03/11/2025
What an excellent post for empathetic horse people. When it comes to horse training, āNoā doesnāt have to be the end of the conversation, or the beginning of a fight.
It can be, as Emotional Horsemanship by Lockie Phillips says, an invitation to become more clear.
In your effort to teach your horse that they have freedom to come and go, be careful you do not teach them to go, as a default.
It is very easy, to train a horse to Say No.
It is hard to earn a horses Yes.
Piggy backing on the most recent post about showing up for horses in our ability to allow them to disagree, I wish to add a very important element of nuance here. A nuance I think many modern horse people, almost wholesale, trip up on and have no idea.
Every single new thing we encounter causes discomfort. Discomfort is not distress. So if the term discomfort makes you distressed, I would like to gently affirm, that your understanding of discomfort may require some reflection and growth.
Present a horse a new thing. Something they have never seen before or done before. A horse who is confident in their handler will likely approach the new thing, while also being wary of the new thing. This is discomfort.
Discomfort is DRASTICALLY important to the brain. Without it, the brain actually atrophies. Discomfort is when the brain exits their comfort zone (things the brain knows and is familiar with) and begins to quickly lay down new connections. Like pouring concrete to make strong foundations. The more regular the neurological discomfort, the stronger the brain builds its wiring. You actually get smarter.
This comes up in horse training anytime we show a horse a new skill.
Let's take the mounting block for example. I am a big believer in raising green and inexperienced horses around trained horses. So that they can watch their buddies sidle up to a mounting block without drama or concern, and receive a rider, (of course if riding is appropriate). So when that horses turn comes to learn about the mounting block, they at least have seen it done before.
But imagine a horse who has never seen a mounting block, or never seen a horse mounted before. You are essentially introducing a totally alien procedure.
I would like you to imagine you have never seen a car before, or didn't know cars existed. And one day, someone puts you in the drivers seat. You don't have ANY CONCEPT about what comes next.
I want us to remember, that many horses HAVE NO CONCEPT about what is the next step in their training, even when you do.
So, we need to,
1. Introduce each new element in baby steps.
2. Offer plenty of processing time (but not too much, more on that in a moment).
3. Have a solid base the horse is comfortable with, and never hesitate to return to it if discomfort becomes distress.
The problem is, many horses, most horses, will reject new concepts. The more naturally embodied they are, the more likely their first answer- to everything -will be NO.
This is especially true for horses whom their first contact with people was violent.
They will say No to most if not ALL new concepts we introduce as a general rule.
If you take their No, and always say, OK. You teach them that No is the answer. Always. Yes, never becomes a concept. Ever.
And then we tell a story about consent.
Consent means: (Old French- Middle English) Con- together. Sentire- Feel. Together Feel.
So long as the horse is feeling together of and with you, and you are feeling together of and with the horse... proceed.
Horses absolutely will give us a No, often as an invitation to continue with more clarity. Often horses say NO to our trepidation and lack of confidence or our emotional blockages. And because we are not aware, we think they said NO to the task we asked them to try. They are likely willing to try the task, but would like it without second helpings of their handlers emotional projections.
I want people to know that consent in horsemanship is a nuanced field of study with many moving parts and complexities.
And for very good reasons, many of us have muddied the Consent-Based waters with Human-Centric issues of consent. Which are much more cut and dried. No is No. As a survivor myself of SA, I take human-world consent issues very seriously and unambiguously.
But a domestic horse is not a wild horse. They are not free to leave, entirely.
They are held to us for food.
Shelter.
Care.
They are held to us as stewards tasked with answering the on-going questions our horses have about domesticity.
And many elements of living in domesticity require the horses co-operation, even if they do not like doing the thing. This is an uncomfortable truth for many people today. A "Duh!" moment for many others, others who have no issue saying to a horse...
"My love, the decision has been made for you. We have to do this now. Let us feel-together with each other as we get this over and done with please".
The next level of nuance, WHAT is it, that we are asking them to do, is ACTUALLY a necessity?
You get to decide whats a necessity for your case.
And each concept you present to your horse may require different spectrums of consent conversations where differing levels of objection are taken into account. How much objection from the horse would be enough to de-rail the training and bring it to a halt? How much of the horses perceived objection, is not because they don't want to do it or don't like it, rather because they simply do not know it.
Remember: A horse that "Does Not Know The Thing", will behave in almost identical fashion to the horse that "Knows The Thing And Has Declined To Do The Thing".
And the horse in a declination state, can often be stuck there, until a trainer skilled enough in earning trust comes along, and has the confidence and staying power and horse-sense, to actually ask them to try it again, even in spite of themselves. To discover that they actually CAN do it. And DO like it... now. Even if they didn't like it before.
Remember folks, it is not simplistic stuff. Beware of simplistic notions around these subjects, it leads us to dead-end streets with Horsemanship labelled "Kind", when it is actually just a dysfunctional non-starter. Misguided and Idealistic notions from folks at sea on the realities at play.
