Positive Dominance

Working with horses is all about energy and being able to control energy. Energy equals focus, direction, intention, speed, movement and the ability to control where you send it. Many people seem to be afraid of dominating their horse. They want the horse to like them and they don’t want to upset the horse, lose connection or seem abusive. I get all that.

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But positive dominance has nothing to do with abuse. Have you ever been around a person that was just confident in what they were doing and gave you direction in a firm yet kind way? I bet it didn’t feel like abuse, it probably felt comforting, calming, like they knew what they were doing. It probably fostered respect and trust in you. That’s what positive control/dominance between people and horses should feel like.

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Whomever is being submissive is still in control. They simply choose to give the power and decision making over to you because they trust and respect that you know best and have their best interest at heart. That’s what positive dominance is.

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There is no such thing as negative control. You either have control or you don’t. When a horse chooses to relinquish control and give it to you, they are submitting to you as a more dominant leader than them. They have hierarchy in the herd, so why would we expect them to not need it when they are together with us? They are looking for safety. Safety doesn’t mean that you let them do whatever they want so that you can avoid stepping on anyone’s toes. This just results in a badly behaved horse and can be quite dangerous.

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Would you drive your car if it didn’t do what you wanted it to do? I sure hope not. Yes, a horse is a living breathing animal with its own feelings, so therefore you listen to it, you work with it, but you don’t let it decide whether to go left or right, stop or go, misbehave or behave. You set the rules and then you positively reinforce the horse when he does what you want. Sometimes you need to correct the horse if he doesn’t do what you want. There are consequences in life for everything. If a teenager acts up, they need to be told not to do that, otherwise they will just do it again and again. When they do the right thing, they should be rewarded. This is a behavioral method called shaping.

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You shape a behavior towards something desirable. When the teenager or horse does the right thing and gets rewarded for it, they will in most cases want to do that thing again to get the next reward. This is where I feel that humans sometimes go wrong when training horses. They forget to reward every time, or they forget to correct. When a horse doesn’t know what’s right/desired or wrong/not desired then they just make up their own rules and it doesn’t benefit anyone. We can’t be unpredictable as trainers/leaders, because then we are not creating positive dominance. There’s a process - to make this process easy, let’s define it as:?

Ask (this means we ask the horse to do something with light aids/low volume)

Tell (this means we ask with more energy/more volume)

Make (this means that we do what we have to do until we get the desired result/we turn up the volume even more)

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All of this is about energy and volume. If the horse, for example, is very lazy and not paying attention, we can evaluate his energy as a 1 out of 10. To get him moving we “ask” him by giving him a cue. But if we ask him at a volume 1, then he will probably ignore us. So, we have to ask him around volume 2 or 3. If you ask him by upping your volume to a 10 then you are out of sync and will scare him.

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If after asking him at a 2-3 he still doesn’t respond, then you “tell” him by upping your body language volume/energy to a 4-6. This should cause him to move. If it does, you can turn your volume back down again to simply maintain the movement and that in itself is a reward. If he still ignores you at a 6, then you can go to 8-10 in volume and now he will definitely move! But, the point here is that you gave him several options to respond to a softer cue before you up the volume to a stronger cue.

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Nagging is a common problem. A person will ask the horse again and again using the same volume, around 1-2, and so the horse continues to ignore them or puts in very little effort, which in return makes the person nag even more. Eventually the horse goes dead to the cue and the evil cycle continues.

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Have you ever had someone nag you? It’s real annoying. You get tired, stressed out, unwilling, lazy, bored, maybe even angry. It’s not a successful way to train. I think perhaps we are afraid of causing pain or discomfort, so we try to cause as little as possible. Instead, we should aim for causing it for as short a “time” as possible.

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When you nag you are causing almost constant discomfort that the horse just learns to tolerate. When you give a stronger cue that gets you what you want and then back off, now the horse gets a break and is allowed to work by himself, which is pleasurable.

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So, here’s today’s challenge:?

Practice the process of being a positive dominant leader. Be clear on what you want and use your body language energy as a volume button that you turn up and down to get the result you want. Practice asking, and if you get what you want back off and reward the horse. If you don’t then practice moving on to telling and eventually making.

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Don’t be afraid to clearly communicate this way, it’s much more successful and impactful than nagging. Stand firm in your boundaries and believe in yourself as a positive leader.

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Ride With Lightness

Celie

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