Learned Helplessness...Fair warning rant included.

Tying a horse for several hours a day to teach them to stand quietly is a method that is recommended by almost all big name NH trainers. Why? Well from what I have read they say because the horse will learn that he/she will be there for a long time so they might as well stop moving and stand quietly. They say to only untie the horse when it is relaxed so it will depend on the horse on how long it will stand tied. Will it work? You bet it will! It may only take a few minutes for the horse to catch on or it could take several hours. You will probably have to repeat this for a few days, but they should catch on after that.

 Wait a minute...isn't this is the same as learned helplessness? It is to me. 

Contemporary definitions for learned helplessness

noun-

a mental condition in which one becomes unable to help oneself due to previous failed attempts at controlling one's life; also, a condition in which a person establishes and maintains contact with another by adopting a helpless, powerless stance

Examples:

Learned helplessness is conditioned behavior in which an individual gives up trying to escape a painful situation after repeatedly failing to escape.

Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon
Copyright © 2003-2014 Dictionary.com, LLC

Great job trainers for teaching others how to take the will out of a horse. Perfect job teaching the horse it won't escape the boredom/anger/frustration/fear so why try.

Unfortunately this isn't the only training idea that teaches learned helplessness. Start paying attention to their other fixes for problems and you will start to see the trend. In all the answers given by these big name trainers the horse has no choice. The horse learns saying no isn't an option. But wait, these NH trainers love horses and want to make the world a better place for them. Uhmm, no, they want to make money off of you and in order to do that they have to give you a quick fix. Also don't be fooled into thinking that all the trainers are different. All NH trainers use the same technique they just call it something different for marketing purposes.

Please excuse the rant here, I am just tired of seeing all the things that we do to horses that people consider ok.

Why would we let a trainer hit our horse with the lead rope because it wasn't moving backwards, sideways, or any direction fast enough?? Why are we letting trainers put marks on our horses with spurs? Why are mouths bloody from bits okay? Many people that claim to love their horses are more than willing to let someone cause their horse pain when training them. Why are we letting trainers chase our horses around with ropes/sticks causing them fear?  What are we gaining from allowing this? Pretty moving horses? Horses that fear us, but have learned they can't do anything about it so they submit?

But my horse trainer is different. Awesome! Now go ask him/her what to do when your horse won't yield to you.  If the answer involves putting more and more pressure on them until they do what you want then you are lying to yourself if you believe that your trainer is different. Why you ask, well because I can almost certainly say that when push comes to shove your trainer will hit your horse if that is what is required to get the horse to move. A trainer that hasn't been trained in any other method isn't going to have a different answer other than to add more pressure when it doesn't work. I will say some trainers are good enough with their release they don't have to add much pressure. Those trainers are somewhat better in my opinion, but I would still like to see what their response would be when a horse told them "no" I bet it would include upping the pressure to show them who is in charge.

Okay rant over