When working with horses, how can we know if they are tolerating or accepting what we are teaching them?  Well, first lets take a look at the difference in these words.   

Tolerance to me means that the horse is gritting his teeth and just wanting what ever we are doing to be over.  They are sucking it up. Horses tolerate things out of fear. They figure they have two options.  Stand here and tolerate what is happening or get into trouble.  They might go internal to a happy place, escaping mentally; looking glazed over in the eyes and displaced. Or they might evade what it really happening.  An example of evading might be getting out of position for saddling or mounting.  Other examples of tolerance are a high head, whites of the eyes showing, hard eyes not blinking, tight lips, horse is holding his breath, stiff tail, stiff ears, tail in a “J” shape, tail out and stiff, a general brace through out the whole body. 

Acceptance to me means that the horse is soft, willing and compliant.  His eyes are soft, he’s blinking, breathing normally and generally content.  He willingly stands to be saddled or mounted.  He is attentive to his rider. He is eager to please and happy to be your partner.

What should we do if we figure out that our horse is just tolerating something?  My first suggestion would be to slow down.  Allow the horse an opinion about what we are doing.  I’ll give you an example of this.  When I first meet a horse and I need to saddle him up.  I don’t just tie him up.  I don’t just put him on cross ties.  I make sure there is slack in the lead line between his halter and my hand.  That slack represents “choice” for the horse.  He has choice to move wherever he needs to.  Yep, I know you are probably saying “What? Not tie him up?  I can’t hold my horse AND put the saddle on without tying him up!”  Consider this.  If you don’t allow the horse a choice to be your partner…you will be trapping him into it.  Or you will be making him do it because he is tied.  You might say, “Well, my horse moves around to much so I HAVE to tie him”.  If he’s moving around while you are trying to saddle him, I hate to break it to you here…but he hasn’t accepted the saddling process then.  If he’s pinning his ears, tossing his head, grinding his teeth while you are saddling him or doing anything….he’s trying to tell you something.   

Sometimes it can be simply the way you are presenting things to him.  Do you throw the saddle on with a thud or are you gently placing it upon his back?  Has he even accepted rhythm around him first?  When you place a saddle on, the time and space between the saddle and his back, is rhythm.  

A horse that has accepted the saddle, in this example, will stand quietly, head level, while you swing the pad and saddle confidently and gently onto his back.  He will have chosen to stand where you asked him to, on a loose lead line.  Of course, after you are certain your horse has accepted the saddling, then sure, you can tie him to make it convenient for yourself.  But tie him because you WANT to, not because you HAVE to, too get the job done.

 Just for fun one day, why not try and see if your horse has accepted the saddle.  Drape the lead rope over your arm after you’ve asked your horse to stand in a certain spot.  Will he stay there and stand quietly accepting the placement and tightening of the girth on a loose rope?  Maybe he can’t even stand in a certain place on a loose rope, never mind allow a saddle to be swung upon his back.  If that’s the case, you have some work to do my friend.  Your horse needs some responsibilities placed on him.   Like stay where I put you.  That would have to come first.  Otherwise he is moving off before you ever even try to put the saddle on!   

If you consider the process that it takes to introduce things to a horse according to how “he” sees things, you’d be amazed at how many steps there are to any given task/job or responsibility you are teaching your horse.  When you find your horse tolerating things vs accepting them, that’s where you’ll find “holes in your foundation”.   

A cowboy once made a statement that I’ll never forget.  He said, “people have time to do it wrong over and over again.  But they never seem to have the time to do it right once.”  How interesting eh?   

Horses need to have responsibilities.  We need to stay out of their way so they can keep those responsibilities themselves.  If they don’t…then we’ll have something to say on the end of the lead rope.  If they do, leave them to it.  You’ll be surprised how much they like being left alone and not MADE to do things, leading them to TOLERATE situations vs ACCEPTING them.