Someone said in response to another question "I love my horse. He is an equal and willing partner and loves to compete."
My husband is my equal and loving partner yet I do not drag him around with a lead and collar on. If I made all the decisions about what we did and how long we did it for you can be sure it wouldn't be an equal partnership. And then I imagine that if I added insult to injury and tried to train him it would probably end in divorce. In my relationship with my husband I accept who he is and love him for that, I do not try to change him as he is my equal.
So is our relationship with horses more like that of between parent and child? We make all the decisions for our children. We are there to teach our children, to reprimand them when they are wrong and to encourage them when they do something we consider to be good. Well if the relationship between horse and person is more like that then we can rule out it being an equal partnership.
So considering our relationship with horses as being more like that of a parent-child lets look at how we teach our children. Twenty years ago it used to be acceptable to have children ccanedat school and it was considered good parenting to ssmackour kids when they misbehaved. Now this form of punishment is frowned upon (in some cases as in New Zealand it is illegal to smack your kids). It is now encouraged to ignore behaviour that is undesirable and reward the behaviour that is desirable. Which is also how training horses has evolved.
Like a child a horse has to do what we say regardless. Sometimes we do things to please our children or we can bribe them to behave with sweets treats or promises. We can either say to our children that you will do this because I have said you will or we can discuss it with them and bribe them until ultimately they do what we want because we are the parents. We hold the position of authority and power. Just like we do with horses. Does this make horses willing then? Well lets take a look at our methods of communicating with our horses.
Our communication tools when training horses are our bits, bridles, legs, body, voice, whip etc.... Our method of communicating is either a series of pressure and release or a release from pressure. But how does our horse communicate with us? Is it the rearing? the bucking? the shaking of the head, tail, or kicking out of the leg? Yes, all of these things is the horse communicating to us. But we ignore its attempts to communicate and railroad it into compliance. So is the horse willing? Maybe it is sometimes. Your horse loves to jump, but in order to compete in show jumping then it must complete flatwork as well. Just like children must do their homework in order to do better at school, a horse must do its flatwork to be better at show jumping. But does this make it willing. Not alot of children willingly go to school or willingly do their homework, they would much rather hang out with their friends and eat and sleep just like horses.
As parents we love our children and make sure they know it, this is also true with our horses. We reward them with love and affection so they will grow up to be happy well adjusted adults that are secure with who they are. We do not use our children to make money or to gain rewards and prizes. It is frowned upon to exploit children in this manner. As parents it is our job to ensure that our children are safe from injury and harm. We would not put them into a position where it is likely they will have an accident and be seriously injured. The same considerations are not given to horses.
There are a million different parenting styles out there just as there are a million different horsemanship styles out there. There are the over achiever parents that push their children to participate in sports and activities against the childs will, there are laid back parents that don't care what their child does and there are parents that strive to help their children be all that they can be and support them in whatever they chose to do just as there are parents that beat and abuse their children. Same as with horse owners. But the end result is that our children grow up to become adults and are the product of their upbringing, environment/circumstances and genetics. We have children to fulfil the basic need to procreate. Here the likeness between the relationships differ. We acquire horeses to fulfil a certain purpose and train that horse to fit a mould we want. We determin what the horse will be good at by its conformation, temperment and breeding and acquire the horse that is determined to be suitable. In alot of cases if the horse is not suitable for the purpose we want it is either sold or destroyed. We don't have that luxury with our kids so this relationship can no longer be considered like a parent-child relationship.
So is your horse your friend? My friends are my equal and when we do things together they are my partners as well. I do what they want to
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