If not Dominance then what?
After inheriting my passion for horses from my Grandmother I was looking forward to passing my skills onto my daughter. Hum…. The reality at first was rather different from my idyllic imagination of riding across the fields with her. Instead, it quickly turned into a frustrating episode of mother daughter dynamics! She wasn’t progressing because she didn’t need to with me. I never pushed her out of her comfort zone and it became apparent pretty quickly that she was perfectly happy pottering around on the lead rein with little determination to progress. So I decided to step out of the equation for a bit and give the job to someone else- phew!
We tried a few different places out before settling in at local riding school which had a great teacher and great ponies who made sure that learning was fun and from that moment she hasn’t looked back. Finding the right instructor was difficult but has been worth every penny.
While testing different places. I was astonished to hear phrases like “that pony is being bloody disrespectful, hit it with your whip” or “if you want to turn left keep yanking on that rein until he listens to you”.
One day I sat on the side of a school and watched a pony being kicked and pulled by an unbalanced little rider until it got so confused it gave up, switched off and went into donkey mode. The teachers reaction to that was to tell the child to “smack it and wake it up”. Two minutes later the child was crying on the floor after being unceremoniously dismounted by her pony.
It saddened me to see the in the 30 odd years between our times learning to ride that very little had changed. Grass roots equitation seems to be generally still being taught in the forms of dominance over a horse to get what you want… Still holding the attitude that horses are naughty and need to be disciplined.
In the training world many advocate acting as the ‘lead horse’ and establishing yourself as the boss, the dominant one in the relationship. I think that this incorrect outlook is rooted extremely deeply in peoples understanding of horses. I honestly believe that most people see “dominance” as a legitimate horse type personality. Something that most horses will try out at some point in their lives. Something that we must be vigilant about and ensure we never miss those little signs of pushiness before it turns into outright dominant and dangerous behaviour. The language has somewhat changed through “natural horsemanship” but the general expectation of horses to be problematic and potentially aggressive is still there.
Horses are social creatures they want to find connection. In the wild, there may on occasion be dominant battles between stallions to decide who is, for example going to mate. However, for the most part, horse herd life is cooperative and calm with complex social structures. If confrontations do occur between members of the herd it is generally composed of threatening gestures and deference, not serious aggression. Hierarchies are certainly there but they are not solely built upon domination. It is far more complex than that.

No horse I know has any love for a dominant bully regardless of whether it is a horse or human. In the wild a horse which is too dominant with the herd will be on the outside and generally ignored. Horses will choose to stay away from such a member until it learns better social skills. In captivity a human that is too quick to get dominant will not be seen as a trustworthy leader for a horse. Horses are usually either jumpy and anxious or stubborn, fixed and completely disinterested in their owners or with finding companionship with them thus, damaging their bond.
So if not dominance what else?
Well, perhaps when we get undesirable behaviour from our horses we need to start seeing it as conditioned behaviour not just simply dominant behaviour.
I believe that we need to take full responsibility for our horses behaviour and not just see the “bad” stuff as something innate within them. I believe that we teach our horses how we want to be treated. We decide from the very beginning of working with our horses what is acceptable and what is not. The promise you give in return is to make sure that all the horses specific environmental needs are unconditionally met by you - socialisation, food, and freedom. This will make sure that the horse doesn’t feel the need to act in a dominant way to get what it needs i.e. resources.
We can all learn to be assertive without being a dominate bully. To do so we have to become masters of our emotions, understand our inadequacies and be able to separate ourselves from our daily struggles and frustrations. These feelings have no place when working with our horses.
Egon von Neindorff once said "Brutality begins where skill ends.”
Knowing our limitations and lack of experience needed to fix a problem is sometimes the hardest thing for equestrians to admit.
It’s important to remember to ask ourselves….
“have I inadvertently trained this difficult behaviour”
And if I have, how do I train the right behaviour without the use of aggression and force?
Often what people are describing to me as dominance is actually fearful or defensive behaviour,conditioned behaviour, or sometimes behaviour that has its roots in the management and environmental setting. Domesticated horses still have their wild instincts and often the environments we keep our horses in are counter productive to a healthy equine mind. These environments greatly affect horses ability to have normal social skills and normal behaviour.
Relationships build upon aggression or force are not the relationships we should be building with our horses, and frankly they are completely unnecessary. We need to be teaching ourselves and especially our children about how to build co-operation and trustworthy leadership with their horses. Lets be realistic here, for most purposes people have with their horses it is important that the person is “in charge”. But how we create that position is always a choice. We can choose whether we want to be an out right dictator or a fair but assertive trustworthy leader.
To achieve this ‘fair leadership’, a position that the horse is happy for you to hold, we need to create an environment of respect which flows both ways. The following is what we need to focus on.
Boundaries, all good relationships have them!
Become consistent in everything we do, good training is about being reliable.
Educate ourselves about equine behaviour. Learn what is normal and what is not.
Be assertive but not aggressive.
Consider the environment we keep our horses in. Is it healthy? Does it cover all the equines innate needs?
And remember-
Be part of the solution not the problem!