I’ve had this conversation enough times now that I think this question warrants an answer. The conversation goes something like this:
“If a horse is charging at you, are you just going to stick a bucket of food in its face?” this is usually said in a somewhat derogatory tone and is a rhetorical question. Most people don’t really want me to answer. The question is usually followed quickly by, “No, you wouldn’t…” and then some description of what they think should actually happen if a horse did charge at me.
If possible, I would remove myself from the animal’s space. If absolutely necessary, of course I would defend myself! But if I was standing there with food, and had no escape route, you bet I would be stuffing that food in the horse's face. In fact, depending on the intensity of the horse's behavior, that might even be my first choice, even if I did have an escape route.
Let me explain why...
Ear pinning, bites, kicking, striking, and charging, when directed at humans, are almost always an emotional response to a perceived threat. For whatever reason, the animal feels threatened, and is behaving aggressively to remove the threat.
So let’s say that I stepped into a horse's pen, the horse charged at me with mouth open to bite and I held up a flake of hay in front of me, resulting in the horse getting a mouthful of hay instead of a mouthful of me.
Most people would say that I just reinforced the horse for charging and biting, but did I really?
Although one trial learning can happen, in most cases, you need to pair the behavior with food repeatedly before it starts having any real effect, and it’s not reinforcement if it’s not strengthening the behavior.
So, if I've just shoved a flake of hay into the horse's mouth that just lunged and went to bite me, it’s actually what I do next that’s more important than what I just did.
I would think that it would be obvious that I'm not going to just keep on stepping into the horse's pen and setting him up to continue practicing the behavior, but I've seen enough people continue provoking their horse's aggression over and over again to think that maybe it's not so obvious.
Instead of stepping back into the pen, I'm going to start working on creating positive associations with my approach from outside the pen. I'm not going to step back into the pen unless I'm either 1) sure that the horse is comfortable with me doing so or 2) made some arrangement for the horse to be otherwise occupied so that they're not worrying about me stepping into the pen.
Now, let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that I did continue stepping into the pen and the horse kept charging me, going for that bite, and getting a mouthful of hay instead. If the mouthful of hay was actually reinforcing the charge/bite behavior, the behavior would still change because the motivation behind the behavior would change. It would no longer be an emotional response to a threat, so it would no longer have the same qualities as a lunge and bite driven by self-preservation.
So, the next time a horse behaves aggressively toward you, feel free to stick a bucket of food in their face. Then make a plan to change their emotional response to you so that they don't need to continue defending themselves.