Punishment



Aptitudeness  |  Usage  |  Dangers  

In order to judge the fundamental aptitudeness of punishment as educating method in horse training, a view of the behavior of horses among themselves is sufficient : The ranking is clarified by threatening, biting and striking. Everyone, which holds its horse in a herd, knows the consequences of such arguments. A form of justice must be not necessarily found in these fights.There are also horses, which tyrannize their kind comrades. Physical punishment is thus in principle suitable to cause a horse's  certain reaction. However, problematic is  the correct use of punishment:

Necessary punishments must be given without each passion and excitation and be exchanged with the smallest obligingness of the horse with praise. Punishment may not be used thus as retaliation, revenge or from rage. There would be otherwise the danger, that one loses the control and gives the situation from the hand; besides no horse can reconstruct these human motives, it exclusively goes to it around the question, who keeps the upper hand in the concrete situation. Punishment may be only strategically used thus.  In addition it must be implemented with a increased intensity. Many riders make the failure, that they inquire carefully, how the horse will take up the punishment.  Thereby they give their horse time for considering, whereby they increase its strength and often draw the argument up to the own exhaustion. More fatal still: If one uses weak punishment at the beginning and slowly the intensity increases, one trains it's horse in such a way that it adapts to the punishment. High intensity does not mean brutality: It concerns only to impress that horse. Not allowing the horse to come into your space a the ground or banging with the reins on the saddle when you sit on it helps often more than physical pain. With the extent of the punishment also the nature of the respective horse must be considered. Punishment may not to be used ,if the horse is to learn a complex maneuver. In nearly all cases the cause is not recalcitrantnesses but a lack of understanding. This applies in particular to young horses. Constant repeating of individual maneuvers exists especially with Reining-elementes. With the time the horse get's angry if one maneuver is repeated too often. The quality of the execution diminishes clearly. Also punishing of the horse in the maneuver appears problematic: If the rider pulls on the reins during the Sliding stop,  he punishes the horse during it does, what the rider asks of him. Punishment may be used only if the behavior of the horse is based not on lack of understanding but on recalcitrance. A cause the can be herd impulse and the urge after the stable or the exit of the riding area. However, often the incorrect effects of the rider and the insufficient preparation of the horse is causal for the unwanted behavior. Then these sources of error must be eliminated, punishment would be no solution. Also the temporal component plays a crucial role with the punishment. Punishment must take place absolutely directly on the unwanted behavior, so that the horse can manufacture a linkage to its behavior.  If the punishment takes place too late, then it is not effective. If one lets much time elapse too, then the punishment must be omitted. In order to be effective, punishment must be continuously planned. A certain behavior must be thus always punished. 

The correct use of punishment is thus an enormous challenge. Even with correct application the danger exists that the suppressed behavior is replaced by a just as bad or worse one. Besides the tendency exists that punishment strengthens aggressive behavior generally with humans and animal. However, the actual problem of the punishment is the following: Even badly used punishment can suppress a certain behavior for a short time effectively. The long-lived problems, which result finally from the punishment, are often falseinterpreted and are not set into a causal relationship with the past events.  The danger of the punishment exists thus also in its encouraging effect and the efforts, which it requires, in order to develop other solution types and strategies.

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