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July 2007 • VOLUME 23 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine  Habituation as a training method
Habituation Habituation is one of the most prevalent training methods used to train horses. While it is probably the most prevalent, and almost everyone uses it, few are aware how habituation as a training method prevails throughout their training. Unaware, they may also not realize the repercussions of this training method. What is habituation? Habituation is training through creating habits. It is using any number of training methods that, by creating a habit, we in turn train our horses. A few examples: 1. You shorten the reins such that the horse's head is on the vertical and then through various means try to keep your hand as steady as possible so that the rein length never changes and never moves. The horse may or may not display various behaviours in reaction, but you continue to keep the reins steady in that same length all the time. After a while, any behaviour patterns that may appear will in all likelihood disappear as the pattern of moving with his head on the vertical becomes a habit. This is habituation. You have trained your horse to accept that you only want him to move with his head on the vertical while you're on his back. 2. The rider, while training the young horse, attaches side reins from the girth to the cavesson, halter or perhaps even to the bridle. You begin by leaving the side reins long but over time shorten the side reins, ending up placing the horse's head on the vertical, throughout this time lunging the horse repeatedly day after day. Over time, through habituation the horse learns that when he is moving around the rider he is to keep his head in this one place. You have created a new habit in your horse.
3. On the young horse, you ride keeping hands low. Over time the
horse learns not to raise his head. You have created a new habit in
your horse. Most would suggest that training through repetition is a logical way to train the horse, perhaps the only way to train the horse. After all, isn’t that the way we teach a young puppy to sit, isn’t that the way that we train our own children their multiplication tables? While habituation can come in many different forms, including training the horse to go forward off leg pressure, to backing up when you go into the stall with his food. When it is used by the rider or trainer to impose a certain way of going while on the horse, there are certain inherent risks involved.
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