Details

A book I've been reading about animal behavior by an autistic woman is helping me understand why horses sometimes behave the way they do. They can freak out for no reason. At least it can seem like no reason. This may be of interest to you if you've ever been bucked off onto a pile of lava rock. It is not uncommon for horses to suddenly act scared when nothing in the immideate atmosphere seams different, to the human. Its because they see details. They see exactly what is taking place. We, as normal humans see what we want to see or at least what our brain tells us to see.

Humans and horses are commonly unindated with a barage of details from our environment through sights, sounds, smells, vibrations, and feelings. But as humans we have this special feature in our brain that filters out the details that may interfere with a task we are set on.

With horses its different. They rely on the barage of details for their survival. Thats one reason their ears, eyes, and nose is so big. Their senses are hightened to detect any detail that might alert them to danger. Thats why if your elk hunting with your horse his head will come up, his ears will rise his muscles will tighten and he will spot elk way before you or will spot something you dont see and may never see. You say, "What is it boy, hunh?"

According to the author someone watching a basketball game may not notice if someone walks into view dressed in a monkey suit. And if an autistic person is watching the game he will most likely see the monkey because they also pick up on the details that we filter out. That is why she is able to help people who are having trouble handling livestock at meat packing plants and feedlots, or just ordinary pet owners. She can understand things from the animals point of view.

For me its becoming easier to understand why and how they see hear, smell and feel every single tiny detail whereas we are hardwired to filter out details. So when you are riding a horse, especially a green one, by an object, like a rock jack, that you have ridden by a million times on previous days with no problem. one day out of the blue the animal will blow and snort and shoot sidewas and pretty much acts like he's walking by a tiger. We may not see anything out of the ordinary but the animal see's shadows, or reflections, or demonds , or a wearewolf. All we see is a dumb pile of rocks. And we think, Stupid horse!

There are lots of different reasons a rock jack might look dofferent to a horse on any given day. They day could be bright or cloudy, the wind could be from a different direction bringing in new smells, which animals are way more intuned to than we are. Or maybe they smell us differently because our body is emmitting a different odor because of some mood or fear or anger. They hear what we dont hear. They also feel more comfortable at night. They can see excellent at night. We are blind as a bat at night. And horses are pretty much color blind. Wild prey animals like elk feed at night under cover of darkness because they feel safer from predetors. (I guess they feel safer at night) So maybe horses feel more vulnerable in the dailight. Basically they sometimes experience sensory overload. Thats why they want to snort and run from the scary rock jack.

So the moral of the story is: Be nice to your horse. I'm speaking to myself here. They obviously see, think, smell and feel entirely different, especially emotionally, than we do. You have to be understanding. The best horseman are those that can detect minute details and subtle changes in the horses behavior, or body position or whatever. They have an in depth understanding of the horse not built on something mystical but on tangible evidence that is usually so insignificant its overlooked by most: A little quieting of eyball movement or the re-positioning of an ear, a sigh, or when they make that sound like they're giving you a rasberry that means theyre begining to relax.


Horses are like children too. They dont have mixed emotions. Children arent ambivelent. I looked that word up and what it means is that kids usually dont have mixed feelings about who they love. I think they are hardwired to love their parents. Mixed feelings and ambivelanced dont rear their ugly heads untill children grow up some and become more like adults and their frontal lobes develop. I dont know exactly when this happens. But I'm starting to think it must be during the teenage years which makes me a little nervous because my son is turning thirteen. Darned frontal lobes anyway.

Children love us parents so much that you can mistreat them, ignore them, exasperate them and even hurt them - I tipped over some livestock panels on my boy and broke his leg and so far he's still wild about me- They always take you back with open arms because fortunately God has hardwired them to love the smell of your shirt and the nap of your neck and the sound of your voice and your big arms (to them) and the big veins that poke out on your hand. Even after you've punished them the same day- sometimes even morseso after the punishment.

Horses are a little like that. They can kick the poop out of each other out in the pasture over some jealousy or feed issue but they dont seem to hold a grudge for too long once the issue is settled. If you try to seperate them they have a cow. So sometimes after you've ridden them too hard or schooled them too harshly they've huffed and puffed and sweated and have been mad and frustrated and confused. All we feel is guilt. But afterwords when you've turned them out in their pen and they've had a chance to cool off you can walk right up and scratch them and they'll act kind of curious to see you. Of course if you turn them out to pasture they usually dont' let you walk right up to them, specially if you've used them really hard that day. But its not because they hate you, they just want to eat. They dont want to get caught and rode again after a hard day. After all, theyre not stupid.

One mare I bought, and paid way to much for has given me fits for almost two years. The feeling is mutual I'm sure. Anyway, Ive been trying to make a reining horse - show horse- out of her and its not going great. She sees a boogyman behind every rock and shadow but the fact is her genes and make -up are more like that of a wild antelope. She doesnt like her ears touched, doesnt like her feet picked up and prefers not to be touched in the flank. For six months she paced the fence if she was seperated from other horses and screamed all night. This kept me awake. She is often in sensory overload mode. So to try to make her something that she is really not meant to do has been extremely frustrating for us both. But we are making headway and I am trying to be more understanding of her. She still lets me catch her and ride her, moreso if I have a bucket of grain. If she had a brain in her head she would jump the fence and head for the hills and hide out with the elk or wild horses so she wouldnt have to be ridden at all. But kids and horses always take you back because they are not yet developed in the frontal lobe department.

Now that I have a little better understanding of this mare and my kids. I have also been recently reminded that there are two extremely important things I need to do to maintain my sanity and live in peace. The first thing is to always be thankful. When I go on a run, to get in shape, and lose weight and destress after struggling with my expensive antelope mare, I listen to music and sometimes preaching. One of the things I learned while running and listening was that the lepers who obeyed were healed but the one who also gave thanks was pronounced whole. The bottom line to me is that if I want to be healed and whole I must be thankfull. So no matter how my kids are acting or how wild and loud they can be I am thankful every day of my life that I know them and they love me and especially that they have frontal loves the size of walnuts. And I can be thankful that I've invested in this mare that has caused me to struggle and grow and learn and investigate and ponder and lay awake at night thinking of new and innovative ways to get her to do what she most likely shouldnt by nature.

The other thing that put it all together for me was this. Anger and frustration come from unforgiveness and self centeredness. I have to forgive my son for being a twelve year old. He is amazing. After school we made him water his chickens. So, its January and he goes out in his mothers sandals, and my big down jacket because he left his on the ground by the woodpile. Another of his tricks is stuffing his toes into his tennis shoes and smashing the heel of his foot over the heel of his shoes. Yes, my brothers and I pulled this stunt when we were kids. Adults always told us, "you'll break your shoes down!" As if broken down shoes were the cause of the meltdown of society. I warned my son that he would break his shoes down. Doesnt seem to bother him either but it really bugs me now, enough that I rarely do it anymore. He always wears one of my coats or his mothers to do the chores. Probobly because he feels connected and warmed emotionally as well as physically and also because he left all of his coats at school.

After his mother browbeats him into doing his chicken chores and he is dressed totally inadequate for any kind of physical labor, he shuffles outside and hooks up the hose to the frost free hydrant. Its over a hundred feet of hose so instead of uncoiling it he grabs the end and pulls on it for all he is worth untill it almost reaches the chicken waterer. The probem is that he blindly yarded on it untill there is this knot the size of a large rattlesnake colony in my hose. Then he fills the waterer, leaves it in the middle of the driveway, miles from any chickens and goes inside and sits it the warm kitchen while I stay out and untie the rattlesnake knot, drain the hose, which, by the way is all a part of watering his chickens. Then I coil it up and call his mother in the kitchen on my cell and tell her to send him back outside. And now its really cold and he comes back out in his t-shirt and mothers sandals.

According to what I've learned through interviewing veteran parents of twelve year old boys this is pretty much normal behavior. I wonder how he is ever going to make it. Of course, when I was twelve I was a total moron. But then agian I still dont know if I am ever going to make it. Whatever that means. Also there is occasionally some speculation by the children's mother as to the developement of my own personal frontal lobes.

And so I must forgive him if by appearances he does not look like he is going to be a brain sergeon at this point. Ive learned from people who are successfull at having lasting relationships that the principal reason for their success is they dont let little irritaitons drive them crazy. They dont even seem to notice them. Talk about filtering out details.

So my aim is to learn to appreciate his classic yet unique twelve year old style and love and accept him and nurture our relationship before he develops frontal lobes and turns ambivelent towards me. Because if I dont forgive him for being a twelve year old and learn to embrace his twelve-year-old-ness I could become angry and bitter because he has not discovered a cure for cancer or knotted garden hoses by his thirteenth birthday. And he might hate me, which I would deserve. So I hereby forgive all my children for not becoming rocket scientists like me. Mr. horsey.

And also I forgive the little mare. The bible clearly states: forgive the mare of thy youth, thou dipstick. and lighten up for in a short while she will wither like the grass and your not getting any younger either I might add, shorty." Seriously, I forgive her not because she needs forgiven but because I need to be less angry. I'm thankfull that I paid about 5 times what she is actually worth, not including feed, shoing, vet, my time training, psychaitric trauma etc. I forgive her because I may have thought I had this horse training deal figured out had it not been for her. She has definately humbled me, if not humiliated me but she is who she is and I thank God for her.