Here’s a video showing exactly why I’m in favor of force-free, pressure-free, joyful, attraction-based interaction that feels good for both horse and human.
Note the angry face on human. Note the angry response from the horse. I think it’s safe to assume most horses don’t like pushing, jabbing, shoving, smacking gestures as means of communication. And here we have a horse that took the bull by the horns, or the human by the hair and said, enough.
I lump this video into the category of “Don’t Give Your Horse a Reason for Bad Behavior.”
It’s my sincere hope that there were no injuries and this young force-full horse handler may experience the beauty and simplicity of attraction-based work with horses. I have a sneaking feeling she’ll be a fan of helmets.
-cw
I, too, hope that the young human will discover attraction-based work… and I think that it wasn’t bad on the horse’s side to express her opinion clearly. However, it’s quite possible that there was also another human who decided to punish the horse for this reasonable behaviour.