# Do horses love us?



## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

So after a nearly a week of being away from my ponies, I am of course eager to see them and make sure they are ok. 

But my long drive (and recent illness :frown_color: ) meant it was very late when I finally arrived at the barn. They came slowly to their stalls after I called; no one was in a hurry except maybe me...

I quickly fed them and refilled water buckets before giving them their night time hay. 

Sassy was withdrawn and appeared to be limping slightly on the right. We shared our regular hug and I promised her I would check her out thoroughly in the morning. Too dark to see without electricity :frown_color: 

Chivas said "hello" to me as always when I was giving him his food; but oddly first tried to join me in Sassy's stall, something he has never done before. 

Then it happened...this will be hard to explain...


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Our usual procedure, after eating, is for each horse to get two cookies as I let them out of their stall. Only Chivas has been going back out at night though because the mares are both up with injuries. 

But I forgot about the cookies. I had already closed & locked the feedroom door before I let Chivas out. But he just stood there and looked at me...his face was inquisitive and eager. Then I realized I had forgot the cookies! I tried to explain that I was tired and had a knot on my head that was throbbing and I was tired but...well...I just couldn't resist his cute little face. 

So I turned to go unlock the feed room again and Chivas followed. Then it happened...

While I was trying to unlock the door again, Chivas walked up behind me and stuck his nose in my hair! On the back of my head...he stuck his nose in my hair on my head and breathed in. And he stayed there sniffing my hair the whole time I was trying to unlock the door. 

He didn't nibble, he didn't push, he just stood there smelling my hair and breathing in my scent. 

It reminded me so much of when I would snuggle with my daughter and breathe in her hair. 

Have y'all ever done that before? Or am I just weird?? 

I think there is research that shows that people are attracted to other people by smell. I would feel love well up in me when snuggling (and breathing in the scent) of my kids and (now ex) spouse. 

Anyway, when Chivas stood there just breathing in the scent of my hair I felt love pouring out of him. He missed me and loves me and wanted to just stand there close to me. 

I almost didn't want to get out the cookies knowing that would distract him...I wanted to just stand there with him in the night air; breathing. 

But I gave him and the mares their cookies, and went home with a big grin. City life ain't for me...


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## JCnGrace (Apr 28, 2013)

I believe they are quite capable of it. Some seem to show it more than others and some just don't at all but when you spend enough time with them to learn their ways you realize they have ways of showing their affection for you.


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## aubie (Aug 24, 2013)

I believe they do. At least what they can. Which explains some more than others. But you know that goes for people to.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

JCnGrace said:


> I believe they are quite capable of it. Some seem to show it more than others and some just don't at all but when you spend enough time with them to learn their ways you realize they have ways of showing their affection for you.


I only had one that was so damaged I couldn't reach him. But the others over many years have shown me time after time in many ways how much they care about me and my needs. They are quite unselfish too, asking for so little in return. 



aubie said:


> I believe they do. At least what they can. Which explains some more than others. But you know that goes for people to.


Yes, some people it is really hard to connect to...they usually don't have or want any animals :wink:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@*AnitaAnne* , I'm going to throw an interesting question in the mix.

My husband was reflecting, "Why do they hang around you like this voluntarily? (horses, donkeys, dog, even some of the cattle) ...is it the occasional treat? Do they see you as the main food person? Is it that you know where all their itchy spots are?"



I smiled and said, "Well, darling, which if any of these reasons made you want to marry me?"

:rofl:




This could end up being a really interesting philosophical discussion!











PS: He just said, "It was your mammary glands!" :Angel:
And now he's saying, "Anything you quote me as saying may be interpreted as libel or slander. And you have a cute nose!"


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## blue eyed pony (Jun 20, 2011)

I had a horse that I am 100% certain adored me. He was very, very special, and capable of a lot of things people say horses "can't" do, but I believe they're all capable of loving their owners. He just loved me more deeply than others do.

I lived on a farm at the time, and he lived in the paddock nearest the house. Every single time I went outside, without fail, he'd call out and come running. Nickering sweetly like a stallion sweet-talking a mare. He was fed 3x daily at VERY specific times of day, and he knew what times he was getting fed and which times he'd be lucky to get a scratch. And still every time, without fail, he came running. He lived with two mares and another gelding, so he wasn't lonely. If it wasn't food and it wasn't herd instinct craving company, what was it if not love?


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## Spanish Rider (May 1, 2014)

Number one, I believe that a horse has to have a lot of trust in a human to get that close and stay there, not in a hurry to move away. But, of course, trust has a lot to do with love, and I know that it is quite hard (impossible?) to love someone you do not trust.

Now, moving onto the practicality of scents... I had a recent experience with Presu that was similar. However, I was sitting on a mounting block and he was in his stall. At first, he was pushing his muzzle through the bars to smell the back of my hair, which was recently washed. I laughed and turned to talk to him, but them moved away because I was afraid he would start nibbling. Do you know what he did next? He snorted so hard that it blew my hair up and over my head, and THEN inhaled hard to get my scent. He knew it was me, but he also new that I smelled different that day (I don't usually go to the barn clean). I think it was a healthy dose of trust and "Hey, what did you do to your hair?"

So, maybe Chivas smelled something different in you, just having come from the city with painted nails and coffee-house perfume in your hair? Of course, he knows your scent well enough to detect when something is new. But, you're right, I smell my kids a lot, too, especially when they've been away.


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## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

When my mare catches sight of me, especially after an absence of some hours, she nickers at me, no matter where she is. When she's in a stall she wants me to come over so she can breathe on my face (does not want to be touched when she is doing this). If I don't come over, she starts running her teeth along her blanket rail which is super annoying (as she knows very well). 

She will beg my husband for treats but she doesn't do any of the above for him. 

If we're away from home and I have to leave her with someone else (so I can, say, go to the bathroom), she'll whinny as I leave -- Come back! And this is even if she is with her horse friends. 

We have been through a good deal together. Whatever you want to call it, there is a strong bond between us. 

I have a pony too, who has clearly never had any relationship of trust with a human. She's obedient once you have a halter on her, but she never looks to me for comfort or affection, the way Brooke does. To me, the contrast between them is extreme, although a non-horse person probably wouldn't notice it.


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## mmshiro (May 3, 2017)

I don't know it means much. A family at my barn got a new Friesian, 5 years old, day before yesterday. Yesterday, they took him to the indoor arena so he can check it out and feel comfortable. I was about to pick up some water from the faucet when I saw him standing in the entrance. I said Hi to him, walked over, and instead of petting him (he's a skittish little fella), I stuck out my face without raising my hands. He took the invitation and put his nose right over mine for about 5 seconds. I told him he's a good boy and left - approach and retreat. 

I'm gonna say your hair still smelled like fresh coffee beans...


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## Caledonian (Nov 27, 2016)

Yes, I think they do in their own way. I’ve worked with many who’ve had a strong connection to their field mates yet they still take a few minutes to say hello at the gate. Some may say that it’s because I provide food while I think it’s because I provide food, protection, boundaries and friendship which is similar to the rest of their herd. If they treat me as one of their own, willing spend time with me, allow me access to their vulnerable parts and listen to me in frightening situations then I’m willing to call it love. 

I had a horse who chose to spend his time with me rather than the herd. If I was working in the field, he’d stand close by; if I was walking the fences, he’d follow me with his forehead in the hollow of my back; he’d stand with his head in my stomach to get his ears scratched or doze with it under my arm. I was always welcomed with loud neighs which would soften once he was standing with me. He'd also attempt to groom me and would nuzzle and touch at every opportunity without being pushy.

I’d like to think that that was his version of love.


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

I also think that a horse can love a person, although of course I wouldn't say it's the same way that one person can love another person. My pony loves to be with me, even if he knows he's not going to be fed (and he doesn't really like being scratched, so that's not it either). He is super friendly, to the point where he annoys the other horses ("let's be friends! Right now!") and even some people, so maybe he's just happy to have someone who is friendly back to him. He will lean his head on me and go to sleep, which is cute for about two minutes (after about two minutes the weight of his head seems to start increasing rapidly until eventually I have to push it away). 

Also, if I'm out in the field scratching my daughter's mare (she does like scratches) he will chase her away so I will be with him, not her. Which is actually annoying because he doesn't then want to be scratched, he just wants me to not scratch her, and to be close to him instead. However, if I'm scratching someone else who is above him in the herd, he will just move to about 10 feet away and then give me a sad look until I stop and go back over to him.


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## george the mule (Dec 7, 2014)

Well, I'll chime in on this subject. George and I are quite close. Certainly I love my little mule; he's just about my favorite being, but does he love me? Hard to say, and I guess it depends on how you define love. Close enough for me, anyway.
And heres an interesting story. My horse Oily is the herd Alpha. When he is at home with his herd, he will acknowledge me, but he gets pretty grumpy with anything like a public display of affection; even a pat on the butt sometimes earns a surly look. He will generally "stand" for grooming, blanketing, pick up his feet, etc, as long as there is no "loving" involved.
However, when I take him out, either alone, or with a group, he is totally "my" horse; he is free with his big slobbery kisses, he likes being scratched and hugged, and he will hang out with his nose over my shoulder while "the grownups" are talking. And I often hear "Oh, that's sweet; he really loves his human." And I suppose he does; he just has "Responsibilities" that sometimes keep him from showing it ;-)
I think we often fall into the trap of grouping them all under the label of "horse". They all have personality, some more-so than others, perhaps, but they are as individual as any similar group of humans. Again you come back to the definition of "love". Want a little "light" reading? Google "Limbic Resonance".


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

I had showered that morning, with my regular soap and shampoo so not sure any coffee house smell survived...but was a different water. Not sure that would make the difference, but of course I wasn't in my usual sweaty barn state either! :rofl: 

I'm glad to read of others picking up on love coming from their horses. I can tell when a horse really likes me, and they try so hard to do what we ask of them. 


Do they maybe interpret our tending to them; feeding, grooming, caring for them in sickness and health; as love? 

I know when I love someone I think about them, their likes and dislikes. I try to find ways to make their life easier and happier. I give them gifts of time and attention, food and hugs. 


How does one interpret "Love"? Is it just someone saying "I love you" but not showing they care? Or is it someone showing they care and preferring to be with the one they love? If the latter is a better definition of "real love" then my horse certainly does love me. All the stories y'all have shared about the special bond and closeness you have with your heart horses, that sure sounds like love to me


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

I think they do love us, not necessarily in any way we'd define it, but for them it's about comfort, safety, knowing where they stand. If you provide all that for them, then they are secure and safe, and I think for them that equals love and they appreciate whoever is doing that for them. 

My stallion LOVES to 'huff hair', especially if you use a kind of frou-frou shampoo or hair conditioner. He'll walk up quietly and respectfully and give you a good sniff all over your face and hands and then........he sucks the hair right off your head. He really loves to huff hair. He's also the most outgoing and demonstrative of all of our horses, he LOVES to be cuddled and petted and scritched and just hang out with his people.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> I think they do love us, not necessarily in any way we'd define it, but for them it's about comfort, safety, knowing where they stand. If you provide all that for them, then they are secure and safe, and I think for them that equals love and they appreciate whoever is doing that for them.
> 
> My stallion LOVES to 'huff hair', especially if you use a kind of frou-frou shampoo or hair conditioner. He'll walk up quietly and respectfully and give you a good sniff all over your face and hands and then........he sucks the hair right off your head. He really loves to huff hair. He's also the most outgoing and demonstrative of all of our horses, he LOVES to be cuddled and petted and scritched and just hang out with his people.


Huff hair! What a great description!! :rofl: that is exactly what Chivas was doing to me!! Huffing hair :rofl: 

Sounds like you stallion is showing you love! This is the way I define love  

Do you think he loves you? :wink:


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## TuyaGirl (Mar 14, 2014)

When I read the tittle the first thing I thought was 'of course'!! 

They all have different personalities and ways of showing it. I admire, and still amazes me, how fast they can trust us, humans, to interact and 'mess around' with them, let's say, right after we bought them, for example. But that's another subject…

My mare was never a scratch lover. She does not mind a good wither scratch, and below her jaw, but if she can avoid that, she will. I board, so I am not the one who feeds her regularly. I never gave her treats, apart the occasional apple and gelatine on her feeder, never in hand. 
She's yet to nicker when she sees me, but her behavior tells me that she likes me somehow. Even BO and his son told me several times that her demeanor is totally different when I am nearby. She seeks attention. Badly (she throws fits like a kid). She has her own paddock, and when she sees me she will start pawing to come out, but it's not to go inside her stable, or try to go to the other horses near her, it's to be with me, because as soon as I put the halter on and bring her out, she calms down and starts grazing immediately (I mean immediately, as soon as I shut back the gate). BO says I looks like I am taking care of a big dog on the leash  
She spent past Summer with the herd 24/7, at a really big pasture, she is the only horse that does not need to be bribed by a bucket feed to come, even knowing that means being ridden sometimes. And she would stay around as long as I did. After the rides I would let her go, and she would walk beside me instead of taking off to the herd (other horses would, I saw them). I actually had to send her off to let her know it was ok to go.
When I am in front of her stable she will try to kill the horse next door through the wall if he tries to check on us (that could also be a chestnut mare thing, lol!)
She puts up with all my insecurities on the trail and yet she trusts me. 

Yeah, that's enough for me 

As a side note, every time I work on her front hooves she will smell my hair. Two weeks ago I had a bun, and she was digging her nose into it so much that at one point I thought she was going to bite it! I feel silly now? Lol!


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

Yes, horses love us. They bond with their herd-mates. They bond with their preferred humans.

My crazy mare that I have argued with for years has gotten so that she follows me like a puppy. We have become partners and friends. 

Horses, dogs, and cats have all the same brain parts that we have. They obviously have emotions. If you don't believe it, think about trying to cross a creek or loading in a trailer. They can get very angry. That is an emotion. Love is an emotion. We all need love. Not all horses love their humans, but sometimes you just get a special connection with a horse. It is magical.

Some people think that horses do not have intelligence. I agree that they do not do calculus. (I don't any more..... ) Who is smarter if you get lost in the woods? In my case, it is the horse.

Yes, they can love that special person that spends time with them and takes care of them and goes on adventures with them. 
@AnitaAnne Yes. He loves you.


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## rambo99 (Nov 29, 2016)

I think horse's are capable of showing love in their own ways. My gelding who tends to be of the attitude don't bother me! kind is starting to change that attitude. 

I've been working on his feet due to not having a good farrier. Horse tends to act up pull feet away and just be naughty,but last few time i was working on his front feet he kept putting his nose down by my ear and sniffing. when i fill water trough he's right there. Wanting to be scratched on petted if i don't pet or scratch on him, he keeps getting closer & closer. He's not a real in your pocket type of horse,but in the last few weeks he's choosing to be with me, when i'm out in corral fixing fence or filling trough. 


Think a lot of it has to do with he starting to trust me which he didn't before. And he knows he gets treats for behaving and doing what is asked. Don't know if it's love or him just showing he has trust in me,maybe it's a little of both.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

AnitaAnne said:


> Huff hair! What a great description!! :rofl: that is exactly what Chivas was doing to me!! Huffing hair :rofl:
> 
> Sounds like you stallion is showing you love! This is the way I define love
> 
> Do you think he loves you? :wink:


Oh yes, I have no doubt about it. He's my Skippidy Do Dah boy. Not only is he extremely affectionate and demonstrative when we're just hanging out, but under saddle he shows me time and again how much he loves & trusts (I think trust is another horsey word for love) me by giving me 110% every single time. He may not always understand what I'm asking but he will always give me a really good try. And since we reward TRY around here, he's not afraid to keep on trying until he gets it right. 

It's funny, when I bought him I wanted the genetics (cremello) and his conformation. It didn't take him very long to move right to the top of the Horses That Will NEVER Be For Sale In My Lifetime list. He is just a total delight to be around. OK, welllll, mostly. He does like to try new people out. He will make them chase him all over the pasture to catch him. I go out and whistle our special whistle and he stops in his tracks and comes a'runnin'. Fries new people, especially those who "KNOW" about horses and don't want you to tell them anything. He loves to humble a show off.


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## Durango (Jul 16, 2018)

I think horses can love, even if they don't show it on a daily basis.

I had the sassiest mare who would never let you hug her or kiss her or anything like that. But the night before I sold her (because we were moving and I was to big for her) I went into her stall and said goodbye, telling her i loved her. Then I sat down on a feed bucket to watch her eat for the last time, she left her food and put her head down next to me I guess she could tell something was up. 

The next day when I walked her into her new stall and closed the gate. She put her her nose in my hands and then pushed me away. That mare loved me as much as I loved her I guess...


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## Walkamile (Dec 29, 2008)

I believe horses are capable of love. Look at the expression of a mare with her new little foal. Fills your heart.


My mare T choose me before I did her. It was seen by someone that became a good friend to me. Once I recognized how I felt towards that special mare, that was it. She was a very stoic mare, but showed her affection in her own way. 



Her last foal, Walkamile, is very demonstrative of his affection for me. I think when you don't have to tie a horse to saddle, doctor , groom or most things but they choose to stay with you and they could easily leave and go graze, they are showing their love and of course trust.


My newest addition as of 6 years ago, Misty, never showed any interest in a human. She had been rescued and then rehomed twice. When I lost T, Misty's owner (she never sold her after rescueing, but homed her with 2 different people at 2 different times) approached me about taking the little mare. She felt I would be a good match, as the current "owners" no longer wanted her and had never bonded with the little mare. 



After much deliberation, I went to see the mare. She looked at me, I was there with the actual owner and the woman that had had her for 8 years (and never bonded) and she put her muzzle out to me. This is something my girl T often did and I responded without thinking and did what I always did with T. I put my mouth on her muzzle and wiggled my lips. She wiggled back. The owner stood there open mouthed. This was the most she had ever seen this horse show any interest. 



Now, six years later, this little horse is wonderful! She shows affection in her own way, not as stoic as my T, but close. With that said, I think I am second in line of her affections, as my nephew is first. This horse is gaga over him and will drop everything to be with him. He adores her! She trusts us both, but I see a little more "love" directed towards him.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

These stories warm my heart! 


BTW Chivas did not Huff my hair today, but did supervise the stall cleaning :rofl: 


Sassy did not appear lame and they both got a thorough cleaning. Sassy's feet were filthy though :frown_color: don't think her feet got cleaned while I was gone...


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

AnitaAnne said:


> These stories warm my heart!
> 
> 
> BTW Chivas did not Huff my hair today, but did supervise the stall cleaning :rofl:
> ...


Oh yeah, and then there's supervising the stall cleaning. Patti broke me of bringing the wheelbarrow into her corral with her "supervision". She loves to have her butt scritched. Would back up to me while I was picking and I'd tell her, "In a minute, let me finish picking, it's not getting any cooler.", we were in AZ at the time. They had 24 X 48 corrals and I would wheel the wheelbarrow in and pick the corral and then I'd stand for a while and scritch her bum with the rake and my fingers. Frequently I would bring a curry and a body brush in with me and I'd spend some time grooming. Never failed, if I didn't move quick when I was done messing with her, she'd beat me to the wheelbarrow and dump it right over so I'd spend more time in there. Happened enough that I KNEW it was no accident.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> Oh yeah, and then there's supervising the stall cleaning. Patti broke me of bringing the wheelbarrow into her corral with her "supervision". She loves to have her butt scritched. Would back up to me while I was picking and I'd tell her, "In a minute, let me finish picking, it's not getting any cooler.", we were in AZ at the time. They had 24 X 48 corrals and I would wheel the wheelbarrow in and pick the corral and then I'd stand for a while and scritch her bum with the rake and my fingers. Frequently I would bring a curry and a body brush in with me and I'd spend some time grooming. Never failed, if I didn't move quick when I was done messing with her, she'd beat me to the wheelbarrow and dump it right over so I'd spend more time in there. Happened enough that I KNEW it was no accident.


:rofl: :rofl: dumping the wheel barrel!! Oh that is a fun game that horses love to play! 


But Chivas doesn't do that; he appreciates a clean stall :wink: Sometimes I wonder what he is thinking, but he has "helped" at times by trying to maneuver the manure fork with his teeth when I go to dump a load. Maybe he is trying to figure out how I do it so he can help??


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I used to use a wheelbarrow cleaning the corral back when I had Mia. A number of times, she backed up to the wheelbarrow and squeezed out a little something extra. Not sure if it was "love" or just "cleanliness"....:rofl:

My current gelding would cheerfully poop on his hay. OTOH, we were riding today along a wash (dry creek bed) with walls about 6-7 feet high. Some dirt bike riders started zipping back and forth near the edge. I don't think they saw us. Bandit's back tensed a little and I'm pretty sure he called them some bad names, but he didn't miss a step. So I asked him if he'd like to get out of there, I think he said yes, so I 'kissed' and we did a fast trot to a comfortable distance away. Mia might have been more trouble.

"_but for them it's about comfort, safety, knowing where they stand_" - @*Dreamcatcher Arabians* .

I am certain horses can enjoy being around a certain person. I also think it is tied to feeling secure and accepted by that person. Horses can be quite mean to each other. If a human offers them consistency, support, encouragement, a chance to feel good about themselves and teamwork...then I think horses really enjoy that! I'd swear I had rides with Mia where she offered me a cigarette at the end and asked if it was as good for me as it was for her...;-)...and Bandit seemed uncommonly satisfied with himself when we finished today.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

mg: the imagery, @bsms! :rofl:


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## farmpony84 (Apr 21, 2008)

Mine talk to me. They know my car and they know my voice. They definitely trust me. I like to think they love me. I know I love them...

As for poop @bsms .... I have one that LOVES to poop in his water bucket. EVERYDAY. And no - it's not the location because I an put it ANYWHERE in his stall and he will find it and he will poop in it... I think he wants me to get my exercise dumping it and refilling it. Because he loves me


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

This will sound weird too, and so many here will say I'm just soft, and spoiling her... but Kodak has been doing this to me so much lately. My two geldings are outgoing, and I know exactly what they're thinking all the time. They nudge me, stick their noses in my faces... but Kodak, she's different. She has dark shadows in her past. She went from being terrified, to being on edge, to wanting a relationship with me. Of all three, she's the one I feel the deepest connection with. She waits until the geldings have had their displays of nudging and asking for treats. She hangs back until they're done. Then she slowly comes to my side and just stands there. Sometimes she smells me, sometimes she just stands by me like we're in this together. Girl power. 

Thanks for getting us all thinking about this.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

As a biologist, I understand that all social mammals form social bonds. The words that people will use around those social bonds will vary, also depending on their particular definition of those words, and their personal experiences of the concepts conveyed by those words.

Do social mammals form cross-species social bonds? Well, yes - dogs have had a lot of selection pressure from their breeding to bond with humans - the ones that didn't had less chance of being bred from, etc. To an extent this is the case with a lot of domestic mammals that have been bred to be around humans. However, if you've ever raised an orphaned wild social mammal, like a kangaroo, you will know that cross-species social bonding can also happen with non-domesticated species. (It's a bit more complex there - if the mammal is really young, they may imprint on you, as they would have on their own mother.)

So, do my horses, donkeys and dog have social bonds with me, and I with them? Yes - we're all in each other's social groups, and interact freely, (mostly) amicably, and meaningfully as such. Do these animals like me? Demonstrably yes - and I them, also demonstrably so. Do we like hanging out? Also yes. Are we friends? Yeah, we are. We'll also act in each other's advantage, etc.

Love is a really loaded word - which is why it can be generally problematic to apply it. If you listen to the radio, a lot of songs about "love" can be really uncomfortable, because they depict really unhealthy types of "love" - co-dependent "love", addicted "love", "love" as possession and control. I think we humans have really, as a species, distorted and complicated a lot of stuff around "love" - however you define it.

If you define it as an emotion - strong feelings around a social bond, for instance - then you can apply it to a lot of strongly bonded relationships, including some very distorted and uncomfortable ones. If you put parameters around it to divide healthy from unhealthy, you end up with different groupings.

I personally don't define love as an emotion, I think emotions can _accompany_ love. From my human perspective, I often like to say that love is a _doing_ word - acts of service like making dinner or taking out the garbage (in a positive spirit, not as an act of martyrdom or "now you owe me"), acts of affection like bantering, cuddling, playing etc. It's also an attitude. To me, if there isn't mutual _respect_, there isn't love. By respect I mean honouring another's being. I think that to me is the biggest, most essential aspect of love.

So I know that according to my personal definition, I love my husband, my friends, and my animals. I honour their beings - I don't try to make my husband into some idea I have in my head, into someone he's not, but I love and celebrate him for who he is, in essence - for what he values and finds important, and works towards, and is inspired by, and for the many skills he has developed, etc. (Please note that things like leaving dirty socks in the wrong places or forgetting to brush you teeth isn't _essential_, it's peripheral - with most people anyway! :rofl: We all have flaws and stuff we could do better, and are works in progress, but we can still honour each other's beings.) 

Likewise, I honour my dog's dogness, my horses' horseness, etc. I don't try to anthropomorphise them - turn them into things like me. I try to learn their language as best I can so I can meet them halfway - I don't just expect them to learn mine. I don't necessarily transfer human gestures of affection to my animals - I express affection to them physically mostly by imitating with them how their own species expresses it - so I will scratch a horse's withers and other itchy spots, but I don't kiss them (or my dog - which is good, since she eats all sorts of unmentionable stuff like fox scats...) and I don't do bear hugs with animals, as that can be quite intimidating to them. Also, like with humans, I try not to invade their personal space without asking first.

It's so interesting to look at our similarities as well as our differences, as people and as species - and to learn from that, and to enjoy the synergy of bringing diverse beings together for a purpose. And I think if you're not _learning_ about the other being - your spouse, your children, your friends, your animals - as a result of interacting with them, it's not really love - because it's too blind, self-centred etc and you don't really see them, or their journey in this world.



Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> I think they do love us, not necessarily in any way we'd define it, but for them it's about comfort, safety, knowing where they stand. If you provide all that for them, then they are secure and safe, and I think for them that equals love and they appreciate whoever is doing that for them.


I really liked that!  And I think that's an aspect of love which we all share.



Celeste said:


> Yes, horses love us. They bond with their herd-mates. They bond with their preferred humans.
> 
> My crazy mare that I have argued with for years has gotten so that she follows me like a puppy. We have become partners and friends.
> 
> ...


I really liked that too! 



AnitaAnne said:


> I'm glad to read of others picking up on love coming from their horses. I can tell when a horse really likes me, and they try so hard to do what we ask of them.
> 
> Do they maybe interpret our tending to them; feeding, grooming, caring for them in sickness and health; as love?
> 
> I know when I love someone I think about them, their likes and dislikes. I try to find ways to make their life easier and happier. I give them gifts of time and attention, food and hugs.


Act of service and kindness to express love! 

And @*AnitaAnne* likes to do this - which is how you can tell she loves the recipients. She's not getting paid to do this, or grumbling about it, or expecting them to be eternally grateful and feel in her debt.



> How does one interpret "Love"? Is it just someone saying "I love you" but not showing they care? Or is it someone showing they care and preferring to be with the one they love? If the latter is a better definition of "real love" then my horse certainly does love me. All the stories y'all have shared about the special bond and closeness you have with your heart horses, that sure sounds like love to me


Love and lip service - versus actual love. 

"I love icecream" type love, versus love that honours another being.

inkunicorn::blueunicorn:


Great topic... hope I've not put anyone to sleep! ;-) :ZZZ:


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## 1 Dollar (Nov 2, 2018)

Anita Anne,

That was such a sweet story that it made me cry.

Yes, I believe horse can love. I had one many years ago who loved me.

I worked over the summer at a therapeutic riding center and watched one of the horses love a client. That special bond is what helps people recover from PTSD or gain much needed confidence. Horses are special animals.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

******! I was going to put a photo in after the third paragraph to break up the text - but my neurons are calcifying I think. Here it is...



Bathtime - Red Moon Sanctuary, Redmond Western Australia by Brett and Sue Coulstock, on Flickr

@george the mule, that was a nice reading assignment, thank you!  Makes a lot of sense.


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## JoBlueQuarter (Jan 20, 2017)

SueC said:


> As a biologist, I understand that all social mammals form social bonds. The words that people will use around those social bonds will vary, also depending on their particular definition of those words, and their personal experiences of the concepts conveyed by those words.
> 
> Do social mammals form cross-species social bonds? Well, yes - dogs have had a lot of selection pressure from their breeding to bond with humans - the ones that didn't had less chance of being bred from, etc. To an extent this is the case with a lot of domestic mammals that have been bred to be around humans. However, if you've ever raised an orphaned wild social mammal, like a kangaroo, you will know that cross-species social bonding can also happen with non-domesticated species. (It's a bit more complex there - if the mammal is really young, they may imprint on you, as they would have on their own mother.).......


Wow, awesome post!!!!!! :thumbsup::bowwdown::cheers::winetime::starbucks: And just because :falloff: Lol, sorry, got a bit carried away...:racing:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@JoBlueQuarter, I'm glad you liked it and thank you, but I don't think I used enough emojis in that post... :dance-smiley05:


I am really fond of this sequence:


:charge: :falloff: :rofl:


Doesn't HF have the coolest emojis? I have trouble writing ordinary documents and emails these days... severe emoji deficit... :Angel:


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## mmshiro (May 3, 2017)

Well, I've been pondering the issue a little more, and after reading a few more of your responses, I figured out what bothered me about "love": It's an ill-defined concept, and there is no guarantee that two people mean the same thing when they use this term. "Love" runs the gamut from hedonistic preference to self-sacrificing devotion on another, depending on which piece of art you look at. So no, I don't think we can say that horses "love" us, because in order to say that, we have to be able to say what exactly what it is and what it isn't, and we have to be able to do so in falsifiable terms. 

Can horses see our presence as a source of comfort and security? I do think so, absolutely. Can they get a sense of "service", doing something "nice" for us without compulsion or bribe, just because? I do think so - and so does probably everyone who ever got a spontaneous grooming from a horse they interacted with affectionately. (I just got one yesterday, while scratching some beads of dried mud from my horse's belly in the pasture...)

Oh, back to the new Friesian at my farm: I went to pick up Hamlet for a ride, passing his pasture. He saw me, did his high-leg-action Friesian trot over to the fence, and looked right at me. Naturally, I went to say Hello! to him, but lets keep in mind that he showed this interest in me despite never having had any "training" interaction with me, nor could he have any expectation of a treat as I never gave him one. I guess there are all kinds of interpretations for this behavior that one could entertain - for me, it's enough that he put a smile on my face before I ever even got to my horse. Or he's training me to walk over and scratch his neck. Or he wishes he was my horse. Or he loves me. 

There are many threads from people asking, "What level rider am I?" This equally asks us to ascribe an ill-defined term. So, ultimately, I'm coming down on this: "Does my horse love me?" should not be asked, as the question is an ill-posed one. Your horse loves hanging out with you - if so, you did a lot of things right with your horse. That can be enough, in my opinion. Sticking a pretty label on it doesn't change anything.


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## redbadger (Nov 20, 2017)

I think they know who we are, and have preferences - and not ones just based on who has snacks. Research has suggested that cats view us as other, larger, somewhat clumsier cats, while dogs know we're not other dogs but treat us like "pack" or family. I can't tell exactly how the horses perceive us. I think they know we are not just odd two-legged horses, and that we are individuals with different qualities and personalities, just like their herdmates. We fall in love with our animals because we perceive them as separate souls that in some way align with ours, even when they're not the same species. We've all had the experience of an animal - a dog, a cat, a bird, a horse, a person - that we encountered and had that sense of "oh. There you are." In the words of Walt Whitman - "I have somewhere, surely lived a life of joy with you." And I think even if a nonhuman being doesn't feel love as we would quantify it, they feel whatever it is, is akin in their species. I would bet that dogs and cats and horses find humans and think "yes, this one, this one is my companion, my pack, my herd". Horses have done so much for humans that goes so strongly against their basic primal instincts about danger (including "there is another live animal sitting on my back"). Sometimes, they've done it out of fear of their handler, for sure. But if he didn't trust you not to lead him astray, fear aside, most horses are fully capable of expressing that sentiment.


I think your Chivas missed you. His Person went away! His person came back - he'd better make sure it's the same person, just in case. After all, it's his person he wants back, not some imposter with the same shampoo. His snuffing and huffing says "I'm glad you're back, I want to get the smell of you back, I missed having you around, everything was different."


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

I've had a few instances where I felt a horse showed me affection that felt like "love" to me. How can we actually know a horse loves us? Well, I suppose that's hard to define. But if it feels like "love" to me, I accept it as love weather I can prove it or not.

Here are some examples:

One time we had to evacuate from a forest fire and one of my horses ended up with strangers a few miles down the road (I won't bore you with the details of how that happened) BUT we were gone 11 days and as soon as we got home (thank God we still had our home) we went a few miles down the road to collect the one horse. I didn't know the people and the man that was actually the horse person wasn't home. The wife, an elderly lady that didn't know much about the horses was there. She didn't know me from Adam and really didn't want to let me get the horse but we were there with a borrowed trailer so we sort of talked her into it. 

So I go out there to get my horse and as soon as he hears my voice he whinnies to me. I felt so proud, like is there ANY doubt that is MY horse? :Angel:

Another time, different horse, I was cantering up a hill and my saddle slipped and I came off and landed hard and wasn't able to jump right back up right away. This horse had a reputation for running home if given a chance. On this instance, he stayed right there with me. He SHOULD have run home. He did it early on when he got loose on rides. But this time he stayed right with me. I don't know if it was "love," but I certainly felt like we had bond after that. 

Most recently, I have the loveliest little Fox Trotter mare who will leave her feed to come and do mutual grooming with me. I can hardly clean the poop out of her pen even if I give her fresh hay because she will only eat for a few minutes and then leave her hay (alfalfa!) to come and groom with me. Is that love? Well, if not, it's certainly affection and friendship. I love her. So if she has even a little bit of affection for me, I consider it love because I don't expect the same kind of love from horse as I would a human. 

They are still horses of course. I don't expect them to act like humans. They could spook and dump me and run home and I wouldn't hold that against them. I expect them to always look out for themselves first and foremost because they are animals and they often act on instincts. But that's what makes all the little affections and loyalties you occasionally get all the more special when they do happen.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

redbadger said:


> Research has suggested that cats view us as other, larger, somewhat clumsier cats,


Who did this research? I have never seen a cat treat another cat like they treat humans! Cats treat humans like personal assistants! The neighbor cat has trained me to buy her canned food...:Angel:



redbadger said:


> We've all had the experience of an animal - a dog, a cat, a bird, a horse, a person - that we encountered and had that sense of "oh. There you are." In the words of Walt Whitman - "I have somewhere, surely lived a life of joy with you."



This is beautiful  



redbadger said:


> I would bet that dogs and cats and horses find humans and think "yes, this one, this one is my companion, my pack, my herd".


Have heard of cats "picking" a home and people other than their owners. My current dog, the spoiled-rotten-rat-terrier Lily, climbed over the fence from the neighbors yard and laid at my feet! Once she made it over the fence, she wouldn't stay there. Not for a minute. A month later they conceded defeat and "gifted" her to me. 

I do believe @mmshiro has been picked by a certain Friesian :wink: 



redbadger said:


> I think your Chivas missed you. His Person went away! His person came back - he'd better make sure it's the same person, just in case. After all, it's his person he wants back, not some imposter with the same shampoo. His snuffing and huffing says "I'm glad you're back, I want to get the smell of you back, I missed having you around, everything was different."


That is so sweet! That is exactly what it felt like; as if he was saying "I missed you so much; you smell so good" 

Plus he let me hug him! Something that he normally doesn't allow :wink:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

mmshiro said:


> So no, I don't think we can say that horses "love" us, because in order to say that, we have to be able to say exactly what it is and what it isn't, and we have to be able to do so in falsifiable terms.


And we'd have a really hard time trying to _verify_ anything like that, even if we narrowed the definition down for the sake of the discussion (also true for human-human love, BTW). Which is not to say it absolutely couldn't be done, in some way, shape or form, as I will try to show below. It is, however, far easier and more meaningful for us to ask, "Do we love our horses?" ...and that is possibly the more important question as well - since we are invariably in power positions over them and their lives.

And then again, we'd have to define it carefully. Do you mean love as in I love chocolate? Or as in I love hanging out with my horse, because it makes me feel good? Or as in I respect and honour this being, and will go out of my way to act in its interests? Or something else?

No wonder the Greeks had so many different words for love: _Eros_ (romantic/sexual attraction), _philia_ (friendship love - brothers in arms etc), _storge_ (love for children), _ludus_ (love as play and affection), _agape_ (unconditional love), _pragma_ (mature, enduring love), and _philautia_ (healthy self-love, self-care, self-compassion; which also helps you love others - and it's diametrically opposed to narcissism). And this in not an exhaustive list!

So from that list, I think those of us with good relationships with horses know (and we can even _demonstrate_) that _philia_ and _ludus_ can flow both from human to horse, and from horse to human. Given enough time, you'll be sharing a bit of _pragma_ as well - with your really old horses you've had forever! 

And just for fun:

Some _philia_ going on here, in both directions:



The horses on the far side are already _philia_ buddies, meeting a newbie:





This is oozing _ludus_:



This is _"I love cream_":



And here we see two-way _pragma_ - horse and human have known each other for 31 years and have become a sort of item of furniture in this universe:



If you like to think about these things, you may like this link (especially as a newspaper alternative!):

Philosophers' Mail


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

mmshiro said:


> Well, I've been pondering the issue a little more, and after reading a few more of your responses, I figured out what bothered me about "love": It's an ill-defined concept, and there is no guarantee that two people mean the same thing when they use this term. "Love" runs the gamut from hedonistic preference to self-sacrificing devotion on another, depending on which piece of art you look at. So no, I don't think we can say that horses "love" us, because in order to say that, we have to be able to say what exactly what it is and what it isn't, and we have to be able to do so in falsifiable terms.
> 
> Can horses see our presence as a source of comfort and security? I do think so, absolutely. Can they get a sense of "service", doing something "nice" for us without compulsion or bribe, just because? I do think so - and so does probably everyone who ever got a spontaneous grooming from a horse they interacted with affectionately. (I just got one yesterday, while scratching some beads of dried mud from my horse's belly in the pasture...)
> 
> ...


Finally the opposing view shows up :wink: sort of...


IMO all emotions are hard to describe in concrete terms, not just Love. It is all about feelings and if someone, human or otherwise, brings out feelings in one that fit their definition of Love...then it is Love. Not just a pretty label, but a way to express the feeling inside that Love is to them. 


Not to get too deep into it, but of course one's concept of Love can be detrimental to them and those they show that distorted love to. Abused children can have difficulty accepting and understanding a "softer, gentler" love. 

I worked for years with therapeutic foster kids and was appalled at the things that were done to these kids. Yet those kids, even if teenagers, were convinced their parents loved them. It is so sad. 

Why if a child can suffer abuse and have a distorted sense of love, can't an animal also labor under the delusion? How many dogs that are kicked by their owners for tiny infractions come crawling back whimpering and wagging their tail seeking Love? 


How many horses might also think a harsh owner loves them? Might they try hard even though they are in emotional and/or physical pain? 

BTW, I do believe you and the Friesian feel a connection or made a connection that first day and it will be interesting to see how your relationship develops :smile:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

1 Dollar said:


> Anita Anne,
> 
> That was such a sweet story that it made me cry.
> 
> ...


This is so true! I had therapeutic foster kids for years and I bought each one their own horse. Having a horse to care for and ride was very empowering for them. 

My Sassy started out as one of my foster children's horse. They fell in love with each other on first sight!!! She would say shaking her head "I didn't even know I liked horses" and "Sassy is my best friend". I adopted that child after she lived with me for a year, and I still have her horse.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

I don't think @*mmshiro* 's view is an opposing view, necessarily - he's just pointing out that we should be able to verify things scientifically to say it definitely is or isn't so, ideally, and that it's really difficult to work with broad, often quite distorted terms like "love" - which is probably the most difficult word and concept in the universe to talk about - makes Quantum mechanics look simple - and I'm grateful to the Greeks for bringing a little order into that chaotic umbrella term! :Angel:

A little more about love:






























PS: @*mmshiro* , have you had the pleasure of meeting Berkeley yet?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley

Get your teeth into that lot! :Angel: Afterwards, you won't know if you're real or not! _Bwahahaha! :twisted:
_


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

@SueC where do you find this stuff? Priceless :rofl: :rofl: 


The next step of course, is defining which riding style goes with which "Love Language" 

IMO the "Critiquing Love Language" was defined from the principles of Dressage inkunicorn:


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## JCnGrace (Apr 28, 2013)

@*SueC*, I'm a firm believer that everything doesn't have to have science behind it. I still remember the first time I understood that a horse could care about a human. 


I don't remember how old I was, probably still in the single digits, when my maternal grandparents took some of my cousins, my siblings and me camping. There they had horses to rent for trail rides and also did pony rides. I wasn't old enough to rent a horse for a trail ride even with adults from our group so I had to make do with riding a pony around an oval in a corral which you were able to ride without someone leading you. The pony I had that day I must have liked because every time I went back I chose her. Just like not remembering my age I don't remember the timeline either but at one point I showed up at the corral with my quarter and they told me I couldn't ride Blackie. When I asked why I was told because when other kids tried to ride her she would only go to the point in the corral to where she would be closest to the direction I came from and then would stand there looking and waiting for me so I was spoiling her for other kids. Now I did not take care of this pony in any way shape or form, I showed up, got on and rode and yet for some reason this pony formed an attachment. 


I have many of these sort of stories with other animals that did not belong to me and while some would like to figure out the science behind it I believe it is a gift handed down to me from my maker. I'm not so conceited that I believe I'm the only one with this gift, there are lots of us out there, thank goodness, because we also care and tend to as many of those critters as we can. Look around you Sue (I see it from your pictures), you are one of those gifted.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@*JCnGrace* , I don't think science and spirituality are mutually exclusive, not in my own life.  In philosophy, the simplest way to deal with that was the concept of _non-overlapping magisteria_. It's not quite the view I take (it's a bit of a lazy way out), but to me, both sides of life are important. And, while I know many things aren't verifiable scientifically, those that are, I prefer to verify! Or at least to assign probabilities to... ;-) 

As far as the world of matter is concerned, I'm pretty much an empiricist and rationalist rolled into one - with the important (and unusual for empiricists and rationalists) caveat that I really get that both human senses and human reasoning have limitations. That's why I also love philosophy, which helps me to think about and critique the scientific side of me, and do a bit of metacognition - and I'm pretty much also a philosophical skeptic - I think there are limits to what we can be certain about. I think of things more in terms of probabilities and working hypotheses, and I like intuition and creativity. Plus, if you're wondering how I can be an empiricist and rationalist rolled into one, it's because I think that truth in philosophy, and in life, is often not found in either the thesis or its antithesis, but in the synthesis that reconciles the truths of both (and indeed, often multiple) views and perspectives.

Loved your anecdote!  Even in science, everything starts with observations! ;-)

@*AnitaAnne* , where do I find these things? ...the universe sends them to me... :Angel:


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## JCnGrace (Apr 28, 2013)

Oh @SueC, you're going to make me drag out the dictionary! LOL


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Oh no! :rofl: ...you're online, try Wikipedia, always a good starting point... ;-)


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

ACinATX said:


> Also, if I'm out in the field scratching my daughter's mare (she does like scratches) he will chase her away so I will be with him, not her. Which is actually annoying because he doesn't then want to be scratched, he just wants me to not scratch her, and to be close to him instead. However, if I'm scratching someone else who is above him in the herd, he will just move to about 10 feet away and then give me a sad look until I stop and go back over to him.


Oh yes! The other emotion I see frequently...jealousy! 

Have seen many instances of jealousy between horses. Had a gelding that would slam his feed bucket around knocking food all over his stall if I went out of his stall and into my other gelding's stall. If I didn't stay in his stall with him while he ate, he threw a fit. Yet in the morning when the BO fed all the horses, he didn't do a thing. 


A Morgan mare I owned would have a fit, running up and down the fence line hollering and carrying on if I took out the AQHA gelding. But she didn't even look up if I took out one of the ponies to work. Was she friends with the gelding? Nope. He was friends with the larger pony gelding. The Morgan was friends with none of the equines. She was an individual, but somehow she decided that the gelding was a threat or something, probably because I rode him too. If one of the kids or my then spouse rode the gelding, she didn't care and made no fuss.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

It might come down to this


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

mg: @*AnitaAnne* , that guy gives me such a rash! :rofl:

Here's some alternative takes.

A look at the darker side:






Same artist - looking at another side:






I _really_ like this one:





 
But this one also really captures it for me - the _music_ in this says what words can't say... and the words that are there also play their part...






And another take I like...







As I'm warming to this theme, I'm going now! :rofl:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Definitely a different side of Love @SueC never hear any words on the last one, after listening to several minutes of clapping...


The thing is, this song has the message! Do YOU Believe in LOVE?! 


I do 

_PS - this is a really good cruising song_ :rofl:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

What message??? He should be on playschool... his lyrics are like a middle primary assignment... and his take is terribly biochemical...

...and what kind of cruising would that be, @*AnitaAnne* ? :Angel:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

SueC said:


> What message??? He should be on playschool... his lyrics are like a middle primary assignment... and his take is terribly biochemical...
> 
> ...and what kind of cruising would that be, @*AnitaAnne* ? :Angel:


Do YOU Believe in LOVE 

_you must not have listened to the lyrics, its the title of the song _


Cruising is the proper spelling of Cruisin'. Don't y'all go cruisin' on a Friday night over on that side of the pond?


_Not to derail this thread completely, but he was actually quite the academic until he found music and quit his studies to travel. All of his songs were hits. Every single one! 
_


You are still a friend even if you are totally bashing my taste in music :frown_color: do you like Sam Perry's When Dove's Cry?


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Quite seriously, @*AnitaAnne* : The question makes about as much sense as asking me if I believe in frogs!

Do you believe in frogs?

And I do unfortunately know the song, verbatim, like a bloody earworm, because they used to play it in art class all the time when I was a kid...

And I'm not _bashing_ your music, just telling you how I respond to it, and what I think about it. I used to have to assess people's poetry, you know, and this one would have barely scraped a C. Do you want me to show you a common assessment rubric for poetry? The criteria you look at when grading a poem? (Or we can do the _Dead Poets Society_ thing and say, "Begone, Mr J.Evans Pritchard, Ph.D.!" :rofl

Friends don't have to have the same taste in music. It would be rather boring if they did! ;-)


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

AnitaAnne said:


> :rofl: :rofl: dumping the wheel barrel!! Oh that is a fun game that horses love to play!
> 
> 
> But Chivas doesn't do that; he appreciates a clean stall :wink: Sometimes I wonder what he is thinking, but he has "helped" at times by trying to maneuver the manure fork with his teeth when I go to dump a load. Maybe he is trying to figure out how I do it so he can help??


Oh Patti likes a clean stall, she KNEW I was going to pick all that stuff up again. I think it was just her way of getting me to stay a little longer.


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## mmshiro (May 3, 2017)

AnitaAnne said:


> Finally the opposing view shows up :wink: sort of...
> 
> 
> IMO all emotions are hard to describe in concrete terms, not just Love. It is all about feelings and if someone, human or otherwise, brings out feelings in one that fit their definition of Love...then it is Love. Not just a pretty label, but a way to express the feeling inside that Love is to them.
> ...


Some good points here - I guess it comes down to, "Do you _feel_ loved? Then you are!" - with all the trappings that entails. The difference is that horses are incapable of having ulterior motives.

Just consider how often "This is how I show my love!" does not go over well with those on whom it is bestowed. Then what remains is to ask, "So you feel loved by your horse. How intentional, do you think, are his expressions of what you consider love? Are you falling for a placebo?" – And again, if so, does it make a difference?

As for loving your (i.e. one's) horse, that is treacherous terrain as well. The simplest expression of that love, in my mind, is to go through the trouble of learning what a horse needs to reasonably thrive in your care. Many "loved" horses end up on the meat wagon, just like in that movie with Buck Brannaman (though I believe that horse was ultimately not killed). But your example of abused children shows that this criterion is easily applied to humans as well.

So ultimately, the only question worthy of asking is, "Are both your lives better for the fact that the other is in it, or not?" And that automatically excludes owners who "love" their horse into laminitis, stall vices, etc. It doesn't exclude any horses, because humans always have a choice and the last word. And just consider how many genuine expressions of affection we "correct" away (mostly involving teeth) - for the simple reason that they could put us in the ER? 

As for the Friesian - that relationship ain't going anywhere beyond our exchanging pleasantries as we go about our day. As I said, he's not even BO's horse, he's a family's, so I basically will be doing with him only what I wouldn't mind other people doing with Hamlet: A friendly scratch here and there, maybe a snack. But I also think there is nothing special here as I do pride myself in being able to make friends with many horses quickly, like last summer, when it took me a week of interacting with a mare and her week-old filly to be trusted by mom as babysitter (I was playing with the little one, the mare stepped away for some grazing in piece and quiet for once).


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## george the mule (Dec 7, 2014)

Well, since this thread is still going, I'll toss out another (very germane, IMO) concept for your consideration. In her outstanding book "Horse Watch; What it is to be Equine", Marthe Kiley-Worthington introduces the term "Conditional Anthropomorphism". To very briefly summarize: Since horses are "like" us in many respects, it is good "science" to relate their behaviors and responses to those we would feel in similar situations, and to use that as a tool toward understanding them. And that this "anthropomorphism" can be treated as "valid until proven invalid". Basically, If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . Um, read her book, don't argue the point with me.

Anyway, as mmshiro points out; does it feel like love? For best results, call it "love" then, and proceed accordingly.

And, just for you Sue :-D


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

mmshiro said:


> ...Then what remains is to ask, "So you feel loved by your horse. How intentional, do you think, are his expressions of what you consider love? Are you falling for a placebo?" – And again, if so, does it make a difference?...
> 
> ...So ultimately, the only question worthy of asking is, "Are both your lives better for the fact that the other is in it, or not?" And that automatically excludes owners who "love" their horse into laminitis, stall vices, etc...


 Looking at dictionary.com, love is a feeling:

1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend. 

Horses undoubtedly "like" some people. I doubt many have "a profoundly tender, passionate affection" for humans. If I am serious, I not sure I care if my horse can love me. Too much would depend on internal motive, and I cannot see inside their heart or mind. I can give examples of a horse accepting pain when the only route of escape was over a human....but was that love? Or was it an ingrained habit of not stepping on humans? I have no definitive way of saying.

But then, I tend to agree with CS Lewis: "_Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained._” I'm not sure horses can think in terms of ultimate good for others. I suspect they can think in terms of short-term good for another and act on that, which is "love" enough for me.

To quote CS Lewis again, "_The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less._"

And, "_To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell._"

Within my own human family, a painful lesson has been that I can control if I love someone else, but I cannot control if they love me! I can act with love - and sometimes it IS an act, at first - toward someone. I cannot make them love me back.

With horses, I think it is more productive to ask if we love our horses. And that depends, not on warm feelings when near them, but on my wanting my horse's life to be better for being with me - which is how I've come to define ethical behavior around horses.

I've spent 10 years around Trooper. He likes my daughter and takes good care of her, at least to the extent a horse CAN take care of a human. He isn't cuddly with her, but I've watched him be bitten repeatedly by another horse and tolerating it because his only route of escape was over my daughter. But me? After 10 years, Trooper barely tolerates me. He accepts being ridden by me but he does not enjoy it. I've been able to find common ground with Mia & Bandit - ways to work together to give both of us something we want. Never have found that with Trooper.

I enjoy Mia and Bandit more. FAR more. And they give some emotion back to me. Maybe love, to the best of their ability. But my obligation to Trooper remains - to try to make his life better for having been owned by me. I can no more make Trooper "love" me than I can make all my kids love me...but I can do my best, knowing I won't get much return. That, to me, is real love. An act. A conscious decision. "_Love is...a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained._” Real love doesn't insist on a good return for the investment.


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

To use your definition rather than the biological ones @*bsms* , love can also be "2. a feeling of warm personal attachment". So it seems to me that horses are capable of that. I can't believe I am arguing FOR love here... but call it what you want, there is a feeling of connection which seems to be somewhat related to the concept of love. Of course we are food machines for them too. But so are many mothers to their infants and babies, and that DOES create an important bond in both an emotion and a biological sense.

Of course it's hard to measure, and hard to prove. But I find a sense of deep connection in the quiet moments we spend together. This photo was taken by my daughter after a liberty training session I was doing with Kodak. At the risk of anthropomorphising, for a horse that was afraid of people and extremely head shy to close her eyes and give me her head like this is a gesture of complete trust, and surely some sign of affection. She is at liberty, and is free to go. I'm not giving her treats. Is it love? I don't know. Like you, @*bsms* , I don't really care. I care that they see me as someone they want to be with. I care that they will even, on occasion, show me that in ways that I can understand. In fact, I think it shows tremendous emotional intelligence for an animal to express itself to you in ways humans understand, ways that are not necessarily part of the "natural" language of its species (human hugs, for example). Possibly more EQ than we possess most of the time.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Sometimes at the end of a ride, Mia would stick her face under my armpit. She would stay motionless for 20-30 seconds, then pull her head out and look around as if to say, "_OMG! PLEASE tell me no one saw me do that!_" So I would tell her the secret was safe with me. She would sigh, and I'd put her back into the corral.

I assume it meant the dominant, proud Arabian mare felt safe with me. Love? Close enough for me. But when she had a chance to go have babies in northern Arizona, and to run fast across open ground, and spend time living in a free-roaming herd, I sent her on. I doubt she pines for me. Horses live in the present. Like you, @Acadianartist , "_I care that they see me as someone they want to be with._" I'll take feeling at one with each other in the present and let the future take care of itself.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

mmshiro said:


> So ultimately, the only question worthy of asking is, "Are both your lives better for the fact that the other is in it, or not?" And that automatically excludes owners who "love" their horse into laminitis, stall vices, etc.


The first sentence describes a healthy relationship, not necessarily Love per se, as that comes across as just a bit clinical to be termed "love" IMO. 

The second describes an abusive "love" and those stall vices just might be the horse crying out for help

I wonder if you are or have been exposed to a lot of what I will term "young love" a rather immature and shallow type of behavior in no way resembling a mature, lasting Love 



mmshiro said:


> ...I also think there is nothing special here as I do pride myself in being able to make friends with many horses quickly, ...


IMO being able to read & relate well to horses, and "make friends" quickly IS something special. The horses must be grateful (lol another emotion!) :Angel:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

bsms said:


> Sometimes at the end of a ride, Mia would stick her face under my armpit. She would stay motionless for 20-30 seconds, then pull her head out and look around as if to say, "_OMG! PLEASE tell me no one saw me do that!_" So I would tell her the secret was safe with me. She would sigh, and I'd put her back into the corral.
> 
> I assume it meant the dominant, proud Arabian mare felt safe with me. Love? Close enough for me. But when she had a chance to go have babies in northern Arizona, and to run fast across open ground, and spend time living in a free-roaming herd, I sent her on. I doubt she pines for me. Horses live in the present. Like you, @Acadianartist , "_I care that they see me as someone they want to be with._" I'll take feeling at one with each other in the present and let the future take care of itself.


She might have pined for you, no way to ever really know


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

george the mule said:


> "Conditional Anthropomorphism". To very briefly summarize: Since horses are "like" us in many respects, it is good "science" to relate their behaviors and responses to those we would feel in similar situations, and to use that as a tool toward understanding them. And that this "anthropomorphism" can be treated as "valid until proven invalid". Basically, If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck . . . Um, read her book, don't argue the point with me.
> 
> Anyway, as mmshiro points out; does it feel like love? For best results, call it "love" then, and proceed accordingly.



Valid until proven invalid :happydance: 
*Chivas DOES Love me!!!
* :happydance: :happydance: :happydance: :happydance:


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

I feel loved when I spend time with 'my' horse. 

But anyone who confuses the love one feels for or from an animal with the love a parent and child have, is way off base.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Acadianartist said:


> In fact, I think it shows tremendous emotional intelligence for an animal to express itself to you in ways humans understand, ways that are not necessarily part of the "natural" language of its species (human hugs, for example). Possibly more EQ than we possess most of the time.



This is profound. Recognizing that the horse also is seeking to interpret and find a connection to express their tender feelings towards us in ways the human can understand.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

tinyliny said:


> I feel loved when I spend time with 'my' horse.
> 
> But anyone who confuses the love one feels for or from an animal with the love a parent and child have, is way off base.


There are many types of love, including one of friendship


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

I don't really care how it's defined. I love my horses. I mean, why else would I voluntarily spend vast sums on feed every month, spend my time picking up their leavings, or as the kid at the mill said, "$400 a month just on horsey toilet paper?" when I picked up 2 pallets of bedding, and of course get nothing but an occasional ride and satisfaction on seeing happy, healthy horses in return. I think the fact that we spend so much time and effort on their comfort, frequently to the detriment of our own, says that we love them unconditionally. I think they love us more like a toddler would (going back to horses as perpetual 2-3 year old kids theory). We bring them dinner, we feed them treats, we put blankets on them when they're cold, we put them in their own special barn when we want to protect them from the elements (OH YEAH, we spend THOUSANDS on a HOUSE for the horses), groom them when they're itchy, nurse them when they're sick, and so, the horse sees in us that benevolent, loving servant and loves us for what we do for them. Good enough for me. I LIKE that my horses come at the run when they see me. I LIKE that they all want to come in close for scritches from me, or that one will voluntarily leave the herd to come over and spend time with me, just being. Think about that, I take that as a better reward than if they paid me money....we're all nuts.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

SueC said:


> What message??? He should be on playschool... his lyrics are like a middle primary assignment... and his take is terribly biochemical...
> 
> ...and what kind of cruising would that be, @*AnitaAnne* ? :Angel:


Sue, if a song or book or play or a painting is above the "playschool" mentality, the artist dies broke. The common man prefers "playschool" music. Only us geeks look further.

Mozart didn't have the fame he deserved in his lifetime.

And think about Vincent van Gogh


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Celeste said:


> Sue, if a song or book or play or a painting is above the "playschool" mentality, the artist dies broke. The common man prefers "playschool" music. Only us geeks look further.
> 
> Mozart didn't have the fame he deserved in his lifetime.
> 
> And think about Vincent van Gogh


I just used the song cause it matched the Thread "Do You Believe in Love _from a horse_"

Thought it was funny and cute! 

But will admit to being a "common" person and enjoying upbeat tunes :Angel: _does no one else enjoy Sam Perry and his unique style? His is the only remix I have ever enjoyed 
_


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## pennywise (Feb 1, 2016)

I think animals don't experience the same kind of definition of things like love or friendship as we do amongst ourselves. But its naive to look at animals like they're just wandering around without feeling. Every time I'm with an animal it reminds me without fail that I'm an animal too and I don't think that would happen if there wasn't a silent communion happening, the same kind when I'm with a close friend. I see my gal every day and I leave feeling like....I just hung out with a friend. I never not want to go see her for that reason. It benefits me and if its just an illusion of interaction and socializing, the illusion is really good. If all I see is her, the day doesn't feel a day spent alone and that's enough for me. And I hope that she feels benefit of seeing me, too.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

@AnitaAnne I have a wide range of tastes in music. I grew up on classical. I have played in country bands, folk bands, southern rock bands, church music, jazz, bar music, blues bands, new age music.......... 

The list goes on. My mother only approved of classical and church music. 

I've probably had more fun with rock and blues. Common man's music? Or down to earth music? I like what I like. What I like about blues is that you can turn loose from the score and play from the soul.

Back to animals. My mother used to practice her violin for a couple of hours a day. She played with the Chattanooga Symphony as well as with the Rome Symphony. Her little poodle would sit at her feet and howl along the whole time. That dog loved my mom! Mother just kept playing and ignored her accompanist.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

mmshiro said:


> Some good points here - I guess it comes down to, "Do you _feel_ loved? Then you are!" - with all the trappings that entails.


Sociopaths are quite capable of making each next object of their romantic interest feel very loved, without actually loving them - either by simple dictionary definitions, or by the more-than-feelings, practical, more ambitious, working definitions of the Greek philosophers, Jesus Christ, CS Lewis, Martin Luther King etc. They simply feign the romantic trappings - sweet nothings, gifts, restaurant trips, listening to the person as if what they said was important, sending flowers, sending cards, romantic weekends away, technicolour attentiveness.

Since they are incapable of honouring another's being and caring about another's best interests, this "placebo" (;-)) phase doesn't last long before the cracks begin to show, so the sociopath's aim is to woo quickly, sweep the romantic object off their feet, and have them wear that engagement ring / have their notch on their bedpost before the object of their attentions has a chance to see their real character. Then, they can throw the switch and begin with undermining, criticism, belittling, and general mind games etc to achieve control and dominion over their object.



> As for loving your (i.e. one's) horse, that is treacherous terrain as well. The simplest expression of that love, in my mind, is to go through the trouble of learning what a horse needs to reasonably thrive in your care. Many "loved" horses end up on the meat wagon, just like in that movie with Buck Brannaman (though I believe that horse was ultimately not killed). But your example of abused children shows that this criterion is easily applied to humans as well.


This is correct, and this is why I prefer definitions of love that involve honouring another's being, acting in their interests, etc. If you "love" your horse into laminitis or stable vices or injuries, then your model of love seriously needs revisiting.

I don't think the concept of love needs to be thrown away entirely just because it is possible to be so bad at it - but we can't stick with just "feelings" definitions. Love should always involve trying to _really see_ the other being, wanting to learn about it, listening, observing, thinking, caring - and not just so you can "have" this being.



> So ultimately, the only question worthy of asking is, "Are both your lives better for the fact that the other is in it, or not?"


While that is an excellent question to ask, it is not the _only_ question worth asking - not even in this context. To be good philosophers, we have to cultivate openness, and continue to look from many different angles, rather than be seduced by quick fixes, "_the_ answer", and thinking a subject is "done". 

Having said that, I do think that if people asked the question you have highlighted - "Are both your lives better for the fact that the other is in it, or not?" - instead of "Do I love my horse?" and "Does my horse love me?" then we would actually have _far better_ practical outcomes. That's because your question is one of the questions that arise when a practical, thinking, hands-on approach to love is adopted. But it's not the only question, nor the only question worth asking!

If the answer to that question is "yes" then a follow-up logical question to ask, for instance, is, "How can we make that even better?" inkunicorn::blueunicorn: 

Because love, or life, are never "done and dusted" until we die - unless we live a living death, and not a life. Reflecting and learning too are ideally a lifelong thing - and go hand-in-hand with love.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Celeste said:


> Sue, if a song or book or play or a painting is above the "playschool" mentality, the artist dies broke. The common man prefers "playschool" music. Only us geeks look further.
> 
> Mozart didn't have the fame he deserved in his lifetime.
> 
> And think about Vincent van Gogh


That's often unfortunately the case, and isn't that sad about Mozart and van Gogh? (Did you see the film _Amadeus_?)

But we do have non-playschool type CDs and books on our shelves at home, by artists actually making a living from it, and sometimes quite a good living! I guess it's become easier with mass media and mass distribution to make a living out of things that aren't necessarily fashionable.

By the way, we will probably not endear ourselves by admitting in public that many Beatles songs also fall into that category for us. Indeed, Brett says that Paul McCartney was the original Wiggle! (You all know the Wiggles?) _We all live on a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine..._

Having said that, I just wanted to apologise to @*AnitaAnne* for 1) making one of my infamous "here's some music I like" posts on her thread, and 2) being rather blunt and forthright when expressing my opinions on the artistic and logical merits of a song she clearly loves (and on her thread too! I have to go back to manners school I think!).

In my meagre defence, I had to sit through that song at high volume in art class for weeks on end as a 14-year-old - as part of a dire mix tape, the best of which was _Red Red Wine_ by UB40, and that's saying something, because that fella sings like Donald Duck (but I actually still like the song, probably because it was the comparative musical highlight of that art class). It gave me a certain - allergy to the thing, and to other things from that mix tape. Hence the rash.

Doesn't everyone here have songs that give them rashes, by the way?

And I just wanted to say also that just because @*AnitaAnne* loves a song that gives me a rash, doesn't mean I think any less of her as a person, or a friend. (This is a past personal vice I really really had to work on. :shock I also am rather certain that I have songs in my own collection which I love to bits and would give her a rash! Love you, my across-the-seas friend! 

PS: Sorry to tell you I've never heard of Sam Perry. But I bet you've never heard of Echo and the Bunneymen, or Cactus World News, etc... So many good things and only fourscore years...


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## mmshiro (May 3, 2017)

AnitaAnne said:


> The first sentence describes a healthy relationship, not necessarily Love per se, as that comes across as just a bit clinical to be termed "love" IMO.
> 
> We are talking about horses, after all. It's all what I expect of them. I don't expect them to make plans for our future, planning to be a devoted partner to me until death do us part.
> 
> ...


I just read @bsms 's post, and I rather like his focus on the "present moment". If you "love" someone, you make plans for the future, even if it's just the next date, or maybe the home you'll buy together. For horses, the only time is now, and horses do not project how their actions affect you. They don't even project how their actions affect themselves most of the time. 

Their behavior towards you is the sum total of their past experiences with you, just like their behavior towards the electric fence or the herd alpha. If the sum total of their experiences is, "Only good things happen when I hang with this little predator," I can see how their behavior would be pleasing to you. On the flip side, good things do happen to the horse *if* they behave in a way that is pleasing to you. Maybe your positive reward system trained them to exhibit the kind of behavior you would now interpret as "love"?

Would you interpret being bitten by a horse as a sign of affection? Ollie (the Friesian) bit my finger today. I didn't correct him because I allowed it to happen. He was just exploring my hand, playing with his lips, licking, working very carefully - so much so that I could easily maneuver my fingers to avoid his teeth. When I held my hand still (just to see what he'd do), he caught my index finger with his teeth, but didn't do much - just held it. I simply said "Ouch!" and slowly removed it...I could feel the surface of his teeth! How many people would give a harsh correction if a horse simply puts their lips on them? ("That's dangerous! Next time he'll take off your arm!")

So how many self-serving patterns of behavior of a horse could be equally misinterpreted as "expressions of love"?

Like sniffing your hair. Hair is a prime material for collecting and bringing home all kinds of interesting scents. Maybe you even used cosmetics in your hair that were a new and exciting smell for your horse. You definitely smelled differently. So yes, your horse _is_ comfortable with you, but you were also the source of many interesting stimuli for a curious horse to explore (hence my coffee remark). Is that less likely than your interpretation as its being sign of "love"?

What I'm also saying, though, is that you both enjoyed the experience. Who cares about motive?


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

I never quite understood why people only assume horses only live in the present. If they didn't remember their past, they would never remember their training, things they got away with, or abuse that was done to them.

I think everyone has met a horse that will revert to a behavior that happened before you even got them. Like you move too quickly around their head and they pull it away (even though you never smacked their head) or a horse that is afraid of whips even though you never used the whip on them. So if they remember that kind of thing, why do we assume they only live in the present?

I don't know if they miss us if they are sold, or if they think about the future (I kind of doubt it) but I surely think they have thoughts about their past.

I have a mare that adores her foal (even now when he is 8 years old). I sent him off for training one time and when he got back, she was so excited, just loving on him and making all sorts of nickering noises. So how do I know she didn't miss him when he was gone? What makes us think they immediately forget about something just because it's the past and not the present? Only because they can't vocalize it in our language and tell us so?


Seems timely to put this here:


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

I used to always wear my hair in a long braid. The horse that I grew up with once decided to eat it. I was not paying attention until I felt my hair being pulled. She was gagging and choking. I pulled the hair out and we both survived. That little mare was an angel.
@SueC I like the Beatles, but that one song, Yellow Submarine, gives me a rash...


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

@trailhorserider Of course horses don't just live in the present. Well they live in the present in a way, but they remember everything. They never get lost. They know who they like and who they don't like. 

I had one horse that became frightened when we were crossing a bridge when he was 3 because a big frog jumped into the water and went "splash". For the rest of his life, he always was suspicious on that bridge.

As far as living in the future, they sure think about when dinner is going to be served. 

They are just much more simple in their thinking. They act on their instincts. Part of that instinct is to bond with their herd and their leader so that they can survive. Who can be a better leader to bond with (or love) than "the bringer of food"?


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@*bsms* , I just loved this entire post, from which I'm quoting below. (...and if I have to define that usage of _love_ for this context :rofl: - I found that post very intellectually and spiritually satisfying and thought-provoking, and it produced joy and fellow-feeling in me as I read it...)

And I think CS Lewis is so good at articulating these thoughts:



bsms said:


> To quote CS Lewis, _"Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained._.._The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less._"
> 
> And, "_To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell._"


Man, this is fabulous... and so worth repeating...

And I also love and recommend _Out Of The Silent Planet_, _Perelandra_, _The Screwtape Letters_, and many more things written by this treasure of a writer...



> With horses, I think it is more productive to ask if we love our horses. And that depends, not on warm feelings when near them, but on my wanting my horse's life to be better for being with me - which is how I've come to define ethical behavior around horses.


I think that's a great definition of ethical behaviour around horses! It's also _hippocentric_! ;-) As opposed to anthropocentric.



> I enjoy Mia and Bandit more. FAR more. And they give some emotion back to me. Maybe love, to the best of their ability. But my obligation to Trooper remains - to try to make his life better for having been owned by me. I can no more make Trooper "love" me than I can make all my kids love me...but I can do my best, knowing I won't get much return. That, to me, is real love. An act. A conscious decision. "_Love is...a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained._” Real love doesn't insist on a good return for the investment.


Yes! Now the Greeks would call that _agape_ - unconditional love.

And to bring up a really unpleasant example of history, that's also what Martin Luther King asked people to have for those who were oppressing them. He was saying that you can't possibly like someone who bombs your home, or be their friend, you'd be mentally unbalanced if you did, but that you had to work on having _agape_ for people like that...


Here's some more ideas about love. This is from _The Oxford Companion To Philosophy_:

_*love.* Affection or attachment, especially sexual, and in this sense studied by philosophers since Plato, who viewed love as a desire for beauty, which should transcend the physical and even the personal, culminating in philosophy - the love of wisdom itself. (philia = love, sophia = wisdom) In reaction to such lofty views, love has been thought of as reducible either to the sex drive (e.g.Schopenhauer) or to a struggle for power - "in its means, war: at bottom, the deadly hatred of the sexes" (Nietzsche). The latter view is close to that of much feminist philosophy, which regards love as part of a male ideology for securing the subordination of women. Yet reductionism of these sorts encounters the objection that true love must be something over and above these things in virtue of the high value we set on it (as in friendship).
_

This is from Martin Luther King's _Strength To Love_ - from the chapter, _A tough mind and a tender heart_:

_The hardhearted individual...depersonalises life... The rich fool was condemned, not because he was not toughminded, but rather because he was not tenderhearted. Life for him was a mirror in which he saw only himself, and not a window through which he saw other selves. Dives went to hell, not because he was wealthy, but because he was not tenderhearted enough to see Lazarus and because he made no attempt to bridge the gulf between him and his brother.
_
_Jesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent and the tenderness of the dove. (Be ye therefore as wise as serpents, and as harmless as doves.) To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike qualities without serpentine qualities is to be sentimental, anaemic, and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses.
_

And even if you're agnostic, _Corinthians 13_ sits right up there with Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ for really educational and rich writing:

_If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. 
_
_Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away. 
_
_For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known. But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love._


Love is certainly worth reflecting on, and discussing - it helps everyone get their head around the complexities of it. But it's even more worth putting into practice_ -_ as CS Lewis reminded us.


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## Kalraii (Jul 28, 2015)

I agree that love and trust is a choice. Love isn't easy either and IMO it has to be taught, in how to receive it, to give it and in some cases, endure it. Obviously between culture, chemistry and free will/choice how everyone and every animal receives and expresses affection or comfort can vary. A child brought up in total isolation wont understand a hug or a kiss or a Christian proposal. "Love" to me is just a form of communicating someones worth to me and as mentioned above actions speak louder than words or fuzzy feelings! Eventually your horse will understand what you are communicating and in MANY cases reciprocate. The best part is that when they do reciprocate you know it's because they CHOOSE to. Animals and children often reflect their regular handlers/families for a reason. I love this thread!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Just so you all know, I am restraining myself very much on the music front at present, but I thought we could all use some comic relief. How's this for a "love song"? :rofl:






PS: @Celeste, what you said about blues made me tingle! 

@george the mule, did you enjoy that little tune you posted? ;-) Cindy Lauper would have made a fabulous Goth you know, in another universe... it would have suited her Pre-Raphaelite looks better IMO, than that horrid 1980s technicolour Barbie-doll fashion...


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Acadianartist said:


> To use your definition rather than the biological ones @*bsms* , love can also be "2. a feeling of warm personal attachment". So it seems to me that horses are capable of that. I can't believe I am arguing FOR love here... but call it what you want, there is a feeling of connection which seems to be somewhat related to the concept of love. Of course we are food machines for them too. But so are many mothers to their infants and babies, and that DOES create an important bond in both an emotion and a biological sense.
> 
> Of course it's hard to measure, and hard to prove. But I find a sense of deep connection in the quiet moments we spend together. This photo was taken by my daughter after a liberty training session I was doing with Kodak. At the risk of anthropomorphising, for a horse that was afraid of people and extremely head shy to close her eyes and give me her head like this is a gesture of complete trust, and surely some sign of affection. She is at liberty, and is free to go. I'm not giving her treats. Is it love? I don't know. Like you, @*bsms* , I don't really care. I care that they see me as someone they want to be with. I care that they will even, on occasion, show me that in ways that I can understand. In fact, I think it shows tremendous emotional intelligence for an animal to express itself to you in ways humans understand, ways that are not necessarily part of the "natural" language of its species (human hugs, for example). Possibly more EQ than we possess most of the time.



Gosh, this thread is a treat!


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

Good, but exhausting. I can't possibly listen to all those songs, nor read every word. Sorry. 



But, this IS good stuff. Good people, here, with more brains than they need.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

trailhorserider said:


> I never quite understood why people only assume horses only live in the present. If they didn't remember their past, they would never remember their training, things they got away with, or abuse that was done to them...


It isn't that they totally forget the past, instantly. But I see no sign the dwell on the past. For example, Mia & Lilly lived together for 4-5 years in the same corral. When we sold Lilly, Mia stood at the point of the corral where she last saw Lilly and nickered all night. Then repeatedly, but with less frequency, for a couple of days.

Then she went on with life. A couple of years later, they saw each other over a fence. They seem to recognize each other, but when we needed to move on, Mia turned and walked away without hesitation. Lilly was part of her past. Lilly walked back to her corral mate. No worries.

Horses are not linear thinkers. They are not good at cause & effect. Trooper was viciously spurred by a cowboy in Colorado. So what was he afraid of? Spurs? Nope! Cowboy hats! He would go into blind panic at the sight of someone wearing a cowboy hat. Took a pro 5 weeks of work 5 times a week to get him past that. But the whole A to B to C leads to D escaped Trooper. I may think about something from 6 years ago and use it to think about what to do next. Horses don't seem to do that.

I find that emphasis on the NOW part of their attraction. My youngest goes to boot camp in 3 weeks. We went for a ride today. At one point, we stopped and let Trooper and Bandit munch on desert grass for 5 minutes, about 2-3 feet apart. And part of the enjoyment was that the horses cast a spell, where they were content in that moment, and my daughter and I could also relax and be content to be. Just be. Not worry about next month or last month, but just relax in the chill air and sun and our horses munching and the calm of now. Maybe 4 weeks from now, when a DI is yelling at her, my daughter will remember. But the horses? Not so much.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> I don't really care how it's defined. I love my horses. I mean, why else would I voluntarily spend vast sums on feed every month, spend my time picking up their leavings, or as the kid at the mill said, "$400 a month just on horsey toilet paper?" when I picked up 2 pallets of bedding, and of course get nothing but an occasional ride and satisfaction on seeing happy, healthy horses in return. I think the fact that we spend so much time and effort on their comfort, frequently to the detriment of our own, says that we love them unconditionally.


Many times this might be true. But I am going to propose some other possibilities. I know plenty of people who do all these caretaking things for their horses to a T, yet race them hard while immature, and then send them to the dog food factory when they can't perform anymore. Is that unconditional love? Not in my book. Not in any book I think.

I will also point out that people who have addictions will do all sorts of things to their own detriment to sustain their habits. I've also seen cases where people have had horse addictions, rather than healthy relationships with them.

Another problem I have with the whole idea of "I do all these acts of service, therefore I must be doing it right and I must be a loving person" is that it is an argument frequently used by narcissistic parents, who actually don't know how to love, because they can't _see_ other people or value characteristics different to their own. Narcissistic parents may feed you, shelter you, clothe you, etc (and frequently count the cost of these things into your face), but they won't see you or hear you, or appreciate you, or nurture you emotionally, or connect with you, or love who you really are.



> I think they love us more like a toddler would (going back to horses as perpetual 2-3 year old kids theory). We bring them dinner, we feed them treats, we put blankets on them when they're cold, we put them in their own special barn when we want to protect them from the elements (OH YEAH, we spend THOUSANDS on a HOUSE for the horses), groom them when they're itchy, nurse them when they're sick...


First of all: What I'm going to say isn't directed personally at you, Pat. :hug: I know your horses' welfare is of great concern to you, and that you love them as horses. I just want to show another side to what I've quoted above.

As a biologist, I do have strong objections to this whole idea of horses as toddlers, and that's why I didn't participate in that thread. I think this is frequently a self-fulfilling prophecy created by humans. Humans often enjoy infantilising their companion animals (and their maturing and adult children, too) and creating manufactured dependencies in them so that they can feel greater-than, and needed - and this may not be a conscious motivation, but an unconscious one. We can read up about this phenomenon in any Psychology 101 course reader.

Plus, you can look at the facial characteristics of lapdog breeds: Big eyes, large forehead, small nose, small stature - combined with dependent and docile "loving" behaviours - and see that it's taken the wild dog that people started with sadly in the direction of the human infant, on purpose... and I prefer working breeds of any domestic companion animal, because these animals haven't had so much of their essences bred out of them... or their biological fitness... or their dignity...

I think it does a great disservice to an animal to think of it in terms of a human child, or to think of its intelligence as being limited to the same. And if humans treat horses as such - lock them into stables, make them dependent on you for _all_ their food and cleanliness and socialising and exploration/exercise (or even most of it) - then you're institutionalising that animal, and severely limiting the full expression of its being as a horse. It's just like keeping a bird in a cage, that you let out only sometimes. "But my birdie loves me, look at it!" - such owners will say... OMG, it's so like Stockholm syndrome...what choice does the bird have? It's totally dependent on you for everything... you're its main bond, interaction, etc... you're in complete control of it... and this sort of thing stunts the full mental, emotional and physical development of the animal, just as it did with those unfortunate institutionalised Romanian orphans. You get perpetual three-year-olds; perpetually dependent creatures...

In nature, horses are nomadic animals that live in herds and find their own food. It's unfortunately often impractical, especially near urban areas, to give horses enough decent, interesting ranging terrain. Often they do end up in stables. But, I don't think it is necessary that they be locked into stables much of the 24-hour day - or even at all. In the very industrialised Germany, where land is scarce, there was a movement in the 1970s to give horses more natural living conditions, and to improve how we relate to them. Here's one of the main drivers of that movement - with pictures of everything:

https://www.horseforum.com/horse-riding/alternative-german-rider-1922-2016-3-a-793527/

She shows how even in an industrialised country, you can create living conditions for domestic horses that are more natural and social that the frequent norm of stables and yards. And if for financial or other reasons, your horse keeping is unfortunately confined to such infrastructure in the present time, you can do so many things to help your horse have a more natural and social life - like trail riding in groups. Significant amounts of free social turnout with other actual horses is to my mind non-negotiable - even if you don't have pasture, it can be in an arena, a dry lot, etc. It is not enough for horses to merely see each other, or to interact over a stable wall or fence.

I also refer people to that excellent book @*george the mule* mentioned, by Dr Marthe Kiley-Worthington - _Horse Watch: What It Is To Be Equine_, for discussion of many things we're discussing here as well, and amazing case studies, experiments in horse learning capabilties, etc.

Non-institutionalised horses have very special sorts of intelligence that we don't have - just as we have some special sorts of intelligence they don't - just as any social mammal has its own particular niches and problem-solving abilities. If we don't feel that we can learn as much from them as they can from us, then we aren't seeing or hearing these animals, or honouring their beings.

It took me half the statistical human life span to be in a situation where I could offer a 24/7 free-ranging herd life to my horses, and I've adopted all my current horses out of an institutionalised setting, and I love to see how it makes them blossom, and opens up their intelligence. Also, apart from my special geriatric feeding case, they are self-sufficienct for all their calories - I only do a small evening bucket feed to put mineral mix into, because of deficiencies in Australian soils. I don't spend any time mucking out stables, and comparatively little time grooming. My horses now have the means to be largely independent of me in their day-to-day lives, including for food, social contact and excursions into nature. And yet they always come and interact with me when they see me, and show a strong desire to touch base and "have a proper chat". I'm sort of the honorary horse around here. I even snort and neigh. :rofl:


:runninghorse2: :runninghorse2: :runninghorse2: :runninghorse2:​




Some footage from the first year of having free-range horses. The large bay with the white socks was 27 here!





 ​ 




Another featuring the introduction of our last adoptee, taken this time last year. This horse was retired to a solitary sand yard (stabled at night). It gives me such joy to see him enjoying his life as a proper horse, with his ranging and social needs met, and with the ability to make the majority of his day-to-day choices for himself, and to learn from the environment around him (which he loves to explore). Julian is the one with the blaze, starting off in the middle of the bunch, with his back turned at the start. All three of these horses are late-cut stallions who spent their racing lives in solitary confinement.





​


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## mmshiro (May 3, 2017)

trailhorserider said:


> I never quite understood why people only assume horses only live in the present. If they didn't remember their past, they would never remember their training, things they got away with, or abuse that was done to them.


They do not play through mental "what-if" scenarios about tomorrow, or even five minutes from now - a major source of anxiety in humans. They also do not play "what-if" games about what they should have done differently in the past, regrets also being a major source of anxiety.

Being in the presence does not mean you obliterate all memories and experiences of the past, as they will inform your decision-making in the presence. It means you don't spend time reminiscing (the good or the bad), or worry about the possibilities of the future (the good or the bad).

Do you think a horse that crashes into a fence spends the afternoon contemplating what it should have done differently to avoid the crash? No, next time it sees the fence, it remembers the hurt, and it says, "Nah-ah, not today, Sport!"


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## Kalraii (Jul 28, 2015)

mmshiro said:


> Do you think a horse that crashes into a fence spends the afternoon contemplating what it should have done differently to avoid the crash? No, it sees the fence, it remembers the hurt, and it says, "Nah-ah, not today, sport!"



Not at all. After crashing through the fence Katie looked at it with an expression that said "_worth_" and smugly went to her herd.


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## Phantomrose (Jul 25, 2016)

I think horses are capable of loving humans in their own way. When it was warmer, I would just out to the paddock and hang out with my guy while reading on my phone, and he would leave his herd mate to stay near me, and just to watch what I was doing. I believe horses appreciate when you just “hang out” with them and form a bond with doing things just like that- grooming, going for hand walks, bathing, etc. Sometimes if another horse in his group tries to visit me, he will pin his ears at them to keep them away. I’m only able to make it to the barn around two times a week, but I think to an extent he knows who his owner and riding partner is.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

tinyliny said:


> Good people, here, with more brains than they need.


Alternative hypothesis: We _all_ need to use every little bit of grey matter we have, if we're going to really live, and be the best we can be, including to others - human or nonhuman. ;-)

And of course, our hearts. (Those metaphorical things. Actual residence probably in the more "primitive" parts of the brain, but potentially enhanced by cerebral activity as well.) inkunicorn:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

trailhorserider said:


> I never quite understood why people only assume horses only live in the present. If they didn't remember their past, they would never remember their training, things they got away with, or abuse that was done to them.
> 
> I think everyone has met a horse that will revert to a behavior that happened before you even got them. Like you move too quickly around their head and they pull it away (even though you never smacked their head) or a horse that is afraid of whips even though you never used the whip on them. So if they remember that kind of thing, why do we assume they only live in the present?
> 
> ...


I want to like this TEN TIMES!!!! 

Who knows if they are thinking about the future? They might be asking each other if it is time to eat yet! I know my gelding gets mighty grumpy if his supper is late :rofl: 

One question; did your mare sniff her colt when he came back???  

I love the song choice too :smile: listened to the whole thing :Angel:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

mmshiro said:


> They do not play through mental "what-if" scenarios about tomorrow, or even five minutes from now - a major source of anxiety in humans. They also do not play "what-if" games about what they should have done differently in the past, regrets also being a major source of anxiety.
> 
> Being in the presence does not mean you obliterate all memories and experiences of the past, as they will inform your decision-making in the presence. It means you don't spend time reminiscing (the good or the bad), or worry about the possibilities of the future (the good or the bad).
> 
> Do you think a horse that crashes into a fence spends the afternoon contemplating what it should have done differently to avoid the crash? No, next time it sees the fence, it remembers the hurt, and it says, "Nah-ah, not today, Sport!"


How do you know this? Anxiety is just as much a real illness with animals as it is people. Maybe some horses do get anxious about repeating a mistake. 


Or maybe they think "oh goodie we are going for a ride; I wonder if we are going back to may favorite trail". 


However, I do most humbly apologize also. I was not in any way, shape, or form making a comment about your marriage when I said the comment about "young love". 

Your interpretations of someone "loving" their horse in such immature ways led me to think that you must have some experience with people like that. The comment was referring to human/equine relationships not human/human relationships. Again, I apologize for the confusion :redface:


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

This is a total aside, but with regards to the past and the present, I read that we can only really FULLY experience something once it is in the past. It is in the process of remembering an experience that a greater depth of emotion and thought come out, which brings that experience, now over, into it's fullest existence.


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

Off topic (but appears to be one of numerous sub-topics) 

For @SueC (and anyone else not familiar) the one, the only, Sam Perry :clap: :clap: (the song technically starts at marker 3.4 but the lead-in is awesome IMO


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

AnitaAnne said:


> I want to like this TEN TIMES!!!!
> 
> *Why thank you! It's nice to know I am not alone in my feelings.
> *
> ...



"Love" can be so hard to define, even among humans, that I think each person is bound to have their own interpretation. It's like trying to define "beauty." 

I guess I am of the belief that if it feels like love to me, I will call it that, while still being very aware that a horse is always a horse of course, an no one can talk to a horse of course, unless the horse.........well, never mind, that's the theme song to Mr. Ed. :lol:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

trailhorserider said:


> "Love" can be so hard to define, even among humans, that I think each person is bound to have their own interpretation. It's like trying to define "beauty."
> 
> I guess I am of the belief that if it feels like love to me, I will call it that, while still being very aware that a horse is always a horse of course, an no one can talk to a horse of course, unless the horse.........well, never mind, that's the theme song to Mr. Ed. :lol:


Is the famous Mr. Ed 
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


_I might as well admit now to being a huge Beatles fan and really enjoying singing "We all live in a Yellow Submarine" although I found the actual movie to be well...psychedelic baby! Of course have danced to the polka many a time too :rofl: _


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

AnitaAnne said:


> Off topic (but appears to be one of numerous sub-topics)
> 
> For @*SueC* (and anyone else not familiar) the one, the only, Sam Perry :clap: :clap: (the song technically starts at marker 3.4 but the lead-in is awesome IMO
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OoqUxjtuMA



I had never heard of Sam Perry before. I love the layering of the sounds! The only person I have seen do that before is KT Tunstall:


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## Kalraii (Jul 28, 2015)

This is my fav real-time layered: 









and LOVE SONGS (reggae style, trust you'll love it!):


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## Kalraii (Jul 28, 2015)

Skip to 5mins for the layered parts to witness this live masterpiece ****!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@*AnitaAnne* ! Yeah, that's great! And he's so into it, with all the energy of youth! And I think the intro is actually the best part of it, it deserves the epithet "awesome" in my book. Not that my opinion should change anything! ;-) But thank you, for that intro! 

It even helped to soothe that awful rash I got here the other day for some reason... :rofl:

I liked the other clips from @*trailhorserider* and @*Kalraii* too (not that my opinion should make any difference, or has any effect on reality!). 


And now, the didgeridoo, played by an Irishman:


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## Hondo (Sep 29, 2014)

Doesn't matter whether Hondo loves me or not. I love him enough for both of us  :riding:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Hondo said:


> Doesn't matter whether Hondo loves me or not. I love him enough for both of us


Awwwww, @*Hondo* ! :dance-smiley05: :dance-smiley05: :dance-smiley05:

That's so sweet... we need to give you an award of some description - not that you strike me as some sort of award hog - just that you deserve one for that. 










You might even be able to print it out and decorate Hondo's bridle with it. ;-)

We hope you have a lovely Sunday!


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

SueC said:


> Many times this might be true. But I am going to propose some other possibilities. I know plenty of people who do all these caretaking things for their horses to a T, yet race them hard while immature, and then send them to the dog food factory when they can't perform anymore. Is that unconditional love? Not in my book. Not in any book I think.
> 
> Another problem I have with the whole idea of "I do all these acts of service, therefore I must be doing it right and I must be a loving person" is that it is an argument frequently used by narcissistic parents, who actually don't know how to love, because they can't _see_ other people or value characteristics different to their own. Narcissistic parents may feed you, shelter you, clothe you, etc (and frequently count the cost of these things into your face), but they won't see you or hear you, or appreciate you, or nurture you emotionally, or connect with you, or love who you really are.
> 
> ...


You're correct about all of this Sue, and my horse's welfare comes before mine, as it should IMO. My whole point was that all these expenses are totally voluntary and if I didn't have horses, I wouldn't have the expenses. Hubby commented at one point that if we didn't have horses we could go on a long, luxury cruise every 6 months, if we wanted to. The way I feel about water, THAT ain't gonna happen. Since I do love my horses and want them to be happy, healthy and comfortable, I have accepted these expenses as just "daily living" and same with all the work. 

One of my favorite things to do with all of my animals is to just BE. Go out and watch them, sit on a bale in the barn and listen to them munch, stand around and groom on them, whatever will make them happy and comfortable. 

I agree with the 'infantalising' of the animals, I think that's one reason why I detest "Fur Baby".....:shock::shock::shock:. We need a "vomit or hurl" emoticon. When I say love us like a toddler, I'm referring to a toddler's egocentric view that everything is about them and when they are having all their needs & wants met, they are very loving, but it's more "I'm loving you for loving ME" kind of thing. I don't mean toddler in the intelligence or personal development type stuff. 

I'm totally with you on the herd stuff. Unless the weather is dangerous, I like mine out on pasture in groups just being horses. I think that's invaluable to their mental health and socialization.


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## Lilah (Jan 24, 2017)

My first trainer advised me to let a horse smell my hands, etc first, because as she put it "They might forget your voice, but they never forget your smell." Sounds like your horse was drinking in your smell  As far as your question, do they love us? All I know is, a little over a year ago I rescued a senior Clydesdale mare, who wanted nothing to do with any of us. I don't think she was beaten in her previous life, just ignored and neglected - came with a huge heavy nylon halter rotting on her face, underweight, badly in need of a farrier. She wasn't skittish, just standoffish, and would turn and head to the farthest corner of the pasture the minute we came to the fence. After a year of good food, dentistry, chiropractic massage, and love...this is her now. That looks like love to me!


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## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

Phantomrose said:


> I believe horses appreciate when you just “hang out” with them and form a bond with doing things just like that- grooming, going for hand walks, bathing, etc.
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I definitely agree with this. Especially with the idea of just hanging out with them in the pasture. You are going out to them to spend time with them in THEIR place and THEIR speed and on THEIR terms. Not imposing YOUR way of being on them. I think that's a lot of what created the bond between my pony and me. Just spending time out there with him, not expecting anything from him, just BEING with him. When I go hang out with him when he's grazing, he will graze for a few minutes, then walk over to me and put his nose on me, then go back to grazing.

I've also spent time out there just observing everyone, and getting a feel for how they all interact with each other and I've tried to mimic that where possible, rather than coming out there with my own agenda and way of doing things ("Come on, pony, let's go, let's go").


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## Hondo (Sep 29, 2014)

I have taken a light folding aluminum chair out in the pasture to set in some shady area. Hondo will usually come over and graze around me right up against my feet. Sometimes he'll just stand there with me. 

I've noticed that horses that are friends do that a lot. Just stand there in close proximity. Just sort of being together.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Dreamcatcher Arabians said:


> You're correct about all of this Sue, and my horse's welfare comes before mine, as it should IMO. My whole point was that all these expenses are totally voluntary and if I didn't have horses, I wouldn't have the expenses. Hubby commented at one point that if we didn't have horses we could go on a long, luxury cruise every 6 months, if we wanted to. The way I feel about water, THAT ain't gonna happen.


And you know, I actually would class having to go on a luxury cruise as a form of purgatory, myself.  Not only do I get seasick, but luxury liners are just inane floating shopping centres with mindless entertainment, no horses, no wilderness, no earth under your bare feet, just yuck!!!







Not to mention that it's one big incubator for various pathogens! Can't believe people pay money to do stuff like that, but then, I do live under a rock myself... a very nice rock indeed...

I've seen photos of you with your horses, and read a lot of things you've said for years, and knew that you weren't saying things in the potential meanings I was commenting on, in my post before. I was basically using what I quoted as a diving board, not because of how you would have meant it, but because of things I've seen in my life with my own eyes, where people were saying much the same thing. It's like words - they can mean many different things, and likewise, collections of exactly the same sorts of words can be used in different ways, by different people. (Especially when they are about love! :rofl

So thanks that I could use your words as a springboard, even though you're not one of the people I'm thinking about with horror, in the comments I made! I wanted to avoid incriminating you in the process, and hope this has been achieved.



> One of my favorite things to do with all of my animals is to just BE. Go out and watch them, sit on a bale in the barn and listen to them munch, stand around and groom on them, whatever will make them happy and comfortable.


Yeah, I used to sit next to my mare's heap of hay as a teenager on Friday nights, in her stall, in the dark, and we'd just keep each other company. Listening to her chewing was really meditative, and every now and then she'd breathe in my hair, and I'd breathe back at her.

These days, I like to go sit in a field and just watch them, and sooner or later they end up grazing around me, and sniffing me sociably. One of the really nice things about life, like sunsets and rainbows and electrical storms!



> I agree with the 'infantalising' of the animals, I think that's one reason why I detest "Fur Baby".....:shock::shock::shock:. We need a "vomit or hurl" emoticon.


I believe they are now taking requests!  Santa, AKA the techies who scry the orb of wizardry, kindly gave me a donkey, a TARDIS, chickens, a zzzz person and that halo face when I wrote a letter to Santa! :Angel:

Have a lovely Sunday!  Hope your various niggly war wounds are behaving despite cooling temperatures! I heard from my foot a couple of days this week, but it's behaving now! :rofl:


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## george the mule (Dec 7, 2014)

SueC said:


> @george the mule, did you enjoy that little tune you posted? ;-) Cindy Lauper would have made a fabulous Goth you know, in another universe... it would have suited her Pre-Raphaelite looks better IMO, than that horrid 1980s technicolour Barbie-doll fashion...


Hi Sue!

Well. I liked the movie it came from; The Goonies, and it fits in there somehow, altho I'm not totally sure why.
But the song it's self? It's not the sort of thing I would selectively play on my car stereo, tho I would probably let it play thru if it came up randomly; It's "Good Enough" I guess ;-)
I just thought the thread needed something to contrast with the love songs; an It_will_do_until_something_better_comes_along-song.

Horse - human love is (edit: "Love" is) a quandary, and until you really delineate your expectations for "Love", you are simply thrashing around words. Words that are in themselves imprecise and subject to mis-interpretation. A mystery within a mystery, ad infinitum. I truly believe the answer lies beyond our self-limiting spoken language(s); somewhere within the realm of Limbic Resonance, but even then, putting a name to it means that you are off-track somehow. It is something you feel. Do you feel "loved"? If it's "Good Enough for you, it's Good Enough for Me". Or, on the flip side, if you have to ask the price, then you can't afford it.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

SueC said:


> I've seen photos of you with your horses, and read a lot of things you've said for years, and knew that you weren't saying things in the potential meanings I was commenting on, in my post before. I was basically using what I quoted as a diving board, not because of how you would have meant it, but because of things I've seen in my life with my own eyes, where people were saying much the same thing. It's like words - they can mean many different things, and likewise, collections of exactly the same sorts of words can be used in different ways, by different people. (Especially when they are about love! :rofl
> 
> So thanks that I could use your words as a springboard, even though you're not one of the people I'm thinking about with horror, in the comments I made! I wanted to avoid incriminating you in the process, and hope this has been achieved.
> 
> ...


I didn't take anything you said as pointed at me, I know it wasn't. Ditto your feelings about going on a cruise.....water that moves, being cooped up with a bunch of people I wouldn't otherwise ever associate with or meet voluntarily, floating Petri dish for every germ, virus, bacterium you can think of and probably several million you can't.....brrrrrr! NO THANK YOU, just shoot me now. 

Things are pretty good so far, let's hope they stay that way and everybody stays happy & healthy into the New Year!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

@*Dreamcatcher Arabians* ...I tried to do this through Visitor Messages but yours are turned off, and my PM box is always needing cleaning out so I avoid using it, but I thought a page I did when I last had to cross Bass Strait on a big passenger ferry might amuse you. It's the very last image in this post - if you click on it a couple of times, it becomes big enough to read. :rofl: I laughed so much when we found this again recently...

https://www.horseforum.com/member-j...s-other-people-479466/page125/#post1970629617


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

@SueC this is the first song I heard from Sam Perry _(and why I thought you might know who he is :wink_


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## Alder (Feb 15, 2017)

I've heard people scoff at the suggestion that horses can love us, and as a new-to-horses person don't know what to make of it. I have a story though.


My boss chestnut mare is very standoffish. She doesn't like to be touched, doesn't even like me standing too close to her, so it's very hard to know if she even likes me.


A couple of weeks ago I was putting on her blanket, (she tolerates the insult and lets me). I was telling her how beautiful she is, she turned her head, put her nose gently on my arm and nickered very softly three times. Felt like love to me, not only that she seemed to understand my words! I was astounded.


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## Hondo (Sep 29, 2014)

Yall's music selections making me feel older than I am even.


Horses, it is believed by some, including me, know with incredible exactness what our deepest feelings really are, more than even we know, and they respond to it accordingly. (sometimes)

I tend to think our knowledge of them vs their knowledge of us is on about the same ratio of our sense of smell to theirs. Hondo once tracked the herd that had found a fence down for about 1 mile. With his nose to the ground just like a dog.

So their knowledge of us could exceed our wildest imaginations, IMO. And I suspect it is that knowledge that is meaningful in their decision as to whether we are trustworthy and bondable, aka lovable.

Edit: And I suspect that our beliefs about our deepest feelings and thoughts do not always line up with the horse's perceptions of those feelings and thoughts.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

Alder said:


> I've heard people scoff at the suggestion that horses can love us, and as a new-to-horses person don't know what to make of it. I have a story though.
> 
> 
> My boss chestnut mare is very standoffish. She doesn't like to be touched, doesn't even like me standing too close to her, so it's very hard to know if she even likes me.
> ...


I think they are capable of understanding a whole lot more than we give them credit for. When Cloney was still entire there was a mare who was in heat that got in next to where he was in his yard. Still had a fence & gate between them but she was backing up to the gate. Not sure how she got in where she was, but she did it. I came around the corner in time to see Cloney try to mount her over the gate. I said, "Hay now! Get down from there, she's not for you Boy!", knowing full well he was going to get that mare bred through the gate and there wasn't a darn thing I was going to be able to do to stop it. I just wasn't close enough. He looked back over his shoulder at me like, "AWWW MA!!! You spoil all my fun." and got down and did not breed that mare. Color me dumb struck! I went and got the mare out of where she was and we went on with our day. 

I'd say that mare told you , "Thank you" very nicely.


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

SueC said:


> As a biologist, I do have strong objections to this whole idea of horses as toddlers, and that's why I didn't participate in that thread. I think this is frequently a self-fulfilling prophecy created by humans. Humans often enjoy infantilising their companion animals (and their maturing and adult children, too) and creating manufactured dependencies in them so that they can feel greater-than, and needed - and this may not be a conscious motivation, but an unconscious one.


This is one of the things that annoys me too. The horses we ride are adults, not children. They should be respected as adults. It downgrades them to think otherwise.

There are times when my horse is better qualified to make a decision than I am. For instance, she may smell a snake in the grass that I can't see. Her decision to go around it is a way better decision than mine to plow straight ahead.

Adults. Not babies.


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## Hondo (Sep 29, 2014)

Hondo a 1,000 pound 3 year old? I don't think so. Nope.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

AnitaAnne said:


> @*SueC* this is the first song I heard from Sam Perry _(and why I thought you might know who he is :wink_


Princey wasn't really my cup of tea, but I do have to admit I liked _When Doves Cry_ and _1999_. I'm afraid the cover attempt here leaves me cold (I'm _such_ an ice queen :Angel, but he clearly has talent.

The reason I don't know any of these people is probably best explained by this song. It says it so well! :rofl:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

SueC said:


> Princey wasn't really my cup of tea, but I do have to admit I liked _When Doves Cry_ and _1999_. I'm afraid the cover attempt here leaves me cold (I'm _such_ an ice queen :Angel, but he clearly has talent.
> 
> The reason I don't know any of these people is probably best explained by this song. It says it so well! :rofl:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99XDWMwpL_A


Cute song, but this was The Voice Australia not Australian Idol :wink: 


Sacrilege again! Prince was ALL THAT!! Fantastic musician and songwriter  Little Red Corvette, Purple Rain, oh to be at a concert of his... 


I really love Sam Perry's rendition though, even though I normally hate remixes. I only wish I could hear him perform it all the way through. 


_next you'll be saying you don't care for David Bowie either _ :frown_color:


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

My final thought for the night, before my computer crashes again...

The "experts" claim that animals are so much in the "here and now" and don't think about other things.

I don't believe it. 

Case in point:

I had a black lab, came up as a stray when he was maybe 1.5 yrs old. I fixed him, gave him some minimal training, and he became a well loved member of the family. 

Kids went to Pony Club and participated in the Pony Club Competitions one year in Kentucky at the horse park. I brought the lab to keep me company while the kids did their thing. (parents are not allowed to assist) 

So we are walking along and looked at things, passing many people and dogs. Suddenly my lab goes ballistic whining, leaping up and lunging towards something. 

I look over and see another black lab! That lab is stretching towards mine! So I go over to say hello to the owner and our dogs greet like old friends and are wiggling their whole bodies! :happydance: It was amazing to see. 


I chat with the owner and her (also male) black lab is registered and she says he acts like this every time he sees another black lab, male or female, young or old. I was flabbergasted to say the least. Told her I had never noticed this, but would certainly pay more attention to my dogs' interests. 

Sure enough, over the years he got excited over every black lab he saw! Didn't do it for any other kind of dog, including other colors of labs. 

That's when I quit believing that animals are color blind. That is also when I started learning to really listen to my animals and try to understand their actions. I look into their eyes and see a real intelligence and desire to be friends. 

That was over 25 yrs ago and I am still learning...and still wondering what our dogs were talking about so excitedly that day


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

AnitaAnne said:


> Cute song, but this was The Voice Australia not Australian Idol :wink:


Six of one, half a dozen of the other. I watch none of these things, and the _essence_ of the KMH song applies to all of them, which is why I posted the clip. 

We're going to have to disagree on our definitions of sacrilege, as well as on some of our musical tastes! ;-)

And we can still be friends. Astonishing! :Angel: We don't need each other's blessing to enjoy and not enjoy various types of music, but I'll give you mine anyway. And also to like pineapples and papayas, stuffed capsicums, overripe bananas, and piccalilly. Should you happen to like any of those food items, I will send any that accidentally end up in our house your way! ;-)

PS: _Of course_ I like David Bowie, and I've told you this before. 

_
_


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## DreamerR (Dec 17, 2017)

There was one time when Justice was lame and I came out to school Bee. I walked out to get Bee using Justices halter and when I got Bee and walked him back the barn Justice followed us the whole way there. He then stood at the gate and stared at us the entire time I tacked him up. When I lead Bee out to the arena Justice followed us the entire way there and then followed us during warmup. He stayed right next to me and when I trotted bee he followed and trotted right next to us. When we started cantering Justice stood right on the outside of the arena and watched for the rest of our ride. When I brought Bee back in Justice continued following us and just watching. When I turned Bee out I brought him an apple in the pasture and while Bee was eating it Justice ran over bucking and scared Bee away. Even though the apple was gone Justice stood right up close and started rubbing his head all over me. He just stood there hanging out for me and whenever Bee tried to come back over Justice would pin his ears back. 

I'm sure there some other explaination to this, however I like to think that Justice was jealous watching me ride and love on another horse. Similar to how I am when I see other people ride and love on him... 

He also runs up to the gate as soon as I walk into the barn. At the last show while we waiting I was standing on the ground looking at our course and he laid his head on my shoulder and fell asleep. Its the little things like this that make me forgive him when he acts naughty


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## DreamerR (Dec 17, 2017)

This is one of my favorite pictures of Justice.. I was going to take a video of me galloping so I set up the camera and turned it on. However while getting on I felt like I was going to faint so I sat down and Justice bent down and stared at me for like 5 minutes until I got back on. Just something abt this picture, the way we’re looking at each other 🤤 I swear they have to have some sort of compassion for us.


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## Hondo (Sep 29, 2014)

LydiaAndJustice said:


> I'm sure there some other explaination to this, however I like to think that Justice was jealous watching me ride and love on another horse.


No, I don't think there is another explanation. I think it's what you think it is.

Hondo and Rimmey are good friends and pasture mates. One day I decided to saddle Rimmey and just lead him around. Hondo went nutso running circles around us bucking and creating a commotion in general. I returned and took HIS saddle off Rimmey.

And just the other day when I was brushing out Hondo's mane and tail I decided to brush Rimmey's mane. He was standing nearby. Hondo causally forced his way between Rimmey and I, stopped, and just stood there.

Hondo carries me around so he gets the nod.

When I'm doing Rimmey's hooves, Hondo watches attentively, just to be sure, I reckon, that nothing besides hoof trimming is going on.


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## apachetears6 (Jun 7, 2018)

AnitaAnne said:


> There are some who say that horses don't (or can't) love us. I have always believed they are capable of love and show it to us in many ways, some subtle some not so subtle!
> 
> So tonight, Chivas showed me he loved me. It was so cute what he did I nearly cried! But at the same time a huge smile spread across my face.
> 
> ...



Yes some Horses do love their owners.
Most are aloof and see humans as just another boss animal if not fellow horse.
We had a Morgan mare that came and my son rode her as a child, later her owner came for her and she was gone three years before coming back.
We went out to the other pasture to collect her and the pasture owner said "You can't catch that Horse she has never been caught since she came here."
I told him to let my son catch her, three years since she last saw him and she literally trotted out and let him halter her, nuzzled his hair and stood close.
I have a Paint Mare now that if I am working in the pasture will come over, looking for peppermint I say but she will stand close and look at me all cow eyed.
I have a Sabino Gelding that if I am working in the stable will join me and watch.
So, my vote is yes, some horses do love/like their owners.


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## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

Coming late to this thread because I was camping, but I want to tell my horsie love story.

When my dream horse was hit by a car and killed, I went through a terribly dark time. After running through a mess of horses, I decided to buy a yearling filly that I couldn't ride and just "be" with her while she grew up. I named her Magic Fox because I needed her to work some magic in my life and she was meant to be my fox hunter. In time, she grew up, and I trained her and rode her. I belonged to Iron Bridge Hunt, and when she was old enough, I started taking her hunting. 

But she was still inexperienced in the hunt field, and once, when we were navigating a very steep ditch with water in the bottom, she panicked and hurled herself at the side of ditch, falling, and landing on top of me. My knee was badly injured, and I had to leave the hunt. But I didn't know the way back, so the landowner's daughter was conscripted to take me back to the trailers.

I was in terrible pain, and hoping to distract myself, I began to talk to the landowner's daughter. Not only was I physically hurting, but I was super disappointed that my young mare, whom I loved so dearly, had let me down, acting like a brainless idiot in the hunt field. The landowner's daughter, a 16 year old young lady, was very very rich and lived in a mansion. I asked her about hunters, and she began to tell me about some hunters she had owned. Then I asked her how SHE would train a hunter for the hunt field, and she replied (quite snottily), "You don't train in the hunt field. You BUY a finished hunter!"

"And what would that cost?" I asked.

"Well, this horse," she patted him fondly, "Was $16,000."

"Oh." I felt very small, very stupid, very worthless. I know I had disrupted the hunt and ruined her day, and she was NOT HAPPY with me. Not another word was said the rest of the way back to the trailers.

When we got to the trailer, I asked the young lady to hold my filly while I unlocked my truck and retrieved my halter. I could hardly walk, and had to brace myself against the vehicle to get around.

As I was unlocking the truck from the driver's side, I heard a loud whinny, and my filly came running around to my side, placing her head on my shoulder and hugging me fiercely.

The girl was completely flustered. "I just couldn't hold her! She just jerked away! I couldn't stop her!"

I put my arms around my upset filly. "And that's something that money can't buy!"


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## Hondo (Sep 29, 2014)

Do our horses love us?

Depends on whether their experiences with us results in releases of dopamine or cortisol...heehee


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

Hondo said:


> Do our horses love us?
> 
> Depends on whether their experiences with us results in releases of dopamine or cortisol...heehee


and....
Oxytocin
Serotonin
Endorphins


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)




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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Oops! It disappeared, after initially seeming fine. Let's try again...


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## Hondo (Sep 29, 2014)

Hmmm.......interesting stuff. Now to figure how to do a real time chemical analysis of our horses.


Blood-rush hormones

Being love struck activates something called the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis. Your brain-adrenal communication gets turned on, flooding your body with these hormones of intensity. Dopamine—your pleasure hormone—saying "love is a drug" isn't that far off. When you are in love your brain releases dopamine into your bloodstream triggering an intense rush of pleasure. Dopamine has the same effect on the brain as cocaine! The euphoria felt from this neurotransmitter is why relationships can be addicting and keep you coming back for more.

Zen hormones

Unlike all the other hormones mentioned, your peaceful neurotransmitter serotonin actually gets lower when you are newly in love! This biological mechanism is what makes people get obsessive about their new love interest.

This dip in serotonin almost identically resembles people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)! About a year into the relationship serotonin starts to rise again (i.e., you start to notice all their annoying habits).


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Personally, I like endorphins best!  You get those especially in good long-term relationships, with a spouse, with friends, with a nice horse or dog or aardvark etc. Some people get them going marathon running. I personally also seem to get endorphin spikes when I watch lovely sunsets, or horses playing in a field, or when there's a blaze of wildflowers or really excellent music or literature and other "isn't this amazing" stuff. Obviously also when doing long bushwalks and mountain climbs (exercise physiology effect there, but compounded by my response to the scenery). Laughing does it too, and I do that a lot.

So there you go. I'm one of those museum pieces who's for some reason or another never done recreational drugs, but then I'm often moderately (and sometimes amazingly) high on my own endorphins - bit like some people are on opioids. Indeed, _endorphin_ is just short for _endogenous morphine_. :dance-smiley05::dance-smiley05:


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

@SueC You have an aardvark for a running partner? Hmmmm.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Celeste said:


> @*SueC* You have an aardvark for a running partner? Hmmmm.


I don't know where you got the running partner from, but it's nice that you picked up on the aardvark! 

That's just an old tradition. I sometimes used to put the word "aardvark" into essays out of context as a university student just to see if the people marking actually read all of it before putting their grade on it. If that didn't come back circled or with ??? on it, I knew they'd not really read it. And when I started teaching people, I recommended they do the same. (By the way, I'm one of those markers who does read the whole thing carefully, which is why I had little recreation time when teaching. It rather scandalised me to hear that lots of markers "impression mark" - just read a few paragraphs here and there and slap a grade on it...)

And since that was really off topic, I'll try to do a slightly more on-topic paragraph. It seems to me that people can get themselves in trouble if they use a direct chemical shortcut rather than do XYZ that naturally results in the production of such chemicals in your own body. It's sort of like artificial flavourings. Raspberries taste great, and have a long list of contents that are good for us to take on board: Vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc. So when people imitate the flavour in the laboratory and then just add it, and some artificial colours, to so-called "food", and drink, you're getting the marker for the quality ingredients, without actual quality ingredients. Malnutrition can result.

Likewise, to recreationally top yourself up with opioids, for example, and to make that effect independent of the life activities which make your own body produce its own version, means you're not doing the exercise, not doing the social bonding, not doing a whole lot of constructive things that lead to endorphin release naturally. It's an empty thing, biologically - like raspberry flavouring.

No moral judgement intended on eaters of raspberry flavoured ice cream etc, or recreational drug users. To me, when studying biochemistry that semester, it was like someone studying about car engines who would then obviously never put sugar in the petrol tank. Yet people who'd never, ever do that to their precious car can be quite offhand about what they do to _themselves_. Even after studying biochemistry. Highly complex...

PS: All those chemicals your body produces to reward positive activities...and you thought you had free will... _bwahahaha_!


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## Celeste (Jul 3, 2011)

Now I get it. Your aardvark is an opiate addict that eats artificial raspberry flavoring. It would be better off starting a running program.

:smile:

Now you know that there is at least one person in the world that listens to you.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Thank you, @*Celeste* . I feel deeply understood! :Angel:


...maybe that's why horses like hanging around me. I'm an important endorphin activator for them.


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

I jumped in on this a bit late so I now have to go back and read it all! Aardvark, tigers tails and all.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

SueC said:


> And since that was really off topic, I'll try to do a slightly more on-topic paragraph. It seems to me that people can get themselves in trouble if they use a direct chemical shortcut rather than do XYZ that naturally results in the production of such chemicals in your own body. It's sort of like artificial flavourings. Raspberries taste great, and have a long list of contents that are good for us to take on board: Vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc. So when people imitate the flavour in the laboratory and then just add it, and some artificial colours, to so-called "food", and drink, you're getting the marker for the quality ingredients, without actual quality ingredients. Malnutrition can result.
> 
> Likewise, to recreationally top yourself up with opioids, for example, and to make that effect independent of the life activities which make your own body produce its own version, means you're not doing the exercise, not doing the social bonding, not doing a whole lot of constructive things that lead to endorphin release naturally. It's an empty thing, biologically - like raspberry flavouring.
> 
> ...


I just went to a nutrition seminar and part of the course was looking at Wahl's Protocol for MS Treatment. One of the interesting things they brought up was, she discovered when she ate well and took a bunch of supplements the diet didn't work. When she analyzed what she needed and changed her diet to get all the things she needed from food, it put her in remission. From being in a wheelchair to now up and walking and I believe she's running 1/2 marathons now. Real food vs pharma supps .... interesting!


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