When training a horse effectively, it’s essential to recognize its behavioral instincts and traits. By understanding horse behaviour, you can form stronger bonds between yourself and them and teach them to respond appropriately to hand, voice, leg and body cues.
Horses are herd animals that require leadership to keep them moving in an organized fashion. Without such direction, they could perceive humans as predators and flee.
Body language
Unlearning horse body language opens a whole world of communicating with horses. Although horses neigh, whinny, nicker and squeal to express themselves, much of their communication takes place through body movements and posture.
Example: A horse’s ears that are flat back, with their heads held high and eyes bulging out could be an indicator of aggression or that they are about to kick, while swinging their hindquarters sideways could signal defensiveness or aggression.
Herd horses whose bodies are relaxed with fluid movement and soft eye expressions likely feel at ease and comfortable. In contrast, those tense or frozen in place with stiff tails and nostrils flared may be feeling threatened or uncomfortable; small body changes like tail swishing and skin twitching may indicate this state as well. Licking and chewing might indicate stress-related anxieties.
Cues
Horses express their feelings to humans through body language and other cues, such as body posture or cues to humans that indicate positive or negative sentiments. Some behavior, like kicking or biting, must be stopped; but other behaviors can be learned with reinforcement.
As an example, when approached by humans on horseback and they swing their head forward to get binocular vision it could be taken as an expression of curiosity; however, when combined with an angry or fearful expression it could be an early warning signaling they feel trapped or are about to flee from you.
Trainers must recognize early warning signals such as wide eyes, rapid darting and pinned back ears to intervene before the situation becomes more dangerous. Consistent application of these cues – reinforcing desired behavior while discouraging unwanted ones – constitutes positive punishment.
Reinforcement
Training’s purpose is to increase a desired behavior. Positive reinforcement, or adding something that reinforces it – such as light heel touches or flag wave cues – is more effective than negative punishment, which involves subtracting something – for example taking away something like treats after performing correctly, which punishes rather than rewards.
A horse’s body posture and the position of its ears, tail and head can give us a good indication of how they’re feeling. Pinched-back ears signal irritation while relaxed tail swaying indicates calmness. Vocalizations such as whinnying or whistling also convey their mood effectively.
By nature, horses are social animals who live in social groups with complex hierarchies and hierarchies that establish pecking orders for order and safety in their herd. While aggressive behaviors like bucking, rearing and kicking may occur within their herds, interactions among horses tend to be nonviolent in most instances.
Punishment
Many people unwittingly employ negative punishment with their horses. For instance, if your pushy horse gets impatient at feeding time and you close the gate to prevent them from receiving their food, this may result in them feeling relieved after you open it again and they won’t engage in such pushy behaviour again. Positive reinforcement would then work better as your pushy behaviour won’t likely return again!
Mild forms of positive punishment (defined as any action that reduces an unwanted behavior) can be effective but only works under specific conditions and when your horse already understands desired correct behaviors. It’s also essential that you realize masking undesirable behavior with punishment will only teach it to become part of its identity – it will teach it how to associate pain, pressure and fear with you instead.
Negative punishment should only ever be implemented with professional guidance. Punishing horses by running them down fences, hitting them or forcing them back up can only make matters worse in the long run.
