# Do you ever have a feeling horses can understand us? That they have emotion?



## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

horses are VERY emotional beings. more than anything. they feel contentment, curiosity (is that an emotion?), joy, fear, anger, anxiety, even rage. and they are very perceptive of human emotion, too.


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## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

I do think horses can understand our moods and emotions and often respond accordingly. I do a lot of work in a therapeutic riding program and have seen very directly how the same horse responds very differently to riders who may have the same physical abilities but bring different types of emotional or psychological challenges to their riding. Or vice versa, individuals who have physical disabilities and need some extra "taking care of," and the horse acts just the right way.

But this is a timely question, as earlier this morning, I was reading an article about a popular racehorse who was recently injured and will be out of training for a few months. It's sort of a long story, but last month he was in training at a barn in England, whereas his "home base" is in California. A lot of his fans were upset that he had been sent to train in England, without his regular groom and trainer- those fans contended that the horse was "lonely, depressed, and felt abandoned because he did not have his team with him." Now, I certainly wouldn't disagree that horses can take some time to settle in new surroundings, but for an elite performance horse used to shipping to new tracks all the time, I have a hard time believing that the horse "felt abandoned" because he had a new groom and trainer. Do you buy that? Here's more of the context, if you're brave enough to wade through 500 (sometimes nasty and ill-informed) comments...


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## jamesqf (Oct 5, 2009)

Sheesh... Do you ever have a feeling that the sun comes up in the morning? Of course they do.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

^^^ I wouldn't want to ride horses if they did not!


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

I find them to be very emotional and moody. Any animal that can show such clear evidence of intense dislike and fear has to be just as capable of feeling 'like' and pleasure
Some definitely feel more secure around people they know well but we've also bought lots of horses that just settled in and got on with life from Day One - they're all such individuals and contrary to often popular belief big competition yards and many racing yards are a lot more likely to make allowances for quirks than some private owners who expect them to all have dropped out of the same mould
I think they understand more than we give them credit for - I also think they can have a very wicked sense of humour


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## Incitatus32 (Jan 5, 2013)

If any mammal doesn't have emotions then what do we have? Emotions are just firing chemicals and responses from the brain. Simply put, we have no control over WHAT we feel or HOW we feel. (We referring to all Mammals). For instance, when we're happy we're happy. We can't stimulate happiness and we can't NOT feel it (without a medical condition). So in theory everything with a brain would have the same basic impulses. 

I've seen to many horses mourn, play pranks, and show more emotions then humans to discredit what they feel. 

I knew of a client who's daughter commited suicide. Her daughter left her horse, and her equipment to her parents in her note. She then commited suicide out in the barn. When they found her, her gelding was standing by her side and refused to leave. He'd come in through the run in and refused to eat or drink. It took six men to haul him away from her body. He never was right after that. A horse that anyone could ride turned almost feral and was aloof. The only people who could touch him were the girls parents and her sister. 

If that doesn't show that horses have emotion and loyalty I don't know what does.


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## jenkat86 (May 20, 2014)

Of course they understand us. But I think we confuse them. And then humans, more so adults instead of children are often looking deeper into "horsey emotion" than we need to. 

With horses, what you see is what you get. If they are irritated, they show it. If they are happy, they show it. If they like you, they show it. If they don't like you, THEY SHOW IT. They expect that from us too. But it's not always that way with us. If I'm upset, there are times that I choose not to show it. If you do that with a horse it confuses the heck out of them. That's one of the reasons equine therapy is so beneficial to people with PTSD. They really make you come to terms with your emotions and feelings.


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## rookie (May 14, 2012)

I think they read our emotions and biochemistry much better than we understand at this point. I think they pick up on our emotional states through body language and I think an element of biochemistry. If there are dogs that can detect when a person is about to have a seizure why can't horses (group oriented animals) pick up on similar things? 

There are ways in that I think a horse can at key times mirror you and at the same time be the thing you needed. I was reminded of that today during my ride. I got tense and over thinking and my horse got fast (his response to any non-calm emotion) and I had to remember to RELAX. There are times when I have to be the emotion/state I want him to be in. At the same time, he has surprised me by being in an emotional state that I needed to be in. When frazzled one day and going eight different directions and generally a little witchy/****y he was a total calm gentleman who actually baby sat me (as much as he ever will) and I got off after that ride in 180 degree emotional state turn around.


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

The most emotional animal in the world is a mare in heat, or a gelding in love with her.


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## Incitatus32 (Jan 5, 2013)

rookie said:


> I think they read our emotions and biochemistry much better than we understand at this point. I think they pick up on our emotional states through body language and I think an element of biochemistry. If there are dogs that can detect when a person is about to have a seizure why can't horses (group oriented animals) pick up on similar things?


I find it interesting you say this. My brother had epilepsy for most of his childhood. Without fail every horse we'd put him on would stop dead and park out right before he had a seizure. 

My late mare would actually stop and lay down, within five minuets he'd have a seizure and she'd stay down with her head by him until he got up and was okay. 

Forget a therapy dog, I want a service horse!! :lol:


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

I'm more concerned with making sure I understand them.


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Incitatus, I was reading about a soldier who'd returned from Irag and who had seizures from brain injury. His dream was to own a horse and he bo't a nice mare for trail riding. He had a seizure and fell off his horse. When he rallied she was standing guard as horses do in the field. But, after that she too would stop. It took a few times for the soldier to realize why she was stopping and that he should dismount and lie down in a good spot.


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## Yogiwick (Sep 30, 2013)

Incredible story Incitatus, so sad.

lol @ waresbear XD

OP I am surprised that you think that would be impossible? Why? Who's told you that. I think it's a widely accepted and acknowledged fact. Of course he can. He is a thinking creature..? Just the way a dog or cat thinks.

*In their own way* horses and other animals are as equally intelligent and emotional, if not moreso than humans.


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

I've been watching this thread & waiting, in case it got invaded by robots...hasn't yet, so will share a story:

Some years ago, when I was at the tie volunteering at a NAHRA place (& healing from a bad horse accident) I decided to go out to the stables/pens one day just to be around the horses (no one else was there), as was still hurting, physically & emotionally.

I sat down on a rubber tire that was in a large pen, that held a gelding I'd worked with & a mini that was a "pet" & also used for therapy w/small children.

For some reason, I just felt like verbalizing the whole story; the search to learn to ride, the crash, the depression ensuing. I recall just sitting there, not crying, just had talked it out, explaining why I had to go away & figure things out. The mini & gelding had stood maybe 6' away & 10' away from each other, facing me & listening.

Then the gelding started walking slowly up to me, head not lowered but not up. I stood up to meet his approach. I didn't know much of anything at this time about horse behavior or my own body language, but I just stood & let him come up.

He eyeballed me, then very gently lowered his head & went, slowly, 2 or 3 times along my upper body, until his head rested upon my abdomen/pelvic area. This was what got broken/damaged in the crash. He just stood there, gently pressing into my body.

Then, I cried. When I started crying he lifted his head & put it around my right shoulder. A brief hug. Then he gave me a look in the eye & ambled off to sniff noses w/the mini. I stopped cryng.

At that time I saw that a worker had come to let all the horses out to pasture. I went to the gate & watched about 10-15 horses galloping to get to the pasture.

It was a good day. Took me a lot of time to get back to riding (lessons).

Yes. Horses are incredibly intuitive. You can't fool them w/people-hide-emotions-tricks. I love them for the absolute honesty. Can't get that from people, most times.


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

boots said:


> I'm more concerned with making sure I understand them.


At my present point in my development w/horses, this is where I'm at now, after a 10 year "hiatus". Can't live without them, need to know about THEM. And...I'm honest with them, every time.


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## DreaMy (Jul 1, 2014)

I think that all animals are much more "empathetic" than we give them credit for.

A lot of people think that horses can't pick up on our emotions but what about that special school horse that always seem to take it slow with the nervous riders? Even the ones that push your buttons show that they understand that you are nervous or afraid of something.

My horse, when I first got her and like the 2nd time I ever went to see her, came right up to me in the pasture and licked me from my hip to my shoulder. (A big ol' sloppy kiss) It was really strange but I couldn't help but think that she understood that we would be "partners".

Even at the animal shelter I volunteer with the cats will pick up on it if I'm having a bad day and will be extra snuggly. I was pretty upset the other day and even the tiny 4 month old kittens who normally speed around the room curled up in my lap.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

I have a very sick and emaciated rescue in one of my paddocks right now. The horse that I am closest to has shown nothing but concern and protection for the poor boy. 

He stands by the adjoining fence all day, lets the rest of the herd do their own thing and keeps an eye on him. Yesterday I took the rescue for a short hand graze. My boy was fine as long as he could see him. The second he couldn’t see him anymore he started calling to the rescue and pacing the fence. My boy is not very vocal, never calls or shows concern when I take out any of the other horses. This one, he has taken under his wing, if only from a distance for now. He appears to understand this horse is in a bad way and needs extra looking after. 

The law of the jungle would dictate that such a weak and sick animal would be left behind, seen as a threat to the health of the herd and ostracized or at least ignored, especially as a new comer.

Here, the herd leader instead has taken an interest in the welfare of the sickest, weakest animal. It goes against the survival of the herd, so I would say that there is far more to understanding them than the simplicity of respect-disrespect and it is as individual as the horses themselves.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

cmartin80 said:


> This topic has always fascinated me. The way horses communicate is unimaginable for me.
> 
> I know it's a weird thought, so please don't judge me for it


Then only people who are going to judge you for it are ignorant people who subscribe to the idea of human exceptionalism - the idea that humans are vastly different from other social mammals, vastly "superior", and the only thing on the planet that can think or feel rather than act purely instinctively. Those people view animals more or less as machines and humans as something elevated and rarefied, and it gives them the psychological justification many of them are seeking to treat animals with little respect.

Human exceptionalism is often the (opposite extreme) position taken by people who express supreme disdain for antropomorphism (incorrectly projecting human motivations, thoughts, feelings etc onto other animals) and human exceptionalists will incorrectly see any talk of social animals being able to reason, learn, or feel as anthropomorphism.

Modern zoology and behavioural research shows that social animals, humans included, are more alike than they are different, and that it is indeed illogical to think they are not, given their high degree of relatedness. Jane Goodall helped pioneer modern animal behaviour research, unclouded by the cultural spectacles of mainstream Judaeo-Christianity that initially promoted the position that other animals are nothing like humans. Reading her work is a fascinating and totally accessible glimpse into this subject. Modern zoology now accepts many of her conclusions for which she was roundly lambasted by her prejudiced colleagues at the time. (Such is the nature of scientific progress. Galileo was treated the same way when he said the earth revolved around the sun, and Alfred Wegener when he suggested that continents slowly drift. Now we know they were correct. Many other examples like that exist.)

Social animals all feel, all learn, and all think in some form. Thinking and reasoning is not merely a verbal process confined to humans. Obviously different animals do this in distinct ways - similarities run at a deeper level, specialisation radiates out.

You might like to read "Horse Watch - What It Is To Be Equine" by Dr Marthe Kiley-Worthington, who is the modern equine equivalent of Jane Goodall. She has conducted interesting experiments and studies about how horses think, reason, and generally behave, and also explored horses' grasp of human language (which is quite surprising - she found they even "get" basic syntax, like the distinction in meaning between "Me go to you" and "You go to me").




> , but what if horses could understand our language at times? After every ride, I walk my horse around the barn a few laps to cool him off and out of no where, I always end up talking to him. It's as if he reacts to it as well...


Kiley-Worthington has shown that horses can learn a quite respectable basic human vocabulary. They are more likely to get concrete ideas like "carrot" and "jump" than abstract ideas like "altruism" and "antidisestablishmentarianism" rofl. This, of course, doesn't mean they aren't capable of abstract stuff - this is more a comment on language learning, which is something in which humans are especially specialised.

What horses do far better than learn actual words, though, is learn and understand body language, voice tone and inflection. Horses are supreme observers and are simultaneously aware of many things in the environment a human is not (and must be so, as herbivores). Hence the common misconception that horses spook at "nothing", or even the rather anthropomorphic idea that horses spook "to get out of work" (if they're indeed doing this, maybe the rider/handler should purchase a moped instead of continuing with horses!)...

Given a chance to learn around kind humans who believe in giving respect to horses rather than just getting it, horses can learn to read humans exceptionally well, and have incredibly mutual and communicating relationships with us. With harsh people, horses learn to avoid people and to avoid working with them, and set their minds to discovering strategies to achieve these goals.




> He keeps one ear to the side listening to my voice as we walk and just the other day, I told him that I was only ever gonna see him one more time before I moved as I shed a tear. Immediately he slowed down, put his head down, and stayed close by my side with his ear slightly back for the rest of the time which he's never done before. I think he felt my upset tension and it was his way of comforting me but just the thought of that being true seems impossible. The way he processed that feeling, I just don't know what to think of it.


Just keep observing and reasoning like you are already doing, and be ready to trust your own experiences and instincts over and above common myths about animals. The people who perpetuate these myths generally aren't in a position to observe what I am talking about as horses tend to shut down around them (due to their domineering attitudes and behaviour and unwillingness to "listen").




> The next weird thought I have is what emotions horses seem to have? I've been told my whole life horses don't love or hate people, they either respect or disrespect you, but I find this 100% false.


Well, I'm a trained biologist with 35 years' experience with horses, and I'm with you on this, and so is modern animal behaviour research. Social bonding is not confined to humans, or even to primates. The respect/disrespect myth was founded on a cultural over-extension of an intrinsically flawed study into wolves kept in the equivalent of refugee camp conditions - not in their natural family groupings in their home ranges - which led to the popular alpha theory, which puts incredibly tinted spectacles on its fans and basically locks them into a limited world view that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - and it's a scientifically and logically incorrect view of how animals behave, and why. Amazing how a study that started with stressed wolves has become applied so generally and enthusiastically to the animal kingdom as a whole by the general public, and continues to be so popular, long after dismissed as flawed by zoologists. My hypothesis here is that people are prone to project psychologically, and so, ironically, the very people who like to accuse others of anthropomorphising are actually doing exactly that - and ascribing their own psychological modus operandi onto other animals (and other people too, of course).

Where's Reiningcatsanddogs? Psychological stuff is her speciality area, not mine, and would be very interesting to get her thoughts! 





> I do believe horses can have strong feelings about a certain person. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean fall in love, but they can care for one. Like some will not only respect you, but will also be very happy to see you while not care as much about someone else. Or how they care for one another. After my horse Chief passed away, my other horse Sunny was down for days and refused to go into pasture without the horse that pretty much raised him and was always there for him. Chief's brother, was whinnying all night, panicking after he realized his best friend was gone. I know it's mostly herd instincts but I feel like theres more to it, you know?
> 
> Am I crazy? :gallop:


No, you're not!  It's just that certain people locked into certain ways of thinking will prefer to think that you are crazy, when the alternative is that they are wrong! :rofl:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

tjtalon said:


> I've been watching this thread & waiting, in case it got invaded by robots...hasn't yet, so will share a story:


Great story, TJ, and excellent to see you here!  The carnivorous grasshoppers may currently be grazing redder, bloodier pastures! ;-)


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## LifeInTheIrons (Mar 28, 2015)

A few months ago, I learned that my best friend had tried to commit suicide. Naturally, I was very sad and upset and distraught. The next day I went to the barn, walked into my horse's stall, grabbed onto him, and just started crying and talking to him about what had happened. My horse likes to fidget. He doesn't like me or anyone to hug him or hold him for too long. But that day, he let me cling onto him for ages. He looked at me and turned his ears toward me when I talked. He nudged me, and genuinely seemed worried that I was so sad. (My friend is doing much better, by the way.)

It absolutely amazed me when stuff like this happens. Truly, sometimes I do think they can look into our souls and know exactly what's going on inside us, even before WE know exactly what we're feeling. They're so intellectual and caring.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

SueC said:


> My hypothesis here is that people are prone to project psychologically, and so, ironically, the very people who like to accuse others of anthropomorphising are actually doing exactly that - and ascribing their own psychological modus operandi onto other animals (and other people too, of course).
> 
> Where's Reiningcatsanddogs? Psychological stuff is her speciality area, not mine, and would be very interesting to get her thoughts!


Sue, you pretty much nailed it. 

I wish I could say for certain what the limits and extent of horse emotions were. 

You can delve into brain function, processing, the presence or absence of certain parts, the understanding of which are transferred from our research of the functions of the human brain and applied to animals. But, really in the end, it is an assumption that because a part of the brain, a chemical, or hormone (even at the sub-cellular level) serves a function in humans, it serves an identical function in the brains of all species or even all mammals. Not so sure that is an accurate application. One way or the other, absence of proof is not proof of absence. 

All I can offer are my own antidotal observations that my horses are individuals (most "experiments" are simply creating a controlled set of circumstances and then observing outcomes, also subject to the interpretations and biases of the human observer). 

Some of them I believe feel many emotions deeply, some less so. Some of them are highly intelligent and thinking beings and seem to dwell or at least think about past events; some are highly instinctual and reactive, they act and move on to the next moment. Some are a combination of the two depending on the situation (as are most humans). I also believe that they know they are individuals and separate from other horses, as they likewise understand that they are separate from me. They all know their names belong to them. They all excel at reading body language. 

How do I explain my gelding running between a visiting mare preparing to kick and my daughter without some emotion as a motivator? 

Even if he is protecting a valued resource, that would insinuate some realization of causal loss even as a selfish motivator. Selfishness requires a recognition of self, a higher brain function and opens the possibility for emotion being the true motivation. Then there is the ability to mentally reasonably predict cause and beyond immediate consequence....

This is a very complicated, interesting and never ending debatable subject even for the scientists that are into it up to their necks in it daily!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> How do I explain my gelding running between a visiting mare preparing to kick and my daughter without some emotion as a motivator?
> 
> Even if he is protecting a valued resource, that would insinuate some realization of causal loss even as a selfish motivator. Selfishness requires a recognition of self, a higher brain function and opens the possibility for emotion being the true motivation. Then there is the ability to mentally reasonably predict cause and beyond immediate consequence....
> 
> This is a very complicated, interesting and never ending debatable subject even for the scientists that are into it up to their necks in it daily!


It certainly is, and it's much deeper and wider than the urban legends! 

About selfishness requiring a recognition of self, Dawkins, with his selfish gene idea, of course would beg to differ. I guess that then becomes semantics - how do you define selfishness? How wide a definition?

That's just an academic aside, of course, as horses certainly have a concept of "self" and "others". And Dawkins also has his critics who point out that things like cooperation, altruism and symbiosis show there's more to it than competition of one unit of organism against another. Then again, he would say he never contended that, he just contends that DNA conferring survival advantages tends to be selected for (I say tends because geneticists know it's not as simple as that). In that I agree with him. So it seems that cooperative behaviour confers survival advantages, it's not just competitive behaviour that does it.

In social mammals living in natural family groups and settings, actually, many counts of cooperative group behaviour are generally observed for each count of competitive or aggressive behaviour. Marthe Kiley-Worthington's studies strongly showed exactly that for horses, and others have shown it for other social species.

If anything, it's humans that seem to have the most trouble with cooperation, and they are certainly the most competitive and aggressive social species that I've ever encountered. (Huge individual variation of course: Dalai Lama vs Adolf Hitler, just to illustrate either extremes of the spectrum.) And it's my view that highly aggressive and/or highly competitive individuals sort of tar the whole universe with their brush, and make all sorts of unwarranted assumptions about other people, and even other species.

People who are unpleasant to horses seem to me also to generally be unpleasant to other people. Which ties into another point that's been brought up on this thread: The amazing interactions quite a few of us have witnessed between horses and people with disabilities.

People with severe disabilities generally don't come at horses with ego, or that much preconceived cultural baggage, or a psychological compulsion to dominate, and neither indeed do they generally bring fear. They seem to come with awe, and a sense of wonder, and a desire to connect. Young children often bring the same, and even the occasional adult is like this! 

And horses, in my experience, certainly tend to respond to people with disabilities in really amazing ways, with so much affection and consideration, and they offer them so much connection. It's really extraordinary, and wonderful to watch. This isn't just specially trained horses, or horses selected for great temperaments. For example, all four of my horses and all three of my donkeys consistently, time after time, interact incredibly with a person with a disability who comes here regularly. 

That's even my aloof, don't-touch-me-you're-a-stranger, not-so-cuddly horse: He amazed me most of all by spending 40 minutes, at total liberty to roam anywhere over 4 hectares, non-stop with this person the first time he met her, breathing gently on her, moving carefully and in slow motion, just spending time with her, looking at her, interacting with her, treating her like she needed special consideration and totally in a different gear to his usual high-energy, action-man self. He generally has near-zero interest in strangers, but not so with this one (who is totally horse obsessed and radiated her delight at meeting these animals...message received and thoroughly reciprocated). The other, cuddly horses had gone back to grazing near our visitor when our aloof horse was still standing with his face in her lap (she's in a wheelchair) and gently, gently nuzzling her. The smile on our visitor's face outshone the sun!

As Prince Hamlet said, 
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 
* - Hamlet (1.5.167-8) *​Do you read any Tolkien? I just heard an interesting analysis of his elf-model of relating to nature and animals, which is quite distinct from the way the other inhabitants of Middle Earth play it. Tolkien's elves are about treating nature with reverence and respect. No alpha theory for them around animals! Orcs, on the other hand...

And who gets the better outcome? Fiction often serves to point out fundamental truths to people. I think Tolkien certainly did that.

It was also in Harry Potter, when Hagrid taught his students that hippogriffs must be approached with respect, and you must see if you're acceptable to the hippogriff, and humbly ask its service, instead of expecting (like Draco) that the universe is there just for your own convenience...


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

SueC said:


> Great story, TJ, and excellent to see you here!  The carnivorous grasshoppers may currently be grazing redder, bloodier pastures! ;-)


God bless them and keep them...far away from here...:icon_rolleyes:

The OP has been given wonderful stories/examples & 2 in-depth treatises, so I trust she no longer doubts her sanity.

There is such a (narrow) thing as subscribing human emotions to animals (& treating them as "babies" or thinking horses are this:inkunicorn. No...horses have horse emotions, dogs dog emotions, elephants elephant emotions. But not having human emotions doesn't mean other sentient beings don't HAVE emotions (& how can humans know fully know how those emotions are wired up/how they work when humans are just figuring out that the wiring exists!)

It wasn't all that long ago, in the Western historical scheme of things, that women were said to have no souls.

Personally, I have more trouble subscribing human emotions to some people...:rofl:

On that note, I will do what any sensible animal will do when hearing the whirring clacking sound of clouds of grasshoppers on the horizon::gallop:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

LifeInTheIrons said:


> A few months ago, I learned that my best friend had tried to commit suicide. Naturally, I was very sad and upset and distraught. The next day I went to the barn, walked into my horse's stall, grabbed onto him, and just started crying and talking to him about what had happened. My horse likes to fidget. He doesn't like me or anyone to hug him or hold him for too long. But that day, he let me cling onto him for ages. He looked at me and turned his ears toward me when I talked. He nudged me, and genuinely seemed worried that I was so sad. (My friend is doing much better, by the way.)
> 
> It absolutely amazed me when stuff like this happens. Truly, sometimes I do think they can look into our souls and know exactly what's going on inside us, even before WE know exactly what we're feeling. They're so intellectual and caring.


Great story there and not unusual, from my observation, to have a horse cater to a person's emotional state. Glad your friend is doing better.

I do have to say I would be hard-pressed to describe even the cleverest horse as "intellectual" - when the majority of humans aren't that intellectual either - by the educational definition anyway. I'm a bit pedantic about words, and have a feeling your probably meant "intelligent"? I have no quibble applying that word to (many) horses (just not all of them ;-)).

Caring, I've also seen in many social animals, towards each other and towards familiar, friendly humans and unfamiliar humans with disabilities. We also have a blind donkey here and have had three years to witness how the other donkeys and horses all cut her extra slack about coming in to share their food and getting into their spaces and faces - and how they frequently chaperone her around the 58ha when they think she is lost (although actually she gets around really well with the topographical map she seems to have constructed in her head of the entire area) - and how they look to see where she is, and go to her if she brays.

The donkeys grew up together, but the horses have only known them for three years maximum. All of them seemed to pick up very quickly that something was different about that donkey and needed consideration.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

tjtalon said:


> God bless them and keep them...far away from here...:icon_rolleyes:


If my diaphragm ruptures when I'm reading your posts, can I send you the bill for sutures? :rofl:




> The OP has been given wonderful stories/examples & 2 in-depth treatises, so I trust she no longer doubts her sanity.


Yes, the reading material here is beginning to rival the 40+ thread in output!  Well, a little bit. If anyone here doesn't have enough reading material yet, or would like some light bedtime or breakfast reading, we know where there is plenty! :rofl:




> There is such a (narrow) thing as subscribing human emotions to animals (& treating them as "babies" or thinking horses are this:inkunicorn. No...horses have horse emotions, dogs dog emotions, elephants elephant emotions. But not having human emotions doesn't mean other sentient beings don't HAVE emotions


This is a really excellent point. I think I don't make it enough because it's always been so obvious to me, since I was a very small child. While social animals share having emotions, thought of some kind, and social bonding, they also have their "distinctnesses" - both between species and within a species. I've always assumed a dog can teach me about its "dogginess", and a horse about its "equineness", and a cow about its "bovineness", etc, and that I need to pay attention and learn how they are different from me and how they are alike - sort of like when you meet humans from a vastly different culture, and a different language, you should learn about them, not just expect them to learn about you, and certainly not expect them to be just like you, or to be inferior to you in some way because they are not.

Treating animals as babies is undignified for both sides, although of course humans have selectively bred lapdogs, cats etc especially to mimic the characteristics of human infants: Big eyes, reduced jaws, large head to body ratio, small size, dependent behaviour. I tend to feel sorry for such breeds as they have lost some of their true "dogginess" etc. It's also sad that many people can't seem to get past the parent-child relationship; even amongst (human) adults it's not a foregone conclusion you're going to have an adult-adult relationship. Parent-child, parent-parent and child-child are often in its place.




> It wasn't all that long ago, in the Western historical scheme of things, that women were said to have no souls.


It also wasn't that long ago that men could legally beat their wives with a stick as long as the stick wasn't greater in diameter than their thumb (which is where the idiom "rule of thumb" comes from). :rofl:

Yes, plenty of misconceptions abounded historically, and still abound! Just it's so much easier to imagine we're really enlightened these days and have nothing left to learn! :rofl:




> Personally, I have more trouble subscribing human emotions to some people...:rofl:
> 
> On that note, I will do what any sensible animal will do when hearing the whirring clacking sound of clouds of grasshoppers on the horizon::gallop:


Well, you may thank my parents that I have an excellent diaphragm, because that spared you from getting a bill this evening! :rofl:

(PS: Rainy, stormy Sunday here, no riding or outdoors weather, can you tell?)


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Mia and Lilly spent several years sharing a corral near Phoenix. Both were donated to a place that sells stuff with the proceeds going to charity. We came to own Lilly. Mia had already been sold. A few months later, Mia was returned - much lighter, since she had been fighting daily with the other horses - and I bought her.

A few years later, we sold Lilly. Lilly and Trooper had developed a hatred for each other. I don't care what the scientists say. That is what I saw and what everyone else saw. I wanted to keep Lilly and sell Trooper, but I was outvoted.

After Lilly left, Mia spent the next 3 days looking in the direction the truck drove away, nickering softly. Less and less, and after 3 days she stopped.

A couple of years later, I had the chance to ride Mia past Lilly's new home. Mia's greatest fear was actually strange horses. If she spotted one 1/4 mile away, she would try to avoid it. I eventually got her to walk past strange horses, but at that time she still went on full alert. When she saw Lilly, she seemed confused. Same for Lilly. She walked slowly to the fence, staring intently. They went muzzle to muzzle. After a few minutes, Mia stepped back, still acting puzzled. We rode away with Mia still looking back at times.

A month later, Lilly's new owners built a tall fence. Mia and Lilly never saw each other again. :x

It would take a pretty cold and unfeeling heart not to recognize emotion between them. After several years, the memory wasn't quite strong enough for either to place HOW they knew each other, or from where, but they obviously recognized something.

"_My hypothesis here is that people are prone to project psychologically, and so, ironically, the very people who like to accuse others of anthropomorphising are actually doing exactly that - and ascribing their own psychological modus operandi onto other animals (and other people too, of course)._"

This. I've seen people say a horse was stubborn when it looked to me like a stubborn person who had failed to train the horse what a cue meant, and then blamed the horse. Back when Mia was spooky, I had a lot of people tell me dismounting was wrong because it would "reward her", as if Mia wanted me to stop riding her! If your horse longs for ways to get you off her back, what does that say about your riding?

One western trainer says you shouldn't let the horse turn to the outside when round penning, because turning his butt toward you is an aggressive act. I heard that, and remembered all the times Mia would swing her butt toward me, then look back with what sure looked like longing, waiting for me to rub her rump next to the spine. She would rock back and forth, then let out a deep sigh, then either move off or turn around for face rubs. No aggression at all.

I've no desire to debate religion with anyone, but this Bible story was a favorite of mine long before I owned a horse. It was written 2500-3500 years ago, depending on your views...certainly sometime prior to Pat Parelli discovering natural horsemanship:_Balaam and His Donkey

Now he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand, the donkey turned off from the way and went into the field; but Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back into the way. 

Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path of the vineyards, with a wall on this side and a wall on that side. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pressed herself to the wall and pressed Balaam’s foot against the wall, so he struck her again. 

The angel of the Lord went further, and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn to the right hand or the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam; so Balaam was angry and struck the donkey with his stick. And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” 

Then Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have made a mockery of me! If there had been a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now.” _[Note: I've met people like that! Too many...]_

The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you?” 

And he said, “No.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed all the way to the ground. 

The angel of the Lord said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way was contrary to me. But the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now, and let her live.” Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the way against me.
_​Written thousands of years ago, it presented to me a picture of a fallen world, where the animals are not allowed to speak directly to us - kind of like the image presented in CS Lewis' "Out of the Silent Planet". A world where 'dumb animals' could see things we wise humans could not! But on this occasion, God "opened the mouth of the donkey", and let her speak what many donkeys and horses have probably thought many times over during the intervening millennia. More of us need to have our eyes opened...:icon_rolleyes:...and our ears!

As for the scientists, I'll repeat what my youngest told me: 

"*Most horses don't talk because most people don't listen*." 

:cowboy:​


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

Sue,

You do see what I mean…

…what is selfishness? How about self-less-ness which I see more common in animals than people?

If a stranger stepped between a child and a man about to punch them and took the beating in their place, we would call him/her a selfless hero but when an animal does something similar it must be linked to some other less cavalier motivation such as a twisted sense of instinct, bent around so many corners that it no longer resembles the simplicity upon which instinct is founded. We cannot allow humans to be less noble than an animal.

Personally I believe that my gelding picked up on my intense panic upon seeing the mare turning to kick at my daughter as well as my desire and inability, due to distance, to pull her out of harm’s way. 

Somehow that was all communicated to him and in a flash, he took the kick for my daughter as I would have. JMHO.

My instinct became his. Just as when we are riding and it seems for moments that my thoughts become his and his mine.

The presence in that microsecond of an instinctual reaction on my part does not erase the fact that I also feel love for my daughter. As an observer, to simply note that something is an instinctual reaction does not therefore mean that an emotion such as love, fear or anger cannot simultaneously exist.

Either way, I love that gelding, even if others say he is aloof, cunning and standoffish somehow, the two of us have an understanding between us.

As to Tolken, that would be an interesting thread wouldn’t it? If you were a sub-species in one of his books which would you be? I’m definitely an Elf, not quite meek enough to be a Hobbit!


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## Saskia (Aug 26, 2009)

I think many animals, like dogs, cats and horses become humanised in a way. The more time they spend with people, the more they are bred for our purposed, the more they become like us. 

I think they do have emotions, but these are refined and amplified in some horses because of their contact with people. We all watch and learn how horses communicate with each other, how dogs communicate, but we don't ever think that they watch us. I think as we learn to be a little bit more like them they learn to be a little bit more like us. 

I think we teach horses things far beyond their nature. They're not people, they don't think exactly like people or feel like us, but they understand many things, feel many things even if it is in a different way to us. 

I got a rising two year old when I was 13 and I loved that horse. And I think in her own way she loved me. We could run through the paddock together, her cantering at my side. As time went on she picked up my characteristics, it seemed she sighed when bored the exact way I sighed when I was bored. Snorted loudly when she was nervous, like I breathed out shakily when I was. We understood each other. Each year after selling her I went to her new paddock somewhere we had never been together, and I called her the name I only called her and she still neighed to me, ran up to me, and chased all the other horses away. Even seeing her once a year, she remembered me for probably four or five years until I stopped going. 

She would be almost 15 now. She's that one horse I'll never quite forget, and I don't think she'll ever forget me.


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

SueC said:


> Well, you may thank my parents that I have an excellent diaphragm, because that spared you from getting a bill this evening! :rofl:


Personal responsibility, dear Aussie friend...I didn't make you read my post, I am not responsible for your diaphragm!!!!!! Hah!

This is a very nice thread, good to see more posted, for the real of it:faceshot:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

tjtalon said:


> Personal responsibility, dear Aussie friend...I didn't make you read my post, I am not responsible for your diaphragm!!!!!! Hah!


Well, if you do rupture my diaphragm (you haven't yet, keep trying ) I can still bill you if I feel like it, just because it would be the funniest invoice we've ever produced here. Just you obviously wouldn't have to pay for it. Perhaps though you might want to frame it for "a nice try"! Hah! ;-)

Did you know that in 1979 a piece of Skylab fell on the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia? The local council sent NASA a littering fine. NASA still hasn't paid it! :rofl:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

bsms said:


> "_My hypothesis here is that people are prone to project psychologically, and so, ironically, the very people who like to accuse others of anthropomorphising are actually doing exactly that - and ascribing their own psychological modus operandi onto other animals (and other people too, of course)._"
> 
> This. I've seen people say a horse was stubborn when it looked to me like a stubborn person who had failed to train the horse what a cue meant, and then blamed the horse. Back when Mia was spooky, I had a lot of people tell me dismounting was wrong because it would "reward her", as if Mia wanted me to stop riding her! If your horse longs for ways to get you off her back, what does that say about your riding?


Yes, yes and yes, excellent points. There is so much human projection going on: People who don't want to/don't know how to train properly often blame the horse instead. People who don't like to work assume horses are the same. Well, our horses all like to work - the ones I have here, and the horses my father has at his harness stable. We've never had one that didn't want to work in all the time we had horses. But then, our horses are treated like they matter (and they do) and not pushed into doing things they aren't physically (or mentally) ready for. And a few characters on HF are always suggesting that our horses must therefore be "spoilt" (say they in total ignorance of what our horses are actually like).

What was that saying, "Make haste slowly?" Very good training maxim. I think pushy trainers are taking shortcuts, and I've never seen that benefit a horse's education in the long run. We've been in a good position to make comparisons in the competitive arena - both with horse behaviour, and with longevity of competitive life (because we don't make immature horses work on hard tracks, etc, and we don't race two-year-olds, and rarely even three-year-olds).




> One western trainer says you shouldn't let the horse turn to the outside when round penning, because turning his butt toward you is an aggressive act. I heard that, and remembered all the times Mia would swing her butt toward me, then look back with what sure looked like longing, waiting for me to rub her rump next to the spine. She would rock back and forth, then let out a deep sigh, then either move off or turn around for face rubs. No aggression at all.


Precisely. I don't know where people get these ideas. Yes, mares especially will fight with their rear ends. But that doesn't mean every act of turning their backsides to you is aggressive (overextension / projection both going on again). Ours just like having their tails scratched!  And they don't run us over doing it either, and of course, they will yield in whatever direction we wish them to in response to a gentle push with the hands.

I sometimes think that the people who come up with these things are basically afraid of horses / large animals, and are overly preoccupied with protecting themselves from (mostly imagined) aggression, and they do it with - _real_ aggression! Go figure.

Working with a horse is not a war, but people can get that if they handle it in such a hamfisted way. And you know, over half of all "professional trainers" we know do exactly that, and think it makes them more professional for some reason - although their results are clearly worse, in terms of performance and longevity of the horse's working life.




> I've no desire to debate religion with anyone, but this Bible story was a favorite of mine long before I owned a horse. It was written 2500-3500 years ago, depending on your views..._certainly sometime prior to Pat Parelli discovering natural horsemanship:_


:rofl:_



...Balaam was angry and struck the donkey with his stick. And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?” 

Then Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have made a mockery of me! If there had been a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now.”

Click to expand...

_


> [Note: I've met people like that! Too many...]_
> 
> The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you?”
> 
> ...


That's a great parable of exactly what we are talking about! Yeah, when I first read that story, I also said, "Yep, see this all the time!" Contemporary Balaams come in both amateur and professional varieties!




> Written thousands of years ago, it presented to me a picture of a fallen world, where the animals are not allowed to speak directly to us - kind of like the image presented in CS Lewis' "Out of the Silent Planet". A world where 'dumb animals' could see things we wise humans could not!


And that is one of my all-time favourite books!  I'm so glad other people are reading it, it's a bit of a hidden gem! I think Lewis and Tolkien shared that elf-attitude to nature. I think it's a remarkable, and very subverted (in a good way), science fiction book - ordinary SF always seems to assume that the "aliens" will be hostile (e.g. "Alien" the movie). Psychological projection again... whereas Lewis made _us_ the odd ones out, the fallen beings who just can't see past our own noses as a species.

And how is one a hero, archetypically? By aggressively fighting others. Maybe the idea of a friendly relationship with an animal is too "pansy" for some. And after all, if one's ego needs bolstering, how large is that bolster when a person feels they are commander-in-chief over a 500kg animal? Mutual relationship: That's just for fairies, no?




> As for the scientists, I'll repeat what my youngest told me:
> 
> "*Most horses don't talk because most people don't listen*."
> 
> :cowboy:​


Exactly. Many people just shut horses down. And as it's still possible to win ribbons and races like that, such people see that as (false) evidence that they are proceeding correctly...

On the CS Lewis theme, I thought you might enjoy this:



*The First Men on Mercury*

– We come in peace from the third planet. 
Would you take us to your leader?

– Bawr stretter! Bawr. Bawr. Stretterhawl?

– This is a little plastic model
of the solar system, with working parts.
You are here and we are there and we
are now here with you, is this clear?

– Gawl horrop. Bawr Abawrhannahanna!

– Where we come from is blue and white
with brown, you see we call the brown
here 'land', the blue is 'sea', and the white
is 'clouds' over land and sea, we live
on the surface of the brown land,
all round is sea and clouds. We are 'men'.
Men come – 

– Glawp men! Gawrbenner menko. Menhawl?

– Men come in peace from the third planet
which we call 'earth'. We are earthmen.
Take us earthmen to your leader.

– Thmen? Thmen? Bawr. Bawrhossop.
Yuleeda tan hanna. Harrabost yuleeda.

– I am the yuleeda. You see my hands,
we carry no benner, we come in peace.
The spaceways are all stretterhawn.

– Glawn peacemen all horrabhanna tantko!
Tan come at'mstrossop. Glawp yuleeda!

– Atoms are peacegawl in our harraban.
Menbat worrabost from tan hannahanna.

– You men we know bawrhossoptant. Bawr.
We know yuleeda. Go strawg backspetter quick.

– We cantantabawr, tantingko backspetter now!

– Banghapper now! Yes, third planet back.
Yuleeda will go back blue, white, brown
nowhanna! There is no more talk.

– Gawl han fasthapper?

– No. You must go back to your planet.
Go back in peace, take what you have gained
but quickly.

– Stretterworra gawl, gawl…

– Of course, but nothing is ever the same,
now is it? You'll remember Mercury.

Edwin Morgan


_From From Glasgow to Saturn (Carcanet, 1973).


_


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

PS: Speaking of heroes: The ones I like are more like Gandalf, or Frodo, or Arwen, or Gandhi, or MLK, or indeed Christ.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> As to Tolken, that would be an interesting thread wouldn’t it? If you were a sub-species in one of his books which would you be? I’m definitely an Elf, not quite meek enough to be a Hobbit!


I'm an Elf, except I have Hobbit hair, and I eat like a Hobbit! 

Loved your post BTW!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Saskia said:


> I think many animals, like dogs, cats and horses become humanised in a way. The more time they spend with people, the more they are bred for our purposed, the more they become like us.


I thought about that, and I actually think that if the human isn't resistant to the idea, the changes happen on both sides. I've certainly become "horsified" and "doggified" by my interactions with horses and dogs. I use the various snorts horses use to communicate various things, in a similar way they do. I make growly noises when I'm playing tug-of-war with our dog, and I jump into a wide stance and bring my hands to the ground when I want to incite the dog to play - in mimicry of the dog's "let's play" gesture. My husband and I both answer our donkeys' brays with exaggerated, comical braying noises. :rofl: (now that's good fun, and becomes quite a game!)

These are just superficial examples... but the animals I've worked with have also changed me in a very deep way, the way I look at things, the way I live. Horses, cattle, dogs, cats, etc are far more Zen than humans, and that's been good for me. I've had my perspective opened up, learnt to really observe, seen the world from different points of view vicariously, danced many dances with other creatures.

I've spent some time on Malacandra, basically! 

:gallop:


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## jamesqf (Oct 5, 2009)

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> As to Tolken, that would be an interesting thread wouldn’t it?


Especially if we could discuss how much he seems not to know about horses. It was interesting, re-reading LOTR recently (having first read it many years ago, pre-horses). The idea that elves should ride bareback (and the horse likes it better), or that hobbits are too small to ride anything but ponies. Then there's the 300+ mile gallop...


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

fftopic:​
Elves riding bareback make sense. They are supposed to be able to walk on top of snow without sinking in, so I presume they would be too special to sore a horse's back.

Hobbits and horses: Surely I'm not the only gravitationally challenged person who thinks ponies are wonderful inventions? Mia, at 15.2 or 15.3 - she wasn't much for standing still to be measured - was a good 3 inches higher than I needed, and I'm taller than a hobbit!

Shadowfax - Found this analysis on the Internet:

"Gandalf rode from Edoras to the Shire in the same amount of time that Frodo & Co. travelled from Hobbiton to the Barrow-Downs. Frodo left from Hobbiton on September 23rd, and I believe they arrived at the Barrow-downs on the fourth day of their journey. The distance from Edoras to the Shire (specifically, Hobbiton) is just over 600 miles. Giving time for 7 hours of sleep each night (he was travelling in haste) and perhaps another 2 hours of rest during each day, Gandalf would have travelled for about 45 hours to reach the Shire. Travelling for 45 hours (give or take a few) for, let's say, 625 miles, would mean that Shadowfax's average speed would've been about 13.8 miles per hour. I mean, let's be honest: it's a horse. The horses the Rohirrim used were battle horses or work horses, not race horses."

For comparison, the Pony Express average about 9 miles/hour, running horses 15 miles a leg, each rider responsible for 75 miles and only 2 minutes allowed at each "stop". For the greatest horse ever to cover 14 mph on average would not be too far out of bounds. Keeping it up for 6 days in a row, with only 9 hours of rest each day? Well, that would be quite a stretch. 

This is a rare photo of Gandalf and Shadowfax:
​ :racing:​


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## knightrider (Jun 27, 2014)

I certainly have enjoyed reading all these posts. Has anyone read the book _What Horses Say: How to Hear, Help, and Heal Them_ by Anna Clarence Mews and Julie Decker? There are many interesting ideas in this book.

Interestingly enough, the one horse I seem to get the most thoughts from is our aloof gelding. Although he is not very demonstrative or affectionate, I often feel his thoughts in my head. My heart horse and my work-in-progress horse don't project their thoughts to me, and they are the ones I want to learn from the most.

Here's a funny incident. One morning I was brushing our filly and I sensed this thought in my head: "I don't like my color." So typical of a teenaged girl! To be dissatisfied with something perfectly reasonable. Our filly is a very light dun color, and our other horses are all bays and chestnuts. She's a strikingly beautiful filly, but typically, she is not satisfied because she is different. 

These are just ideas that I play with. I'm not saying I know anything. I don't.


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## hollysjubilee (Nov 2, 2012)

*Was this a show of emotion?*

Always loved horses, dreamed of horses, wanted a horse since my earliest memory. When I was in grade school, some of my girlfriends and I would play "Horses" on the playground and pretend we were horses.
At 13 years of age, my family had moved to Wisconsin to an Air Force Base, and we were surrounded by farms. My dad's boss raised Arabians. Dad may have had an ulterior motive in deciding at that point to get my sister and me a horse, but who cares what the reason? We bought a lovely, fast, freaked-out bay mare with a white heart on her forehead. Her name was Jubilee, and I was in Heaven.
We found a farm that would keep her for us (on 240 acres of planted oats that the gov't paid the farmer not to harvest) and I started to learn, for real (not just from books and magazines and movies) all about horse care, riding, and safety.  
When dad got transferred to Alabama 2 years later, we took Jubilee (and by that time also had Dolly, a pinto mare for my sister because Jubilee had scared her pretty badly) to Alabama with us and we stayed there through my last 3 years of high school.
Mom and Dad divorced the summer after I graduated. I was accepted to college in MA, and mom took the 4 kids, 2 dogs, and a Blue Jay that I had rescued, to live in MA near her parents. Dad arranged to get stationed in Maine and bought a 2-horse trailer and moved the horses to Maine. (He's very sentimental.)
I was sad that my horse was 5 hours away, and scared that she would forget me. I had seen her almost every day of the 3 years in AL as the stables were within 2 miles of the house . . . and the more time that went by, the more I was afraid that I had lost her.
Dad found a farm near his work in Maine, and had asked the farmer and his wife if he could board 2 horses with them, and that's where the horses stayed.

A few months later, I was able to get to Maine for a weekend to see the horses. Now, Jubilee had NEVER let me catch her laying down. I use to try to sneak up on her at the Alabama stables early in the a.m. when I'd go out to beat the scorching heat, and I'd hear her scramble to get up in her stall, and she'd be covered with wood shavings, but I never saw her laying down, ever.

As I approached the fence of the pasture where she was grazing in Maine, I called her name as I always did (to the tune of "Hey, Jude,") and she dropped. Just dropped to her belly. My heart was in my throat as I thought, "Oh, no! She's sick. I only got here in time to see her die , etc." Dreading the worst, I tentatively walked toward her knowing the way she would bust through people whenever she felt threatened, and I was prepared for her to jump and run, but she lay there and let me halter her, and she got up when I asked, and I groomed her and rode her and loved on her . . . 
and the next day, my last day to visit her, when I went out to the pasture to catch her, I called her name and, again, she dropped to her belly and lay there waiting for me to approach with her halter. I was in tears.

So . . . obviously she was showing trust because laying down was not a conditioned response. I never trained her to lay down when I called her. Is trust only an action or is it an emotion?


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## jamesqf (Oct 5, 2009)

bsms said:


> fftopic:​
> Elves riding bareback make sense. They are supposed to be able to walk on top of snow without sinking in, so I presume they would be too special to sore a horse's back.


But the Elf in qquestion is riding double with a Dwarf!



> Hobbits and horses: Surely I'm not the only gravitationally challenged person who thinks ponies are wonderful inventions?


Like smaller horses, or ponies, sure. Simply not be able to ride a full-sized horse? IIRC LOTR says a Hobbit is about the size of a 10 year-old human, and I've seen plenty of kids that age riding full-sized horses.



> Gandalf rode from Edoras to the Shire...


Good one, though I was thinking of the ride from Isengard to Minas Tirith - carrying Pippin, too.

And why is it that these people can just jump on a horse and ride all day without getting saddle sore? Despite having gone at least months without having been on a horse :-(


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

^^^James and BSMS you two are a stitch!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

jamesqf said:


> Especially if we could discuss how much he seems not to know about horses. It was interesting, re-reading LOTR recently (having first read it many years ago, pre-horses). The idea that elves should ride bareback (and the horse likes it better), or that hobbits are too small to ride anything but ponies. Then there's the 300+ mile gallop...


I think Tolkien was more concerned with philosophy and ethics than with writing a horse-riding manual! :rofl: By the way, I ride bareback frequently, as do a fair number of other people I know, and in some circumstances horses do like it better, plus us bareback enthusiasts generally find we connect better with our horses when riding bareback, and it certainly makes us better riders, which is also beneficial when doing work under saddle! 

And small people statistically are drawn to smaller mounts. One problem very short-legged people (Hobbits?) have is getting their legs comfortably around the horse's torso. Having said that, many ponies rival much larger horses with their girth! :rofl:

The many-mile gallops, I find absurd, and unfortunately this is a widespread flaw in many movies featuring horses. In cowboy movies, the impression is generally created that the way to travel on a horse is going from halt to flat-tack with lots of "hee-yaah"s thrown in for good measure. Everywhere must be travelled at a gallop, and the sound guys are kept busy clapping their coconuts together! :icon_rolleyes:

And don't get me started on the out-of-context neighing sounds with which cowboy movies in particular get peppered!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

jamesqf said:


> And why is it that these people can just jump on a horse and ride all day without getting saddle sore? Despite having gone at least months without having been on a horse :-(


Man, you guys are making me laugh! :rofl:

I've got a hypothesis for you: Maybe Elves have teflon-coated bottoms?

Anyone here seen an Elf's bottom au naturel, and able to enlighten us?


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

Sue, 
I must be an outlier. I LOVE big horses even though I am only 5’4”. My smallest one is 15.1 hh. When Remington is finished with his convalescence at 17.2hh, I won’t be able to resist sitting on his back. Good thing my legs are as long as my 5’10” husband’s! Hmmm...he has always said he had Hobbit feet.

…and being Elv-ish myself, I can attest that we do indeed have bottoms covered, not in Teflon but Kevlar!. Tends to wear out a lot of saddles though, so I have to go bareback often. :lol:


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

A lot of people don't know that "Legolas" is elvish for "Iron Butt"...


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Sue,
> I must be an outlier. I LOVE big horses even though I am only 5’4”. My smallest one is 15.1 hh. When Remington is finished with his convalescence at 17.2hh, I won’t be able to resist sitting on his back.




Whereas, I am 5'11" and though I started out on 16-17+hh Warmbloods as a 9-year-old in Germany (the norm there for small kids to ride normal horses the moment their legs are long enough, and until then, generally you don't ride - ponies weren't that widespread when I was learning, except at fairs and circuses), by the time I was 15 and nearly full height I was riding a 14.2hh Arabian mare for the next 25 years.  That's just how things went. The harness horses we bred and bought averaged around 15-16hh, and I rode a selection of those as well. Sunsmart is 15.2hh.

In Germany, horses under 16hh are often marketed as "Damenreitpferde" - ladies' horses. :rofl:

I think we're both outliers. This will make James happy as it can be tweaked to support his argument. 




> Good thing my legs are as long as my 5’10” husband’s! Hmmm...he has always said he had Hobbit feet.





> …and being Elv-ish myself, I can attest that we do indeed have bottoms covered, not in Teflon but Kevlar!. Tends to wear out a lot of saddles though, so I have to go bareback often. :lol:


And here I was thinking you were a _metaphorical_ elf. Well, I'm merely a metaphorical elf, so the characteristics of my bottom are not relevant to the debate.

:runpony:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

bsms said:


> A lot of people don't know that "Legolas" is elvish for "Iron Butt"...


Heheh! 

And Arwen is Elvish for "hovercraft bottom"? There has to be some kind of hovercraft thing going on with Elves not sinking into snow, or an antigravity device maybe, and this might have spin-off benefits for preventing bottom soreness when riding...


fftopic:

A short aside about Dwarves - did anyone else here think some of the Dwarves in the Hobbit movies looked a bit GM? You know, suddenly infused with Elven eye candy genes, and suddenly not strictly endomorphs anymore...


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## jamesqf (Oct 5, 2009)

SueC said:


> I've got a hypothesis for you: Maybe Elves have teflon-coated bottoms?


Elves I'll give you, what with their mystical powers and all. Even Dwarves might have something in the chain mail underwear department that Tolkien was too prudish to mention. No, I was thinking of Mister Strider the Ranger. At least a month of hiking from Rivendell to Lorien, a month or so lazing around there, and then a voyage by canoe and another hard march... Not much riding exercise there.

Oh, and Theoden too, who's been doing nothing but sitting on his throne for gawd knows how long.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Theoden probably had a callused posterior from sitting on his throne non-stop. Strider, I don't know. And even though the film only showed him lazing about or canoodling with Arwen in his Rivendell stay, that's not to say the Elves weren't giving him off-camera Elven riding lessons, and maybe initiating him (but not us) into their secrets for avoiding saddle soreness! ;-)


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## jamesqf (Oct 5, 2009)

SueC said:


> Theoden probably had a callused posterior from sitting on his throne non-stop.


At least for me, it's not the posterior that's the problem. It's the inner thigh muscles that don't seem to be used for much else, so if I don't ride for a month or so, they get sore. I'll be exercising - hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, &c - during that time, but all those things seem not to use those specific muscle groups.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

James, try roller blading or ice skating which ever you prefer. Done correctly, they work exactly those muscle groups as well as giving the bum a lift. (I say this as an ex-competitive skater and professional coach)


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

Mmm this thread seems to have taken a strange detour since I last looked at it!!!!


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## jamesqf (Oct 5, 2009)

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> James, try roller blading or ice skating which ever you prefer.


A good thought, but unfortunately* I live a long way from skateable pavement, and skateable ice is something that happens maybe a few weeks of the year. And I don't recall Middle Earth having skaters 


*At least for the idea of rollerblading. Otherwise I like it.


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## 6th Sense (Feb 12, 2015)

There are so many comments in this thread that show exactly how clever, intuitive and caring horses can be. We should remember though that this applies to many other creatures too. We tend to judge animals against us humans and our ideology but they are much cleverer than we give them credit for.

I think by using speech so much we have lost our emotional and intuitive aspects, whereas animals still retain them. So, they find it much easier to pick up on our emotions. 

Talking about understanding our words, I'm not sure about that but they do pick up on our thoughts. I might get burnt at the stake for this (although it's a good thread to mention it in!) but I've been practicing animal communication for a couple of years now. This is where you make a telepathic connection with animals. I can tell you from personal experience it is possible to understand them on a deeper level, and in fact one of you mentioned you 'heard' what your horse said once in your head.

If we just take time to BE with them and listen, they will pick up on that and you may well receive things from them, maybe a word or two or an image.

This has proved to be a great thread, thanks for posting it OP


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

6thsense,

It is sad that you have to hesitate to mention that you are practicing alternative means of communication. There is no harm in trying. 

The scientific side of me always wants to stick to the empirical but then as a “whole” person I have encountered so many things throughout my life that leave little doubt that there is more to understanding the human condition (or animal condition) than can be explained scientifically without a great deal of mental and philosophical acrobatics.

As a species we are young. 2,OOO years ago a functional cell phone with its digital cameras, speakers and smart technology would have been “magic”. The people who would have seen that piece of technology would have no way to explain how it worked even though they had seen it with their own eyes. It would be attributed to hocus-pocus and those who had not encountered it personally would most likely dismiss the possibility of its very existence.

We seem to always think in any era that we know all, understand all and that if we cannot explain it at this moment, then it doesn’t exist or is not possible. This attitude is part of Sue’s point of “exceptionalism”. 

Instead, I chose to accept that we do not know it all and that it is more probable than not, that we simply are unable at this time to prove or explain everything. 

That’s fine by me, I like a little mystery in life. How boring would it be if we knew everything? No answers left to be sought about the world around us. What would we have to work towards during our time on earth? We would become egocentric and self absorbed. All "Truth" would be communal and not up for discussion or exploration. What a boring place to be!


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

jamesqf said:


> A good thought, but unfortunately* I live a long way from skateable pavement, and skateable ice is something that happens maybe a few weeks of the year. And I don't recall Middle Earth having skaters
> 
> 
> *At least for the idea of rollerblading. Otherwise I like it.



Look up slide boards...we used to use them for purposes of conditioning to keep down costs on ice time. Trust me, to start 15 minutes a few days a week on one of those things and you will be feeling it the next day! 

....in middle earth it is called water skimming. :biggrin:


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## Textan49 (Feb 13, 2015)

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> 6thsense,
> 
> Instead, I chose to accept that we do not know it all and that it is more probable than not, that we simply are unable at this time to prove or explain everything.
> 
> That’s fine by me, I like a little mystery in life. How boring would it be if we knew everything? No answers left to be sought about the world around us. What would we have to work towards during our time on earth? We would become egocentric and self absorbed. All "Truth" would be communal and not up for discussion or exploration. What a boring place to be!


 Reining, I like the way you think. There is so much that I can accept without it having a scientific explanation that I can't say having one would make it any different. Years ago I dreamed that my colt was jumping in and out of his lot on the top of the hill. He was fine the next morning but had a bad wire cut on his leg by afternoon. I knew exactly how and where it happened because I dreamed it. I found the broken top wire and the hoof prints on both sides of the fence. It HAPPENED, and I don't need anyone trying to explain it to me or say it was some kind of coincidence.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

Textan, 

I had a dream about Oliver about a month before he came into my life. I dreamt of a black horse standing at the top of the hill just outside the pasture. It wanted to come in (again, don’t ask me how I knew that). At first I thought it was my neighbor’s blue roan mare, but then I realized it was not a female and was black not roan. I woke up.

A month or so later I went with this same neighbor to look at a palomino mare she was thinking of buying. There was a gelding that was also for sale. I wasn’t looking for another horse, but this mousy brown horse who still had a winter coat in July clinging to his bones, looked so emaciated and there was something about him that told me he was supposed to come home with me. His coggins said "brown" in the color box.

I bought him, nursed him back to health and to my surprise when his hair grew in, he was the shiny black horse in my dream right down to his stocky, study build. I had forgotten about the dream months before, until this one moment where he was standing just like the horse in the dream and it really took me by surprise. 

It was very weird. I can’t explain it, and neither can science, but it happened…..I suppose you could say it was coincidental but I have had things like this happen so often that statistically, I can't dismiss it. My husband, mother and kids stopped dismissing my peculiarities on this years ago. 

He and I have had a special connection from the moment we met. My trainer is still trying to wrap his mind around it (he has an advanced degree in chemical engineering). He can’t figure out how I get that horse to do things for me that no one else can.

I can spend all of my time trying to figure it out or I can simply accept that connection as a gift and make the most of it. 

At some point you stop trying to explain things and just accept that they are, and go from there.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

When I was 5 my grandmother had a very surreal dream about me and her that came true to its interpretation when I was much older.


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

I was watching a short video on youtube of two girls riding English in a field. One decided to canter circles. Horse got broncy and unloaded her. It waited while she gathered herself then I could see her body change with anger. She became a predator. The horse wheeled and double barreled with one hoof breaking her jaw. The horse had picked up her mood change in a heartbeat and reacted.


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## Textan49 (Feb 13, 2015)

Saddlebag said:


> I was watching a short video on youtube of two girls riding English in a field. One decided to canter circles. Horse got broncy and unloaded her. It waited while she gathered herself then I could see her body change with anger. She became a predator. The horse wheeled and double barreled with one hoof breaking her jaw. The horse had picked up her mood change in a heartbeat and reacted.


Similar scenario but different outcome. My old TB stallion was well mannered under saddle PROVIDING he was warmed up properly. I once (and only once) asked him to canter to soon, He obliged, went a few strides, then dumped me. He came around to face me and looked concerned until he saw that I was in one piece (I was actually feeling very apologetic since I knew better) then gave me a look that said "OK, get back on and do it right this time"


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## 6th Sense (Feb 12, 2015)

Reiningcatsanddogs that is the clearest signal that you two were meant to be together. The horse could have come to you for many reasons, as a teacher or just to be soul mates. As you have had that dream, try and pick up on other things, chances are it is trying to teach you other things too x


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

6th sense,

My father was 1/4 Blackfoot Indian so what you speak of is quite familiar. Animal Spirit Guides are an important gift in their beliefs and not something to be taken for granted.


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

I'm one of those (albeit rarely, but it happens) people where something in a dream manifests later in "real" life. Many examples from over my many years, but won't go into those.

I keep wondering about this one white horse dream(s):7 years ago, while talking to a friend, who a year later died of cancer) I saw, like a visual nano-second movie in front of my eyes a white horse breaking out at a run from a corner of a stall. 

A few years before that I dreamed of riding a white horse; we were going thru a woods, then went across a shallow stream. In the dream, I was looking for a horse that had been stolen, also white. I can't quite remember, but at the end of the dream the horse was found (not by me) but I heard a voice saying "You've found the true Spirit".

And not long ago, sometime last year, I dreamed that I was at work & came out of the office door to get into my patrol car. A white horse (more slenderly built than the 2 horses in above dreams; those 2 were like a Lipizzan build, this one was more like an Arabian or Qrab build...& I knew in the dream it was a mare) came galloping up to me from across the parking lot, stopped abruptly, looked me in the eye, then swiveled away into a gallop back across from wherever she came from.

I have no idea if this white horse will ever be physically manifest in my life, or if these 3 dreams were messages (& separate messages, at that).

But they sure made an impact.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

Well, all I can say is that depending on how you interpret the dreams, Freudian, Jungian or Native American Beliefs, etc., they would mean very different things.


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Well, all I can say is that depending on how you interpret the dreams, Freudian, Jungian or Native American Beliefs, etc., they would mean very different things.


I guess I interpret all on my own: the first, that my very best friend was going to "go", the 2nd that I "found" & got in touch with my spirit/soul by beginning my search for horse-involvement, the last...??? Just that I continue....& follow that "spirit horse". As much as I've gleaned from Native American & Jung (I stomp a hoof on Freud, sorry...) I'm an on-my-own explorer. Sometimes a dream is just the mind unfolding, sometimes there's messages. 

That third dream is a message, 'tho. I rarely dream of horses (besides the usual ones on riding one in one's own home etc). I'm still trying to figure that one out & it has nothing to do w/Freud-Jung-Native American. It's an "all about me" signal from (psyche/Creator-connection: read mind-soul thing). Also...might be nothing, at all.


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> 6th sense,
> 
> My father was 1/4 Blackfoot Indian so what you speak of is quite familiar. Animal Spirit Guides are an important gift in their beliefs and not something to be taken for granted.


Btw, I'm 1/8th Blackfoot. A German ancestor married a Blackfoot woman. I keep hoping the strain is somehow alive in me.


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

tjtalon said:


> Btw, I'm 1/8th Blackfoot. A German ancestor married a Blackfoot woman. I keep hoping the strain is somehow alive in me.


Which I think it is, diluted as it is. Nowhere, in my family history, did anyone have the "horse gene", as I do. I asked my mother; all she could say was that my paternal grandmother "had a horse". That woman was from the Blackfoot part of things (including her looks; wide face, thick high cheekbones...& a picture of her I recall: dark hair banged across her forehead). My older brother got the black hair, my younger the lovely slanted eyes (& very dark eyes). Maybe I got the Horse Gene...in that case, I'll do w/out thick hair/cheekbones


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

I found this website to be interesting, I recognized a lot of people I know (and myself at various stages of horsemanship) in the analysis. 
http://www.epala.org/files/Who-Am-I-Personality-Descriptions-Book.pdf


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

jamesqf said:


> At least for me, it's not the posterior that's the problem. It's the inner thigh muscles that don't seem to be used for much else, so if I don't ride for a month or so, they get sore. I'll be exercising - hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, &c - during that time, but all those things seem not to use those specific muscle groups.


That's so interesting! Because I reflected on all this Middle Earth lack of saddle soreness we've been quipping about, and it occurred to me that I've not actually had sore muscles riding since the very first year I started riding as a child. I well remember the agony of trying to walk with burning inner thigh muscles on the days after lessons. Once the muscle was built, it didn't bother me anymore. I rode pretty constantly all through childhood until I was 16 and started university: Then riding became a weekend, non-teaching break and holiday thing as a swatted my way through my degree on term weekdays in the city. However, I had no car and cycled everywhere on weekdays, and this kept me in good shape. Plus, I suppose four to five days off riding at a time isn't that long...

There was also a phase in my life though where I was only riding during summer and winter breaks. This is when I was working interstate, and I'd ride when I came home to visit my parents on those two holidays a year. Again, this didn't produce soreness, and again I thought that was probably because I kept very fit with mountain climbing, hiking and roller blading all that time.

Those three plus cycling and Pilates are my mainstay forms of exercise besides horse riding and I had always assumed it was this all-round fitness that stopped me from "feeling" prolonged absences from riding when commencing again. That, and Vitamin E, which is always nice to pop the day before you're going to do anything particularly strenuous or different.

RCD, I think you're onto something with the skating and inner leg muscles. Found my skates when unpacking the last moving boxes and took them on an outing for the first time since we started building our house years ago, did 40 minutes on an uphill/downhill, twisty-turny beachside dune track, and expected to get sore, but amazingly did not. I guess my riding saved me there.

When I used to go endurance riding, the only soreness I ran into was friction soreness over clothing seams in hot weather, and that was fixed by altering the clothing.

But I will get awfully sore if I have to _walk_ for prolonged periods on a horse. That's because the circulation gets cut off to various places and because my joints don't appreciate immobility. If I have to spend more than 10 minutes walking on a horse, I get off and walk beside it. As soon as I'm posting a trot, my circulation, muscles, and joints are all freed up and happy. Even a canter appears to have sufficient movement to keep me comfortable. I was chatting about this topic with a few other people recently, and one of the people present is a currently competing endurance rider. She, too, says riding at walking pace is the biggest killer for making her sore. It's not muscle soreness per se - it's just cramping from not moving enough. She and I both ride with relaxed legs in dressage-length stirrups, and don't have particular tensions we are aware of...

Closing thoughts on Middle Earth: Maybe Elven Bread contains lots of Vitamin E? ;-)


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## jamesqf (Oct 5, 2009)

SueC said:


> Plus, I suppose four to five days off riding at a time isn't that long...


Yes, when I ride it's only on weekends, two days if I'm lucky, and that's enough to prevent soreness once the muscles are built up. But I don't ride for 2-3 months in the winter (though I ski &c), and have to build up muscles again in the spring. Same if (as now) I lay off for several weeks in the summer because of heat and other things.

Maybe the rollerblading helps in your case, but all my rollerblading was done pre-horse, back when I lived where there were sidewalks and such.


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

It's got to be something like that... because I certainly do get sore, for example, when we're doing a proper mountain after a prolonged absence or illness. Usually all down the shins, from the descents.

So, maybe somehow get back on these in the summertime:










And in winter, you could ice-skate on a rink perhaps?

Do you cross-country ski, or do downhill?

Vitamin E is really superbly useful...


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

tjtalon said:


> ...As much as I've gleaned from Native American & Jung (I stomp a hoof on Freud, sorry...)


:rofl:



> I'm an on-my-own explorer. Sometimes a dream is just the mind unfolding, sometimes there's messages.
> 
> That third dream is a message, 'tho. I rarely dream of horses (besides the usual ones on riding one in one's own home etc). I'm still trying to figure that one out & it has nothing to do w/Freud-Jung-Native American. It's an "all about me" signal from (psyche/Creator-connection: read mind-soul thing). Also...might be nothing, at all.


Still, it makes fascinating reading. Now it's getting metaphysical!

RCD and TJ, I am really intrigued by that Native American connection you both have, and I will gladly read anything more either of you have to produce on that topic! 

(This thread is a classical scenic road discussion... rather than a freeway to the original target! :rofl: I heard two people from the Long Now Foundation were always taking road trips to discuss the problems they were working on, and then they'd overshoot their target deliberately by sometimes 1000km just to keep thinking and talking, while ignoring their on-board GPS that kept saying, "Do a 180 degree turn at the next convenient spot!" )


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

SueC said:


> :
> 
> RCD and TJ, I am really intrigued by that Native American connection you both have, and I will gladly read anything more either of you have to produce on that topic!
> 
> (


The connection, if any, is only as stated...my brothers got the facial beauty & I may have gotten the born-with-it horse-thing. And that's only a guess, since it had to have come from somewhere:icon_rolleyes: (I won't get into the ripping off of culture & the glamorization-airyfairy that my culture has engaged in regarding the American Indian tribes.) The only thing I know about my great-great-great-great grandmother on my father's side is that she married/partnered with an immigrant German. I can't claim a Blackfoot "connection" any more than I can claim a German/Dutch/English/Scots-Irish connection. I'm an American mutt:wink:


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

tjtalon said:


> The connection, if any, is only as stated...my brothers got the facial beauty & I may have gotten the born-with-it horse-thing. And that's only a guess, since it had to have come from somewhere:icon_rolleyes: (I won't get into the ripping off of culture & the glamorization-airyfairy that my culture has engaged in regarding the American Indian tribes.) The only thing I know about my great-great-great-great grandmother on my father's side is that she married/partnered with an immigrant German. I can't claim a Blackfoot "connection" any more than I can claim a German/Dutch/English/Scots-Irish connection. I'm an American mutt:wink:


...although I do adore bagpipes, enjoy milk in strong tea & have an affinity towards braided bread...:rofl:


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

Well, there you go. You might be a "mutt" (individual possessing hybrid vigour!), but those are all connections, both genetic and cultural!  And I think those connections can be rich and meaningful!

There's a programme on TV here where people in the Australian spotlight are invited to trace their ancestry, and they discover stories about what some of their forebears got up to. That's frequently fascinating, and it kind of shows how your presence was dependent on the presences and twists of fate of those who went before you. I'd never really looked beyond my own grandparents, and often, I think I carried on like I was a product of "spontaneous generation" even though that's long been shown to be a false concept! ;-)

I think when young, people are often intensely focused on carving out their own identities and being self-directing and autonomous and setting themselves apart. Then you get older and often more interested in how you're connected with others, genetically, culturally, historically, in your community, etc etc.  Like a tapestry...


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

Sue, 

My connection is even looser in some ways than TJ's. My father was 1/4 Blackfoot, but as far as blood goes, I am adopted! I have blonde hair and blue eyes and look nothing like my dark haired, dark eyed brother who is their biological child. One of the things that happens to you as an adopted child is since you have no inherited identity, you very much seek that foundation; the identity, the history, the heritage of your family and thereby you, even if it is not by blood, becomes very important.

I found a partially finished spearhead waiting at the kindergarten bus stop and I was hooked. From that point forward I was full of questions for my father and my cousins (one of whom married a full blood Cherokee). I read everything I could about American Indians. My father took us once a year to witness the Hiawatha Pageant up in Wisconsin and to spend the day around the Native culture. I would spend hours looking at the walls in my cousin's house at all of the artifacts they had, asking questions.

As a child their view of the world seemed to make a lot of common sense to me and not all that different from the Christian upbringing I had. We are all part of God's (The Great Spirit's) creation, people, animals, plants, rocks, the earth beneath our feet. We are brothers and sisters in Him and worthy of respect and dignity. 

Throughout my life I had periods where I let straight "reason" and "logic" rule my decisions but always found a disconnect in that. There was an emptiness in it. 

Anyway, it is an accepted part of who I am as much as if it was in my blood, so is my mother's European heritage.


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## Reiningcatsanddogs (Oct 9, 2014)

Sue, 

Here is one of my favorite Native horse stories. I think it was told to me because I was both adopted and loved the horses. 

Native American Indian Legends - The Orphan Boy and the Elk Dog - Blackfoot


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## jamesqf (Oct 5, 2009)

SueC said:


> It's got to be something like that... because I certainly do get sore, for example, when we're doing a proper mountain after a prolonged absence or illness. Usually all down the shins, from the descents.


With me, it's the inner thigh muscles that really bother me if I lay off riding for a while. Of course I may not be doing 'proper' mountains. Though we do ride in mountains, almost all of our chosen paths are old logging roads, so the only time we see bits of steep up or down is taking shortcuts between two winding paths.



> And in winter, you could ice-skate on a rink perhaps?
> 
> Do you cross-country ski, or do downhill?


I don't even know if there's an ice rink around, and even then, it'd probably be a 20 mile or so drive from me. 

Skiing is definitely cross-country. I used to sometimes go out to the downhill areas to do telemark, but these days the dogs give me such pitiful looks that I haven't the heart to leave them at home.


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## hollysjubilee (Nov 2, 2012)

Reiningcatsanddogs said:


> Sue,
> 
> Here is one of my favorite Native horse stories. I think it was told to me because I was both adopted and loved the horses.
> 
> Native American Indian Legends - The Orphan Boy and the Elk Dog - Blackfoot


Thank you for that story. I enjoyed reading it.


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## tjtalon (Apr 26, 2013)

My, how this thread has traveled, on roller blades/ice skates & cross country skis no less!

Cool.

And all because of curious, open minded, intelligent people connected by....who would guess it: the emotional lives of horses.

Don't that just make your heart beat, so you can do all the rest...!


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## SueC (Feb 22, 2014)

jamesqf said:


> With me, it's the inner thigh muscles that really bother me if I lay off riding for a while. Of course I may not be doing 'proper' mountains. Though we do ride in mountains, almost all of our chosen paths are old logging roads, so the only time we see bits of steep up or down is taking shortcuts between two winding paths.


Clarification: I was talking about when my husband and I _walk_ in the mountains - not riding in them!  Just to illustrate I do get sore muscles under some circumstances, as a result of exertion after a break from an activity.

I guess the action of cross-country skiing doesn't tax the inside leg muscles quite as much as ice-skating or roller-blading?


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