Love, understanding, trust. These are the words we hear to describe what people look for in relationships, and while they may guide our actions with one another, do they apply to our relationships with horses?
The question we are really asking here, is: do horses crave the same things that people do? In essence, do the needs of horses align with those of people? While the answer to this question may be obvious, it is worth asking nonetheless. Clearly, horses’ needs are very different from those of people. Not bestowed with the comforts of an insulated world, the equine species lives at the center of what we consider our most primitive need — safety. While we have easily surpassed the hyper-vigilant state that is horses’ everyday experience, for them, life is still a minefield of scary objects. And yet we have even brought them into our world — away from the only safety they know — to face what, to us, is not scary, but to them, often overwhelming. To be sure, we ask them to walk down our streets, live in our building, and even wear the clothes we make for them.
So in hoisting them fully out of their familiarity, how often do we consider what they really want? The answer, unfortunately, is not much. Watching any person, new to horses, approach a horse for the first time is a lesson in just how frequently our understanding horses’ needs become enmeshed with our own. While the intentions are good, for sure, people give them what they would want. Applying affection first, people fail to consider that horses, who are driven by the unending need for safety, do not find safety in affection.
Continue reading What Horses Really Want, by Claire Dorotik M.A.
