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I’m old enough to remember a time when the thing called “natural horsemanship” didn’t exist. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. In fact, for majority of the entire last century, and for centuries before, there was no such thing. The term only really came into being around the mid 1980’s, and even then, it was mostly just a term used as a marketing tool for a new training program to attract a certain demographic of horse folks who were hungry for a kinder way of being with horses.

And it worked. Next thing we knew, everybody and their brother was on the natural horsemanship bus heading for who knows where and doing who knows what with their horses, all in the name of being natural. In fact, over time, even being natural wasn’t enough. Soon the race was on to find methods so people could become the most natural, and that still goes on to this day.

It wasn’t long before natural horsemanship trainers started coming out of the woodwork armed with a round pen and some techniques done with horses that to the uneducated eye might look quite mystical. In some of these cases, for instance, horses that were deemed uncatchable were magically transformed into following the natural horsemanship trainer around the inside of the pen within minutes. All the trainer needed to do, it seemed, was chase the horse around for a while and suddenly the horse would see the error of their ways.

Not long after that terms like yielding, de-spooking, circle-driving, hooking on, joining up, latching on, tuning in, respect and disrespect, and establishing a connection all entered the natural conversation. Along with the new terms came the new tools. Special neck ropes, lead ropes, flags, sticks, halters, slobber straps, even unique saddles and bridles, just to name a few, began showing up in the natural horsemanship world.

Next up came the speed at which certain training techniques were expected to be accomplished, and for the most part, the faster the better. After all, the quicker you could get things done with a horse the more proficient you were at “talking horse” and of course, being natural. It even got to the point where instead of taking days, weeks, or even months to get a horse properly started under saddle, there were some natural horsemen who were getting it done in a half hour or less.

It eventually got to where trainers could fill stadiums and coliseums with fans and even the curious onlooker who had come to watch the “natural” magic. Ironically, it may have never occurred to many of the folks in the stands just how completely unnatural such a situation would be for the horse with which the trainer was working.

While the idea of being natural when working with horses is a noble endeavor indeed, I would propose that regardless of how “natural” we believe we are, there is really no such thing when it comes to the horse. For instance, if we keep our horse in an enclosure of any kind, whether it’s a twelve-by-twelve stall or a 2500-acre pasture, just being in that enclosure is unnatural to the horse. Horses are designed to roam freely in established herds over vast expanses of territory. Any enclosure we put them in provides limitations on what they should naturally be doing. In fact, the smaller the enclosure, the more unnatural it is to them.

We can take this a step further and recognize that the way we groom them, the way we take care of their teeth, the way we take care of their feet, the way we feed them, in some cases what we feed them, the way we water them, the way we castrate the males, any and all tack we use with them, them getting in and out of a trailer, riding, driving, catching, petting, you name it; it’s all unnatural to the horse. In fact, it could even be said that us interacting with them in the first place is not only unnatural to them, but to us as well.

It’s even a sad fact that some of the worst damage to horses that I’ve seen over the years was done in the name of so-called natural horsemanship. Much of this damage was done unintentionally by well-meaning owners who were simply following instructions put forth by one natural training program or another. In other cases, experienced horse people were unable to get the results they were seeking using the techniques they were taught and so they simply kept upping the pressure without release until the horse’s behavior due to a lack of understanding would become dangerous, the horse would shut down, or in some of the worst cases, they ended up in a state of learned helplessness.

All this to say that just because something is deemed natural doesn’t always mean it’s good. Hurricanes are natural. So are tornados, blizzards, rattle snakes, hemlock, apex predators, rip tides, arsenic, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, I feel the idea of natural horsemanship often falls into that category as well.

Personally, I feel a good place to start when talking about horsemanship is acknowledging the reality that nothing we do with horses is natural to them. They live by a completely different set of rules than we do, and just because they’re amenable enough to accept us into their world doesn’t give us the right to take advantage of their good nature.

Good horsemanship, regardless of discipline, is nothing if not having the willingness and then making the effort to understand the horse as an animal first, and then as a partner second. In doing so the things that are important to the horse often become abundantly apparent. This in turn helps to illuminate the best path forward for us both to be able to learn together. When that happens, our focus can shift from being task oriented to being conversation oriented.

For instance, we can begin with the idea that our horse will always be asking us two questions: “Am I safe?” and “What are we doing?” And then understanding that if we don’t answer the first question in the affirmative, the second question doesn’t matter.

Knowing that one simple thing can go a long way to heading off most unwanted issues that often come up between us and our horses. In other words, getting to know our horse well enough to recognize where the ceiling of their ability to learn is, and then being able to briefly touch that ceiling while teaching something new without taking them so far outside of it that they can’t get back. This can not only help keep them from slipping into a state of unmanageable worry but also keep them in an engaged and learning frame of mind.

Building trust comes when horses understand that we won’t push them past the point of concern and into a state from which they can’t recover. The more consistent and precise we can be with our communication, the easier it is for our horses to understand and respond correctly to a request. The more inconsistent and undefined our requests, the more worry around requests our horse is bound to develop.

I think it’s important for us to understand that much of what we see in the natural horsemanship world is derived from a combination of traditional horsemanship, opinion, made up theories, clever marketing, catchy axioms, and often certain specific training tools deemed a necessity. What a lot of natural horsemanship is missing is scientific data backing up many of its claims.

Back in the day, all people had to go on was the word of the natural horsemanship trainer that what they were saying and doing was the best thing for the horse. Of course, people also latched onto the seemingly amazing results the trainers achieved with horses. But unfortunately, those results sometimes came at a high cost for the horse.

Granted, back in the day solid scientific research that could help us understand how horses perceive the world around them and the effects that certain training and handling methods have on their mental and emotional wellbeing was all but nonexistent. As a result, folks really had no choice but to take the natural horsemanship trainer at their word. But that’s not the case anymore.

Today, the latest in scientific research on equine brain function, behavior, and wellbeing is just a click away on our computer or smart phone. Better yet, there are professionals like our good friend and neuroscientist Dr. Steve Peters offering extremely well researched equine neuroscience information in his books and seminars, much of which clearly debunks a lot of what we believed to be accurate information in the past.

Crissi and I have been collaborating with Dr. Peters for going on ten years now. I can confidently say that the neuroscience aspect of the information he imparts can be quite eye opening. Perhaps even more important are the relatively simple changes we can all make from a scientific standpoint that, if we take them to heart, can help improve our relationship with our horses.

I’ve already mentioned a few of these things, like understanding the horse’s window of tolerance, the horse looking to us for safety, and being consistent and precise with our cues and aids. But there are other equally and even more important elements as well. Not the least of these is the way the horse’s brain is designed, they are unable to understand abstract concepts such as right or wrong, good or bad, respect or disrespect.

This is important for us to understand because as anybody who has been involved in the natural horsemanship world knows, one of the main pillars of a lot of natural horsemanship is doing things to the horse designed to gain their respect – something the research clearly shows they are incapable of understanding.

Another interesting piece of information is that sometimes, when horses are under an uncharacteristic amount of stress, they may be completely unable to access information for previously well learned behavior. It’s one of the reasons horses who perform seemingly flawlessly in comfortable environments will suddenly act as though they’ve forgotten everything they know when their stress level goes up in an unfamiliar environment.

Similarly, a horse that learns a particular task under stress is likely to go back into a stressful state anytime they are asked to repeat that task in the future. That doesn’t just mean the next few times they are asked to perform the task, but every time they are asked and potentially for the rest of their life. Especially if the horse isn’t helped to feel better about it as soon as it’s recognized.

As I’ve already mentioned, there is nothing at all wrong with wanting to be as natural as possible when working with our horses. It’s a great place to start working on our communication skills with them. I also want to be clear that not everything that has come out of the natural horsemanship world is necessarily bad or detrimental. It’s not.

But I also believe that as mindful horse people we have a responsibility to hold our beliefs up to the light from time to time. In doing so we should be willing to challenge those beliefs, especially if something between us and our horses doesn’t look or feel right.

It really is an amazing time for horse people right now. At possibly no other time in history has so much thoroughly researched and peer-reviewed equine neuroscience information been available to us. It’s the kind of information that can either confirm that what we’re doing is good for the horse, or it can debunk some of the things we’re being asked to believe or do.

In the end, I’m not sure how we can be any more natural with our horses than to look to what science tells us about how they see and experience the world and then use that information to help inform everything we do with them as we move forward together.

We bought a new horse the other day. It wasn’t something we planned to do. One of our clinic horses, Sunny, the horse who is on the cover of “A Horse’s Life,” tore a deep digital flexor tendon back in March and is out of commission for at least six more months.

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One of the most frequent requests I get is to explain my version of what softness is in horsemanship. We’ve already talked about the idea of a rider developing internal softness in previous posts, so today I thought I’d offer what I see as the overall physical aspects of softness in both horse and rider.

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In my previous post, I mentioned a couple of powerful traits that we can develop to help horses who are struggling with gaps in their foundational training. These were the development of both a quiet mind and internal softness. I also mentioned that while these are relatively simple concepts, they aren’t necessarily easy to implement. The reason for thi…

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A few years ago, I was doing some private lessons between clinics at a venue on the east coast. I had already worked with a couple horses when just before lunch a woman named Ann came in with a twenty-two-year-old gelding she called Chance. Chance had been her daughter’s horse until the daughter went off to college and because the gelding had just been …

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A few years back I was a guest on my friend Warwick Shiller’s podcast. It was great to catch up with him and to get a chance to visit about this and that. Toward the end of the interview, he asked me a question he asks a lot of his guests, which was: “What was the biggest/worst mistake you ever made when working with a horse.”

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Willful ignorance: the intentional and deliberate avoidance of facts, information, or evidence, usually to maintain pre-existing beliefs, avoid uncomfortable truths, or escape taking responsibility.

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We recently finished a clinic in which I had the opportunity to work with two horses that were deemed hard to catch by their owners. With no round pen available, we worked with both horses on separate days in a rectangular grassy pen adjacent to the arena where the clinic was being held. The pen measured about 50x100 feet.

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In my previous post I mentioned that I don’t use the word dominance when it comes to my work with horses, and explained why. We received quite a bit of feedback on the post with some agreeing, some saying they would be more thoughtful about the words they use going forward, and one person asking an important question: Isn’t some dominance necessary when…

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I was recently a guest on a friend’s podcast in which we were visiting about all things horses. The discussion was fun and friendly and toward the end while we were talking about various ideas on training, he brought up what he saw as the importance for the human to be dominant over horses when working with them. I had to stop and think about that for a…

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