Horse Charming

29/05/2026

Brilliant post about “liberty”

LIBERTY TRAINING – FREEDOM OR ILLUSION?

LIBERTY in “liberty-based training” is often an illusion. How can we recognise that the horse is truly free?

A few years ago, I believed that I was doing something amazing. I was convinced that when I engaged in “liberty” work, both on the ground and ridden, I was giving the horse a choice, and the horse was choosing to follow my “guidance”.

I believed that I didn’t force horses, that they did what they did because they wanted to. But I forgot about some “little details”. First, I worked with horses who were attached to a line or trapped in a small round pen/school to stop them from walking away… or that I used the whip to send them away and bring them back. I forgot that if they tried to “disengage”, I would turn their hindquarters until they faced me. If they tried to run away, I made them run faster. If they wouldn’t stand still, I would persevere and put them back in the same spot until they did. If they wouldn’t back up with just my finger wiggle, I would increase the pressure on the rope or use the whip until they did.

If anyone had told me then that I was forcing horses to comply, I would have laughed at them and said they knew nothing about horses and their communication. I would have said that you can’t force a horse that is “at liberty”.

What I didn’t know was that, at all times during my training, I was CONDITIONING the horses to do what I wanted them to do. I didn’t know that this conditioning involved the threat of pain or psychological discomfort (well, I was aware of pressure and release, but I didn’t understand the consequences, and I didn’t believe I was using punishment). I didn’t know that by constantly punishing, correcting, and increasing the pressure, I was teaching the horses that no matter what they did, there was no escape — there was no other route than compliance. I didn’t know that this treatment could create emotional shutdown and learned helplessness.

Today, with my new knowledge supported by behavioural science and learning theory, I understand that much of what I was doing relied on aversive conditioning. The horses responded to my cues because they had learned to avoid pressure, discomfort, or uncertainty. This approach is what is commonly used in many “liberty shows” — the horses are highly trained, but if you look carefully, you can often notice combinations of behaviours that may communicate both physical and psychological discomfort (for example: high head position, flat ears, tense mouth, worried eyes, hypervigilance, licking and chewing, and yawning).

Today, I also know that we can force a horse using the opposite approach — we can use food to micromanage and control horses (especially if the food is only used occasionally and mixed with aversives). This creates different emotional states, but still, if applied poorly, even positive reinforcement can become forceful. Simply using food in your training and interactions does not equal force-free practice. That’s why we need to ensure we meet horses’ specific needs first, ensure there are no underlying physical conditions, eliminate food anxiety by feeding prior to training, and provide an alternative source of food if possible. Most importantly, we need to stay in touch with and respond appropriately to their emotional states.

Despite the possibility of forcing when using positive reinforcement unskilfully, there is still a much higher chance of interacting with a horse without force if we apply a reward-based approach. If we rely on aversives but try to allow for choice, there is always some level of threat involved, no matter how carefully we apply negative reinforcement.

Even if we attempt to stop escalating pressure, a history of aversive conditioning can mean that fear-based responses remain strongly embedded in the horse’s memory. Experiences involving threatening or uncomfortable stimuli can create long-lasting associations, which may be triggered again when a horse encounters situations that resemble previous experiences.

For this reason (alongside many others), I avoid using aversives as much as I can.
I work with my ponies mostly without any tack simply because we don’t need it. In fact, they learned many behaviours before I even touched a head collar or lead rope, and I didn’t utilise round pens either.

I use a positive reinforcement approach alongside counterconditioning and systematic desensitisation. I try to provide alternative food during training so that my horses don’t feel pressured to comply just to receive food. I use forage-based food such as chaff, grass pellets, or hay to avoid frustration, which can often arise when higher-value food is used (such as commercial sweet treats). Their responses to cues are, of course, still conditioned (appetitively), but they can communicate without fear of consequences, and they can disengage if they wish to (although I strive not to give them reasons to want to “leave”).

05/05/2026

Words matter!

15/10/2025

"According to the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, a theory is a well- substantiated explanation of a phenomenon. A theory is the end point of science—it is what scientists know to be true when observations have been confirmed by repeated experimentation (National Academy of Sciences, 1998)."

If you read work from a qualified Psychologist - someone with a degree or doctorate, that relates to learning and behaviour, you can rely on it because these people are qualified to talk about these laws or established theories.

And if you see someone refer to a theory or law of behaviour or learning, they will do so using the terms you can use to go and check it out for yourself. That is why they do so, because then those reading have access to the vocabulary of the original work.

We don't use the terms of the laws of behaviour and learning to be deliberately exclusive and because we like jargon.

We use them so that you can go and find out for yourself what they mean using any search engine.

For instance, the correct scientific term for the psychological state of being shut down, apathetic, unresponsive and depressed due to repeated exposure to inescapable aversive events or stimuli is Learned Helplessness, and the theory was developed by Martin Seligman who is still alive and talking.

If I use the term "shut down", and you google that to find out for yourself, you won't necessarily find out anything about psychology.

If I use the word "pressure" you won't necessarily find out that it is a euphemism for aversive.

If I talk about animals knowing what happens before what happens happens, it is funny, memorable and true, but you won't necessarily know or understand that this describes classical conditioning, first defined by Ivan Pavlov, and that the reason an animal notices what happens before what happens, when what happens is aversive, is called avoidance learning.

It happens when he learns to anticipate that what happens after what happens happens is aversive and he should pay attention with both ears and eyes to the source, so he doesn't miss the warning, (correct term "Safety signal") so as to act before the onset of the aversive, and avoid being "touched". Euphemism for "hurt".

Look up another scientist called Milgram. This is why you might obey an authority figure and do something to an animal that you think you would never do because you love the animal. Because someone authoritative in a white coat (or hat) instructs you to.

And that - classical conditioning - learning what happens before what happens happens - would be how a neutral stimulus comes to be a conditioned aversive with the conditioned emotional response of fear. Aka fear conditioning.

Which, for ways of training animals that purport to be based on love, is something that you really do not want to know.

There is a good reason why some trainers never use the correct scientific terms. It is not because they think you are too stupid to learn them. After all, they invented a whole vocabulary and set of principles and sayings they expect you to be able to repeat off by heart.

It is because they have had what they do explained to them, by people who do know, and they definitely do not want you to google it.

I know methods of training whose promoters use a lot of aversives in training both to form and reinforce behaviour and to attempt (and regularly fail) to desensitise horses to them. A horse subjected to attempted flood desensitisation in a state of learned helplessness has not habituated. That is another term you can google - google Habituation Revisited and read the second part of characteristic #5 to find out why flooding may never work. Thank messrs Groves and Thompson and friends.

But they definitely don't want you to know it is flooding and learned helplessness because if you did know those terms you might google them. And find the research that explains the process, the risks, the fallout and the consequences, and the failure, even if it is done by someone really good and with the best of intentions.

You would not believe how easy it is to find out the names and the titles of the works of the scientists that developed these well established, peer reviewed and accepted laws if you know the language.

This past week, seeing some absolutely appalling video of horse abuse, not to mention the most awful description of the horse and its demonisation by the so called trainer, I and others versed in how animals learn and familiar with the techniques being used commented to describe the protocol being deployed by the trainer and the risks of doing so.

You cannot read anything we said because it is gone. They don't want people knowing what it is called and are in denial of what it involves.

There is no love, and frankly horrendous judgmental language directed at an animal whose behaviour was probably caused by the very things being used now, in an attempt to now show him he needs to "toe a line".

This is not training, it is medieval claptrap.

Don't be fooled by those who hide behind metaphor, euphemism and who perpetuate this cultural fog (a great term used by Psychology professor Dr Susan Friedman to describe the pseudoscience of dominance training and associated highly aversive practices) that horses respect people who s***k and yank on them and that doing so will make them better. It might, if what you wanted was a relationship with a traumatised robot.

That fog is the steam rising from the horsemansh*t.

These so called trainers can delete everything that we write in our efforts to educate their deceived followers.

The horse has evolved not to scream and cry out in pain for fear of attracting predators if he is injured. We are going to keep speaking up for him, everywhere.

16/08/2025

This study strongly supports the value of freedom of choice for horses when it comes to provision of access to shelter.

It's time to shatter the notion that stabling horses overnight or in winter is what they would want for themselves.

Livery yard owners please take note - you are compromising horse welfare if you insist on horses being routinely stabled. Look into Equiculture if you haven't already. It's a system of keeping horses that meets their needs while recognising the need to keep them sustainably when it comes to land management.

The Abstract reads

"Stabling is a common lifestyle for horses, yet numerous studies show that it negatively impacts their welfare, leading to behavioural and health issues. In this study, we aimed to determine how much time horses choose to spend inside their stalls when given the option to be inside (in shelters/stalls) or outside at pasture. Using permanently installed night-vision cameras inside the stalls, we recorded 53 horses across 20 sites in temperate climates (France, Belgium) over a full year. We analyzed their stall presence and activity (lying down, observe, stand at rest, eat, etc.) for 72 consecutive hours each month over 12 months. The results show that, on average, horses spend only 3 h per day inside, and not consecutively (entering 2.5 times per day). There is a strong seasonal effect: horses spend twice as much time in their stalls in summer than in winter. This finding is notable as it contrasts with the usual advice of stabling horses in winter and turning them out to pasture in summer. In winter, horses predominantly return to their stalls late at night (00:00–06:00) to eat and lie down, while in summer, they return in the afternoon (12:00–18:00) to rest standing. Contrary to expectations, presumably rustic breeds (ponies) spent more time inside, and age had no effect on this, indicating that stalls are essential for all types of horses. Additionally, the larger the shelter (in sq m per horse), the more it is used. Stalls fully enclosed with a single access door are also associated with higher usage in summer, winter, and autumn, compared to an open shelter. The use of blankets in winter or fly masks in summer is not associated with a reduction of the time spent in the stalls, suggesting that these accessories do not substitute for shelter. There is also significant inter-individual variability among horses: the ideal is to allow them the freedom to come and go as they please in order to best respect their agency and individual needs."

23/03/2024

If your horse struggles with being stabled then know that this is normal for horses. It is often associated with trauma that happens with abrupt and forced weaning and then the start of "breaking". The word is "breaking" is apt.

"Individual stabling induces social isolation and confinement, and is a source of particularly stressful events for the young horse alongside the breaking-in process. These experiences can lead to behavioural disorders in individual stalls and dangerous defensive behaviours in human-horse interactions."

Have a read of this to learn more about the effects of individual stabling on young horses.

29/02/2024

I wish more people would see it as a personal failing if they can’t use food rewards without creating horses who bite instead of blaming R+ as a methodology for their incorrect application of it.

There’s such an interesting double standard where there’s always an excuse for why the behaviour of stressed horses who are traditionally trained is just a quirk, excitement or some other reason that doesn’t attribute the problem to the trainer or methods used.

Meanwhile, if you use R+, even if there’s no demonstrable evidence of your horses biting, people project this belief.

Teaching any animal to bite when using food rewards is the fault of the trainer.

If we can train dogs, who are predators and actually eat meat, to safely accept food without biting, a horse, a herbivorous flight animal, should be easier.

But instead, there’s this narrative that horses cannot be trained to accept food safely, which is ridiculous.

It is the personal failing of the person teaching the behaviour if a horse learns to bite.

If you cannot hand feed your horse without them learning to bite, it’s time to reflect on where you’re going wrong in your training and/or management and how you’re contributing to creating these behaviours.

Frankly, I find it super embarrassing to read the amount of horse people who think horses are some special exception to food rewards and too dangerous to teach to take food safely when it’s the reinforcer of choice for most zoo animals and in most industries where much more dangerous and undomesticated animals are being trained.

Don’t use food rewards if you don’t want to, but don’t project your incompetence or lack of desire to learn how to use them competently onto those who can and do want to learn.

Incorrect application always falls to the fault of the trainer and all of the people I’ve seen peddling this mindset appear to have a very poor understanding of operant conditioning as a whole and it’s a shame their narrative is such a common one in the industry.