What Is Natural Horsemanship?

 Meet Ripley, one of the seven horses here at the farm

Today's post features the horses. I will discuss the horses here at the farm and do my best to explain to you an approach to horse training called 'Natural Horsemanship.' This is totally new to and AC is teaching me a lot about it.

Put simply, natural horsemanship is a way of training horses that involves using knowledge of the natural instincts of horses to train a horse. Natural horsemanship involves understanding what motivates horses and knowing how horses learn. It does not use punishment or force. Very simply stated, it is training a horse by "thinking like a horse."

Jessie is a Belgium that AC trained from being born

Natural horsemanship training is understanding that horses are prey animals. It is thought that humans hunted horses before we rode them. The fact that horses have eyes on the side of their head further proves that they are prey animals. Predators (like humans, birds of prey, and canines) have eyes on the front of our faces. Horses can see peripherally better than we can, to better survive. Along with a wider field of vision, horses have better hearing and better localization of sound in order to better survive.

Prey animals (like Dixie shown here) have eyes on the side of their head for better peripheral vision

AC trains all of her horses and trains them using natural horsemanship rather than the more traditional way of "breaking in a horse." AC sees this as "breaking their spirit." Today we took Dixie, the youngest horse in the barn out for a walk as a part of her training. The purpose of this walk is to: 

-Introduce the young horse to new things (ice, noises, new objects)

-Let them comfortable being on a lead P

-Promote the trainer (AC in this case) as the leader

-revent that horse from being "herde bound," that is, unable to be away from the other horses

-Helps the young horse gain independence.  

Taking Dixie for a walk

As I mentioned, natural horsemanship means thinking like a horse. Part of this is understanding that horses are social, herd animals. Horses find comfort and safety in their herd and (much like companies, towns, countries and our human-constructed social systems) have a hiearchy of horses with an Alpha leader being at the top. When training a horse, it is important that the trainer asserts themself as the leader. This means that they exercise their dominance over a horse, but not with force or punishment. It is by doing things like putting a bubble of space around you and the horse, and by teaching the horse to move away from pressure. For example, if you put light pressure on their side they should move sideways a few steps and if you put light pressure on their pectoral muscles (on their front) they should move backwards a step or two.

Horses are social, herd animals

Horses learn differently than people. They learn by repetition and drills. Their brains differ greatly than humans and more than just in size relative to body weight. Human brains have a larger cerebrum-the area that controls thoughts, memory, and communication. Horses have more cerebellum, which controls gross muscle coordination, balance and body functions. Body language is of utmost importance when training a horse. This is your method of communication with the horse, and so you must be able to do it well.

You must be the Alpha leader for your horse

Natural horsemanship is especially interesting to me, because the book series I'm totally into right now has a lot of information about this method of training and about the history of horses and humans' relationships. The series is Jean M. Auel's Earth Children series. My Mom introduced me to the first book for my birthday last year, and since then I have devoured book after book in the series with only a few books in between books of the series. The series takes placein Prehistoric Europe and follows one woman's journey through life and based on historical and scientific data proposes the Cro-Magnon and Neandrathal relationship. Ayla raises a horse from a very young age and is the first fictional character to ride a horse (and train it using natural horsemanship). Whether you are a horse fan or not, the series is amazing. I especially like it because I have never read a book based in this time period. Highly reccomended.

The Earth Children series presumes human and horses first relationships

 One last note about natural horsemanship before I end this post: training horses, like training dogs (and raising children?) demands great consistency. Being as consistent as possible lets the horse know what they can and can't do and lets them keep you as their Alpha leader and someone who deserves to be their leader.

Horses have different brain structure and so learn differently than humans

I'm really enjoying learning about natural horsemanship. It is teaching me a lot about aimals and humans and our place in the world of animals. It's making me consider things I have never considered and challenging me to look at animals totally differently. Feel free to comment, and by all means correct my data if it is incorrect. These are my learnings about natural horsemanship and if anyone who has experience with it has comments, I would love to hear them.

Thanks for reading and check tomorrow for some photos of some very cute duck eggs covered in Momma duck's down feathers.



Tomorrow's post will feature the ducks and Momma duck and her nest