YOUR MUSTANG’S VISION IS NOT LIKE YOURS

Training tactics you choose must take into account your horse’s vision and how their optics affect their day-to-day behavior.   The tactics you choose when handling and training your Mustang can benefit from understanding how ‘Your Mustang’s Vision is NOT Like Yours’.

Keep in mind that as a horse approaches an unfamiliar object, their ability to clearly focus on it will change as they get closer.  In the wild a horse approaches an unfamiliar object they will slightly raise or lower their heads as well as tipping it in different positions.

Whether you are leading them or riding you take your Mustang towards

When your horse wants to stop as they get near, (they are not disobeying you by stopping without your permission, they are stopping to get a clear focus on the object.

Within Leadership Theory training your horse is expected to exhibit their natural behavior.  This means to get a clear focus on a strange object they will adjust their distance and orientation.  Within Dominance Theory training these behaviors are discouraged.

As the leader, you and your horse approach the object copying the band’s behavior when they come across a strange object.) As they stand there or step to one side, you are giving them confidence to freely explore the world . 

Practitioners of  the Dominance Theory training  would not want the horse to stop without their permission nor would they allow them to stand quietly because time is worth money and they must keep walking on.

Training your Mustang to trust you as a leader, we allow your horse to stand for as long as they need to. When they feel comfortable with the object at that distance, they will start walking forward again. Allow your Mustang to walk on when they’re comfortable.  Some situations benefit from steering them in a circle around the object keeping only one eye on it. Once they are comfortable with the object out of that eye looking , reverse directions and let them look with the other eye.

When the horse is comfortable, observing the object with both eyes, they will willingly walk up to it and put their nose on it for a closer observation.

All horses have blind spots in their vision.  Looking rearward your Mustang has a blind spot, reaching from their tail and quite far behind, depending on the horse. As you walk away from the object, your horse could possibly not see it at all, and think it has gone away.

Where understanding their vision comes into the training tactics is to know that if they tip their head slightly one way or another, the object will once again appear. Often horses will bolt because they lose sight of the object and reappears in one eye or another it could disappear again and so on.

Departing the scary object, adjust in order to allow the horse keep one eye on it.