How many times have you been told to not allow your horse (young or adult) into your space? Or worse yet, don’t let them crowd you, push on you?
What if I were to tell you:
- This is normal behavior for horses and part of how they figure out where they belong in a herd dynamic
- They are expressing themselves, communicating and showing you who they are or what they like or don’t like from you
- Your horse needs an education - needs to be taught by you what’s acceptable to you and what’s not
In any situation, the horse never deserves the level of backlash given by from others telling you to punish your horse for their “lack of respect.” And, you don’t have to allow pushy behavior either. Stay with me while I explain what’s really going on and how to handle, or correct, pushy horse behavior.
We’ve all experienced horses that crowd our space, push into us, walk through us as if they don’t see us, and even run into us. Especially young horses. They will push into you, crowd your personal space, even step on you. They often bite, nip, and spaz out on us at the end of the lead rope.
I bet most of you didn’t know that this is normal behavior. That it is part of how they learn about boundaries – what’s acceptable behavior and what’s not. It’s also similar to pecking order, how they figure out how to fit in, belong in the community and contribute. Yes, that’s right. All intelligent social species, including horses, are hardwired to cooperate and contribute to the community. This is critical to their survival as a group, herd and species and part of what innately drives them to seek partnership.
Now, while hierarchy is important to all social species it doesn’t mean the same thing to horses as it does to humans.
See, hierarchy for horses helps them socialize and govern more easily and often hierarchy is shared between 2 or more horses. Meaning, if one of the herd members is not respecting the lead mare’s leadership choices, such as who drinks first, other members who have friendships with her will step in to help support, including the stallion. Hierarchy is more of a “shared position” versus a dictatorship.
So, where does it go wrong for horses meaning why are so many of our horses pushy or misunderstood and mislabeled as pushy?
Most horses are taken away from their mothers’ way too young. While it is the norm for humans to wean foals as early as 5 months, foals can suckle until 2 years of age in the wild. This allows the foal to get the proper amount of nutrients from its mother and to learn socially acceptable behaviors, form friendships, autonomy and figure out hierarchy. Taking young foals away before the ages of one year traumatizes them. It creates displaced behaviors such as insecurity, buddy sour issues, food aggression, cribbing, ulcers, hypervigilance, and social misconduct such as aggression and excessive pushy behavior.
Why you may ask? Because as I mentioned above, they need a healthy Mom and community to help guide them and show them how to act.
As the saying goes “it takes a village to raise a child.” Well, this holds true for horses. They rely on the herd dynamics, community, to help raise the young and guide them in developing healthy relationships.
See, young horses are allowed to be pushy, they are also guided by their herd members, so they learn what is acceptable and what is not. And, when I say “what is not” it doesn’t mean they are never allowed to be pushy.
Horses are not like humans and they don’t view pushy behavior like we do. While the young are guided they are also allowed to be who they are and that means that if a foal is more assertive and dominant than an adult, they may be allowed to assert themselves over an adult and/or they might get scolded. It really just depends. It depends on individual personality types and that herds particular social dynamic. Sound familiar?
In the end, a more dominant horse in the wild does not mean they are aggressive or selfish. Wild horse herds and social behaviors are quite different than most of our domesticated herds. There are two especially important roles in the survival and well-being of a healthy wild herd: community and cooperation (aka partnership) and over-all welfare and well-being of the herd (aka leadership).
Before you get ready to act and do something about your horse’s pushy behavior, please try and understand why first. This is so important to your relationship with your horse. Knowing how to handle it, what action, or strategy to use first will not only help your relationship, you will be teaching your horse vs punishing them.
Tune in next week when I discuss and demonstrate how to assess pushy behavior and teach our horse what’s acceptable and what’s not.
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