Dominance theory, in essence, is pretty funny.

I do think the dominance theory is pretty funny. 

The reason is most of the time the horses would never see us humans as their "alpha". Most of the time I see horses considering whether humans can be trusted to be intelligent enough to make good decisions for them, or to feel threatened.

The idea of trying to show them who's boss by threat of physical violence or force is such an interesting perception of how to get a 500kg plus flight animal to cooperate. And I guess it can seem easier to some than just being reliable and someone your horse can trust. But at the end of the day if what you want from your horse is true willingness, congruence, consent, engagement in the work with you, wanting to look after you, coercion doesn't work.

But, building reliable, consistent, positive experiences with you so that the horse can have trust and confidence in your judgment does.

Inevitablyyour horse will spook. Heck they do a better job of not startling at random things then I do! 

Inevitably you will overface yourself and your horse. Often we don't see the full breakdown of the task we are asking that the horse needs to have confidence in participating. 

Inevitably the horse will get bored, frustrated, anxious, irritable, jealous, depressed etc. Because these are all normal, internal chemical responses that mammals have to their external environment and forcing the horse to ignore these internal experiences creates bigger behavioural issues and less willingness to trust.

So next time you're at a crossroads with your horse's behaviour and you're feeling anxious about how you will "correct it" so that you have a safe, reliable horse. Make sure you start out your shaping plan with being a safe, reliable human. And if you're not sure how, we lay out how we do it inside the Holistic Horse Handling Methodology in this free Masterclass.