Day 11: September 29 - Herd Dynamics

Class was way interesting today! We talked a lot about a horse's hierarchy of needs, which are:

1. Safety
2. Comfort
3. Play
4. Food

 In other words, the most important thing to a horse is it's own safety. After he feels safe, he'll get comfortable, meaning he'll probably roll or do something like that. Once he's comfortable, he'll start to play, and then, once he's done playing, he'll start to eat. This is really interesting to me, but it makes perfect sense. I've seen it a lot too. When you bring a horse, especially a young one, to a new place, they are going to be nervous. They will look around and make sure that there is nothing there that is going to hurt them, and only after they feel safe will the get comfortable, play, or eat.

For a horse, one of the key ways that they feel safe is by choosing a good, dependable, leader. I need to become that leader for Jack. If he doesn't feel safe with me, then there is no way that he's going to trust me, or truly feel attached to me so he'll act as my partner.

After we talked about this, we let all of the horses loose in the arena. It was so interesting to watch the herd dynamics that they had! Black Jack had his own herd, and Milo had his. Then there was Scooby who just stood by the door the whole time. Beauty seemed really nervous the whole time. It was almost like she kind of wanted to fit in with someone, but she was too scared to try. And, the other horses weren't very welcoming to her. And then there was Jack...

Jack is one of the funniest horses I've ever seen. I always knew that individual horses each have their own personality, but I never knew one could actually be funny! Jack didn't have a herd, and he didn't have a leader. Milo seemed to really pick on him a lot for some reason, and although Jack didn't let him get the best of him, it was just like he didn't really care whether he was with someone or not. He rolled a lot, and then he would get up and run, and sometimes he would even grab a carrot stick, or a hula-hoop and run around the arena with it. It was so fun to watch!

Jack likes his hula-hoop.

I feel like I can really apply this to when I'm working with him though. He's not the type of horse that really needs a leader, and he's probably not going to be too good of a follower. The main thing that he wants to do is to have fun. If I can find fun things for him to do, and play with him, I think that's how we're going to to build our relationship with each other.