Debunking Myths: \’The Whip is only an Extension of my Arm\’

There are so many myths in the horse world it is hard to choose where to start debunking them. Since I have seen several advertisements on Facebook with videos of horses at liberty and instructors talking about \’freedom\’, \’connection\’, \’positive training\’ or \’friendship\’ while carrying a whip directing a horse with a swishing tail and a lot of tension in its body, I will start with the whip (it-is-an-extension-of-my-arm) myth.

\’The Whip is only an Extension of My Arm\’

Equestrians say this and often they add \’… but I don\’t use it.\’ Or they add \’… I don\’t use it to hit my horse\’ or \’I only use it to get his attention\’ or \’It is a useful tool in the right hands\’. We have all heard this and maybe even said it! I know I have said it many times and believed it too.

Motivation

\"NíThat was before I understood the principles of motivation and learning.

There are only 2 ways all living beings are being motivated. 1) we are motivated to avoid pain/discomfort/unpleasant things (these are called \’aversives\’) and 2) we are motivated to get pleasure/wonderful things/things that make us feel good (these are called \’appetitives\’)

Your horses\’ point of view

Unfortunately the horse just sees a whip. Or the stick.

Your horse has made an association with this tool based on his experience.

That is his motivation. I think I it is safe to generalize here and say the majority of horses have aversive associations with whips and training sticks. In other words: they have learned that they cause pain and want to avoid it by anticipating their behaviour. That is the real reason horses often do better when there is a whip nearby. They have learned how to avoid it.

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Your point of view

You can call it \’carrot\’ stick, but to the horse who knows perfectly what a carrot looks like, tastes like and smells like, your carrot stick is just a stick. With a string. And it is (or has been!) used to touch the horse, not only in a good, friendly way (to give scratches) but also often in aversive ways. That last part is the part we tend to forget when we say \’It\’s only an extension of my arm.\’ That is the part that makes us feel uncomfortable as horse lovers: that we do use aversives to get our way.

Negative reinforcement

That is what negative reinforcement training is: taking away an aversive in order to strengthen a behaviour. The whip or stick is meant to (and used) to apply aversives with.

Aversive: something an animal actively wants to avoid or escape from

 

The Magic of Work at Liberty

Who hasn\’t seen wonderful clinicians that work at liberty with one or more horses. Their horses seem to do everything s/he wants. They have that magical bond and offer to teach this to you too! If you look closely you see they are carrying a whip or a some kind of stick. Sometimes it is really thin or white. It is designed to be almost invisible to human eyes. Not to horses! They learned to watch those tools very closely and pay attention to those \’extensions of arms\’. Why? Because in training sessions they are often applied to give aversives with and the horse remembers! If you watch the body language of those horses closely you can see that it is that tool that gives the commands (\’Do this, or else…\’) instead of giving cues with (\’Please do this, so you could earn an appetitive\’)

Whips are made to use as aversive

Most horses have the experience that a whip is (has been) used (in the past) to apply aversives with. Yes, I mean inflicting pain or discomfort (No, I really mean pain. Whip yourself and you know what I am talking about).

By waving your whip or \’just carrying\’ it, your horse will anticipate this behaviour because of his learning curve, the association with the whip is based on his experience in the past: Whips can hurt. This is why riders can\’t and won\’t ride without it: they simply don\’t get the same results.

Sorry to burst your bubble

Now you know why… I am so sorry to burst your bubble. When it happened to me I felt really guilty, but when you know better you can do better. I know you can do it, I could too.

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This is exactly why clinicians who work at liberty carry one or two whips in their hands while working at liberty with their horses. It is not magic and it is certainly not positive reinforcement: the horse can tell what is coming next if he does not obey the commands. There is no magic in at liberty work in natural horsemanship! It is science and it is based on negative reinforcement training.

Don\’t let your other senses fool you

You are being fooled by the beautiful, emotional music in the videos/performances, your eyes are distracted by what your ears hear.

The music is purposely chosen to trigger wonderful emotions in you and is meant to distract your eyes from what they see: a horse that displays tension in the muscles, swishing its tail, stressed expression in their eyes. or horses that vent their tension on the horse next to them.

Tip

Watch your favorite video without sound and pay attention 
to the horses. What do you see? Does the horse look happy or tense? 
If you mimic his body language how does that make you feel?

 

Then there is often a voice-over or words to read in the video (also meant to distract your eyes from what the horses\’ body language is telling). They use beautiful words like \’connection\’ or \’harmony\’, \’partnership\’, \’friendship\’, \’love\’ and so on. Words that play with our emotions and make us long for what we want: be accepted by our horse.

Magical bond

We all want that magical connection with our horses so badly that we want to see \’the magic\’, we want to believe what they are saying. We all want to hear that we too, can achieve this. We believe the \’leadership\’ and \’friendship\’ myths that they are selling us.

Then, after we bought the program, we refuse to see what it really is: negative reinforcement training. No place for the horse to have a say in their training whatsoever. If they do they get more aversives. Really sad actually because if you use positive reinforcement you can get all this and more!

Negative reinforcement for the horse is positive reinforcement for the trainer

We humans are heavily positively reinforced by the Oh\’s and Ah\’s and admiration from our friends at the barn or our instructor, so we carry on with it. It also gives us a powerful feeling that a horse -an animal 8-10 times our own size- obeys us.

On top of that, who wants to admit that they are forcing their horse to work at \’liberty\’?

This is what I use to say

\’No, no. It is An Extension Of My Arm\’, I explained to every one when I changed my whip for a training stick. \’I am just being a good leader\’ and \’I am mimicking the behaviour of the alpha horse or lead mare\’ and so on. I believed it myself!

The more someone asked critical questions the more I repeated the marketing nonsense I bought into myself. That is called cognitive dissonance. I couldn\’t be further from the truth.

\"NĂ­

Listen to your Inner Wisdom

My heart…. my heart couldn\’t be fooled by the smart marketing one-liners. It was that little voice in my heart that kept telling me \’This is not friendship, this looks more like a dictatorship to me. It is not magic when the horse walks without tack, he really knows that if he runs away from you and your whip/stick that you will react with, more pressure, more running around than ever.\’

The horse just chooses the smart choice: self-preservation. Being near the human simply means getting rid of the pressure when you work at liberty.

The myth debunked

Sorry, I was distracted and getting carried away, let\’s get back to the whip myth.

I am not saying you are using it to apply aversives with, but in our world I don\’t know any horse that has seen a whip but never has had an aversive encounter with it. None. Not even my own horse.

This what I am referring to: every horse in this world will encounter a whip as an aversive tool sooner or later in his life. Unless we all turn to 100% positive reinforcement! 

\"KONICA

A whip is simply designed to be used as an aversive tool! It is designed to inflict a lot of pain without causing a visible injury. Every equestrian who ever accidentally (or on purpose) has been whipped by herself or someone else knows what I am talking about: it hurts! Badly!

What equestrian has never been so frustrated that they used their whip to motivate their horse into the desired behaviour? In other words: when you get desperate you use your whip to hit! What equestrian has never used a whip to flick the horse with in case of emergency or to get out of a very dangerous situation? Yes, that is totally understandable. Horses remember those things, even years later! Even when you felt guilty or felt very sorry about it, the horse simply learned a lesson and will remember.

Lose the extension!

When you know better, you do better. Loose the \’extension\’ because it doesn\’t benefit your relationship with your horse.

What happens

When you don\’t carry a whip around you feel suddenly less powerful and maybe even very vulnerable. I know this is how I felt, when I decided to work without a whip or a training stick. Have you tried it? It makes you think about other ways, more creative and hopefully more friendly ways to ask your requests to your horse, your friend.

The reason that a horse responds to a whip \’as extension of your arm\’ is because it has been used as an aversive in the past. And it is still carrying this value. If it hasn\’t, your horse wouldn\’t respond as well to it.

The riders who claim to \’only hold it-but don\’t use it\’ why are you carrying it?

Why is nobody using a peacock or ostrich feather as 
\'extension of their arm\' in training or riding?

People who claim they \’don\’t use the whip\’ are still signalling a threat to the horse \’behave or else…\’ Why else would they carry such a useless device? Isn\’t that distracting and interfering with the hand-rein-connection?

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Secret

If you need a tool to act only as an extension of your arm why not use something that is not designed to dispense aversives? Something that makes it even impossible to inflict pain, something long and soft like a peacock or ostrich feather? I tell you why: the feather does not have the same power as a whip or stick. As soon as your horse finds out that it is useless to dispense aversives with it will lose \’its purpose as an extension of your arm\’.

It is the same with some dressage horses who will quickly learn that their rider won\’t use their whip as soon as they are riding within the small white dressage ring fences. They become instantly dull to the leg aids because they know there will not be a \’follow up\’ with the whip. The rider is negatively punished by the use of the whip because it can cost points. The horse has learned that he is \’safe from the whip\’ in the dressage ring. Until that one day the rider gets so frustrated and decides to use the whip \’really good\’ to show the horse who\’s boss in the ring….

Most people complain if they have to start carrying a whip or training stick during riding or training. Why not get rid of it if you don\’t use it…

Or, admit the advantage of your whip. Not to me, to yourself. And to your horse (although your horse already knows why you really carry it). Be honest!

Visit Ní Dhuinn Imagery on Facebook, she made the beautiful drawing of the ridden horse above.

Related post:

[Riding lessons] Why do kids start with a whip?

Did this blog post stirred something in you? Was it good or bad? I hope you\’re just like me and want to give horse people (and their parents) clarity and help debunk the myths that still effecting our horses in not such a great way.  How can I help you further?

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Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.
I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!
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12 thoughts on “Debunking Myths: \’The Whip is only an Extension of my Arm\’”

  1. Very interesting thoughts on the whip… I use a whip… I use it to remind my horse that I mean business, I tickle first. i also use it to knock flies off his face or belly; if an insect bothers him he points it out for me to rub it off with my whip.
    Although I use my whip now and then, I always am proud to remember that my grandmother told me, in an admonishing tone, that my horse ”has no respect for the chambriĂšre”….

    And anyway, it goes both ways. You remember when you helped me out to work the Tarq a bit when I was crippled and had to stumble around on sticks?
    His Majesty was seriously displeased.
    And he gave it to me on the most padded part of my backside and knocked me down.

    1. I never got the concept of the ”carrot stick” either. A carrot is a carrot and a stick is a stick.

      In my opinion it’s the same as with a bit. I don’t think it matters so much what is being used, but who the Yahoo is who uses it.

    2. Yes I remember it. I am still ashamed that I believed the bullsh*t marketing that the method came with. 😉 That is why I don’t use a natural horsemanship method anymore. Horses don’t like to be bossed around.

      Sensitive and highly intelligent horses like The Tarq don’t mind standing up for themselves (and their herd) to tell people they need to find other -more friendly- ways to connect with them and ask them instead of telling them.

      Now I know better, I do better. You have a smart horse, Aafke!

  2. Such a b*s*. Another one that tries to make an advertisement for herself by generalizing everyone. For 80% you’re wright, but 20% no you aren’t. For those, their whip is like a irritating fly around there horse, never to land or has landed on the horse. Flying around to train the horse so he gets more healthy and lives longer in total happiness. Being this fly, doesn’t mean that on the other side he has become his best friend in life.nobody live in a perfect happy world. If having a fly around to live happy and healthy, I think each horse in the world would wish to have a friend like that around him. Hi fly, because if you I can fly too.

  3. Many years ago (in the bad old check chain days) when I was having a lot of difficulty with my dog-aggressive German shepherd, I was given advice to carry a riding crop to use on her.
    It didn’t really seem to solve any problems, but she did learn to dart out of the way of it very quickly. Do I whacked my own leg 🙁
    Riding crop got put away, and down the track with later dogs it became an excellent target stick 🙂

    1. Thinking after I posted — a target stick IS an extension of your arm.
      The riding crop I bought initially had a little leather hand-shaped flap on the end, so it did make an excellent target stick.
      When I was doing demonstrations with my dogs I actually bought some very pretty kiddies riding crops in baby pink and blue with sparkly star-shapes on their end

  4. I have to let you know, your mention of the feather reminded me, I know a R- trainer who does use a feather! Trainers like this will think of anything to condition the human to thinking aversives or the threat of aversives, even if it *is* a feather, is ok. They rely on the fact that people don’t understand that horses can still read a cue that an aversive is coming, whether it’s a feather or a ‘carrot’ stick or a whip.

    Maybe fodder for another blog? ????

    1. Thanks Pauline for mentioning this. I haven’t seen it, but of course you can substitute every aversive tool for something that misleads the audience. Thank you for pointing this out!

      Isn’t it horrible that horse trainers mislead the audience on purpose at cost of the horse? A horse doesn’t lie so it is up to use to enlighten horse enthusiasts and educate them how to read the body language of a horse well.

  5. Reblogged this on HippoLogic and commented:

    I rewrote this article. I still think it is one of the hardest myth to debunk, because we have to take a look at ourselves and maybe choose the path less travelled. Not every one wants to do that.

  6. It’s a really good explanation for what most people don’t or won’t see. I try to hint to this a lot, but they really don’t seem to understand that the horse responses out of fear, not out of understanding or willingness. I think this article is a good way to point out what is wrong with the “extension of my arm” way of thinking. Thank you so much for this blog. It is one I will point out when talking about such a things.

    1. Thank you, Jensvl. It is indeed the principle of learning that people haven’t learned anywhere. I learned it in university, aften being in a riding school for years. I think people should learn the principles of learning and motivation (there are only 2 flavours: away from discomfort or moving towards pleasure) in the first ten lessons.

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