Your horse
is a prey animal. His eyes are set on the sides of his head to allow peripheral
vision and depth perception – in front vision. This is how his ancestors
detected the movement of predators even while grazing with heads down at ground
level. To focus his eyes, the horse raises his head for distance and lowers his
head for near objects. This explains why a Jumper needs to look straight at an
obstacle with both eyes (depth perception) and without the head held high
(looking past the jump). Because it
takes time to focus (and that could turn him into a meal), the horse reacts to
movement and checks out what was
moving from a “safe” distance.
This pattern
applies to most large prey animals – cattle, llamas, goats, sheep, etc. They
may be totally safe in your barn, field or paddock, but their genetically coded
responses can override their own life experiences. There is a common goal to
NOT become a meal, even if it is totally not a possibility in this lifetime for
that horse. Nature holds a power over all animals.
Your horse
is a total herbivore. He should not be fed products that contain ingredients
from animal sources. I am a vegetarian. I have total understanding of how
ingestion of an unfamiliar animal flesh product can upset the digestive tract
from one end to the other. Because I am a mammal and so is your horse, we can ingest things like yogurt without
ill effect (of course, yogurt is very nourishing and health enhancing!) as long
as it is free of things like artificial sweeteners, colors and the like.
Your horse
cannot vomit, so everything he eats has to make it through a long and winding
series of tubes that comprise the digestive tract. It really pays to be careful
with everything that is fed to your horse.
The horse’s
perspective is quite different than ours. We have eyes set at the front of our
heads like predators and we do tend to move like predators. It can be unnerving
to horses. To help him understand your intentions, move with steady, relaxed
grace around your horse. Do not come up on him suddenly, unannounced
(especially from behind!). Do not move crouched, slowly, stiffly as if you are
“sneaking” up on him! Approach him as you do an old friend and talk to him.
The safest
place for you to be positioned around a horse is at his shoulder (for your
safety and his). He can see you (he has a blind spot directly in front of and
below his nose and right behind his bottom) and he cannot strike, bite or kick
you. Now, horses do not want to
strike, bite or kick us unless they feel defensive and vulnerable (like when
surprised from behind – for all they know, a tiger is about to leap onto them).
A horse can
feel defensive because of past experiences (they have amazing memories) and you
might trigger a response without realizing it. If you are having problems with your
horse, try to figure out his perspective:
does he feel confident that you are a kind and consistent leader? Horses look
for a herd leader (or try to become
one). Provide that leadership for him by CLEAR, CONSISTENT schooling. Make it
easy for him to do the “right” things and difficult for him to do the “wrong”
things. And be sure to consistently consider the same things “right” or
“wrong”. You can drive a horse insane by rewarding him for doing something one
day and punishing him for it the next.
You can
develop your schooling program for your horse with a reward based system or a
punishment based system. Either one will work. If you base your system on
punishing each infraction, your horse will work to avoid punishment. He will
only participate with you to keep from being corrected. If you use the reward
based system, encouraging and praising and marking every “good” behavior, your
horse will strive to find MORE good
things to do for you and a RELATIONSHIP will form! It’s your choice.
Horses are
mirrors for us. They truly do reflect our attitudes and emotions back to us. This
is why they are such great teachers of patience, courage, compassion and self
discipline. Horses excel in psychotherapy programs because of their pure,
honest reactions to us. We cannot lie to horse, he will see right through us. A
horse perceives much more than just the surface.
And horses
are at our mercy. In the wild, without fences, a horse can find food and water.
In the back paddock, he is totally
dependent upon a human being for every life sustaining need. If you have the
honor and responsibility of caring for a horse, always consider his viewpoint.
His life is in your hands.
Your horse
only knows what he is allowed or not allowed to do. He has no perception of
Right or Wrong. If he comes from a life with other humans, he will have the
imprint of their values in his data base. If you need to change him, do it
GRADUALLY. You have to do things the way he knows at first, and then slowly
teach him YOUR ways. I met a lady who came to this stable where I was training
a stallion. She was to turn out and bring in the mares and foals. The horses
were used to having their gates
opened and they just ran out to the pasture! (This was not my barn, just a
client’s) The lady, on her first day,
decided she would catch each mare and lead her out. She nearly got killed … NOT
because these were bad mares! It was because she tried to change their routine
dramatically without any prior conditioning or interaction with the horses.
Be smart
with horses. Think ahead. Be kind.
