Natural Horsemanship - What is it?

I was recently asked the question "What is Natural Horsemanship?" It's a great question and to be honest I think that it's starting to have two different meaning in the horse world. Meaning 1 refers to the Natural Horsemanship way of training, the use of  pressure and release techniques along with 'making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult' in order to train a horse.  This approach presumes horses work on a dominance system and should be shown leadership in this context.

Meaning 2 refers to being with horses in a way that promotes an accurate understanding of their ethology (their natural behaviours). Understanding how they communicate, are motivated and perceive the world.

Often I find that people end up in meaning 1 when they were really looking for meaning 2.

When we start focusing on training, it can all get mixed up. If we look at the way we train, and the way we manage as two different things then we can focus on the horse's whole, life experiences.

Setting the term 'Natural Horsemanship ' aside for a moment, if we allow our horses to live as naturally as possible with a minimum of 24/7 access to friends, forage and freedom, we're helping them to fulfil their ethological needs which in turn, enables them to learn better and be calmer.

The thing is, as Whispering Horse - Clicker Training Equines has pointed out so beautifully, we see way more aggression in domestic horses than wild, do to our influence. It's important we don't view this as 'normal'. We do occasionally see aggression in free living horses, but it's very specific (it's counter productive to cause injury to those that keep you safe). It's also worth noting that media images are often of play rather than fighting.

Once their management is addressed, both from ethological and individual needs, then we can consider training specific behaviours that help the horse cope with a domesticated lifestyle.

Then it's all about learning theory. The horse industry is woefully poorly informed here. Without at least a basic understanding of punishment, reinforcement and non reinforcement learning, it's impossible to make informed training decisions. Recognising the horse's emotions around a training method and trainer is vital. Do they get lovely, caring, respectful responses from their trainer? Understand clearly what is being asked and have options to participate or not?

Do they have time and space to work out what is being asked in a gentle and force-free way? Do we recognise their subtle communications so that big responses are not necessarily, motivation for behaviour and their perception of the world around them that is significantly different from ours?

Not a simple answer 😅 but we have to have a holistic view in order to provide the most informed, considered care for our lovely friends. 🩷

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