Have computer narrator Jennifer read this article to you
Vices ... a common problem for many horse owners and one that can range from being just a little frustrating to downright dangerous. While we all love our horses and the idea of what horse ownership can mean, the truth is that vices, their cause and their cure can pose quite a mystery to many of us. And to make matters even more confusing their appearance can be quite sporadic ... 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 to float load, shying, spooking, bolting etc can vary from day to day, week to week and even from person to person. I'm sure all of us know of a situation where a particular horse plays up in the hands of one person and yet never displays the very same behavior with another. Just another instance 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 horse owners, 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 that people are predators. This one simple concept is the key ingredient behind both the cause of vices and their cure. Whether we are successful in dealing with them though, all depends on how we see and respond to the actions and reactions of the horse. Do we instantly blame the horse when he plays up and reprimand him, or do we take the time and trouble to understand why he does what he does and what causes it. Because we see the world through human eyes, it's natural for us to put our own thoughts and ideas onto a horse's reactions. In this way we see many of their inappropriate behaviors as being naughty or misbehaving. Looking at the same scenario from the horse's point of view will give us a whole new perspective. Human beings - predators - have their own set of social rules by which to live. When someone steps outside these rules we see it as being bad or naughty and we use punishment of some sort to deal with it. The idea of punishment is to help us to be more accountable or responsible for our actions so we understand how what we do affects others in our society. We will instinctively use things like anger, raised voices and even physical actions like hitting, all with the background emotion of aggression .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 and requirements. Being prey animals, horses rely on the safety of the herd for survival. They can't afford to be singled out of the herd as this makes them vulnerable to attack. So even though they do have disciplinary measures, they are very keen to make amends and be allowed back into the safety of the 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 and then go back to what they were doing. They do this with assertion but without any lingering aggression. You'll see a lead horse discipline another horse in one moment and be grazing along side them in the next.
It doesn't pay a horse to display any kind of seemingly naughty or bad behavior for too long as the lead or alpha horse will simply see this as dangerous and disruptive to the herd and sort them out by reminding them of who is boss or by kicking them out of the herd. Being pushed from the herd is the last thing the horse wants so he'll quickly adopt more social manners so as to be allowed back in. Horses will only ever respond to their instincts and their environment, doing whatever it takes to survive. For the most part they are peaceful creatures and very social, the only time they will display any of the behaviors that we term vices are when they are trying to find their place in the herd or when they feel their survival is threatened. In other words, there is always a reason for their actions. If for example a horse bucks, it's not because he is being naughty, it's usually because he is afraid of the thing that is on his back and wants to get it off. If you suddenly had something on your back that you were scared and unsure of, wouldn't you try to get it off too? We'll look 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 we misunderstand them, we usually will try to reprimand the horse with a cross word, a yank on the lead rope or a smack. In this way we're responding in a way that humans or predators would with some aggression or frustration, which are predatory traits and not those of a prey animal. Nine times out of ten this only makes matters worse as horses do not understand this kind of action, they only see and feel the aggression and immediately sum us up correctly as predators which causes them to go further into survival mode. They get worse and then we respond by getting more cross and angry and pretty soon the whole situation spirals out of control into something very dangerous. Its no wonder then, that horses have developed the reputation of being dangerous and unpredictable and that so many 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 the thought process or desire to ever be naughty, we'll immediately take huge steps toward being rid of vices forever. In fact, if we take this point of view, we'll soon discover that there are no such things as vices, only horses who are needing to survive for whatever reason and humans who misunderstand their actions.
If we can learn to look at things from our horses point of view, understand why he does what he does and look at developing better relationships with our horses, we may just be surprised at how quickly many of the so called 'vices' we previously had disappear. This may not be an easy thing for us to do, as it really means that we can no longer fix the blame for our horse's bad behavior onto the horse, but rather we need to take responsibility for it upon ourselves. Only then can we begin to remedy 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.
- This article was written by Meredith Ransley