Natural Horsemanship

Motivation

Written by James Cooler
Photography by Lori Anthony

hope the spring weather has been treating all of the local horse owners well. I know I’ve been enjoying it, other than a few pesky sand gnats. But, that’s the Lowcountry! This month, we are wrapping up our look at the ATRUM Method and the elements that are involved. So far, we’ve covered Attention, Trust, Respect, Understanding and Motivation. When it comes to Willing Cooperation with a horse, you’d better not under-estimate the importance of having the knowledge to understand what truly motivates a horse.

When it comes to motivation, the first thought people have is “how do I make the horse do what I want it to do?” If you’ve been around horses for more than a year, you’ve probably heard some trailer loading story about 5 guys pushing a horse into the trailer. This isn’t motivation. This is force. Force is the opposite of desire. To me, the definition of true motivation is that the individual, whether it be a horse or human, truly wants to do what it is doing. It desires to do what it is doing. Now, I know that this can be a difficult thing to achieve with horses, but if you can learn to understand this concept of true motivation, then you will have the key to willing cooperation.

So, what does it take to really understand motivation when it comes to horses? You must learn how to service the horse’s needs. Stop and think about that for a moment. You have wants, but your horse has needs. You want to go for a nice trail ride. Your horse needs to feel safe. You want to practice your 10 meter circles. Your horse needs to have fun. You want to do a flying lead change. Your horse needs an incentive. Starting to get the picture? If you want something, you have to figure out what it is your horse needs in order to want to do the same thing. That is the key to truly winning over your horse and developing a relationship of willing cooperation.

To keep it simple, your horse has to be motivated to be willing to do what you want to do. The next step you need to take is to learn the needs of a horse. I’ve found that there are three things a horse needs: Safety, Play and Incentive. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to cover each of these three areas in this article. For that information, you can login to my website, CoolerHorsemanship.com to learn about clinics and private sessions that are available.

Also, please check out our new Online Horsemanship Library. It talks about a lot of the same information, only a lot more in-depth. Also, it helps support the American Cancer Society. Please login to learn more. I thank those who have been keeping up with my articles and I look forward to another one next month.