Hunter
I am a city boy and when meeting a horse I attempt in my mind to put it into a pre-existing box. The horse is very large and upholstered, so it must be furniture. But no, it's moving around and looking at me. Susie is telling me that the horse is bickering with its neighbor, that it's happy, that it's misbehaving just a little. I can't really tell the difference. I can read a cat, especially, my cat. My cat is happy to see me. My cat wants her tummy rubbed. Horse communicates none of these things in a way I can see. So Horse is not exactly a pet, either.
Susie explains to me that our usual companion animals are predators, whereas Horse is prey, and looks at the world a little differently. Horse is named Hunter and has, she explains, a definite personality, compared to other horses. I try hard to read this. I look at Horse, I mean, Hunter. Hunter sort of looks at me. His eyes are in the wrong place, to begin with, so what he's looking at is not quite clear, which makes this simplest interaction a little problematic. There is an ears forward/ears back toggle by which Hunter communicates positive/negative intention/reaction. This seems a little arbitrary but Hunter has a right to do things his way.
What does Hunter want? I ask in so many words. Well, Susie explains, I used to bribe him with treats, but now he only gets treats at the end, after hanging out for a while. Horse is trotting around a sawdust-filled oval, nosing at tarp-covered bales of hay placed just outside the ring in places calculated to get under the skin of a treat-driven horse. Susie is inside with him, leaving me locked safely out. He's a rescue horse, so he's not entirely socialized, but over the past year he's gotten a lot better. He knows how to canter about without getting his legs tangled or lurching into walls, and he pays attention to you when you come for a visit. I try to get my mind around the idea of making a multi-year commitment to a 1000-pound, herd-animal foster child.
I am still not entirely sure what Hunter wants, but he comes by a few times to hang out. I rub the side of his neck, as I imagine gjunell would do in this situation. Hunter chews meditatively on the gate. Susie tells me he likes me. I am perplexed but pleased.
I want to go around and look at the other horses, thinking that if I meet some others, I can triangulate back to some idea of what Hunter's individual horse-identity is. The other horses' are also cryptic, so I rely on Susie's interpretations. The friendlier ones stick their noses through the stable-gate bars, but not to be petted, which is my first instinct, but to have their noses blown on. There is a stallion who is shows us his teeth and the whites of his eyes in a reasonably obvious display of alpha-prey insanity. I reflect that the large male humans of my acquaintance just consume extra space and attention without feeling the need to run me or the other smaller ones off.
We wander back past Hunter, who looks up at us for a moment before returning to his bucket of treats. Susie can read Hunter just fine and views him with great affection, but horses, I think to myself, seem almost autistic from my point of view, as the social signals they send are nearly unreadable. The world of a large, fairly bright herbivore is an alien one. I am guessing that Hunter, conversely, thinks that I seem like slow learner, and that I really could show up with a few more apples.
Susie explains to me that our usual companion animals are predators, whereas Horse is prey, and looks at the world a little differently. Horse is named Hunter and has, she explains, a definite personality, compared to other horses. I try hard to read this. I look at Horse, I mean, Hunter. Hunter sort of looks at me. His eyes are in the wrong place, to begin with, so what he's looking at is not quite clear, which makes this simplest interaction a little problematic. There is an ears forward/ears back toggle by which Hunter communicates positive/negative intention/reaction. This seems a little arbitrary but Hunter has a right to do things his way.
What does Hunter want? I ask in so many words. Well, Susie explains, I used to bribe him with treats, but now he only gets treats at the end, after hanging out for a while. Horse is trotting around a sawdust-filled oval, nosing at tarp-covered bales of hay placed just outside the ring in places calculated to get under the skin of a treat-driven horse. Susie is inside with him, leaving me locked safely out. He's a rescue horse, so he's not entirely socialized, but over the past year he's gotten a lot better. He knows how to canter about without getting his legs tangled or lurching into walls, and he pays attention to you when you come for a visit. I try to get my mind around the idea of making a multi-year commitment to a 1000-pound, herd-animal foster child.
I am still not entirely sure what Hunter wants, but he comes by a few times to hang out. I rub the side of his neck, as I imagine gjunell would do in this situation. Hunter chews meditatively on the gate. Susie tells me he likes me. I am perplexed but pleased.
I want to go around and look at the other horses, thinking that if I meet some others, I can triangulate back to some idea of what Hunter's individual horse-identity is. The other horses' are also cryptic, so I rely on Susie's interpretations. The friendlier ones stick their noses through the stable-gate bars, but not to be petted, which is my first instinct, but to have their noses blown on. There is a stallion who is shows us his teeth and the whites of his eyes in a reasonably obvious display of alpha-prey insanity. I reflect that the large male humans of my acquaintance just consume extra space and attention without feeling the need to run me or the other smaller ones off.
We wander back past Hunter, who looks up at us for a moment before returning to his bucket of treats. Susie can read Hunter just fine and views him with great affection, but horses, I think to myself, seem almost autistic from my point of view, as the social signals they send are nearly unreadable. The world of a large, fairly bright herbivore is an alien one. I am guessing that Hunter, conversely, thinks that I seem like slow learner, and that I really could show up with a few more apples.