Horse Behavior and Body Language 🐴

Welcome. Today we're going to be talking about horse behavior and body language. Horses communicate primarily through body language, so we're going to be talking about how this is going to keep you safer when you work with your horses and help you to build a stronger relationship. So first let's look at a few body language examples. Here's some signs of relaxation. We've got a horse that is enjoying the sunshine. He's got a nice relaxed neck and tail. If we take a closer look at his facial expression, we can see he's got a soft eye, droopy lower lip, and relaxed nostrils. So if we look at his overall posture, there's no tension in his top line, and he's in a nice peaceful state. Next we're going to take a look at signs of tension or worried state. So here there's Zoloft, which we're going to zoom in on him and take a closer look at what he's telling us with his body language. His legs are positioned to run to the left here. He's got a raised neck and a tense top line. If we take a closer look at his facial expression, we can see his ears are focused forward on what he's worried about. He's got a tight jaw and flared nostrils. So his overall posture is telling us he's worried and ready to run. Now we're going to look at some dominant and testing behavior. Here we have Legend and Crosby. Legend and Crosby usually go out together in a herd, but today I turned him out in the round pen to let him enjoy the sunshine some. Legend is the most dominant in his group, so you can see him coming up and pushing Crosby a little bit. Crosby is doing some posturing and kind of warning Legend away from him. So Legend comes up, checks him out. Right there, Crosby is warning him to move away. But you notice how Legend just kind of stays there and keeps the pressure on a little bit, even though Crosby is warning him to move away, because Legend is a little more of a dominant guy. And most of the time, a horse's posturing and warning ends peacefully. So in this case, this ended very peacefully. Legend goes up here and pushes Crosby the other direction. But it's good to be aware of these signs and just pay attention when you see them. Next, let's take a look at some aggressive behavior. Here we have Zoloft, who you saw earlier in the spooking example. And he is a horse who was rescued from a feedlot and has some fear and aggression around other horses. So I'm going to lead Legend by and we're going to see what happens. So as we take a closer look at Zoloft's posture, we can see he's got a tense top line. As we look at his facial expression, you can see his ears are pinned flat back. He's got a clenched jaw and he's got creases around his nose which show irritation. So his overall posture is one of aggression. Next, let's take a look at some playful behavior. Here we have two horses enjoying a beautiful day and playing together. And sometimes this can be mistaken for aggression. But let's take a look at some key differences here. So first off, we have lifted tails, which is a sign of excitement and playfulness. And we have a nice soft eye on this horse, even though he's rearing up. And you can see how his ears are not pinned back. So now that we've seen some different scenarios of our horse's body language, let's talk about reading the horse based on the environment that they're in and the circumstance that we're approaching. So sometimes we'll see two body languages that look pretty similar, but actually mean different things. So let's talk about two examples of this. So here we have aggressive versus listening. And if we look at these two postures, they can look kind of similar at first glance. But if we take a closer look at the eyes and nose and overall expression, we can see how different these two positions are. Here we have a horse who's being saddled and she's swishing her tail to get the flies away. You can see her expression is nice and relaxed as she's having the saddle be put on. Now we have the same horse, but this time when she's being saddled, she's swishing her tail out of irritation or possible pain. And we can see that because the rest of her body language is displaying discomfort. So now we have talked about a few examples of body language in different scenarios and how body language can differ in different situations. So how does this help us with our safety when we work around our horses? I'm going to show you a couple examples of me working with the horses on the ground and showing you how I'm handling them based around how they're displaying their body language. So in a minute, Gidget the cat is going to come running around this corner. So I'm walking with Meg and right here she displays some tense, worried behavior. So I'm going to back her up, ask her to relax, and there she goes to graze. So I'm going to get her attention back on me, reassure, and then walk off with her. Here I'm working with Zoloft we talked about earlier. He's a rescue horse and he has a tendency to bite when being handled. So I'm working on being able to approach him here on his side without him biting me. So I'm using this stick to tap my shoulder and wave a little bit in front of me to prevent Zoloft from coming and biting me. And you can see how his body language is leaning forward into my space and he's kind of threatening to come and bite me. So I'm staying in a nice relaxed posture and just blocking. Got a nice loose line there and right here Zoloft relaxes a little bit and lets me go up and rub him. So I'm just petting him with my stick here and he's relaxing and then I'm going to walk away to reward him there. Once we understand how to read our horse's body language on the ground and we've developed a good skill set there, we're ready to move under saddle. When we're under saddle we can't see much of our horse's body language. So how do we communicate with them under saddle clearly so we can work together as a team? The way I communicate with my horse in riding is through feeling. Since I can't see him I'm feeling what's going on underneath me. We can feel everything from where their attention is. Here Legend is thinking forward a little bit and then if I put my leg on him here and ask him to move off my right leg so I'm checking in with him there. So we can feel everything from where their attention is to how their emotional state is, if they're tense, if they're relaxed, if he's in balance or out of balance. So when we ride our horses that ability to feel with them is the way we have conversations and keep our connection throughout our work together. When it comes to developing your feeling this is something we're always improving as riders. I'm still working on improving my feeling and a couple tools that have helped me are one having a knowledgeable professional watch you from the ground and give you some feedback in the moment. This can help you to be able to understand what you're feeling better and if it is really the direction you want to be taking if it's accurate. The other thing that has been a great tool for me is riding a really well-trained seasoned horse and this can really do wonders for helping you to understand what a good balanced horse should feel like and help you to be able to give your horse better guidance and direction when you ride. If you guys have anything to share about body language that you have observed in your horse or any further questions that you have you can let me know in the comments below. Have a wonderful week. Enjoy your horses. I'll see you in the next video.