AThe difficulties in getting your horse to cross this particular wooden bridge appear to represent sincere fear. Sweating, jumping up and down, and backing up are clearly signs of honest fear. So your general tact of trying to acclimate or desensitize the animal to what you imagine are the fear-eliciting elements of the situation are correct. And you are correct that it is often difficult to determine which of the elements of a particular situation are contributing to the fear response.

Once a horse gets really frightened in a particular situation, any of the elements of the situation–even things that they re-ally weren’t or even still aren’t afraid of in other situations–together can appear to set off the fear reaction as a stimulus set. I am not sure of how important it is to have your horse cross this particular bridge. If is not really important, and since this is the only difficult situation for him at the moment, I would just walk away from it and continue other fun and general confidence-building teamwork. This can include obstacle courses at home, varying the familiar with novel, the easy with challenging. The goal is to gradually introduce some obstacles you might expect to provoke very mild and momentary wariness, so you can coach him through and reward him. Just repeat each one until he establishes trust and you get the impression he will follow you anywhere. If you sense fear in the horse, just relax and wait and reassure, with no pressure to move forward until the horse is ready. Many people find obstacle course exercises a fun equine activity. They will help establish a pattern of trust that usually lasts a lifetime, especially for you and Dakota, but also for Dakota with people in general. In the future when new and more fearful situations are encountered on the trail, the horse’s first reaction will likely take the lead from you and go on forward, rather than go crazy.

For sure you should avoid repeatedly approaching that bridge and adding pressure if the fear does not diminish. This will only reinforce the fear and might set the animal up for a shorter fuse for fear in other situations. Establishing a pattern of fear leading to pressure or punishment from you can behaviorally and physiologically condition the animal to explode. This is one way true phobia is created. In contrast, a good obstacle course training experience, in which mild fear-eliciting stimuli are consistently paired with positive and patient reassurance and reward for resolution of the fear, will physiologically condition the animal’s neuroendocrine system to respond in the direction of resolution rather than acceleration