Horses Can Interpret Human Expressions And Feelings
Horses are very sensitive animals and react sensitively to the impressions of their environment. They can even interpret our expressions and feelings and understand us better with them and with our tone of voice.
How can horses interpret human expressions and feelings?
Horses are able to interpret our expressions and feelings . Since these are social beings, they have learned to identify with their conspecifics and humans and also to communicate with them. This is because they have lived with us humans for thousands of years.
Not only can they understand a person’s facial expression, but they also interpret the tone of voice whether they know the person or not. They are able to distinguish a friendly expression and calm tone from an angry face, growl, or scream.
When confronted with negative stimuli, such as an angry facial expression, they turn their head to the side and look at us with their left eye. That’s because their right brain is processing signs of threat.
In addition, their heartbeat speeds up and they appear restless. These are clear signs of stress. This specialization of their brain helps them to recognize negative situations at an early stage.
Horses are communicative animals
In the wild, horses usually live in groups led by a mare. They are prey of other species, which is why they have developed a veritable language among themselves in order to communicate.
The main form of communication among these animals is visual. Horses can interpret the body language of their fellows. This includes the position of the ears, the head, the hooves and the body in general. But auditory communication is also very important.
Horses neigh, snort, growl, and make a range of guttural noises to express different feelings:
- They share their location with the rest of the group.
- Horses warn their fellows of a danger.
- They welcome another animal.
- The animals announce their affection or feelings of happiness.
- They also use sounds during courtship.
- To find their foals, they use sounds to communicate.
Yes, horses can interpret expressions and feelings
We can communicate to our horse through facial expressions, posture and tone of voice because horses can interpret human expressions and feelings.
This fact has Monty Roberts, the one and the true horse whisperer called , led his entire professional career long.
Roberts is a famous horse trainer, an expert in horsemanship, equestrian sports and natural taming who has based all of his work on communicating with the horse.
In this way he establishes a relationship based on respect and understanding between horse and human. So he leaves concepts like dominance or punishment behind. These are methods that only cause fear and frustration in the animals.
The horse language of Monty Roberts
His method is called join up and follow up . Your goal is to create a voluntary connection between humans and horses. Neither pain nor force is used to make the horse accept the saddle, bridle and rider.
However, this is nothing new. The language of the horse, which he calls Equus , is based on a system of signals and was invented by the Chikasaw Indian tribe. They later used riders all over the world.
Three types of signals form the basis of this language: posture (including head, eye, lips, and ear movements), tail, and sounds.
Roberts identified more than 170 gestures that humans can use to communicate with the horse.
As you can see, communication with the horse is a mutual act. Horse and human both give and receive information.
Horses can interpret human expressions and feelings through gestures, body position, and the tone of voice. They communicate to us through the position of their ears, their head and their body. Besides, they neigh too.
