redroanchronicles (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redroanchronicles) wrote2010-09-27 09:39 am
redroanchronicles) wrote2010-09-27 09:39 am
Entry tags:
I get by with a little help from my friends
There are a lot of things that we can learn about ourselves and our horsemanship just from watching horses together in a herd. There are enough books on the subject to fill a library these days, but sometimes it's the simplest things that impress me the most: the way horses cooperate thoughtlessly and easily, as if there is never a reason for lasting discord.
On Saturday I made my regular afternoon stop at my boarding barn, Diamond Hitch, to bring my horse in from pasture. I happened to have my camera with me, and on my way back to my truck I caught sight of a group of Diamond Hitch's dude string horses standing together in paddock. They were forming, occasionally breaking and reforming in orderly rows, with each horse's head next to his fellow's tail, and everyone jockeying for a position that would allow them optimum fly-swatting. As each horse switched his tail, it would swish across his neighbor's face, scattering the persistent and annoying flies, and his own neighbor's tail would do the same for him.
Of course horses do this all the time, and I've often seem them in pairs -- horses tend to have best friends within the larger herd, just like humans do -- but I haven't often seen such a huge group crowd in together into one well-organized fly-swatting machine. Desperate times (and when the flies are thick, everybody gets desperate) clearly call for community action.
Horses have surprisingly accurate aim with their tails, and excellent control over how gently or how strongly they wield them. Which tells you something about what they're trying to convey when they "accidentally" swipe their human across the face with stinging force.
I love it when the solution to a problem is snuggling.
On Saturday I made my regular afternoon stop at my boarding barn, Diamond Hitch, to bring my horse in from pasture. I happened to have my camera with me, and on my way back to my truck I caught sight of a group of Diamond Hitch's dude string horses standing together in paddock. They were forming, occasionally breaking and reforming in orderly rows, with each horse's head next to his fellow's tail, and everyone jockeying for a position that would allow them optimum fly-swatting. As each horse switched his tail, it would swish across his neighbor's face, scattering the persistent and annoying flies, and his own neighbor's tail would do the same for him.
Of course horses do this all the time, and I've often seem them in pairs -- horses tend to have best friends within the larger herd, just like humans do -- but I haven't often seen such a huge group crowd in together into one well-organized fly-swatting machine. Desperate times (and when the flies are thick, everybody gets desperate) clearly call for community action.
Horses have surprisingly accurate aim with their tails, and excellent control over how gently or how strongly they wield them. Which tells you something about what they're trying to convey when they "accidentally" swipe their human across the face with stinging force.
I love it when the solution to a problem is snuggling.