Natural horsemanship - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Natural horsemanship is the philosophy of working with horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s by appealing to their instincts and herd

Herd

Herd refers to a social grouping of certain animals of the same species, either wild or domestic, and also to the form of collective animal behavior associated with this or as a verb, to herd, to its control by another species such as humans or dogs.The term herd is generally applied to mammals,...

instincts. It involves communication techniques derived from wild horse observation in order to build a partnership that closely resembles the relationships that exist between horses.

Basic ideas

There are countless "schools" or theories of natural horsemanship but the following ideas are common to most of them:

Horses are social herd animals, evolved for social interaction and the ability to escape predators. The horse has a highly developed communication system practiced primarily through body language
Body language
Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals almost entirely subconsciously....

. It is possible for humans to learn to use body language to communicate with the horse. Horses use ear position, head position, speed of movement, threatening gestures, showing of teeth and swinging of hips, and many other gestures to communicate. They are quick to escalate a behavior if early warnings are not heeded. Similarly, in natural horsemanship, the handler or trainer uses body language along with other forms of gentle pressure with increasing escalation to get the horse to respond. Horses are quick to form a relationship of respect with humans who treat them in this fashion; "firm but fair" is a motto.
Most natural horsemanship practitioners agree that teaching through pain and fear do not result in the type of relationship that benefits both horse and handler. The object is for the horse to be calm and feel safe throughout the training process. A horse that feels calm and safe with his handler is quick to bond with that person, and the results can be remarkable.
The human must be knowledgeable of the horse's natural instincts
Horse behavior
Horse behavior is best understood from the perspective that horses are prey animals with a well-developed fight-or-flight instinct. Their first response to a threat is to flee, although they are known to stand their ground and defend themselves or their offspring in cases where flight is...

and communication system, and use this knowledge in their work with the horse.
Like many other forms of horse training
Horse training
Horse training refers to a variety of practices that teach horses to perform certain behaviors when asked to do so by humans. Horses are trained to be manageable by humans for everyday care as well as for equestrian activities from horse racing to therapeutic horseback riding for people with...

, operant conditioning
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...

through pressure and release are core concepts. The basic technique is to apply an aversive pressure of some kind to the horse as a "cue" for an action and then release the pressure as soon as the horse responds, either by doing what was asked for, or by doing something that could be understood as a step towards the requested action, a "try". Timing is everything, as the horse learns not from the pressure itself, but rather from the release of that pressure. These techniques are based on the principle of negative reinforcement, rather than punishment
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....

by physical force, which most natural horsemanship practitioners avoid using whenever possible.
Most natural horsemanship approaches emphasize the use of groundwork to establish boundaries and set up communication with the horse. This can include leading exercises, long reining and liberty work.
As with all successful animal training
Animal training
Animal training refers to teaching animals specific responses to specific conditions or stimuli. Training may be for the purpose of companionship, detection, protection, entertainment or all of the above....

methods, there is an emphasis on timing, feel and consistency from the handler.

Natural horsemanship has become very popular in the past two decades and there are many books, videos, tapes, and websites available to interested equestrian

Equestrianism

Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...

s. This philosophy has capitalized on the use of behavioral negative reinforcement to replace inhumane practices used in some methods of training, the ultimate goal of which is a calmer, happier and more willing partner in the horse.

Natural horsemanship avoids punishment

Punishment

Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....

based training methods. While natural and gentle methods of training have been around for millennia, dating to the advocacy of gentle methods by Xenophon

Xenophon

Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...

in Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

, there have also been any number of techniques over the years that attempted to train a horse by breaking the horse's spirit, often forcing it to fight back and then be dominated or defeated. Natural horsemanship advocates point out that by removing fear an individual gains trust from the horse. By not scaring and hurting the horse, the horse learns to work with people in a partnership versus as an adversary.

History

Many of the techniques used by natural horsemanship practitioners have ancient roots. The idea of working sympathetically with the horse's nature goes back at least to Xenophon

Xenophon

Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...

and his treatise On Horsemanship, which has influenced humane practitioners of horse training in many disciplines, including both natural horsemanship and dressage

Dressage

Dressage is a competitive equestrian sport, defined by the International Equestrian Federation as "the highest expression of horse training." Competitions are held at all levels from amateur to the World Equestrian Games...

.

However, gentle training methods have always had to compete with harsher methods, which often appear to obtain faster, but less predictable results. In particular, the cowboy

Cowboy

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

tradition of the American west, where the economics of needing to break large numbers of semi-feral

Feral

A feral organism is one that has changed from being domesticated to being wild or untamed. In the case of plants it is a movement from cultivated to uncultivated or controlled to volunteer. The introduction of feral animals or plants to their non-native regions, like any introduced species, may...

horses to saddle

Saddle

A saddle is a supportive structure for a rider or other load, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is the equestrian saddle designed for a horse, but specialized saddles have been created for camels and other creatures...

in a short period of time led to the development of a number of harsh training methods that the natural horsemanship movement specifically has set out to replace. However, most of the original natural horsemanship practitioners acknowledge their own roots are in the gentler methods of some cowboy traditions, particularly those most closely associated with the "California" or vaquero

Cowboy

horseman.

The modern natural horsemanship movement developed primarily in the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

and the Rocky Mountain states, where the "buckaroo" or vaquero

Vaquero

The vaquero is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that originated on the Iberian peninsula. Today the vaquero is still a part of the doma vaquera, the Spanish tradition of working riding...

-style cowboy

Cowboy

tradition was the strongest. Brothers Tom and Bill Dorrance

Tom and Bill Dorrance

Brothers Tom Dorrance and Bill Dorrance are considered among the founders of the modern Natural horsemanship movement...

were early modern practitioners, who had background in the Great Basin

Great Basin

The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than away at the...

buckaroo tradition. They had a particularly strong influence on Ray Hunt

Ray Hunt

Ray Hunt was an American horse trainer and clinician of significant influence in the natural horsemanship field. He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.-Natural horsemanship:...

. Many later practitioners claim influence from the Dorrance brothers and Hunt, some having trained directly with these individuals.

Other trainers who developed from slightly different influences claim influence from John Solomon Rarey, as well as any number of other teachers and mentors who were well-versed in methods of gentle-breaking young horses. Several other practitioners derive inspiration from concepts used by Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

horse trainers.

In Europe a number of variations are practiced that developed independently of the American model, influenced by Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

or Hungarian horsemanship traditions as well as the teachings of Classical dressage

Classical dressage

Classical dressage evolved from cavalry movements and training for the battlefield, and has since developed into the competitive dressage seen today...

. Some include work rooted in the use of human body language to communicate effectively to the horse.

The term "natural horsemanship" came into popular use around 1985, and has only been widely used since the 1990s, when it obtained a significant boost from the popularity of Nicholas Evans' book (and later film) The Horse Whisperer
The Horse Whisperer
The Horse Whisperer is a 1998 American drama film directed by and starring Robert Redford, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Nicholas Evans...

, which promoted popular awareness of natural horsemanship.

Criticism

The natural horsemanship movement has been criticized from a number of angles. The first criticism is that claims of natural horsemanship being something new and different are wholly unfounded, that similar methods have been around for a very long time. Some practitioners, particularly in classical dressage

Classical dressage

Classical dressage evolved from cavalry movements and training for the battlefield, and has since developed into the competitive dressage seen today...

and other English riding

English riding

English riding is a term used to describe a form of horse riding that is seen throughout the world. There are many variations in English riding, but all feature a flat English saddle without the deep seat, high cantle or saddle horn seen on a Western saddle nor the knee pads seen on an Australian...

disciplines, consider much of the movement to simply be the application of humane methods of classical horsemanship that have been practiced for centuries.

Another common concern is that the movement has been promoted with too much hype and marketing. In particular, there are concerns that promises of near-miraculous results can mislead some people to believe that they can accomplish miracles with their horses with little effort, education, or experience in horse training, which is simply not true. A related concern is that practitioners rename common pieces of horse equipment and then sell their versions for inflated prices. In this vein, some trainers view the use of particular brands or styles of common equipment as having more to do with personal preference than anything else. Others view certain tools as unneeded or prone to misuse.

In particular, the characterization of "traditional" methods of training as "inhumane" rings false to trainers who use time-honored humane training methods. Though some critics acknowledge that some historical techniques were not always gentle, they point out that gentle techniques have always existed as well. Others express concern that natural horsemanship fails as a complete method of horse training.

Other trainers point out that the very act of catching and training horses is not "natural" at all, that everything people do with horses is not actually "natural" to the horse. These individuals note the need for humane training of horses, but attempt to downplay the romanticism and marketing that characterize much of the movement. Finally, with the popularity of streaming video on the internet, some natural horsemanship practitioners have been taped in circumstances that put their methods in an unfavorable light.

Use of negative reinforcement to increase rates of desired behaviors can produce anxiety and stress in the horse until the aversive stimulus or "pressure" is released. Failure of the horse to emit the desired behavior, or failure of the trainer to relieve the pressure after a correct performance, will only prolong this stress.

"Horse Whisperers"

Some, though not all, natural horsemanship practitioners adopt the nickname "horse whisperer" to describe their practices. However, the history of modern natural horsemanship has different origins, centered in the American west, than did "horse whispering," which has roots in the British Isles and eastern United States. The concept and term "horse whispering" dates back to the early nineteenth century when an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

horseman, Daniel "Horse-Whisperer" Sullivan (d. 1810), made a name for himself in England by rehabilitating horses that had become vicious and intractable due to abuse or accidental trauma. Sullivan kept his methods secret, but people who managed to observe him noticed that he would stand face to face with the troubled horse. They seemed to think that he must be saying something to the horse in a way the horse could understand and accept because the horses were quickly gentled by his mysterious techniques.

His techniques were passed over to Willis J. Powell

Willis J. Powell

Willis J. Powell wrote a book, Tachyhippodamia; on The New Secret of Taming Horses to which John Solomon Rarey's work, Taming of Wild Horses, was appended for publication. This book was issued before Powell died in 1848, but no publishing date is stated in the book itself. A later reprint was in...

, who in turn traveled widely in the Americas to work with seriously traumatized horses. His fame spread, and more and more people sought his help. In the 19th century Powell, John Solomon Rarey

John Solomon Rarey

John Solomon Rarey was one of the nineteenth century horse whisperers, an important figure in the rehabilitation of abused and vicious horses during the 1850s. Originally from Groveport, Ohio, Rarey trained his first horse at the age of twelve...

and the Austro-Hungarian major Konstantin Balassa described their gentle methods of horse taming. Rarey was initially protective of the tradition he had thus learned, and in early versions of his own book did not reveal how the most severely traumatized horses were salvaged by the methods Sullivan originated. He did, however, always give Powell full credit for his methods of gentling horses. Finally he became convinced that it was better to reveal the secret method to the world than to risk its loss.

Basic ideas

History

Criticism

"Horse Whisperers"

See also

Further reading