Respect

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Olliepoppy

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I've had my boy for 3 months now and have been working on gaining his respect as his 'herd leader'. In all the articles I read it says that if you walk up to your horse confidently he should move away if he sees you as his leader. I could walk right into him and he would just look at me! I can get him to back up without touching him (most of the time) and he mainly walks by my side now instead of his initial barging across me. Is there anything I should be doing to get more respect? Does it matter too much if he doesn't move away from my approach? Thanks in advance for any thoughts :)
 
The word respect has different connotations, a) it can be perceived as a right, an unquestioning submission or b) it can be seen as a mutual deference, yeilding to the wishes of the other out of a mutual regard.

We all see the first type of owner who demands obedience without consideration. These are the people that tend to get injured. You have the second type of approach, which produces a sane and loyal type of horse by developing a partnership.
Just make it clear to him what you expect. If yo want him to back up, use pressure on his chest and say, 'go back'. Be consistent, do it every time to approach. He'll then learn to back up with a voice command and progress to backing up without instruction, if you do it every time.

It really doesn't matter if he stands still when you approach, it's not disrespectful, though it is handy when entering the stable or feeding which when I ask mine to move away. Other than that, they stay still and I give them a rub or kiss a nose.
 
Thanks dogatemysalad, he reverses to the command 'back up' and a wave of the hand. If we are walking side by side I can wave at him to reverse if he starts to get ahead of me so he has come a long way from the initial running me over. You read so much conflicting information that it's hard to know how you are doing. I also had an incident with him yesterday where my partner was holding a tub of carrots and Zak was mugging him for them. When I got inbetween to get him to back up out of my partners space he tolerated it for a few seconds then turned and bucked right at us. It could've been a nasty accident but luckily we were both just out of reach. I think this has made me wonder about respect as I wasn't expecting it. Maybe it was nothing more than him telling me he was p****d off he wasn't getting to the carrots...!
 
I may be reading your post wrong but I would worry if my horses moved away from me when I walked up to them, I would expect mine to stand and only move when I asked them to. Totally agree with dogatemysalad's post.
 
Princess Rosie said:
I may be reading your post wrong but I would worry if my horses moved away from me when I walked up to them, I would expect mine to stand and only move when I asked them to. Totally agree with dogatemysalad's post.
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This. Also, dogatemysalad's post is excellent.

The horse turning and bucking is telling you something...don't give it the opportunity to do that. Ask yourself is it fair to stand close to a horse with a bucket of carrots and not let him have any? That's asking for trouble. No...a horse shouldn't kick out like that, but we have to be careful not to create bad situations. xx
 
Olliepoppy said:
Thanks dogatemysalad, he reverses to the command 'back up' and a wave of the hand. If we are walking side by side I can wave at him to reverse if he starts to get ahead of me so he has come a long way from the initial running me over. You read so much conflicting information that it's hard to know how you are doing. I also had an incident with him yesterday where my partner was holding a tub of carrots and Zak was mugging him for them. When I got inbetween to get him to back up out of my partners space he tolerated it for a few seconds then turned and bucked right at us. It could've been a nasty accident but luckily we were both just out of reach. I think this has made me wonder about respect as I wasn't expecting it. Maybe it was nothing more than him telling me he was p****d off he wasn't getting to the carrots...!
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I think you're doing a great job with him and he sounds lovely, however, holding a tub of carrots in front of him was a mistake really. Yes, you could expect him to wait patiently, but is it fair ?
He started mugging for the carrots- in horse thinking, that's quite a sensible thing to do. In human thinking, its rude.
His reaction to you stepping in front, shows how far your training has come. He stopped.
Then he got frustrated as his chances of having the goodies seemed unlikely. Poor boy :)
He then turned his back on you and bucked. Very naughty. Not dangerous though, he did it as an expression of frustration, if he intended on kicking you, believe me, he would have. He deliberately didn't hurt you, but he was rude. My response would have been a loud growl and a quick sharp slap with a lead rope to lay the boundaries of what it acceptable and what isn't.
I'd also promise him that in future, I'll be fair with the carrots.
 
Awww thanks dogatemysalad, there's some really fair points there! He is lovely just young, not had the best of starts and can be very pushy. Not having owned a horse before I'm not that confident in what I'm getting right and what I'm getting wrong. This site is proving invaluable in helping me with that! I totally take on board your thoughts on the carrots. I usually leave them out of the field until we are finished for the night or have some in a fanny pack when doing groundwork with him. It's a mistake I won't make again. I did tell him off for bucking and then he stood with his head down, said sorry and we made up :)
 
Good luck with him, he sounds like a diamond in the making. My former trainer, who had worked with the best international eventers said to me once, 'you know, I prefer privately owned horses with some character in them, some of our best horses have the character trained out of them.'
Don't worry about getting everything right, you won't. All you can do is to be fair and I think you are.
 
This is one of the issues with trainers who say you need to get respect from your horse :)

They talk about "moving the feet", and "acting like a herd leader" and give a whole range of behaviours your horse will do to show they respect you. However, they also teach you to train your horse to do these things - to step back from you when requested, to move sideways from a touch, to maintain a polite distance... If you train all these things effectively, what you have is a well trained horse. Respect is irrelevant, training is paramount.

However, because you can't measure or train "respect", sometimes you hit issues where there's no actual training history, and this is where the respect theory falls down. If the things you do somehow engender respect, your horse will automatically know the polite thing to do in all situations -so even if you haven't trained your horse to move away when you approach (again, no idea why you'd want that - I like my horses to either come when called and stop a safe distance away, or to wait while I approach, depending on what I ask them to do) if they have "respect" for you they will miraculously know to do it if you want it.

If, however, "respect" isn't something that exists, your horse will continue to do what you trained him to do, and to do what a normal horse does in situations where you haven't trained anything. If you want your horse to move away when you approach, train them to do that - but remember when they do, it's not respect, it's training.

And possibly have a read of some authors who know about horse behaviour and don't use vague and impossible to define terms like "respect" - because after all that training, don't you feel a bit down that somehow, you haven't magically earned your horse's respect? Instead, congratulate yourself that you have learned lots about training a horse, and have trained your horse very nicely to behave in a predictable and safe manner around people :) "Respect" as a concept sets you up to fail, because there actually isn't a magic thing that means your horse will always know what to do - so instead of waiting for it to happen and wondering what you've not done, concentrate on training the things you want and feeling good at how far you've come!

Lauren Fraser's blog is always a good place to start reading... http://goodhorsemanship.ca/dominant-horse/
 
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Thank you Brightbay, you're right, there is so much about moving the feet and acting like herd leader. I am the only horsey person I know so other than my riding instructor who I see once a fortnight I don't have anything else to go on other than what I read. That's why this site is helping so much, it's great to get real peoples views and not just those who want you to buy expensive bits of training equipment. I will check out Lauren Fraser's blog as you have suggested. Thanks again.
 
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