Equal Partnership with Horses

In a partnership, both parties have equal, albeit different, responsibilities. Partners compliment one another, earn trust, and work together with mutual respect for the benefit of the relationship.

What I’ve discovered in countless hours of research -- online, in books and in discussions – is that very few horse people genuinely embrace the concept of equal partnerships between people and horses. The language is there … sometimes … but then it trips itself up with words like “domination,” “alpha horse,” “pecking order,” and so on. But rarely do people talk about real 50/50 relationships.

Here’s how I see it. The words “domination” and “partnership” are mutually exclusive. The former is based on control, submission and subjugation, while the latter is based on equality, collaboration and shared responsibility. Domination and partnership cannot reside in the same relationship – not if it’s a healthy one.

My suspicion is that the word partnership is primarily a misused word in the horse world, as most training methods that I’ve encountered are based on the premise that the trainer is the dominant being in the relationship.

These training methods are modeled on the generally accepted idea that there is a hierarchy within a herd. I don’t subscribe to this idea. The idea of a hierarchy is contradictory to what I’ve witnessed in the herds that I’ve worked with.

What is domination in a herd? Generally speaking, it’s understood as horses gaining and consistently maintaining control/domination over other horses, which presumably results in a top-down pecking order. I’ve never seen this.

What I have seen is horses acting aggressively toward each other, and I’ve seen signs of situational domination. These tend to be temporary, quickly resolved shows of aggression, and they seem to result from imbalance in particular situations.

When a horse thinks he’s not going to get enough to eat, for example, he’ll push other horses away from food. This is bullying, which I suspect is brought about by fear that there won’t be enough food to go around – a reaction to an imbalance in sustenance.

I’ve also witnessed horses setting boundaries with one another in the pasture. Boundary setting isn’t domination, either. From my point of view, it’s about requesting personal space. Some horses, like some people, need more personal space than others and they’re more assertive about enforcing it. Once the boundary has been established, however, balance is restored. This usually takes a few seconds. Rarely do horses chase each other around for more than a few minutes.

The only animals that give a sustained chase are predators.

Mostly what I’ve witnessed is horses living together in functional groups, each with its own place that isn’t higher or lower than any other horse in the herd. Watchfulness and direction setting in the herd appear to be shared responsibilities. This is collaboration, not domination. It’s the herd working together for the benefit of the entire group rather than falling in behind a specified leader.

When we establish ourselves as dominant over horses, we’re putting into play an intense, sustained, unnatural assertion of control that horses don’t understand and don’t respect, because it’s something that they don’t encounter in their every day herd lives. This behavior is specific to their interactions with humans.

Dominance is a human choice that we impose onto our relationships with horses. I think if we maximized the potential for true partnership, rather than trying to coerce our horses into submission, we’d co-create more harmonious, more respectful relationships with them.