September 18, 2008

Caroline Rider Natural Horsemanship Newsletter

This Month’s Topic of Interest:

“Leadership and Training and What Does It Mean
to My Horse”

Achieving mastery with our horses is about taking the initiative, making decisions/choices, and following through with them. Taking initiative is about leadership and for us to be most effective around, and with horses, we must emulate the intentions and actions of a lead horse.

A horse’s behavior is shaped by instincts (strong need for social order and companionship) and modified by conditioning (conditioned responses to stimulus). Like humans horses have a strong instinctual need to feel protected, and be protected as well as emotionally supported by their peers. That is why when working with horses it is important that we provide, as a leader, an environment where our horses feel safe and comfortable enough to learn. This is when we can begin to take the initiative to not only act as an example for our horses to follow but begin shaping their behavior through: Compassion (think like a horse and what’s best for them), Companionship (friendship) and Conditioned Responses (teaching methods and techniques). When implementing a conditioned response I use a Request, Respond and Reward teaching system, know as the 3 R’s. The request is when I “ask of my horse,” the response is a “reaction to specific stimuli” from my horse and the reward is the “positive reinforcement” I give to my horse when they try a little. As we know, horses learn best through reward and praise versus challenge, force and intimidation.