Co-being refers to a state of relationship in which each partner evolves to “fit” better with each other. | Photo: iStock

—K.S., via e-mail

A: This is a great question, but a really difficult one to answer. Misconceptions can range from mistakes of fact, disagreement about terminology, and practical or academic disagreement on theory. For most horse people, I think misconceptions come about because of the wide variety of people in the industry maybe using terms incorrectly, or maybe just using different descriptors of the same thing. I think all of these are prevalent in horse behavior topics.

One big part of human-horse interaction that I think is rife with misconceptions is in how we talk about training horses. I feel quite strongly is that, in this arena, behavior-modification principles are science, and they really work. You’ve heard me talk a lot about using positive and negative reinforcement, and also conditioned responses, habituation, desensitization, and other means by which we know horses (and other animals and people) learn stuff. This is all what I mean by behavior modification. True, it doesn’t presume horses have any great cognitive capacity, so perhaps it can seem dismissive of the honored position in which we sometimes put our horses. But these are methods that we absolutely know will work for us to train horses from the most minor daily interactions to very advanced athletic endeavors