We study the behaviour of horses interacting with other horses and then write books and give lectures on horse herd behaviour, as if our observations are definitive. Is it that simple? Are horses that simple?
I received an email from someone asking for suggestions on keeping her horse's attention. They said they deliberately keep their session to only a few minutes because their horse can't focus for more than a 5-10mins.
We deal daily with our horses exhibiting a vast array of behaviours. Some we want and some we don’t. We spend much of our time with our horses correcting or re-training the behaviours we don’t want.
When horses apply pressure to each other they are generally focused on directing movement and not on changing emotions. When a horse uses pressure to chase another horse away from the hay they are not concerned about the ill feelings it might create in the other horse.
