy of the horse’s natural tendencies (which you used to think was sass, rudeness, disrespect or just a bad horse).
You are empowered to help your horse do what you want and feel GOOD while doing it.
- MM team 💫
Photo by This Mustang Life
