Observation is basically how I learned horse herd dynamics. I figured horses seem to have everything figured out when left to their own devices in a herd. Every herd member seems to know and accept its place. Every herd member seemed to be secure. Every action of every herd member seemed to have a beginning, end and a purpose - every matter was always resolved to the acceptance of all involved. There appeared to me to be cohesiveness and harmony in the herd even though there were clearly was a constantly changing "pecking order" in the herd.

Put a human in the middle of all this and the next thing you know, you have chaos, and disharmony. The unity connection is lost and much time is spent striking a happy medium trying to get the horse to conform to human herd dynamics.

Now I have read many articles and theories about horse interactions. I'm sorry to say that I have not kept any because, just as you said when talking about your favorite method, there seemed to be something missing. Now, years later, that something missing appears to be many of the extremely important nuances were not fully observed by the advocates of the concept.

In observing horses free of human influence I have noticed that nature has set up a rule that says "You have the individual rights you are capable of taking and enforcing and you honor the rights of those who are more able to do that than you are." This rule is accepted by all horses. The horse who the most able to take rights becomes the leader. Ranked behind that horse according to their ability to take rights are all the other herd members in what has come to be called the "pecking order"..

The factor that has the greatest amount of influence in this dynamic is the DETERMINATION of the horse taking the right. If one horse is eating and a higher ranked horse comes up and says, "I'm taking this," the lower horse has ONLY two choices - it either must honor the superior horse's right or it must challenge and take the right for itself.

Horses understand and accept and are 100% comfortable with that dynamic. They know exactly what is expected of them when presented with an action - honor it or challenge it. As I have said, the absence of fear is confidence. Confidence is the assurance you can handle what is expected of you. In a herd, you are expected to challenge or accept. That's it. ALL horses can do that.

The more determined a horse is to take rights, the more lesser determined horses honor those rights. This is evidenced by the fact that some horses expend very little energy to take rights, pinned ears are often enough effort.

What is fear?

Fear is the emotion created by impending (or anticipated) danger, pain or other undesired consequence.

ALL aggression is motivated by fear but fear does not ALWAYS promote aggression. Many times fear promotes flight or spooking. While fear promotes either flight or aggression it ALWAYS promotes one of these actions. Where there is no fear, there is no spooking, there is no aggression.

To remove fear AND its effects one can resort to herd dynamics - You tell the horse, "I am taking the right to decide what you are going to do and how you are going to do it." This in effect is saying "*I* will take the responsibility of assessing danger." Since you are telling the horse to do something he INSTINCTIVELY knows how to do, the herd dynamic banishes fear.

The procedure I use that has come to be known to so many people around the world as Marv Walker's Bonder is not a horse and a human in a round pen. It is the presenting of the ACTIONS a lead horse would use to take rights to another horse who is instinctively programmed to REACT to those actions in one of two ways... challenge or comply.

Since we are humans, we can use our greater reasoning power to eliminate the horse's ability to effectively challenge our taking leaving him with no other option but to comply.

Since the horse is genetically pre-programmed to respond to the ACTIONS it really doesn't matter whether the ACTIONS are presented by a human or (being facetious here) a goat.

Once he complies, he looks to this being for guidance. As lead horse we determine when and where to eat, where he stands and for how long, whether we go somewhere or we stay, we decide how much energy to devote to fleeing danger, not him. As long as we continue to demonstrate we are capable of taking those rights, he will honor those rights.

In a herd situation the leader of the herd determines the herd's reaction to the fear. We see this demonstrated when one or more of horses in a herd spooks and flees. If the leader of the herd does not flee, the spooked horse or horses usually circles and comes back to the herd in short order. If the leader flees, the entire herd flees and flees as long as the leader flees. The leader determines the danger. The fear assessment of the leader can be clear across the board. If a flighty individual is leader, you have a flighty herd. If the leader is not flighty, the herd will not be flighty.

Assessing fear is one of the rights we take as leader.

Of course, it is our responsibility to exercise those rights in a leader-like manner. we cannot ask him to do anything he is physically unable to do and we cannot inflict pain on him since pain is a "go away!" signal to another horse. True leaders do not want compliant followers to leave because the protection in numbers applies to us as well.

When I deal with an aggressive horse, I put it through the bonder and control its every action. Since I'm performing the actions of a lead horse and it cannot defuse those actions, it honors them. At that point it knows what to do (honor my rights) and that it can do it (follow its instincts).

I do pretty much the same thing with a spooky horse. By exhibiting leader ACTIONS to the horse it becomes my job to lead in all circumstances. It is my job to evaluate the fear. It is his job to accept my evaluation.

This establishes confidence. "I now longer have to be responsible for fear." Where there is confidence there is no fear.

for the full article go to: Herd dynamics