Human and Horse Interactions…

A great deal of the time when a horse reacts in a negative way toward a human…the human looks at the behavior incorrectly. This is something I talk a lot about with students. Here is a great quote from Cherry Hill in “How to Think Like a Horse: The essential handbook for understanding why horses do what they do.”

“When most of us look at a horse, we can easily see his beauty and admire his nobility. It’s when we start interacting with him that things can go wrong. That’s because we tend to view horses in human terms.

“When a horse runs away from us, bucks or bites, for example, we are likely to interpret what we think happened, rather than observing and reporting specific objective facts. A human interpretation might be, ‘That horse doesn’t like me, is misbehaving or is mean.’

“Once a person comes to understand horses, however, such natural behaviors are seen for just what they are and actually become less frequent. The reason is that the better you understand horses, the less often conflict will arise.”

I wanted to share this quote because it is so true. On a daily basis I am always reminding students that their horse is a horse…he is not human.