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A horse trainer and horse behaviorist usually differ in that trainers are someone who will train a horse for a specific discipline, such as dressage, cutting, trail or jumping. Find out how horse behaviorists have a better understanding of why a horse does things with information from an applied behavioral ecologist in this free video on horse training and behavior.
Hi! I'm Mary Ann Simonds. I'm an applied equine behavioral ecologist. I live in Vancouver, Washington and I'm here to talk to you today about what the difference is between a horse trainer and a horse behaviorist. Horse trainers should have a good background on horse behavior but oftentimes they don't. So, a horse trainer is someone that usually will train your horse for a specific discipline whether it's for dressage, or cutting, or trail, or jumping. That trainer is there and gets paid as professional to get a job done. To get a horse made for the showing or to get a horse brought for someone to ride so they have very very specific roles that they play and they're very and good trainers will understand behavior and incorporate it into the training practice. Equine behaviorist which is in the field of equine ecology is typically a scientist who has a background in equine behavior and understands more why the horse does things. So, a trainer might at a horse with a problem like shaking its head or pulling back and the trainer might device training techniques or use equipment to get the horse to stop or a behaviorist would look and try to determine why is the horse doing that. And again, a good trainer should also have some behavior but there is no requirements for the horse trainer to have any horse physiology, biology, behavior background at all. As an equine behaviorist, applied equine behavioral ecologist, that incorporates a lot more of understanding the neurophysiology of the horse, understanding the fore brain, the hind brain and how things, how learning behavior takes place in the horse, how stimulus affects the horse, what a horse's reaction and responses can be, how to understand the different temperaments of the horse. So, in the perfect world, a good horse trainer should understand horse behavior. Horse behaviorist are usually called in when there are problems with horses and I remember coming at a school being horse behaviorist and not having a lot of people want me to help with the horses unless there was a horse problem. And so oftentimes mares are the problems or aggressive horses that tend to attack people and so behaviorist would go in there armed with nothing more than an intelligent mind and a total understanding and comfort level with how to work with horses.
Specialty: Holistic Horse Health
