Human-Horse Relationships & The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse
Human-Horse Relationships & The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse
Poor communication sits at the heart of most problems people experience with their horse. The lack of clear communication causes the horse to struggle to make sense of what they are expected to do. This causes the horse to experience frustration as they are unable to successfully navigate the pressure that is constantly or randomly applied. Halters, lead ropes and bits become more like restraints that are aversive instead of lines of communication they can understand and follow. In response to this perceived restraint and discomfort the horse becomes stressed and their defense system is triggered. When a horse is triggered to be defensive, they exhibited symptoms such as anxiety, aggression, pushiness, shutdown and ignoring etc. Overall, the horse experiences the interaction as a negative and aversive experience. This destroys the relationship between the horse and human.
Relationship researcher Dr John Gottman, is well known for his work on predicting marital stability and divorce. He observed couples communicating and interacting when in conflict and in as little as 15 minutes was able to predict not only if a marriage would end in divorce, but also when it would happen! He was able to do this by observing the occurrence of what he termed “the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse”, which are criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stone walling or shutting down. Gottman has used the findings from his research to develop a successful approach to solving relationship issues between couples. One of the key aspects of his approach is to help people identify when the “horseman” show up so they can take action and change their communication.
I might not be Gottman, and I may be dealing with a relationship between a human and a horse, but it is observing the occurrence of criticism, defensiveness, contempt and shutting down that allows me to assess the success of the communication and ultimately the quality of relationship between the horse and human. Just like Gottman, I solve it by helping people by getting them to pay attention to their horse and to become more aware of how they are communicating.
Horse’s may not talk but they will always tell you what they know and how they feel about being asked by HOW they respond. If a horse is dull to respond, gets anxious, gets irritable, gets distracted or becomes threatening you have a crisis in your relationship with your horse. Or, if you feel frustrated, worried, fearful, angry or hopeless when you try to work with your horse, the “four horseman of the apocalypse” have ridden into town!
The good news is the solution to a more positive horse-human relationship is not complicated. Firstly, it involves teaching the human how to improve their communication skills and apply cues and motivating pressure fairly and consistently. Secondly, it is getting the horse confident that they can learn to navigate their human. This reduces their discomfort, lowers their stress and results in a horse that is receptive to making a connection with you.
My approach involves what I call “rebooting” both horse and rider. I take people and their horses back to ground work exercises. I do this regardless if the horse is fine to ride and the main issue the person is experiencing is dealing with the horse on the ground. This is because the presence of any of the “Four Horseman of the Apocalypse” appearing in ANY aspect of your relationship with your horse from catching, leading, saddling, mounting etc. IS significant and means you have a dysfunctional aspect to your relationship. Their occurrence will impact the overall QUALITY of the partnership you can build with your horse. However, you cannot heal a relationship with a horse by ground work alone. The process has to extend into all aspects of the partnership from the ground into the saddle to develop a solid foundation of understanding and acceptance.
