The Horse Spanker

My Clinton Anderson DVDs arrived last week and I have watched three of the Ground Control Series 1 DVDs. In the first DVD, he desensitized the horse by flipping a rope and a string on a stick. In the second and third DVD he got the horse to turn on the haunches, backup and turn on the forehand by wacking it with the stick that he desensitized it to in part 1.

You are never going to find Mr. Anderson cozy in a sleeping bag under a watchful mare. He perceives his horses as dangerous beasts of little intelligence. I think he cows them into an obedient state. There is some degree of learned helplessness at work. Negative reinforcement is a useful tool with horses, but it is not the only tool. It has its own consequences.