Like most people, I have experienced many challenges in life. Challenges are part of life and go a long way to shaping the sort of people we will mature into. They give us life skills such as problem-solving, empathy, direction, judgement, conviction, and shape our view of the world. Challenges determine who we are and without them, we would all be different people to who we are now.
I believe it is no different for horses. Challenges shape who they are or will become. They can be major life-changing challenges such as figuring out their role in an established herd or they can be almost insignificant challenges like how to find something to scratch that annoying itch on their neck.
Horses are capable of problem-solving. They can think through and experiment with different options. Mostly this is done by trial and error because deductive reasoning and following a logical progression is not one of their strengths. So in their search for more comfort and safety, they try one of their options and then decide if it worked well enough or if they should try a different option or the same option but in a different way. For example, when tied to a post a horse might try to free itself by leaning on the rope. If that doesn’t work it might lean harder or rear back or perhaps it will try walking away at an acute angle rather than straight back. It is searching for an answer to its dilemma using trial and error.
The thing about challenges that I find some people forget is that while a challenge may cause some stress for a horse when the challenge is resolved peace and harmony return to the world and the horse is better for it. A challenge is only a problem for a horse when it is not resolved. When a horse finally learns that an approaching human with a halter and lead in their hand no longer threatens their safety and comfort, a horse no longer avoids being caught. More importantly, it no longer fears being caught.
There is a school of thought that people should not challenge their horses. It is my understanding that these people feel that if a horse says ‘No’ to our question, we should respect its decision with humility and not challenge a horse’s decision. But when a horse says ‘No’ it should not be a sign that we should back off or acquiesce. But I believe it’s an indication we have more work to do to turn that ‘No’ into ‘I’ll try’. It is not training if we do any less than work at changing the thought of the troubled horse. If we don’t use a firm ‘No’ from a horse as an opportunity to change its thoughts we are failing the horse we dragged into our life.
I want to say that there is a difference between being able to have a quiet horse because you don’t ever challenge their mental and emotional state versus a calm and quiet horse because you changed the mental and emotional state of a horse.
When we propose a new idea to a horse that it finds challenging, it is not okay or healthy for the relationship to not make its idea work out well for the horse. This is not training. This is placating. Training is helping a horse change its idea. Without changing its idea to our idea is to confuse the horse and fail to be clear why we even presented our idea in the first place. The role of training is to help our horse feel okay about going with our idea, which means making it feel less okay about its idea. Placating to avoid adding anxiety to our horse is not okay. It is not clarity. It is not good horsemanship or training.
Resolving challenges in training helps a horse mature into a confident, relaxed stable friend. They teach a horse coping skills. They teach a horse that our ideas are always good ideas and going along with them always works out well for a horse. Good training will get you to a positive place in the toughest of challenges.
I believe that training should involve working through as many challenges as practical to help a horse cope with life as a horse. For this reason, I will even invent challenges that have no practical purpose just as an excuse to grow my friendship with a horse.
Challenges are never the problem. The problem is only when a challenge remains unresolved.
