Horse Skills- The missing "tool" of the Positive Alternative

 In many training approaches, the moment a horse does something unwanted, the response is correction. The focus is only on stopping, blocking, and criticizing the equine behavior, to “teach him a lesson.” This leads to what I call “surviving” the experience/ride.

Common examples:
The horse spatially crowds the person, so critical “sending” pressure is used to make the horse move away.

If the horse’s tension increases, rein pressure increases to “contain” potential unwanted explosive responses.

When the horse hesitates, the rider’s leg pressure increases to “drive” the horse forward.

The horse’s behavior reflects his mental and emotional state. When you see an increase in muscle tension, the elevation of the head, the hard fixation of the eye, the brace in the jaw, the inflated neck, the “blocking” shoulder, hollowed back, wide locked hocks — these often precede the unwanted movements and responses. If the horse isn’t mentally redirectable, by the time the feet are moving, the nervous system has already triggered, while his mind and body are fleeing in another direction.

If one “waits” to correct- the old “move the feet” theory, they are creating after-the-fact communication that typically adds to the horse’s defensiveness.

To counter this mindset, I teach something called a Positive Alternative, by offering a, “Here is what you can do,” without critique or forcing compliance. It is not weaponizing pressure, but first assessing HOW the horse responds to your spatial and physical communication with pressure, and initially addressing any defensiveness he may have toward it. Without doing so, the equine will try to block/avoid every time you try to communicate.

Once the horse learns not to be fearful of your communication, you now will refine having separate “tools” to redirect the horse’s thoughts and influence his behavior and energy.

The timing of the Positive Alternative allows you to proactively communicate. It offers the horse a different place to focus, without the “Don’t do that.” The redirect creates a mental pressure “release.” It creates the Opportunity for a reset, or to decrease the concern/fixation the horse had toward the “pressure” direction. It then allows the human to help the horse physically release tension, before continuing on. This decreases mentally overwhelming the horse or his physical eruption in dramatic behavior.

The Positive Alternative fundamental focus prioritizes how the equine nervous system functions. Horses are acutely sensitive to changes in the human’s energy and intent. When pressure escalates with a critical “tone”, the nervous system shifts toward defense, and the horse “shuts down” or resists human communication. Have you ever considered how to communicate while maintaining emotional neutrality? One’s thoughts can unintentionally create subtle critique, rigid aids, and delayed decision making.

A Positive Alternative keeps the human’s communication emotionally neutral. If the horse is offered guidelines in a specific, attainable manner, rather than adversarially challenged to “get it right,” his chances of “success” increase.

From the human perspective, the skill of offering a Positive Alternative  is about learning to become adaptable in real-time interactions. Presenting the horse with something he can do, without fear, reduces “dealing with” the same problem repeatedly. It shortens the horse's learning how to learn, his ablity to mentally “think through something,” let go of his initial behavior (without getting defensive), and respond to relevant segmented requests, which lead to the human’s desired end result.  

When each Conversation prioritizes helping the horse have “new” experiences, it decreases his fear and increases his willingness to try, which builds his confidence. This improves his adaptability, the reasonableness of his behavior, as well as the human’s safety.