Who's Leading Whom?

"Leadership" is one of those horse training words that is tossed around all too casually, in my opinion, without really thinking about that that means. It has become a buzz word used commonly in context of how we (humans) need to be good leaders in order to train a horse. This idea of successful training depends upon building the horse's trust and confidence in our leadership abilities. And most problems are attributed to a horse's lack of "respect" or our inability to be a strong "leader" that can inspire the horse's "respect". These two concepts are intricately tied in most conversations about training.

Millions of dollars have been spent on clinics, lessons, DVDs & books which claim they can open the secret door to this idea of creating "respect". One of the most common example of how to get respect is by moving the horse around a round pen. The idea being that who moves whom indicates to the horse which creature is the leader and which is the follower. Ultimately, the "mover" is "The Leader", the being moved, by default, makes one "The Follower".

Pondering this idea of respect and leadership, I've decided this concept (that humans need to be strong leaders in order for the horse to respect us) is pretty much backassward.

In order to build the horse's trust and confidence, AND in order for them to learn to respect us, horses need humans to be good followers and keen observers. The horse needs someone who makes requests, but doesn't insist, and allows the horse to lead, by indicating if he is comfortable and confident enough to do as asked. That partnership, built on a conversation that respects & honors the horse's opinion, is one that will evolve into "respect".

Respect doesn't develop out of fear, respect develops from trust and admiration. Fear simply produces more of the same: fear. And generally, when there is fear, there is also tension & anxiety. After all, who wants to be partners with the local bully?

When we insist, (decreeing ourselves to be the leader rather than earning that position), we assume the horse is ready physically and/or emotionally for . A true partner will follow the horse's lead, letting the horse dictate when he's ready for the next step in the training progression. After all, it's his body, his mind, and who would know better than him if he's ready to carry a human on his back, jump that 3-foot fence or spin on a dime?

In my world, that makes me the follower, not the leader. I can request, but the horse must decide how he answers that request. I can't make that decision for him. If I do, I'm just asking for tension and angst. And even if it's not obvious to the casual observer, the tension and angst will bubble to the surface, it's just a matter of time.

How many times have I heard some say "he did it just fine last week, he just doesn't WANT to ".

Some days I get up in the morning with a sore back or an aching joint and doing certain tasks could cause physical damange if I did them anyway. Nothing in life is static, neither our physical or emotional states, nor those of our horses. Some days I don't want to either. But it's normally not without a reason. Can't the horse have one of those days too?

Ah, I can hear you thinking "but if I wake up in the morning and don't feel like going to work, school... (again, fill in the blank), I DO IT ANYWAY". That idea implies if humans push themselves to do things they are not physically or mentally comfortable doing, the horse should live by the same rules. Only horses aren't humans, and human rules don't apply. Force a horse to live by human rules and the human is asking for a wreck, because at some point, the horse will feel over faced, and try to avoid his discomfort and the task. According to Horse Rules, when your uncomfortable, FLEE! And generally fleeing doesn't include behaving in a way humans typically covet.

It also implies that the human is the authority on the physical, mental, and emotional boundaries & limitations of the horse. Tell that to the race horses that break down on the track each year, they don't run for their own health, but at the direction & discretion of a human.

Another common opinion is that if a person "lets a horse get away with " then the horse will always try to "get away with" not doing that task when asked in the future.

OK... being a realist here, that's dipping one's toe in the paranoid pond, isn't it? Horses just aren't really that conniving. Humans are conniving, horses are much more black and white in their thought process, they do what they are comfortable doing, they do what they enjoy, they do what comes naturally to them, they generally try to do as they are asked, IF they understand what that is, but they often don't understand. And lack of understanding isn't due to their poor communication skills, but rather the humans lack of skill conveying what they want. Horses speak "horse" just fine. If we want them to understand us, we have to present our concepts in a way that is clear to them.

So, back to the idea of leader vs follower: If I am a good follower, I suggest "can we try this?" He answers yes or no, if he answers no, he's telling me I need to back up a step or three to something less demanding. If he answers yes, he's leading me forward to the next step. If in the "next step", he tells me he's not ready after all, he's leading me to either break things down into more fundamental steps or he's telling me that he was mistaken and wasn't ready to move on after all and we need to go back to a prior step. Again, he's leading me, I'm not leading him.

In my world, this is a dance, based on communication. The bottom line is: How can we demand respect from our horse when we don't respect his opinions and concerns? A good leader needs to be able to listen, swap roles and become the follower when needed. Life is about balance. Training animals is about balance as well. Pushing an animal too far out of it's comfort zone is an accident waiting to happen. AND it's never really necessary, after all, if a whale can be taught to jump into the air and perform flips for an audience without being forced, why can't we apply the same training concepts to our horses? Of course we can...

If we face resistance in our horses, we need to look at the root cause. Where did we fail to communicate clearly? Where in our partnership together did we stop listening effectively or responding appropriately to the horse's hesitation?