Your Horse's Mind

Do you ever wonder what goes on inside your horse’s mind?

On January 23, 2006, The New York Times magazine ran a cover story called The Animal Self. According to the article, tests on animals have uncovered “not only the distinctiveness of birds and beasts but also…their deep resemblances to us and our own behaviors.” In other words, animals do not only have temperaments, they have complex and distinctive personalities, just like people.

Imagine “African gray parrots that can not only count but can also grasp the concept of zero".

Imagine "self-recognition, empathy and the cultural transference of tool use in both chimps and dolphins".

Imagine "individual face-recognition among sheep; courtship songs in mice; laughter in rats.”

I cannot even fathom how much we don’t know about our horses. If you want to gain a bit of insight into your own horse’s personality, why not do some research of your own?

Personality-mapping centres around traits being consistently observed over time and situations.

The five-factor model for observation consists of
1. openness
2. conscientiousness
3. extroversion
4. agreeableness
5. neuroticism

Under these factors, a variety of traits such as fearfulness, calmness and aggression would be included.

How many of these traits do you recognize in your own horse - and how similar are they to those you recognize in people you know?

Does your research make you a more empathetic horse person? I hope so. Does it make you feel that you have uncovered even half of what is going on in your horse’s mind? I hope not.

A follow-up letter to the Times article said it best:

“there are still so many wondrous things about others waiting for us to understand. And perhaps if we can connect to animals, we will respect their rights to live shy or temperamental…lives, in their own ways, in their own habitats. Just like us.”

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Comment by Horsin Around on January 6, 2010 at 1:16am: Parelli Natural Horsemanship calls this horse - a - nality. Every horse falls into one of 4 catagories, Left Brain Extrovert, Left Brain Introvert, Right Brain Extrovert & Right Brain Introvert. Each horse-a-nality has it's own list of common traits & you teach your horse accordingly. It is amazing how accurate they are and how effective it makes you.

Comment by Dorita Peer Kozak on October 30, 2008 at 8:12pm: Hi everyone. This is a great chat. There is a depth to living organisms we are just beginning to be able - and willing - to connect with. I am only a little psychic, which sometimes makes life fun, but in my old age I have been able to "hear" horses quite well. They are adorable, patient friends, whose emotional life and bodily experiences seems to rule their behaviours. However, sometimes there is something far more complex going on...
it behooves (oops!) everyone to try hard to ride well and treat horses with respect because it is a privilege and not a right, in the greater scheme of things.
Do call a really talented animal communicator one day...quite a revelation.

Happy riding,

Dorita

Comment by Sandy on September 12, 2008 at 3:57pm: I strongly agree with this post too!
After stabling horses of my own and for others for the past 6 yrs, I've learned a lot about their individual personalities. So much more than when I was a boarder myself. Although I did know my old horse well, I didn't as much until he had to semi-retire, and I spent more time just hanging out with him rather than schooling and showing. But then he was a true gentleman and a character, I guess they all are, really.

I can't imagine life without them...

Comment by Suzanne on August 1, 2008 at 8:29pm: I remember when I was a child the Behaviorists held sway, and the Official Scientific Opinion was that animals were not self-aware, and in fact, they did not even "think."

Even as a small child I wondered how anyone who had ever been close to an animal could ever buy such an absurdity. Now, all that is going by the wayside, but I still say, how could anyone have ever believed it in the first place?!

Great post.