muscle-horse-appreciation:

theclassicalhorse:

atributetosuccess:

Someone on Facebook is arguing with me because I was like “maybe if your horse is having a bad day, you don’t work on something that’s extremely difficult for them.” And this person says that if she has to go to work then so does her horse.
And I’m just like. Okay.

tbh I struggle with this still, because I’ve grown up learning that if you ask a horse to perform something they already know how to execute… and they refuse or resist, you have to make them do it…. and that belief is just THE WORST.  If your horse’s lead changes are normally great and they’re struggling with them one day, you can’t stop until you get a good change.  If your horse knows how to bow on cue, but they aren’t cooperating one day, you have to keep asking until they do it.  If your horse knows how to stay with you at liberty (because you’ve taught them with +R) and one day they just don’t feel like cooperating, you have to make them.  Its almost like the trainer/riding has a fear that somehow the horse has forgotten how to do said behavior and they must compensate by trying to “teach” them how to do it again all in one training session, which is quite ridiculous since horses can easily go months without training and be able to execute everything nicely again within a relatively short period of time.  

When horses are normally great with executing a certain movement and one day decide not to be cooperative, it most likely stems from soreness/pain and/or having a bad day in general.   

Or maybe it was a full moon the night before and that one gelding who thinks he’s a stud was running around whinnying and keeping everyone up. Or they have a headache and no means to communicate it to you because they’re a horse.

It’s incredible to try and say “I go to my job and work when I don’t want to, so my horse should be held to the same effort” when you’re ignoring that we don’t really share any reference points in common with horses when it comes to labour. Beyond just conditioned associations from food rewards.

Horses are grazing animals. They migrate around eating what is required to survive and socializing to the extent that it is required for their satisfaction and survival. Humans… we would never survive doing that. We’re hunter gatherers, we need more calorie dense food but of course we have to invest more intense effort to get it. We also as a species must work much longer to feed our offspring. That’s one part which has shaped our work effort but that’s not even addressing civilized work culture where thanks to capitalism, the average worker is pressured to produce far more labour than would be necessary to their community’s survival because the means of production are controlled by a small percentage of the population who require workers labour more to produce greater profit for the social elite. Even without deconstructing the many reasons why the need for a five day work week is a lie, I would think it’s obvious why a clever animal as a horse will still never understand the expectations for labour production their rider may have for them. Our attitudes to work are just totally alien concepts to them.