How Letting Your Horse Eat Grass Can Build Your Relationship.
Do you feel that something is missing in your relationship with your horse?
Often, what can be missing is our horses’ voice, because our conversation with them has become one sided.
We tell our horse what is going to happen, when it will happen and exactly how it will happen. We don't think to ask our horse for their opinion and if we happen to recognise them offering a suggestion, we can be reluctant to take it into account.
Picture the situation where we are leading our horse along a road or driveway and there is some particularly fresh, tasty looking grass growing along the side.
Now, let’s imagine that our horse starts to talk to us about the yummy looking grass. They might glance in the direction of the grass. Perhaps they step sideways a little closer or pull at the lead in that direction. Perhaps they have learned that they only way to get a bite is to dive their head and drag you right over there.
Be honest. When was the last time you allowed your horse to graze some tasty looking grass on the roadside after they *suggested* that such a thing would be a fabulous idea, by indicating an interest in the grass when they saw it?
Most of us are taught not to allow our horses to make these sorts of suggestions. We are told this means that they are walking all over us or calling the shots or taking over the leadership. We are taught to swing a rope, or pop the lead or make the horse move, as a way of teaching them not to take such an initiative in future. And it works. Our horses stop offering their opinions and suggestions to us … and it can make the relationship feel a bit empty and unfulfilling.
I was taught this too, and for years I felt that something was missing from the relationships I had with my horses. Realising that I wanted a more fulfilling relationship with my horses sent me looking for something different. A big part of the solution that I found, is in encouraging my horses to have an opinion. In learning how to listen and respond to their subtle signals, so that we could start to have real conversations with each other.
We don’t have to buy into the story that if our horse asks for something, or suggests something, then the answer must be no, in order to assert our leadership. Sure, I don’t want my horse to start dragging me over to ever blade of grass she sees, but I can do things to make sure that doesn’t happen. I can deliberately take my horse out for grass and use the opportunity to train her to lower and raise her head on a slight cue – using the grass to reinforce both behaviours. I can make sure that wherever possible, my horses have access to grass in their normal living environment, so grass isn’t *quite* so desirable as it would be if they didn’t.
When they do suggest that it might be nice to eat some grass, I can try and respond to my horses’ first, small suggestion (perhaps a glance at the grass), by either using the opportunity to practice our head up and down cues whilst eating the grass, or walking on a little way and then choosing a spot to offer them grass, or actively training them to walk past the grass without stopping, using a different food reinforcer, or moving to a different area where the grass won’t be such a distraction. Doing these things make it safe for me to let my horses eat grass sometimes when they suggest it, because I have set us up to succeed at doing this activity safely and within boundaries that I can control.
Our horses are never trying to get one over us. They just don’t think like that. In this example, horses suggest that eating the grass would be nice because horses are hard wired to put their heads down and eat any tasty looking grass whenever they see it. To do anything else is actually REALLY difficult for them. So when they suggest that eating the grass might be a great thing to do, they are not trying to do anything related to our relationship with us, they are just doing what they are biologically programmed to do. Eat grass.
Nowadays I love it when my horses’ glance over at the tasty looking grass and then back at me and back at the grass to suggest how nice a little snack might be. It means they are initiating conversation with me and seriously, how freaking awesome is that?!
© Sara Jackson 2022
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