The only time aggression is good/ needed is if it’s a particularly dominant, pushy, or aggressive horse who ignores all soft warnings and increasing pressure or one who wants to try their luck woth a bite etc.
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i would counter that starting a horse without aggressives won’t produce this.
Oh my bossy mare is a biter when you brush her the wrong way and she was not started with aggressive training. Very friendly very confident just a bit too entitled.
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Eh. I think that broad brush is as dangerous as the one that resulted in the cowboys with mics. Horses are individuals. There will be more dominant characters than others. There will be ones that push the limits all the time, and can smell a beginner a mile off. That’s what makes it fun - they’re all so different.
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I used to board with a woman that thought that she would teach her horses to do things with all these different little cues she had thought up. It was absolutely maddening to watch to say nothing of the poor horse being driven insane. One trick was to stand in front of the horse and say nothing but her hands would be at shoulder height and she would be opening and closing her fingers and thumbs (you know - the hand signal for talking) and telling the horse “You know this. You need to do this.” Or saying in a teeny tiny voice “Back up.” I asked her one day what the He** she was doing and she told me that was her cue for back up. Um…no. Her poor horse - this mare wanted to work, lived for work and hated grooming and fussing. She was a brush her off and go horse. This woman would take an hour to brush her, then change tack several times before she decided what she wanted her to “wear.” The whole time the horse is stamping her feet and grinding her teeth and rocking back and forth. I felt so sorry for that poor mare.
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I’m happy to say i’ve not encountered a horse that was gently trained, (R+ trained), that was aggressive. P+ seems to be the best path to developing an aggressive horse. So, i guess that means that P- and R- could swing a horse either way depending on trainer’s personality/methods and horse’s temperament… In my 60yrs of riding/ownership I don’t have much experience with a whole lot of horses other than my own. I have 18 now, and before all of these i’ve had a few others. Am bringing along 8 fresh mustangs R+. Completely R+. Three were studs until age 10 or 11. One a stud til 5. And not once, not ever, with any one of them have i ever felt anything close to fear (on my part). I don’t have the science to back it up, but i’ve written a friend who does to weigh-in. My training is instinct/and feeling based…that’s it. And i FEEL that if i enter their arena with empathy, with no investment in time, and stay focused and intune with each one, i am building a good domestic horse from the inside out. It seems to me, most traditional training methods are from the outside in…and that sometimes, all that pressure from the outside gets in there and pops apart a soft spot on the inside of them. (I know it is wonky sounding…but that’s how i think it)
Here is what my science-y friend said to me:
"My first thought is that when R+ is properly used there is nothing to provoke aggression. Caveats: 1. Any horse can become aggressive if in pain. 2. Improperly used R+ might cause confusion and frustration that might lead to aggressive behavior. There are a number of different subtypes of aggression identified by ethologists (for all species). These include maternal, territorial, fear/defensive aggression, redirected aggression, idiopathic aggression (there are others). So we know aggression is a functional behaviour. In a lot of cases, it’s designed to eliminate competition. In other cases it’s to eliminate a perceived threat to safety.
I see a lot of aggression in non R+ horse training - quite often redirected aggression (the horse perceives a threat but is afraid to retaliate to the human doing the training, so attacks a nearby horse or even a child, dog, cat…). I also see fear/defensive aggression, where pretty unrelenting pressure is applied during training and the horse launches a bite, kick or buck.
The beauty of R+ training is that we deliberately avoid working with fear, so it is actually much safer than traditional training. We don;'t chase the horse, so the horse doesn’t feel the need to defend. We don’t get behaviours by adding aversives, so the horse doesn’t need to defend against that.
Where R+ can occasionally result in aggression is where we believe we have to W A I T for a behaviour in order to mark and reward, and the horse becomes frustrated - their expectation of when food is coming is not matched by an appropriate rate of reinforcement. Equally, a horse who already has food anxiety can be triggered to resource guard if we don’t manage the training situation well. In the first, case, the horse will usually show a lot of mild frustration behaviours before becoming aggressive (and they may never become aggressive, if we read the signals). In the second, the aggression is directed against other horses who may be perceived as a threat in terms of taking the resource (the person with the food). Again, in really severe cases, this may be directed at any other animal or person who’s considered a threat. That’s rare, although not as rare as it would be if our management of horses was better and their behavioural needs were met.
Finally - idiopathic aggression: “it came out of the blue and there’s no reason for it”. Well, there usually is a reason, just that it’s not immediately obvious. In many cases, it’s underlying pain - underlying pain makes humans unpredictable, angry and reactive too.
So - if we do it right, a horse trained through R+ is safer, yes. But if we get stuff wrong, we may see some aggressive behaviour even with R+."
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Here’s my (grossly oversimplified) take from the perspective of someone with a background in human reiki: It all boils down to your energy. (Shocking thing to hear from a Reiki practitioner, I know! ) I see/sense energetic cues from humans & animals. Sounds woo woo, right? Not really. The idea of the body generating electrical signals & thus an electromagnetic field is well established in Western science & medicine. That’s what the crunchy granola folks like me are referring to as “energy”.
Ok. In a state of healthy mental & physical equilibrium, our body forms a strong container for our energy. But say I have a physical or mental illness brewing. Or even something like the heat pump dying this morning & I’m worried about where to get $10k for a new one. My container is going to spring a leak & energy will ooze out. There electrical signals in one or more part of the body are blocked or over-amplified, causing changes to occur in the body’s electromagnetic field.
A small minority of folks are incredibly attuned to these changes in others; to the point that they can diagnose specific illness with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Yet, most everyone has had the experience of encountering another person who rattles us for some reason we can’t quite put our finger on. Maybe the person staring from across the subway car that unnerved us to the point of jumping off at the next stop. Recounting the story to a friend, “I don’t know. There was just something off about them.” Boom. You just sensed an irregularity in the electrical signals/electromagnetic field of another body.
So, let’s circle back to your horse. While practitioners of energy healing arts are ultra-attuned to the energy of others, horses (and animals in general) make those folks look more obtuse than my ex husband on Valentine’s Day. Sensing energy leaks in other herd members is a vital technique for staying alive in the wild: predators go after the ill, injured, or weak. Therefore, proximity to those individuals is dangerous to healthy herd members. That’s why those individuals are often violently pushed out of the herd by the healthy members. It is also why horses often mask illness & injury until they hit the point of catastrophic break down.
It comes as no big surprise to anyone who has spent time in a barn that a good % of horse people are in a near perpetual state of being leaky energy containers. “There’s something about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man.” Horses and the barn are a refuge for many people. But they’re leaking energy & their horse can sense it & smells the sickness or hurt.
Now, I doubt most domesticated horses look at their leaky owner & go, “Sarah Beth, I can see that you’re the one the megalodon is going to go after. Peace out, shark snack!” I believe they’re too sophisticated for that. But they probably don’t find spending time in the company of that person comfortable or enjoyable. Even more problematic, they can sense the sickness or hurt but not the reason for it. You might be upset because your spouse spilled their coffee on your work laptop but the horse can’t know that. And he just assumes you must be upset with him for something. But he can’t quite figure out what & likely doesn’t have enough information to decide his safest course of action. If he were our subway rider example, right now he’d be pretending to look at his phone while shooting furtive glances towards the creepy person across the aisle.
To me, the problem with the Parellis & Clinton Andersons of the world is as simple as them not being good containers of energy. They’re rattling & tapping & waving their arms like a drummer on speed. The horse isn’t listening. He can’t! They’re his equivalent of the creepy person staring from across the subway car. When they up the ante & start spewing waves of meaningless energy, it is the equivalent of the subway person crossing the car to sit down next to you & commencing to tell you all about how the CIA is trying to recruit them to storm Area 51. And would you like to see the new knife that the ghost of J Edgar Hoover sent them? His mind is on weighing his options, not anything being said or done. Should he withdraw (No habla Ingles), take evasive action (time his exit from the subway car so he reaches the safety of the platform as the car doors slam shut in creepy person’s face) or defend himself (pull his gun or punch creepy person)?
I’m off to bed but I’ll explain what I think does work tomorrow.
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Every time I ever hear “get his/her head down,” I just want to slap a fool!
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Also, this isn’t TOO dumb, coming from a non-horsey person…but still hilarious…
I used to ride this big, fat Holsteiner jumper who was absolutely snow white. We were riding at a show that had a lot of spectators. It was the first day, and Dobbin was fresh as sh*t in the schooling ring. He was just about to demonstrate his airs-above-ground when I hear someone go, “Look, a Lipizzaner!”
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I use all sorts of hand and finger cues for various things … but the gestures were added to proper voice commands and rhyme and reason were also used so the small gestures mostly make sense because they are the smaller cousins of larger gestures or touches. It’s pretty cool to make a “back off/brush off/dismissive” hand gesture and have the horse back up or a twirly finger gesture for turn around, etc. But they are fun party tricks really and a fun way of communicating with my horse which also help me to tune into smaller communications from her. But in the end - party trick. Not taught properly, or taught exclusive of other commands that make the horse handleable for everyone? Totally stupid.
Sounds like the woman in your barn is a wannabe whisperer or something.
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It depends on how that is accomplished. There is a correlation between mental state and position of the head. Parasympathetic vs. sympathetic predominance.
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No over generalized nationality required for this. I had a US born and bred woman turn loose her horse in an indoor arena FULL of riders. And be miffed when we all had an issue with that.
Dumb is dumb.
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Eh, true. But for the leather jacket no matter the weather, and the indignation that a woman might know more than he does - that just might be why I can’t help but call him E.E.M.
Dealing with it day in and day out - and continuing to this day - I can’t help but notice the common thread. 
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I think it’s racist to bring up somebody’s ethnicity in this type of context. Nobody feels the need to point it out when the dumb person is white and it’s not like there’s a shortage of ignorant white horse people. Why do we need to point it out when someone is Mexican or eastern European?
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And why is it that those guys have to play their music at an ear splitting decibel level? I used to go to a PP trainer a long time ago (I know, I know) and he always had music playing at a level that would cause permanent hearing damage. I know that PP did the same thing too, so had to be like his guru. I think the horses would have been much happier with quiet, I know I would have been.
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Eastern European is not a race, so despite your love of throwing that word around willy-nilly, it is not applicable here.
Based on my experience working with hundreds of these men, over a period of years up until current, the leather jacket chauvinistic phenomenon has held true. This man is no exception. If it makes you feel better, I can call him “leather jacket chauvinistic man with heavy Eastern European accent.”
Whew, crisis averted!
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My argument is that “getting the head down” should never be the goal in and of itself. It should be the fortunate by-product of correct riding and horsemanship (a relaxed horse, a horse using its back, a horse moving forward from behind, etc).
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My argument is that if you can put “head down” on a cue while working around a horse, it can help them settle. A tip I picked up from one of my acupuncture teachers.
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I have “installed” this on all my horses, and it really does help.
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