Me: I'm going to look at horse forums, I bet the drama there is so funny
Me after 4 hours of horse forums: Damn....those people really love and care about their horses...
See, I think horse people are Like That because you can't do anything with a horse without entering into The Mind of the Horse. Like yeah, to ride a horse you need an intimate understanding of how its body moves and how your body is in contact with it and everything it is seeing and hearing and feeling in its own body and how your body responding to the horse's movement and reactions creates feedbacks upon the horse's response—which in itself is borderline spiritually merging yourself with the horse consciousness —but you can't even clean a horse's feet or lead it into a pasture without some power to understand What It Is Like To Be A Horse, because a horse is a Giant Beast with strong instincts that can drive it to kill or maim in a heartbeat, and it's the horse's trust and confidence in you and by extension your trust and confidence in the horse that keeps you both safe.
So being a horse person seems to be 90% stuff like standing in the stall trying to telepathically Enter The Consciousness of the Horse to try to unlock why the horse is fucking scared shitless of mops
and subsequently to Understand the Deep Psychological Foundation of Horse Self-Confidence so as to create a Scenario where the horse can encounter a mop and feel empowered and strong rather than Murderously Terrified
@osedaxworm yeah i think the "why" comes into play when they're trying to figure out what the common thread is in the set of related things that make the horse freak out
A lot of the people I was reading about had horses that came from previous owners and it seems like a long string of bad training practices in the past can leave the owner of a rescued horse with a LOT of work
The most wild thing about horse training to me is that the horses start to try and do it back if you telepathically Enter The Consciousness of the Horse correctly.
I acquired an abused and neglected horse a few months ago. She spent the earlier days of our interactions trying to bite me, kick me, run me over, and buck me off through any means necessary. I empathized with her. I was very gentle with her and showed her that I didn't plan on bringing her any additional harm. She started letting me introduce her to people, and she even started letting the vets I brought in help her instead of trying to fight them.
A couple of weeks ago, I asked her to jump over a scary obstacle for the first time. She was really uncertain and kept checking in to make sure I thought it was fine, and when she realized that I was sure, she did the horse equivalent of saying, "well, okay, we can give it a shot since it seems like you really want to". Lately when she's unsure if something is okay, or when she doesn't want to do something, she's taken to simply stopping instead of bucking. I think she's trying to take care of me. We still need to get through the stopping problem, but I'm beyond grateful to her for trying to keep me safe even when she's feeling strong emotions.
The past few days, she's spent a lot of time licking me from head to toe. Not even just my skin, but my clothes, too. This wouldn't be super significant, except that I have a dissociative disorder, and I've been in and out for the past few days. It seems like she's trying to keep me here.
If you try to understand the horses, they try to understand you. They're truly unlike any other kind of animal I've worked with in how deeply they try to understand their people.
*gently holds this post* hornse...
Horses are deeply perceptive animals and to some degree understand human emotion and empathize with it. They do start to see you as their herd mate, their friend, their protector, and in return they will protect you in their own way.
I can sit outside on the ground in my field with my horses, and if I'm feeling happy and relaxed, they think, "Oh, our human is resting here. We will stand vigil." And one will position themself over me. Others will stand watch. And the great thing is, if you take up the position of standing vigil among horses that trust you, they'll say, "My human is here watching over me. I can rest now too." And having a horse trust you enough to lie prone on the ground and sleep is a wonderful feeling.
Alternatively, they pick up when things are wrong too. If I am scared, you can believe they will be wary, which is why it's so unbelievably important to work through fear rather than expressing it uncontrolled when you're around a horse. They will respond how you do. They also can tell if I'm upset. Going back to the situation where I go out and sit in the field. I've done that a couple times while deeply upset. The horses that aren't mine, that I don't share as close of a bond with, are a little unnerved by it. They investigate, but ultimately are more worried. However, the horses that I do have a bond with have seen me and thought, "There's something wrong with my human. They're upset about something. I might be able to help." Now, their version of helping is standing over me, chewing on my hair, pulling on my shoelaces, and chasing off other horses who try to investigate, but those are behaviors that tie back into me being part of their herd. Grooming, play, and protection. And again, getting a bond like that isn't easy, but it is so worth it.
