74. Natural Horsemanship Versus Traditional Horsemanship

I read an interesting discussion on a horse forumn tonight about the differences between natural horsemanship and traditional horsemanship...so i copied and pasted one of the contributions made by a user below...

'I would also like to point out what i see as the main difference between what you would define as NH natural horsemanship and TH traditional horsemanship.

The success of TH seems to be directly related to how quickly you can get the horse to be more afraid of you, the trainer, than what you are actually doing to the horse at that time. For example... washing a horse for the first time. TH methods would probably include tying the horse to something solid and blasting it with the hose. Some TH methods would probably include some amount of whip use every time the horse moved and eventually the horse shuts down to the water being hosed on it because it is under so much pressure from the trainer every time it reacts to the water.

Thus you have made the horse more afraid of the punishment it is going to get from the trainer, than the actual process of being washed...amazing!

Alternatively NH would include a thorough desensitizing process done slowly and within the horse's realm of comfort. It might even be done over the space of a few days. You would start with the water as a trickle, then just trickling the water up their legs. as soon as the horse got nervous about the water you would go further down the leg to the last area where the horse was comfortable.

Gradually you would work in this fashion to get the horse acclimitised to the water running over its entire body. During the process the horse would be under very little pressure from the trainer, and be allowed to 'think' about the process of being washed. He would think 'this isn't hurting me' and 'this isn't endangering my life' and at the end of this process you would have a horse that would be comfortable being hosed, and one that has respect for its trainer at having let the horse deal with it at its own pace.

I have re-trained a little welsh pony who had been subjected to the first TH method i described. The result was that he was ear shy, would try and flip himself over in the wash bay, and struggle and fight to get away from the water. After following the NH method i described i had a pony who would happily stand in the wash bay and let me wash his face without so much as trying to pull away from me. It went from being a traumatic and fearful experience, to a pleasant and gentle experience. result = happy pony!!

This girls answer completely describes what i am trying to do with Spice. As some of you may have already read, I had a situation with Spice when i first started riding her out alone where every time she came across something she felt afraid of or unsure about she would spin around and attempt to rear if i tried to spin her back round...the advice i got at the time was exactly as described above with regards traditional horsemanship...make yourself even more frightening than the object of her fear and she will soon pass it and you'll have solved the problem. Traditional horsemanship is a tradition because it DOES work...I have seen it with my own eyes...However, i have also seen that it constitutes to a very detrimental relationship between the horse and its owner, one where the owner has respect and obedience from the horse but not because the horse wants to be respectful and obedient but rather because it is forced to be. These relationships seem to be completely devoid of emotion on both sides and end with a horse which is often indistinguishable to the rest of the horses through having retired their personality for the sake of avoiding a beating, which many would describe as learned helplessness.

Traditional Horsemanship gets results quicker than Natural horsemanship that much is true but isn't part of the fun the journey of getting there in the first place?

I feel Spice respects me more and more every day not because she 'has to' but because she wants to and i like this feeling a lot.