Horse Information - Aussie Horsemen

Vices ... a common problem for many horse owners and one that can range from beingjust a little frustrating to downright dangerous. While we all love our horses and the idea of whathorse ownership can mean, the truth is that vices, their cause and their cure can pose quite amystery to many of us. And to make matters even more confusing their appearance can be quitesporadic ... from very obviously in evidence one day to non existent the next.

The advent of vices like biting, bucking, rearing, barging, being difficult to catch, refusing tofloat load, shying, spooking, bolting etc can vary from day to day, week to week and even fromperson to person. I’m sure all of us know of a situation where a particular horse plays up in thehands of one person and yet never displays the very same behavior with another. Just anotherinstance for us to throw our hands in the air in exasperation!

Over the coming months we’ll take a look at some of the most common vices, their causes and how to‘fix’ them. And while fixing vices is certainly high on the list of priorities for many horseowners, the one common denominator for all vices and their cures is the way in which we view them …or in other words, our attitudes toward vices.

Many of us these days understand or have at least heard, that horses are prey animals and thatpeople are predators. This one simple concept is the key ingredient behind both the cause of vicesand their cure. Whether we are successful in dealing with them though, all depends on how we see andrespond to the actions and reactions of the horse. Do we instantly blame the horse when he plays upand reprimand him, or do we take the time and trouble to understand why he does what he does andwhat causes it. Because we see the world through human eyes, it’s natural for us to put our ownthoughts and ideas onto a horse’s reactions. In this way we see many of their inappropriatebehaviors as being naughty or misbehaving. Looking at the same scenario from the horse’s point ofview will give us a whole new perspective.

Human beings - predators - have their own set of social rules by which to live. When someone stepsoutside these rules we see it as being bad or naughty and we use punishment of some sort to dealwith it. The idea of punishment is to help us to be more accountable or responsible for our actionsso we understand how what we do affects others in our society. We will instinctively use things likeanger, raised voices and even physical actions like hitting … all with the background emotion ofaggression.

Horses also have guidelines by which to live, however these are the guidelines of a prey animal,quite different to those of a predator, so they have a completely different set of social needs andrequirements. Being prey animals, horses rely on the safety of the herd for survival. They can’tafford to be singled out of the herd as this makes them vulnerable to attack. So even though they dohave disciplinary measures, they are very keen to make amends and be allowed back into the safety ofthe herd once its over. They also don’t want to attract the attention of their enemies - predators -and for this reason they will do what they need to do to stress a point, i.e. bite, kick etc andthen go back to what they were doing. They do this with assertion but without any lingeringaggression. You’ll see a lead horse discipline another horse in one moment and be grazing along sidethem in the next. It doesn’t pay a horse to display any kind of seemingly naughty or bad behaviorfor too long as the lead or alpha horse will simply see this as dangerous and disruptive to the herdand sort them out by reminding them of who is boss or by kicking them out of the herd. Being pushedfrom the herd is the last thing the horse wants so he’ll quickly adopt more social manners so as tobe allowed back in.

Horses will only ever respond to their instincts and their environment, doing whatever it takes tosurvive. For the most part they are peaceful creatures and very social, the only time they willdisplay any of the behaviors that we term vices are when they are trying to find their place in theherd or when they feel their survival is threatened. In other words, there is always a reason fortheir actions. If for example a horse bucks, it’s not because he is being naughty, it’s usuallybecause he is afraid of the thing that is on his back and wants to get it off. If you suddenly hadsomething on your back that you were scared and unsure of, wouldn’t you try to get it off too? We’lllook at more examples in greater detail in future articles over the coming months.

When our horse displays some of these behaviors around us, like biting and kicking, and wemisunderstand them, we usually will try to reprimand the horse with a cross word, a yank on the leadrope or a smack. In this way we’re responding in a way that humans or predators would … with someaggression or frustration, which are predatory traits and not those of a prey animal. Nine timesout of ten this only makes matters worse as horses do not understand this kind of action, they onlysee and feel the aggression and immediately sum us up correctly as predators which causes them to gofurther into survival mode. They get worse and then we respond by getting more cross and angry andpretty soon the whole situation spirals out of control into something very dangerous. Its no wonderthen, that horses have developed the reputation of being dangerous and unpredictable and that somany people get hurt, or worse, around them everyday.

All because of the way in which we view what horses do.

If we can understand that all a horse will ever do is be a horse and know that they do not have thethought process or desire to ever be naughty, we’ll immediately take huge steps toward being rid ofvices forever. In fact, if we take this point of view, we’ll soon discover that there are no suchthings as vices, only horses who are needing to survive for whatever reason and humans whomisunderstand their actions.

If we can learn to look at things from our horses point of view, understand why he does what he doesand look at developing better relationships with our horses, we may just be surprised at how quicklymany of the so called ‘vices’ we previously had disappear. This may not be an easy thing for us todo, as it really means that we can no longer fix the blame for our horse’s bad behavior onto thehorse, but rather we need to take responsibility for it upon ourselves. Only then can we begin toremedy the problem and move beyond our day to day struggle to stay safe and have a reasonable ride,to achieving all we ever dreamed was possible with horses.

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