The
false idea of the predator / prey model
The predator/prey model of horse-human
relationship has been widely accepted as a science-based
cornerstone of the natural horsemanship movement founded
by Tom Dorrance, his brother Bill, and Ray Hunt. But
predator / prey was not part of the
original horse-human relationship renaissance these
men started. Perhaps more important to you and your
horse, the predator / prey model is not
based on science !
Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt laid the groundwork (for
what Miller and Lamb have called The revolution
in horsemanship ) without saying one single word
about predator / prey in either of their
books : True Unity ( T. Dorrance,1987) or :
Think Harmony with Horses (Hunt, 1991). But by 1993,
the model was appearing, nevertheless, in major training
publications ( like in Pat Parelli's book : Natural
Horse-man-ship,1993 ). So Bill Dorrance was asked
about it in the interviews for the 1999 book True
Horsemanship Through Feel he wrote with Leslie Desmond.
He gently discounted the model as : something
people like to talk about,....then added :
To my way of thinking, its a lot more
valuable to spend time learning how to feel of your
horse, and to teach that horse to learn to feel of you,
because theres sometimes a big gap between [..]
what a person wants the horse to do and what the horse
has in mind....
But unfortunately it was too late to turn peoples
attention back toward feel by then. Science
carries authority in our culture, and so do things that
seem scientific including the "predator
/ prey model".
The supposed core of the model is that :
(1) horses eat plants but humans eat meat, including
horses; so...
(2) horses are a prey species but
humans are a predator species; and...
(3) prey species are instinctively afraid
of predator species because of evolution. Therefore
horses (prey) are instinctively afraid of humans (predators).
Its true that horses eat only plants, whereas
humans eat meat as well as plants. But does that make
humans a predator species with respect to
horses ? More important, does it mean that the underpinning
nature of the relationship between humans and horses
is the one of a preys fear of its
predator? For the model to hold up, it has
to.
But have us now a look at the facts : The predator
/ prey models primary assumption is that horses
recognize predators, whether lions or humans, in one
of three ways: sight, smell, or touch. In other words,
the mere fact of a predator being a predator
is enough to cause a horse to react with fear and a
flight response. Thats actually not how it works.
Wild horses such as zebras dont generally respond
to predators on sight (or on smell). Instead,
there is strong evidence that they recognize and respond
only to predators who are actively engaged in hunting
at the time. Predators who are simply ambling
through a landscape are ignored. Lets consider
these points in more detail.
For horses to recognize predators by sight,
they must know a predator when they see one. If so,
they use one or more aspects of physical (visual) appearance
to tell predators apart from fellow plant-eaters. The
primary physical traits that separate predatory mammals
from ones that eat plants are adaptations for seizing
and slicing up prey modifications of the teeth,
jaws, and head muscles. Humans dont have these,
as you can see by comparing the teeth of wolves, bears,
cats, humans, horses, and bison.
Wolves, lions, and even pet dogs and cats have prominent
fangs, but the fang teeth in our mouths
are the same size as all the other teeth. And if you
compare your very front teeth, or incisors (in the middle
of your mouth, between the fangs), to those
of your horse on one hand, and your dog or cat on the
other, youll see that those teeth look alike in
you and your herbivorous horse, not in you and your
meat-eating pet. All our other teeth, our digestive
tracts (especially the small intestines), and the bone
and muscle structures of our jaws and necks also show
adaptations for eating plants rather than animals. Since
we dont have the meat-eating adaptations of biological
predators, we use weapons, fire to cook it, and eating
utensils to eat meat. Culture allows us to behave
as if we are biological predators. But we are not
a predator species biologically. So even
if horses are somehow able to tell natural or biological
predators apart from plant-eating mammals by sight,
humans could not fit the criteria they use. They cannot
see us as biological predators because we
arent.
For horses to recognize predators by smell,
they must know a predator when they smell one. The argument
has been made that animals that eat meat smell like
meat, so the horse has been selected to recognize the
scent of meat as meaning predator. Humans
also eat meat, horses smell the meat, and horses therefore
recognize humans as predators. But if this is
the lynch-pin of the horse-human relationship, we could
replace natural horsemanship methods with a vegetarian
diet and be done with the problem. Its worth trying,
but it doesnt seem to be what the predator/prey
model is about because it doesnt justify all the
special methods of natural horsemanship.
For horses to recognize predators by touch,
they must know a predator when they feel the touch of
one. A common line of support for the predator/prey
model is that horses naturally fear anything on their
backs because predators such as mountain lions drop
down onto them from trees to kill them. So when a human
gets on the horses back, the horses sense
of touch (pressure on the back) causes it to recognize
the human presence as predator. This line
of reasoning has even caused people to say
that its only natural for a horse
to buck a rider because it mistakes the rider for a
mountain lion.
The problem is that there arent any trees to
drop down out of in the habitats where horses evolved
and historically live wild grassy treeless plains.
Running adaptations in horses anatomy, physiology,
and behavior developed because the only way to get away
from predators on the plains is to run, fly, or dig.
Horses run. They have hooves, long legs, and other adaptations
that enable them to run fast and sustain on hard prairie
ground. Their predators share their ecological habitat.
Plains predators, whether hunting alone or in packs,
chase their prey and run it down to catch it. There
arent any trees to jump down out of. There
arent even usefully common cliffs in such areas.
A corollary to this idea is that the reason predators
jump onto horses backs is so they can kill them
with a bite to the back of the neck. But real horse
predators dont kill that way, which further erodes
the whole scenario. Its well-documented that lions
and other plains hunting cats, too kill
large prey by suffocation after they take it to the
ground. They grab the prey animal at the throat beneath
the jaws, or over the muzzle, and clamp down to stop
the passage of air to the lungs. Canid predators such
as wolves usually kill their prey simply by tearing
into it as they eat it rather than as a separate act.
And to catch and bring down their prey, both wolves
and big cats first have to chase and run it down
from low and behind. If any touch could make a human
seem like a predator to a horse, it would be one from
low and behind rather than one on the top of the back.
So if this is the lynch-pin of the horse-human
relationship being what it is, all you have to do to
fix things is never approach your horse
in a crouch from behind. Not many of us do that anyway.
So how do horses recognize predators
that pose a lethal threat to them ? In terms of
science, this issue is the heart of the predator-prey
model as its been proposed and discussed, so the
answer to the question matters very much. And it turns
out we do know something about real predator/prey
behavioral ecology of horses and both lions and wolves,
and what we know is very interesting.
Zebras the only truly wild equines we can still
see interacting with natural predators commonly
respond to predators according to whether or not theyre
actively hunting at the time they are seen. More than
35 years ago now, extensive studies by the great naturalist
George Schaller showed that zebras will graze calmly
as a lion or other predator walks right past them or
even through a spread-out herd so long as the
lions not hunting at the time. But the moment
the predator begins to display typical hunting behaviors
lowered head, fixed staring, and sinking into
a crouched posture the zebras and other animals
respond by moving away. If the predators behaviors
intensify, the animals run off. The predator may select
and chase one at that point, using methods of pursuit
and killing already described.
Its important to realize that the particular
group of stylized hunting behaviors that horses and
other plains ungulates (hoofed mammals) respond to is
typical only of plains mammals. The crouch lowers
the predator into what ground cover there is, partially
concealing it, and also positions the limbs and back
for bursting into a run. The stare is part of whats
called a sight-hunting behavioral repertoire
thats common on grasslands because there are few
obstructions between an animal and the horizon and so
vision is highly useful. The lowered head posture actually
connects the other two behaviors; it permits the predator
to keep its eye on the animal its hunting even
as the rest of its body leaps into a bounding run. So
horses dont just respond to hunting behaviors
in general, but to hunting behaviors specific to plains
predators only.
So is it possible for humans to behave in a way that
a horse might mistake the human for a predator and respond
to with fear ? Yes. If the human sneak up on the horse
in a low crouch, from behind, staring intently with
his head lowered as he do so, the horse might shy away
from him or even run and possibly kick. There is
not enough information or evidence to support this
connection as a fact science simply
doesnt work that way but if there ever
is a time that horses could mistake a human for a predator,
that would be it. The thing is, you dont need
natural horsemanship methods to stay out of trouble
in that case. Just stand up and let your horse see who
you are.
Finally, what about the idea that maybe, despite published
explanations of how and why the predator / prey model
supposedly works, it isnt really about
biological recognition ? Is it possible that horses
instinctive fear of humans is specifically a response
to Homo-sapiens instead of to predators in general
?
This idea supposes that horses learned to fear humans
from immediate human contact, and that their fear has
been genetically maintained by the continued practice
of eating horse meat in various cultures. If that makes
sense to you, consider the dog. Humans have eaten dogs
for at least as long, and in at least as many places,
as theyve eaten horses. Would you therefore consider
dogs a prey species ? Would you expect their
relationship to us to be one of instinctive fear ? Even
in contemporary cultures where dogs are used as food,
dogs fear of being eaten is not the basis of relationship
between pet dogs and their owners. Clearly an idea that
sounds logical at first glance may not actually be logical
or scientifically sound, either.
The predator / prey model of horse-human relationship
doesnt tell us anything useful about how our horses
see us, or how we can better relate to our horses. Yet
the method founded by the Dorrances and Hunt does work.
Thats why its spread so widely and been
carried on. The question is: if its not the
predator/prey model that explains the power of their
system, what does ? Bill Dorrance told us, in his
1993 quote: feel.
On the other hand....Natural Horse-man-ship,
as Pat Parelli defined it and a Miller and Lamb elaborated
it, is based on the totally false [!] idea that humans
must unilaterally overcome the horses instinctive
perception of us as its actual, biological enemies.
But this model, as we do know now, is nothing else
but pure fiction in the eyes of science !
When Bill Dorrance talked about feel, he
was using language his brother, Tom, and Ray Hunt also
used. If you read their publications or attended their
clinics, you know they were talking about communicating
better with the horse, in part, by occupying the same
psychological space the horse occupies. This is not
possible if horses and humans are polar opposites and
natural enemies, as some clinicians have claimed on
the basis of the predator/prey model. But if we are
both herbivores at the genetic level, we actually have
a great deal in common, biologically. American Indian
horse trainers have seen horses and humans as relating
in kinship all along, and what were seeing
now is that both science and the founders
of the entire natural horsemanship revolution
are and were in complete agreement with that view.
Donald Newe's Harmony in Horsemanship Horse-Human
Relationship Program is about this kinship and sympathetic
understanding that naturally exists between horses and
humans. To fully develop that relationship, we need
to learn how to feel, balance, center and connect, not
just when were riding, but whenever we interact
with horses. If we focus on these four principles, then
we will understand that horses and humans were never
enemies to begin with, and that with a little
effort on the part of the human as well as the horse
we can instead become partners and very good
friends. We can finally have the relationship with horses
that we have been searching for all along.
"The cultivated mind have to
draw it's inspiration from nature."
François Baucher (1796 – 1873)
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