The Meaning of Communication is The Response You Get

"The meaning of communication is the response you get" - Edward T. Hall

Us trainers like to make up stories based on our education and world view. We categorize the horse's response based on our perception of how the horse received it, and often leave little room for wonder.

When we work with a horse, we label their response quickly: "the horse is overreactive," "the horse is dull," "he's trying hard to please" or "he's not trying at all." Two trainers will likely get two very different results based on their abilities, their perceptions, and much more.

It can be hard to quanitify and categorize accurately a horse's education level, let alone their personality, because of this. I once had a horse I had trained for years and was, to my estimation, finely tuned. Another trainer rode him and complained he didn't even have a basic education, could not steer, and was very dull. This horse was used to a type of communication based off of a feeling seat, and was not understanding plow reining - this trainer assumed every horse should know how to be ridden the way they ride, and called the horse, which I found to be very senistive, extremely dull.

This happens to us daily within the context of communicating with each other, our horses, and the world at large. If someone doesn't respond the way we communicate, we label them. Someone who speaks very indirectly might find someone who is direct and literal to not be repsonsive or respectful in conversation, or someone who is aggressive might find a nondirect person overly sensitive and so on. But these labels might not be true at all, they may be responses and calibrations to the type of communication being offered in the moment.

Good communication is when what we say gives us the response we had desired. So if we find ourselves not getting the type of response we hoped, we need to recalibrate our communication. Is the horse overreacting, or were we too loud for them? Do they not know how to steer, or were we pulling too hard too unclearly? Are they actually dull, or have they just tuned our noise out because they find it overwhelming?

We can label everyone and everything, but, as one of my teachers says: "good luck with that." A label only gets you so far. You can say whatever you want about the other you are communicating with, but what are you going to do to get your point across? You can use more force, talk louder and faster, get upset, judge them for all their flaws, OR, you can learn to be flexible and communicate for the other individual involved.

Here's Mr. Delton learning from a "dull" horse how to be more tactful in his requests, the hard way.