Science takes on the man who listens to horses

”The animal doesn’t like being chased, it doesn’t like being frightened so it learns very quickly how to stop being chased by coming towards the thing that frightens it,” Ms Henshall said. She will present her findings at the International Society for Equitation Science conference in Edinburgh next week.

Ms Henshall questioned how humane it was to deliberately scare a horse.

Mr Roberts said his Join Up method used both positive and negative reinforcement, and negative reinforcement could be a ”good thing”.

”How do you get a horse to move off your leg? You lay your leg against the horse with pressure and then when the horse steps away you remove the pressure – that’s negative reinforcement,” said Mr Roberts, who advocates non-violence and does not use implements such as whips to control his horses.

He also rejected the study’s notion that his methods were inhumane. ”Everybody that ever works with a horse stresses a horse. You will stress a horse when you bring him out of a meadow,” said Mr Roberts, who will visit Australia next month.

They have to go through a certain amount of stress in order to accept they are going to live with humans, he said.

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