We can’t “train liberty”, because liberty is a state of being, with choices, control and freedom to express and to leave.
Liberty:-
The quality or state of being free:
– the power to do as one pleases
– freedom from physical restraint
– freedom from arbitrary or despotic control
– the positive enjoyment of various social, political or economic rights and privileges
– the power of choice
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
Just because a horse is interacting with their human in a big paddock, a huge arena or a big space or at the beach, doesn’t mean the horse/s are aware that they are free to leave or have choices. “Liberty training” (not true liberty) begins in a small space on a line and gradually the horse generalises the behaviour of staying close to the human, in different and larger spaces. The horse learns through various unpleasant methods, such as using enclosed spaces, gear and whips, that they have no choice and they cannot leave. When practitioners expand to various locations and fade out the restraint, it looks impressive.
This is not true liberty.
Similarly, “bridleless riding” starts in enclosed spaces, with a bridle and with pressure/force based riding, that teaches all the behaviours and cues and then the cues are transferred to either body cues (seat and legs) or to a neck rope and the bridle is removed.
Cue heart-warming music and dialogue, and we think it’s beautiful and the horse is free to leave at any time.
When you learn about how all of us learn, about escape and avoidance behaviour, we all become attuned to the cues that an aversive stimulus is coming, so we can actively work to avoid that aversive in the future. Therefore whips are not even needed for the final behaviour that is on cue, although there recently seems to be a lot of practitioners who use two whips! They merely raise their arm (as if holding the whip), make it look soft and theatrical and the horse will perform the behaviour based on the learned threat/cue, without having to actually wield a whip or contain or restrain the horse anymore. We don’t see visible barriers or physical restraint, because the horse has learnt previously that they cannot escape. The restraints may not be visible to us, but they are firmly lodged in the horse’s memories and learning history.
When you watch videos, turn off the sound and really look at the horse. Do they have soft body language and facial expressions, do they vocalise in a way we could interpret as pleasure? Or do they look tense in their face, with flared nostrils, squinty eye with a wrinkle above, move in a jerky tense way, flick their tail, shake their neck and arch and flick their head? Ask yourself the hard questions, do they look like they are having fun?
Horses can look momentarily tense, or put their ears back when doing something they find momentarily physically or mentally challenging. But their expression should flick between moments of difficulty and moments of easy fun behaviours. If a horse is solidly tense throughout a whole sequence of behaviours and worse, if they dry lick and chew at the end, or neck shake or walk off with head low, not seeming aware of their surrounds, then they’re probably not having a lot of fun. Only the human is unfortunately.
We can also never say that a horse won’t do something, if they don’t want to, which is a common defence. I know that is not true. There would be no abuse of horses, no racehorse entering the start gate who didn’t want to, no horse with stacks being nailed to their hooves, no horse ‘dancing’ when the music played, and on and on….
True liberty is not trained! It is a state of mind, a state of being.
Beware of pressure/force based trainers co-opting words and concepts from true force-free trainers.
When we train well with true Positive Reinforcement, (rather than Negative Reinforcement with non contingent food added at the end), we can train and put behaviours on an appetitive cue, the horse stays willingly for the pleasure of the reinforcement (food) and the choice and control over what happens to them. We also pair ourselves with something pleasurable, so we become fun to be around. That is true liberty, when a horse chooses to be with us for the pleasure of our company, not because they know they cannot leave.
Please, question the mythology around “liberty training”, the rope, whip and round pen cannot be seen, because they reside in the horse’s mind.