10/27/2024
The Dominance Discussion brought up a big question of, "Respect". What is it? How much does it matter in horse training?
If you go on ANY natural horsemanship page and ask why your horse is doing something, or not doing something, the answers is always "your horse doesn't respect you". But what does that mean? How do we get that respect? Chasing them around a round pen? How does this work behaviorally?
The truth is "RESPECT" is a human construct.
Constructs are "an idea or theory containing various conceptual elements, typically one considered to be subjective and not based on empirical evidence". Respect is conceptual, subjective, and not tangible. It can't be measured or weighed or tested or proven. It's a combination of behaviors and emotions, which varies individually, when and how we feel "respected".
Horses do not have constructs. Horses don't learn in constructs. Horses learn behaviors, their emotions are elicited and classically conditioned with new things. They have deeply complex emotions, but they do not have the same constructs as we do. If we see a horse showing "respect" to another horse, this is a human interpretation of a horse social dynamic, with a lot of added assumptions!
This word covers a big BLURRY list of behaviors and emotions and ideas and concepts. So rather than using this big blurry word to describe everything you're seeing (or not seeing), and rather than using this word as an excuse to justify the use of force or punishment, Break It Down. Break it down into its component parts, behaviors and emotions, then create those.
What is associated with "respect" behaviorally speaking?
I find "respect" isn't so much doing a specific behavior, but how well they listen. Responding to cues promptly and correctly, waiting patiently for cues... wait a minute that sounds familiar - STIMULUS CONTROL!!! Behaviorally speaking "Respect"=Stimulus Control on cues. For those who don't know, when we train a behavior, whether with R+ or R-, when we finish a behavior we put it on stimulus control and "proof it". The four rules of SC are: The behavior happens every time it's cued. The behavior doesn't occur without a cue. The behavior doesn't happen with any other cue or situation. No other behavior happens with this cue.
The only other behavioral representation I can think of for "respect" is personal space, which is interesting, because horses have a blurry line around personal space. They value their personal space with peers they don't like and will defend it forcefully. But with peers they do like, personal space tends to disappear. Horses show CARE (the emotion) through huddling together in weather, using each other's tails for fly protection, etc...
But "respect" has an emotional component as well. I think if I ask 10 people what emotion they find synonymous with "respect" I would get 50 different answers ;) Among them might be, admiration, appreciation, regard, devotion, fear, concern, revere, dignity, esteem, honor, favor, worship, adore, awe...
That's a LOT of feelings. But let's stop and think now, what relationship do you want with your horse? Do you want a relationship founded in Fear/Avoidance? The horse working to avoid you/your cues? Your horse working to make you STOP or go away? Do you want fear-based "respect", with a worship-like, devotion, subordination? Or do you want Care-based "respect", with appreciation, regard, adoration? Where the horse seeks out good things, you being the core-provider of all the good things?
Consider this as you train, train the behaviors you want and elicit the emotions you want. Whether you train with R+ or gentle R-, training with clear communication, careful and appropriate stimulus control, can create all the behaviors we associate with "respectfulness". But how we elicit the emotions we want in our relationship is going to come down to what we add to the relationship, the classical conditioning of it all. Are we adding things that elicit good feeling emotions for the horses? Comfort, care, safety, satiation, social security? Or avoidance, anxiety, discomfort, irritation, frustration?
