Check out the previous text about training in the My Horse-tips page. 

Horses welfare and training

Anyone who looks after or trains horses does well in keeping the Five Domains of animal welfare in mind, as well as the 10 principles of ISES. 

Horses are very smart and sensitive animals but they have different cognitive abilities to humans. It is important to try to understand the nature of our horses as best we can, and how they learn. As flight animals certain things like closed spaces, or tight reins can trigger claustrophobic reaction. We need to consider and respect horses natural behaviour and treat them accordingly. The Five Domains and the 10 principles of ISES  give a good basis for all horse people.

 

When starting the training of a young horse it is important to understand the behaviour science of horses so that you can expect the reactions an untrained horse will show you.

A few examples, of simple facts that are important to know and understand, and that the above mentioned 5 Domains and 10 Principles also reflect, are for instance;

1: The horse is a flight animal and would rather run away from potential danger than to stick around and wait to see what happens.

2: Horses are very social animals and hate being alone.

3: Because the horse is a flight animal it has a natural claustrophobic reaction to anything that can delay the flight.

4: A horse has very different vision than us humans, with very wide angle but poor dept perception.

5: The stomach is small and needs to be fed several times a day.

6: Grass and hay are the best foods for a horse, not grain!

 

The better you understand the horse from a horse perspective, like knowing how its senses work and how it’s perception of its surrounding differs from ours, the better chance you have of getting the horse to cooperate for you.

To have yet a better chance of succeeding you’ll also need to have certain knowledge of the biomechanics to understand how the body of the horse works and what we can do to improve its capacity to carry us with the most ease and balance possible. Understanding why a relaxed top-line of a horse is important for instance, is an essential part of training as well as having good balance ourselves in a straight seat with the legs under our centre of gravity.