"mind your manners"

This is a lesson that we teach inside our Holistic Horse Handling Program.

Not because we think horses understand manners but because humans do. It's easier to teach a human when you have an analogy they can reference that makes sense.

Like when I'm teaching half halts I reference balancing yourself running down a hill and doing a gear change. Not because horses are a car and you are doing a gear change or because they are running down a hill but because it's easier for the rider to understand the very complex theory of the half halt by referencing something they already experience and know how to do.

So mind your manners is a lesson, but we aren’t teaching the horse manners or respect. We need to be a little less literal to allow our own understanding.

But this is the problem we have with the word “respect” in the horse industry.

Wanting a horse to give you respect is up to your interpretation, experience of and perception of respect.

A lot of people who haven't been in leadership or mentoring roles see respect as being the boss of something, ruling with an iron fist, punishment, forcing the will of another. I grew up "fighting against the man" (whoever the man was) and maybe ever experienced punishment for not respecting your elders. (Honestly this one is so ingrained that even when my son questions me now I have to catch myself)

But the kind of influence over another that you NEED during challenging and demanding times is so deeply rooted in trust and confidence you - not through power over, submission based control.

I see respect as something that is earnt by having your horse watch how you work, engage with them and support them through challenges.

I actively structure my training processes with the horses to just gently stretch their comfort zone and support them overcoming it because it can fast track that confidence and trust building.

You want to support your horse to over come something they find hard and challenging to build their confidence in following your lead and direction

What most horse people do is stretch their own comfort zone and overface themselves and therefore their horse, so their horse is responsible for getting them safely through the challenge. Which is how we lose “respect” from our horse. Asking them to do something we can't do and when they say I don't think you’re ready, forcing them to do it anyway with negative reinforcement (aka get the big whacky stick out and escalate pressure until you get a response, find out the response you got is not the one you want get scared, back off and reinforce to your horse that if they don't want to do something all they need to do is do the big scary thing that made you back off) is an almost instantaneous way to lose that “respect”.

Having respect for a leader is because of their ability to lead, not their ability to flex their power or strength. This is called Compassionate Leadership.

We are digging deeper into Compassionate Leadership in our upcoming Stronger Bond Workshop - reserve your seat below!