scared when working but not scared when grazing: a horse’s point of view…

I posted this meme in my group and asked people to tell me why a horse will not be bothered by an object when it is grazing and then be very concern about it when ridden.

I have a great collection of people in my group - from expert professionals to people that care deeply about understanding horses and working with them well.

The responses were insightful and interesting.

They all boil down to a common idea - a deterioration in the horse’s sense of safety or ability to determine whether it is safe.

When a horse feels unsafe it will perceive the world around it negatively and more threatening. It will be more hyperviligant and reactive.

Some examples of what can make a horse feel unsafe....

When you are making it feel insecure because it is having to protect itself from how you are pulling on it, kicking it and restraining it and forcing it to do things it is not motivated to do.

When you are making it it feel sore from what you are making it do, wear or from some kind of unsoundness.

When you are making the horse feel lost, unsuccessful and fearful of error.

When you are feeling unsafe, you will make the horse feel unsafe.

When the horse has learnt to associate the activity, object or place with bad things happening to it.

When a hardwired safety issue is triggered by one of the horse’s sense - vision, hearing, smell etc.

How can you improve a horse's sense of safety?

Don’t interact with the horse in a way that makes it feel like it has to protect itself from you - teach them, be motivating, be reliable in the way you communicate and your boundaries of expectations! The horse has to be inspired to focus and follow you and feel successful doing so.

You have to ensure the horse is physically comfortable and develops its fitness and ability to carry you on its back and all other aspects of its health managed carefully.

You have to ensure the horse is emotionally comfortable with what you are asking it to do. Don’t dump it in the deep end - be patient and prepare the horse. Expose the horse to different situations so it can gain confidence with different environments and situations. Don't over protect the horse and shrink its comfort zone.

You have to deal with your own sense of security and trust issues. The way you do this is by growing your sense of competence in working with horses. Your confidence with horse’s increases as you sense of competence increases and positively impacts your sense of trust in your horse. Take the time to learn how to teach, motivate, communicate and inspire horse’s to focus and follow you.

If a horse has had a bad experience, reintroduce the activity and set the horse up to develop a new positive association.

Horse’s will always be triggered by certain things. You wouldn’t step on a snake or jump off a cliff because I told you! However, if we increase the horse’s sense of safety with us, they will be better and faster at assessing sticks are sticks not snakes. A ditch or shadow is not a cliff and learn to use us as their filter to process the environment. They learn to be with us, not vulnerable and hypervigilant.