05/09/2025
A dog trainer working with horses? What?
I’ve always had horses in my life. That was until I lost my heart horse in January 2020. I had a small break from horses since losing her and then purchased a filly in mid/late 2020. This horse was an angel. But for some reason, things just weren’t the same.
So I then took a break from owning horses from 2022 until 2025. June this year.
I then ended up with not just one youngster, but TWO, because I was lucky enough to find my own private stables.
When these horses arrived, I just applied the old school horse knowledge I knew; if the horse misbehaves, they get punished. Usually in the form of a tap or slap. (Bear in mind, horses weigh much much more than a dog so a tap or slap isn’t going to bother them too much. It’s much less worse than what an older horse would do to them in the field if they were being rude! And I’d never tap or slap a dog, because they’re much smaller, more sensitive and training principles are just different).
But… after practicing as a dog trainer who values positive reinforcement, kindness and cooperation… treating my horses in this “traditional” way felt… wrong.
So, I started training my horses in the same way I’d train dogs.
If my horse does something wrong, rather than punish I figure out WHY they’re behaving that way.
If my horse hurts me/knocks me/pushes me, I look at the situation and think about where the behaviour is stemming from. Is the horse being rude/pushy or was it genuinely an accident, they’re distracted by something, spooking at something?
For example…
The other evening I went to bring my horses in for their dinner. There was bad weather earlier in the day and my filly did not like the look of a man walking on the footpath through the field at the time I came to get her in.
Both horses were being pushy due to a combination of being unsettled by the weather, wanting their dinner and the man.
I put Xanthe’s headcollar on and Xander pushed into me once. I forgive it, it may have been a mistake. But then he did it again. So, headcollar then goes on and instead of going straight in to the stables, we walk around the field. Respectfully and calmly and we’re not going in until they stop being pushy.
Lots of walking, halting, changing direction, backing up.
Both get what I’m asking so once they’ve understood, we immediately get to go in.
Once in the yard, Xanthe starts being pushy. But Xander is being a good boy. So he gets to go in his stable and have his dinner.
Xanthe does not.
So I walk her around the yard and do the same as I did in the field. Walking, halting, changing direction, backing up.
A few times she starts trotting round me in circles. So I just stand still. Before we can move on, she’s got to stand calmly.
She does. So we walk back in the direction of her stable. She starts being pushy again.
So, now she has to stand and stop being pushy and calm down before she can go in.
She of course didnt like this lol.
She was throwing her head around, pawing at the ground, walking/trotting back and forth. And I just wait.
After around 3-5 minutes, she took a big deep breath, lowered her head and stood next to me calmly. So she immediately gets to go in her stable and have her feed.
What was good also was that she was then able to walk beside me without me leading her and was stopping when I asked and paying attention to me, my body and what I was asking.
She usually does this anyway but for her to do this after being spooky, pushy and unsettled is a big achievement, because it shows she worked through her emotions and completely understood.
What did she learn here or was I just “being mean”?
Xanthe learned that pushy behaviour or behaviour that I don’t appreciate doesnt get rewarded. She learned that it’s important to pay attention to my body and where I am. She learned that I can control the factors in her life and that respecting me = rewards.
If I was approaching this in a “traditional” horse sense, she would’ve got smacked, shouted at etc. and while I will push back into them or give them a tap if they purposefully get into my space. Shouting at her and hitting her wouldn’t solve anything. It would just make her more stressed. By giving her the time, space and support to work through the behaviour, she calmed down and was rewarded for being able to handle emotions (whether positive or negative) whilst remaining safe.
So how does this translate to dogs?
Because shouting at, hitting or stressing your dog out even more when they’re already stressed DOES NOT WORK. Your reactive dog is feeling big emotions when they’re reacting. And you need to help guide them through it. Horses in a way are sometimes easier than dogs because once they learn something once, they’ve generally learnt it forever and the behaviour will possibly only arise again in different circumstances (eg you’ve trained your horse to behave calmly around plastic bags but then they may react to tarpaulin) or if they’re in pain and their baseline for remaining calm is already reduced.
Dogs take longer to work through things because their brains are just wired differently. But the same principles still apply. It may take longer to get to the point where they exhibit the wanted behaviour, but once they HAVE exhibited it, if you build on that consistently, they then do learn very quickly.
Doing these things and training through things as soon as they arise is doing your horse/dog THE best justice you possibly can.
A horse with good ground manners will typically always find themselves in a good home. The same with dogs.
And both dogs and horses that have been taught these skills are happier, better equipped to deal with things life throws at them and their relationship with you will always be better.
