The spontaneous horse

Abstract

When enjoying the partnership with horses, understanding of the relationship dynamics and the impact horse and human have on each other is very important to understand how we can keep the relationship as pure and authentic as possible. It is often very difficult to see the spontaneous behaviour of horses because when living with us they are often trained for human purposes in an anthropocentric way, where the horses’ self-expression in the relationship with human, is mostly suppressed and controlled. Even when a horse shows an own intention, it is can be judged upon as an attempt to undermine the horse-human interaction (how much horses are allowed to move their head when haltered?). Rarely it is seen or interpreted as a moment of dialogue in which both human and horse are entering in interaction with each other. In this article you can find how you can recognize and take into account the spontaneous, cognitive, horse.