giving a horse choice: unpacking criticism

Is it “easy” to train a horse to say no? If we train a horse to say no, do we risk the horse then never saying yes?

Is it “easy” to train a horse to say no? If we train a horse to say no, do we risk the horse then never saying yes?

These are questions I’ve heard recently, and I’ve heard claims being made that go against my personal experience that I’d like to share.

A little bit of background: When I was active in this space a few years ago, it seemed like a movement was gaining traction– It felt like a rising wave of folks bringing much needed dialogue to the importance of bringing our

horse’s choice. But what I am seeing in this space upon my return is a wave of pushback towards the dialogue of bringing more choice to our horses, directed toward criticizing or chastising people who are trying to do so.

I would like to explore some of these claims and add my experience to the conversation. I think my perspective has something of value to bring here as I have been exploring and implementing ways of giving horses choice for nearly the past decade, both in the realms of positive reinforcement (food rewards) & negative reinforcement (pressure/release) modalities. I will be focusing on how my experience of giving horses choice differs from the claims I see being made in this wave of pushback. I do not disregard the fact that there are shadows and limitations to anything, just as there can be shadows to this movement, too, but that won’t be my focus in this post.

Before we begin, a note about context.

It’s my understanding that decisions we make with our horses are usually context specific– in other words, they are relational. The decisions we make are dependent on and in relationship with our own backgrounds and values, the individual and unique horse we are working with, the constraints we face, the landscape we are working with, etc. As much as we try to create broad rules or generalities it’s usually not the case.

*Exception: unless we’re on the topic of discussing abuse, in which - if we can agree on what is abuse - there is no relevant context that would warrant that kind of treatment or “training” protocol. That’s why for me, when I see something that I believe to be detrimental to the horse (and ultimately the human enacting this kind of treatment even if that doesn’t seem as apparent) and someone comes to the defense saying this was taken out of context .. that feels irrelevant because there is no context that would sway me to condone this kind of treatment.

So, because context is important, for the sake of this post I’ll be discussing a specific scenario with a horse– Oakley, a 15 yr old BLM mustang mare who has significant trauma around human presence, touch, etc who I am doing a “full restart” with, starting over from the very beginning with human presence in the approach and touch, even though this horse had previously been trained to halter, lead, and perform various foundational groundwork behaviors. I am primarily using pressure & release at this point with Oakley, with no food rewards present.

To clarify, as even horses being described as having trauma is coming into question during this new wave of pushback, I say “ trauma” due to a host of observations about this horse beyond her having and demonstrating fear. These include a) the inability to generalize skills in different contexts - i.e. hypothetical ex of this, you can touch horse with the back of your hand but the front of your hand is an entirely new thing and there's no carryover, and b) one of the biggest definers for me, she couldn’t return her nervous system to a baseline relaxation, at least in my presence. Instead, she was “stuck in the up,” stuck in a sympathetic flight, fight, freeze state.

This is a clip of me working with her that I’ll touch more on as we go →

Claim: “It’s easy to train a horse to say no”

One point I recently saw being made during this wave of pushback to giving our horse’s choice is that “it’s easy to train a horse to say no.”

Let's unpack this claim, as it relates to this specific context with Oakley.

Sometimes it is easy to train a horse to say no, and we can do so unintentionally. For example, we release pressure when the horse is pulling, resisting, head shaking, bolting or doing some other undesirable behavior. (Although I would argue it’s not really that simple, as there’s a lot of nuance here when we take into account emotions.. I do believe we can effectively apply negative reinforcement without a release always being contingent on the horse performing the desired behavior, and I realize this sounds like an impossible paradox, but again that goes beyond the scope of this article).

But to really unpack it we need to agree on what “no” is and that varies situation to situation - as well as whether it’s a natural way/reactive way of the horse saying no, or a signal the horse is taught to use to say no– whether that was a novel behavior introduced and established by the human as a tool for the horse to use, or a natural behavior the human decided to strengthen through a reinforcement history.

In the case of Oakley, it was a natural behavior I decided to strengthen through reinforcement history. Everytime Oakley reaches to touch me – which was shaped into more of a head turn so it can be used in a wider range of scenarios– I walk away and “release” the spacial pressure of me being close to her or release the pressure of touching her, which she finds aversive. This head turn behavior becomes a conditioned behavior Oakley can use to communicate her “no.” I typically refer to this an end signal.

The reason I teach her to utilize her conditioned “no” or end signal, is to replace her natural “no” behavior of going into flight and bolting off *and/or* going into freeze/immobility, in which she stands still but is not relaxed. How do I know she is not relaxed? A variety of stress signals such as skin quivers, head raises, triangulation of the eye, etc. But the easiest one is… she doesn't blink. Or her rate of blinking is extremely low.

Speaking to Oakley’s situation, it has been a long process to get her to say no, versus the pathway her nervous system has been most wired to go – freeze.

Oakley’s situation is not unique, though. This notable freeze reaction is what I find with every trauma case I have worked with. I generally have to spend about 30 days, on average, solidifying & strengthening the horse’s ability to use their “no” or end signal reliably for them to come out of freeze. I'll think they have it, then they can revert back into freeze and there’s a deeper layer - this process is a spiral, it’s not linear. So its actually a significant part of the initial part of training to get them feeling like they can access their no, versus going into freeze.

Why does her ability to say “no” help her come out of freeze? Well, according to my understanding, the whole reason an animal (humans included) go into freeze is when other options haven’t worked – flight, and in some cases fight, have been thwarted. In other words, freeze and going immobile is their last ditch survival mechanism, like a possum playing dead. So, the whole reason they’ve gone into freeze is because they don’t feels safe. The quickest way I’ve found to help a horse feel safe again, and hence begin to thaw and release the tension they’ve been carrying, is to not just allow, but to help them learn, to say “no.” For the horses I work with, this restores a sense of baseline relaxation with the presence of a human.

So when people suggest that horses first answer to everything will be “no,” claiming this is especially true for horses whom their first contact with people was violent or forceful, I have found this to absolutely not be my experience – and for context, for the past 8 years I’ve primarily worked with BLM previously feral mustangs who have “failed” conventional training and were found to have severe bolting/bucking issues, found to be explosive and unpredictable etc (aka trauma cases). To claim these horses coming from a violent and forceful training methodology are the ones who will be most likely to say no to most if not all new concepts we introduce is severely misguided – in my opinion, these horses actually are the most likely to say a false yes, meaning they comply and go into freeze. This is not a true yes.

I’d also like to add that it does not take apparently “violent” or outright abusive methods for a horse to have trauma. Not at all! I have certainly caused trauma unintentionally with horses, even after I was more “trauma aware.” The two primary ingredients for trauma according to Dr Peter Levine is (1) high state of arousal and (2) *perceived* inability to escape. Take a wild horse, an unhandled horse, or a particularly sensitive horse and put them in training in closed spaces and attach a rope onto them with a conditioned response to give to pressure and be contained… combined with training that doesn’t recognize a horse’s stress signals and thresholds or respond appropriately to them with unpredictable environments and things outside of our control in some cases…. and wa la, the perfect concoction for trauma to occur. I believe it happens a lot easier than we think, even with well-intentioned and caring trainers and owners. The survival reaction is not completed, it’s thwarted, and the energy horses went into freeze with never really goes away… not until we can help the horse find a way to dispel this energy and release it through licking and chewing, yawning, and other forms of calming signals.

(also, especially with mustangs some have gone through trauma before even being put into human care, during round-ups and in holding facilities which is again usually outside our control).

Claim: If you allow the horse to say no, you teach them the answer is no and then they will never learn to say yes. Ever.

I have also found this to be false. In fact, I would say that the opposite feels true in my work: If we don’t begin by allowing the horse to say no, we can never get a true yes.

And if we don’t begin with the no, in Oakley’s case, we have nothing to work off of – there is no established baseline safety for any kind of healthy relationship to take root. Nothing will bloom without this soil of safety. And “practically” speaking, she will never be a “safe” horse, in my opinion, because there would be all this heightened, stuck energy in freeze (visualize the momentum at the top of a rollercoaster, or a volcano that could explode at any moment).

I would add that horses who tend to go into freeze are often labeled as some of the most dangerous horses because their bolting, bucking, and other unsafe behavior seems to come out of nowhere. In every single mustang case I’ve taken in that demonstrates this kind of seemingly unpredictable reactivity, I’ve always found that these horses were never actually accepting and relaxed with touch - but rather went into freeze, meaning there was never any baseline relaxation. Every interaction is full of stress, tipping the horse into freeze and sometimes spilling over again into flight/fight.

Okay, so you may be seeing how establishing a horse’s ability to say no is important – but then, how would they ever say yes?

Honestly, I was surprised that they would, too. I had lived out, with positive reinforcement, plenty of approaches allowing the horse to say “no” and opt out of certain behaviors, including offering them a mat or some sort of target that was always present in training sessions so they could go there and get “free food”, noncontingent reinforcement (inspired by Ken Ramirez and Dr. Susan Friedman, under the concept of control itself functioning as a primary reinforcer). But had never experienced it with just using pressure & release, until cases like Oakley.

You can see she is allowed, at any time, to say “no” with a head turn. And in fact, if she’s not using her “no,” and I sense tension in her – stress signals, not blinking, etc – then I will stop and remind her she can say “no” through a little prompting. I take great care to make sure this is very solid, and she can access it at any time out of her own volition. And the more I allow and encourage her to say “no” when stressed, by giving the head turn behavior, the more she gives me a “yes” and allows me to touch her, with blinks, licking & chewing, and yawning, and ultimately, relaxation at the point such displays of releases aren’t as present because there was never any stressed energy that needs releasing to begin with.

Some of this work seems to be quite similar to CAT-H and I haven’t done a ton of research into it yet – I have actually been purposefully refraining from doing a lot of reading and taking in information the past few years to focus on felt and lived experiences with horses. One could say the new “no” is the “blink,” and maybe so at first, but my guess is this process takes us outside the learning quadrant, and I am not feeling the need to dissect it, pin it down and box it in right now.

I just know through my lived experience and relationships with horses, that allowing them to say no always has led to what feels like a truer expression of “yes,” and a reliable, relaxed and willing horse (physical limitations aside), and would like to add this piece to the collective conversation right now.

Contrary to many beliefs that have been shared and are currently circulating, I don’t believe giving our horses more choice is some kind of self-serving projection of human values onto our horses project that ultimately doesn’t serve them, nor do I believe it is solely based on lofty ideals and values that don’t have practical functions. And I certainly disagree with the claim that this wave of folks wanting to offer horses more choice is leading to an increase in accidents and less safety for people.

I think horses that feel safe keep us safe.

I think this approach may take more time up front, but it’s time you’d spend later on having to go back and fix the holes at some point if not addressed deeply early on, more times than not – at least with the horses I get in.

There is nuance here, of course, and there’s a wide variety of applications when we speak about giving our horse’s choice; but overall, I think this is a move in a healing direction and of repairing our relations with horses and other more-than-human kin, and with ourselves… lots of layers here to dive deep into. Of course with any new wave or movement, there will be some challenges, some unseen shadows, some applications that may not work out so well in the end, some misunderstandings and misinterpretations – but what I see is a growing number of folks who at least are wanting to try. And I would hate to see criticism of this movement preventing more folks from fumbling through and giving it a try and from even starting the journey at all.

* * * * *

I hope you found this share helpful, clarifying, and perhaps even inspiring.

If you would like to engage deeper with my work, you can…

> Join the waitlist for upcoming online programs at mustangmaddy.com (“learn with me” tab). *Please forgive the outdated website and note that moving forward my online offerings will be taking new forms than what is currently presented on the website.

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