Exploring How Horses and Humans Work Together
Those of us who are close to companion animals know how important it is to maintain a good relationship with them. It is likely we spend time understanding their movements and their moods, and build bonds with them through shared activities and space. Learning to read an animal’s body language and subtle shifts in behavior are crucial to maintaining healthy relationships with our companions, and to create a sense of “working together.” Researchers note that “being able to understand at least some of the other species’ behavior is part of our dealings with many kinds of nonhuman animals,” yet the body of literature on “animals acting in relation to us” seems surprisingly sparse.
This article, based on research carried out in the U.K., looks at the relationship that humans have with horses, as companions. The researchers examined the differences in horse behavior with both familiar and unfamiliar humans, and observed the pairs while they performed a task set out at the beginning of the study. They found that established partnerships, where the pair had more experience with each other and a history of working together, were “indeed more coordinated, giving an impression of moving together, of harmony and predictability.” The authors note that it is not a simple matter of stimulus and response, a kind of reductive view, but rather, it is “a moving-together that cannot be easily reduced. Just as children are caught up in the primacy of movement and experience the world kinetically so did the horses and people engaging in our study.”
The study would be a fascinating read for many different kinds of animal advocates, especially those that wish to learn more about human-animal relations. It helps to understand how human-animal relationships can be structured in a way that nurtures both species simultaneously.