02/12/2025
Some kind of logic there.
too funny.
One of my rules of horse training is that we should expect horses to act like horses and not punish them for it.
The “if you spook it, you wear it as a hat” trend is problematic because it’s full of videos where people just fasten objects their horses are afraid of directly to them without desensitizing.
The horse then proceeds to panic until they go into a freeze response and just stop moving.
This isn’t training. It’s spectating.
All the person does in that situation is stand there and watch their horse try to escape something and wait to create a learned helpless response.
It’s not to say you can’t slowly and systematically desensitize until your horse CAN wear something as a hat.
But, this phrase has implied a level of speed in training such desensitization that has resulted in a lot of videos of incredibly lazy and unfair training.
We should expect horses to spook.
They’re horses. They’re flight animals.
It’s part of training them.
Responding to those spooks like it’s some massive inconvenience and unfairness isn’t fair to the horse.
Take your time training.
Show your horse that the thing they spooked at is not scary through slowly acclimating them to it and keeping anxiety low until they’re comfortable with it.
Don’t flood them by essentially chasing them with whatever they’re scared of until they realize they can’t get away.
When we flood horses, they never learn that the thing isn’t scary. They just learn they can’t get away and they shutdown and stop responding.
This doesn’t make horses safer. It can create ticking time bombs.
Proper desensitization is so so important and when it’s being done properly, the horse shouldn’t be exhibiting any major flight behaviours.
If they are, it’s a sign you’re moving too fast and creating way too much fear.
The goal of proper desensitization is to teach horses to be comfortable with things that they were previously afraid of.
Logically, you don’t escalate their anxiety response by chasing them with the thing first.
Creating more fear first when the goal is less of a fear response makes no sense.
So, go SLOW.
Flooding and learned helplessness =\= systematic desensitization