Ill] 



PSYCHOLOGY AND TRAINING 



13 



any horse may be made vicious if an ignorant 

 person is in charge of him. Mere teasing may 

 make a horse vicious. A wild horse is not 

 vicious, although he sometimes attacks man ; 

 this is done merely from fear — in self-preserva- 

 tion. With the worst type of Australian or 

 Western American "outlaw" there has never 

 been any proof of viciousness, but ample proof 

 of intense fear ; and, as we shall see later on, 

 fear will cause a horse to behave in a very 

 strange way. I have seen many so-called vicious 

 horses, and have had the pleasure of riding 

 some of them in the great North-West, but 

 nothing was more evident to my mind than the 

 intense fear exhibited by these horses. This is 

 only natural when, from the moment they see 

 human life, they are shouted at, hit, roped, 

 spurred, and everything else is done to them 

 calculated to frighten them. I think these so- 

 called horse-breakers are most unreasonable if 

 they honestly think that a horse so treated will 

 be anything but intensely frightened. 



46. The horse notices things in minute detail, 

 and on account of his extraordinary memory he 

 is able to remember them on future occasions. 

 If these things have pleasant associations con- 

 nected with them he will, the next time he sees 

 them, expect pleasant things to happen to him 

 again. If, on the other hand, when he first saw 

 them he was punished or in any other way hurt, 

 he would associate the pain or fear produced 

 with the object, and the next time he saw the 

 object he would expect a similar treatment ; 

 consequently, the sight of the object would cause 

 fear, and might cause him to refuse to go 

 near it. 



For this reason one of the fundamental 

 reasons of successful horse-training is that the 

 young horse must never be punished because he 

 shies at an object or shows fear. The punish- 

 ment will leave a bad association connected with 

 that object, and the next time he sees that object 

 he will behave worse instead of better. 



47. The horse usually pays attention to one 

 thing at a time, and therefore much can be done 

 if the trainer keeps his eye on the horse's eye 

 and prevents the animal from looking about for 

 other objects. It has been said that a horse takes 

 no notice of our facial expressions, but only 

 watches our hand and leg movements. I cannot 

 agree on this point, because I have experimented 

 on many occasions. I remember a thoroughbred 

 that understood by my face whether I was angry 

 or pleased, and by smiling I could make a dis- 

 tinct impression upon her, which, unless she 

 was feeling particularly high-spirited, told her 

 that I was pleased with what she had just done. 



A horse is always looking for its own 

 pleasure — for things that will cause it pleasure, 

 and therefore it likes everything that is asso- 

 ciated with pleasure. Unlike man, it is not 

 always looking for work. A horse does not 



work for the sake of working ; he seeks pleasure 

 instinctively. He does not understand our looks 

 to the same extent as does an intelligent dog 

 that watches our face all the time. But an 

 angry horse is calmed by our gaze, whilst an 

 angry dog is usually made worse. Horses act 

 differently in certain ways ; some horses act 

 very strangely and inconsistently on some days. 

 This is due to a brain affection, to excessive 

 high spirits, or to great fear. 



48. The horse takes great notice of our voice ; 

 he can understand a most extraordinary amount 

 by our speech. He can detect the difference in 

 tones, but not in words, because different words 

 expressed in the same tone produce the same 

 effect. When we say different things to a horse 

 we use different tones of speech, and these tones 

 he rapidly commits to memory. A sharp tone is 

 used when we are angry, a slow, soft tone when 

 we are pleased, etc. A horse's sense of detecting 

 sounds, as already mentioned, is very acute, and 

 therefore he should always be spoken to quietly. 

 I can always do more with a young horse that 

 has never been handled by the average groom, 

 who shouts as if the horse were deaf, because it 

 can understand me better when I talk as if I 

 were talking to a friend in a quiet room. A 

 horse can hear one's voice when one talks in a 

 quiet whisper, and one should get into this way 

 of talking to horses, as it shows greater know- 

 ledge of horsemanship. The voice should not 

 be used too much with a trained horse. I will 

 explain later on how aids and indications are 

 taught to him in conjunction with words, and 

 how the voice will eventually be dispensed with, 

 except in case of fear, when the voice is of tlie 

 utmost value. The horse then loves to hear 

 one's voice, unless his fear is extremely great. 



In training, however, as will be explained 

 later, the voice is of the utmost use. The degree 

 to which a horse will understand the voice will, 

 of course, depend on his intelligence. The 

 better he is bred the better will be his intelli- 

 gence. 



A wicked horse that is well-bred is a very 

 dangerous animal, as he will be clever enough 

 to know when to get us off our guard and how 

 to cause us harm ; our voice, our indications and 

 our punishments may not have the slightest 

 effect upon him. Of course, a bad- or high- 

 spirited horse, when first brought in from the 

 pasture, has lost a great deal of his bad quali- 

 ties or spirits, as the case may be, so allowance 

 must be made for this. 



49. I remember reading of a striking example 

 of intelligence recorded in the Winnipeg Free 

 Press. Mr. Begley, of Glendale, Manitoba, has a 

 mare that goes to the pump and fills the trough 

 with the greatest of ease, using her lips to work 

 the handle of the pump up and down. When 

 the valve of the pump has "caught," she uses 

 her teeth to compete with the extra weight of 



