Should we interact or train our rescue horses at all? If a horse was given a choice to be in relationship with a human, would they choose to be?
Once in a while this conversation emerges within my horse world (and within myself). Why do I train? Why do I prefer training over letting a horse be wild? For me it comes down to connection…
01: In humans, as an example: you walk into a room and you see someone you find attractive— this is how we meet people, romantic or otherwise. We are drawn to them for whatever reasons, they are beautiful or there is something we admire. The healthy mindset in situations of adoration is that you’d like to go and connect with that person vs. “I want to control that person, I want that person to do what I say.” This translates to the horse world, so explicitly. Many people see horses as a tool or as an object to be controlled or possessed and not as a free being with equal exchange of ideas or opinions. They’re not often seen as something to connect with or have an equal exchange with. When you approach a relationship from that equal connection point of view, relationships can be extremely beneficial to both parties. If it were a human to human relationship, both humans can form a deep and intimate mirror for growth and can spend a lifetime learning, supporting, and strengthening each other. Of course these relationships take work but it's the work that actually makes the relationship stronger in the long run. Think, for example, how it would be if my husband had see me across the room twelve and a half years ago, and just simply said, "that is a beautiful girl that I admire greatly from a distance and I'm just going to leave her alone to be wild and free..." How much richness, love, and growth would have been left out of both of our lives!
Same with horses. A horse-human relationship formed on the basis of connection, equality, and mutual respect, benefits both the horse and the human, providing a platform for them to learn from each other, teach each other, and grow together into better versions of themselves. In a controlling relationship, however, where one being is trying to control and dominate the other, both parties suffer (with one party carrying a different kind of burden). For me as a long-time student and advocate of liberated horses, it’s not that I’m not interested in my horses being free and “wild,” I am interested in them being truly liberated. Connection with them is a foundation for their liberation and their true expression.
02. When it comes to horses, both rescues and horses pulled off of BLM land, they have absolutely been influenced by humans, in often largely negative and traumatic ways. Our rescues come to us traumatized, hyper vigilant, and in chronic states of fight or flight.
Because the way horses process emotions and react is so similar to humans, I start to think about when we are feeling big emotions, when we are in chronic states of stress.
Let’s travel for a moment to this week’s toddler tantrum for a more in depth study of big emotions… :)
The other night, my youngest daughter had a huge tantrum (she's 3 and a half…) because we were reading bedtime stories on the floor, instead of in bed like we usually do. This particular night I let the kids one at a time sit in my lap to read their story. When it was her older brother’s turn, my youngest began screaming… a gremlin-style colossal sized meltdown that went on and on… The other kids kind of looked at me and looked back at her, it shocked us all a bit. I said to them, “let's just let her express, she seems to have a lot of big emotions right now, she's just learning about those emotions and her capacity to be with them and it's okay.” In the end, she started calming down and her mind became clear again. She was almost upset that she got so upset. "It's okay to be angry," I told her, "everyone feels angry sometimes and we've all had situations where the anger takes over and it doesn’t feel good." "Even adults feel like that sometimes," (oh do we...how many of us have seen red more times than we’d like to admit…?) The kids started coming up with times when anger has taken over them and how it feels. So often we react from fear or anger when someone says something that triggers and we have a huge explosive reaction of anger from fear or insecurity... and we lash out. It doesn’t feel good to be in those moments and while negative emotions serve their place, operating from chronic states of that fight or flight response isn’t good for our systems: it doesn’t allow us to act from our highest self, it limits connection between us and the world around us, and ultimately doesn’t support a healthy and liberated life.
In that same vein, horses, as prey animals, also have big reactions that aren’t always thoughtful when they are operating in fight or flight. From all my years intimately studying and being with horses, I notice that the horses don’t love when they are in those reactionary states either. These rescues have experienced incredible trauma. They are so sensitive, are living in states of big reaction, and in a moment of big change coming here. The slightest turn of your body or glance in the wrong direction can send them into extreme reactivity. My whole goal, as a support system, is to help them learn, to teach them skills to regulate their nervous system without going in the opposite direction of shutting down either. Lower your head, breath, relax enough to transform into calm and thoughtful individuals that have such a better peace of mind (vs the jumpy reactive scared animals they were when they first came)– it is such a big difference. I think anyone can visibly see that they feel better: their eyes are more settled, they visibly and energetically feel more at peace and that not everything is trying to kill them– of course that feels better. This is my main goal and my particular offering to horses. When people say to me that a horse is so reactive and I should just let him be a horse, my thoughts go to the human experience of letting us live in our insecurities or anger. I know and have witnessed time and time again that these horses have the potential to be more fully themselves, embodied, with their trauma integrated, and I know in most cases, their reality could be so much better.
This becomes inspirationally reinforced by my mentor, Elsa Sinclair’s, study in Taming Wild, as she attempts to answer the questions: “what if horses were given a choice? Would they let us ride them? Without force or tools to control, and without bribes to lure them?” Her inspirational work shows us that, yes, if given the choice and approached with respect, consideration, and the right amount of slowness, then a horse will choose to have a relationship with a human over not.
03. Both with horses and with nature in general, humans have been interacting for so much of our history. Did you know that human’s infatuation with horses traces back thousands of years to human’s earliest time here on earth?! Horses are actually the top animal depicted in Stone Age cave Art! Of course, there is a difference between admiring an animal from afar and domesticating it, but some scientists say we’ve been working with horses in a more domesticated manner for over 9,000 years…! We have had a relationship with horses as long, if not longer than mankind has connected with dogs. Our relationship is significant, deep, and long.
In the context of conservation and our care for the natural world, the truth is, humans have never stood on the edge of a forest looking in from the outside like at a museum. Humans are a significant part of the natural cycles, having helped to support, guide, and influence the rhythms of the world around us.
At this point, we are so hyper engaged with this closed- system planet that we couldn’t disengage or let something rest without our influence… even if we wanted to. Our influence has been and is present. Knowing this, and knowing that we have a choice whether we engage in a positive or negative way, the question for me then becomes… How is my influence and my impact on these horses (and the world around me) affecting their wellbeing overall? How would the choice to “leave them alone” impact their lives overall? Is it a one-size-fits all answer?
I don’t claim to know the answers to these big philosophical questions, what is best for another individual, I am just a forever student of the way of the horse offering connection and foundation to live a more enriched life. Ultimately, for me to engage or not to engage becomes a more nuanced question of what does my engagement look like? Is it rooted in connection or control? What is true freedom and are we truly free if we are left to be “free” burdened by our pain and suffering?
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