If you read part one, you might be thinking- that didn't sound like a path that I really want to take. Maybe trying to "fix" the horse after the behavior starts isn't something I want to do.
Congratulations, you have come to the right place.
In my experience, the simplest explanation for why behavior problems exist is because the horse didn't have better choices at the time, and the rider (or handler) didn't have the tools or the understanding to know they had backed the horse into a corner.
Why? Well, there are lots of reasons. We will look at a few of them here.
One: the idea that you need to "make him do it" is pervasive in the industry. It comes in different flavors, and levels of intensity, but it is extremely rare to find someone who makes an effort not to step over that line, even a little bit. There is a preference for instant obedience, the confusion of responsive and reactive, even in the smallest ways. Often it takes me a while to untrain new clients from leaping into the trot when I mention the word (as was their previos instructor's preference), to taking their time to prepare for making the best transition possible with their horse, however long that may take.
So horses often find themselves in a position where the choice they need to make to answer my question in the way that I would like, isn't on top of their list of things to try. That can be from past experience with humans, personality, how they were managed as foals or later, it is impossible to say with any certianty, but that's what's going on.
Once I was leading a mare during a lesson. She has a tendency to get kind of uppity when she isn't doing the right thing. She has a history of people getting sucked into arguing about whatever choices she is making, the person loosing track of what they were asking in the first place, and it all devolves into a fight and she isn't any clearer about what was supposed to happen in the first place. This lead her to a pattern of "when I don't get it right in the first place, I need to put up my dukes because the fight is on."
So, back to the lesson- I was leading her from the right, and she was crowding me with her shoulder. I asked her to move her shoulder over. She didn't know how to do that. I just persisted, offering her to move her shoulder over. She's getting agitated. I ignore it and focus on the shoulder. I say to the owner, "just watch, as soon as she steps her right front leg to the left, this will all be over." and after a few more steps of drama, she finally decided to try stepping her right front leg to the left. She found relief there from my ask, and she dropped her head and walked quietly beside me. It was like magic.
What happed there? The mare had a pattern of behavior that went, when someone asks me something I don't know, I need to go into fight mode. That was the response that previous people showed her was the way. Fight mode makes it hard for the horse to figure out how to respond to my ask in two ways- thinking and creativity are hard in the presence of adrenaline, and when the human picks up the fight, they stop presenting the initial question, and are now switching all the time to discipline the horse. The original question is lost in the scuffle, and the horse just becomes more convinced that fight mode was the right choice because of the chaos.
What do I want to do instead? First, I need to spend time ensuring the horse has the tools to make choices I would prefer, and that they are well reinforced (thus higher on the pile). The horse needs to be able to move all of his feet easily in all directions forward, backwards, and on the diagonal. He needs to be able to do this in a relaxed and balanced way without force.
He also needs to relax and soften when I pick up the rein or the leadrope. He should find my presence comforting, and want to check in with me as his partner. He should easily let go of distractions, as well as tension. My aids should serve to de-escalate things, not escalate them.
I want my horse to learn to enter "search mode"when he doesn't know the answer. Instead of feeling panic about what will happen to him when he doesn't do it, I want him to feel safe to explore some
options. I want him to look to me to help him decide what he should do. I don't want him to feel anxiety over new questions, I want him to feel like it is a puzzle he can solve.
I want my horse to feel ok to "nope out" ofsomething I asked. If I wanted to make a canter depart and he couldn't manage it, I don't want him to feel like he needs to press on at all costs. If he wasn't feeling it, who am I to judge him? We will regroup and try again. I know this is raising some eyebrows, I can feel the "but he's getting away with it" through the keyboard, lol. If I never asked again, I would tend to
agree with you. But there is value in teaching the horse that he doesn't have to jump into the deep end of the pool when he isn't ready. The older I get, and the less well I bounce, the more I want the horse to play a bigger part in keeping us out of fight mode, overwhelm, and out of balance. Ultimately,
regardless of your age and bounciness, it is better for the horse to learn to stay where he is ok.
Another way to frame that idea is- I only want to practice making good transitions. I don't want to teach my horse a canter transition where he feels rushed and anxious and out of balance, and then try and fix it later. I want every transition the horse ever makes to be soft and balanced and
focused. If he can't make that transition, I would rather not have any transition at all.
There will probably be a part three, stay tuned.