Can he Read You?

This is a mouthful, or a brain-ful, so take it slow. This is a complex thought.

A horse has to trust that he can accurately read a human being. In other words, a horse has to trust himself, that when he looks at a human being, he will judge correctly whether he’s being asked to do something or not, and what the human’s intentions toward him are.

For instance, there are horses who, no matter how “carefully” or “nicely” a human approaches a horse, the horse is fearful that the human is going to hurt them. In this case, the horse is reading the human “wrong”, likely because of past history with humans.

The flip side of that coin is that there are horses who, no matter how clear the human is with their cues, the horse assumes nothing the human does has anything to do with them, so they don’t respond at all. Again, the horse is reading the human “wrong”.

In the horsemanship world, we talk a lot about the human adjusting to fit the horse and the situation. But it’s also important to discipher when, regardless of the human’s presentation, the horse is struggling to correctly interpret the human’s approach/cue/intentions, etc. The horse has their part of this partnership too, and we need to be willing to separate “his deal” from “our deal”.

Because this has to do with the horse’s trust in himself and his own judgement. If he interprets the human incorrectly often, he begins to live in a very scary place.

Horses are born with the ability to interpret energy and intentions and approaches very accurately. As a herd and prey animal, this is very much part of who he is. But humans can get in there and just about destroy the horse’s ability to interpret energy/intentions/approaches. This can happen if we “ambush” a horse (“Come here, sweety, so I can scare you.”), if we correct a horse with emotion, or if we scare a horse into doing desired behaviors. There are lots of other ways to do it too, but those are common ones.

So if the horse loses the trust he had in his own judgement and ability to discern the human’s intentions, it’s a long road back to trusting himself again. These horses often end up as “one person horses” because they lack the ability to adjust to different people’s energy and presentations, but they get so they can trust their read of ONE person if that person presents themselves in a consistent way.

A lot of times, we horse people say these horses are “watchy on the ground” or “they don’t trust people.” It’s actually worse than that, as I see it. They don’t trust THEMSELVES and their ability to read another being. For a prey animal to not be able to read other beings, that makes him very vulnerable, and I bet he’d feel very unsafe much of the time. This makes his life and his interactions with humans very stressful, and that stress can lead to a myriad of physical and emotional issues. It’s a pretty huge thing.

I think my point is, it’s important to recognize that it’s not HUMANS the horse has lost trust in (though it is, it’s secondary), it’s that (primarily and profoundly), he’s lost his trust in his own ability to read. He’s lost his trust in himself.

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