A horse-centric view is much needed to balace out our knowledge of what they actually do and how they live. Its difficult because we observe with many constraints, personal ones and deterministic ones.

I agree with the variant cultures and the indivdual temperaments you find in horses, as I have observed the same all over. Actually, natural selection that works on variations would fully support this view, given the different ecological pressures they must withstand. The biological plasticity of horses is too often undermined by mechanistic and behaviouristic views, and a paradigm shift is likely to be in order.

Studying a “species” instead of studying individuals within a species is rather like making broad statements about religion or ethnicity. If we approach field observations looking more from a horse-centric perspective rather than a human-centric perspective, which may me difficult, the observations may shift. Our awareness in an “alpha brain “wave state alters what we sense and feel compared to our waking “beta brain” wave state. Having done field studies in both states, I have found that being in an alpha state allows deeper connection with all of nature and a more true experience of the energy and emotional dynamic of the whole natural system.

Hope that humans once going to see, that put the stallions alone in a stabble ore away from the herd, is a drastic action for the animal itself, but also for the naation of the foals.

It is very speci how the stallion teach his foals, and with what dedication and patience it sometimes happened. My foals are very pleased that they are not alone with their mothers are free to walk, but also with their fathers. I hope
many people will do so, this is for the simple reason, it helps the horses back to remember who they are. And give them the opportunity to be themselves. I do , hope you too

Lots of Love
Monique Ros

In my view of things, we (humans) project our own thought processes onto animal behavior, which is where I think the idea of dominance in animal groups really comes from. There have certainly been some female scientists who objected to the idea of the dominance hierarchy. Thelma Rowell is probably the most well-known. She thought they should be called stress hierarchies, or at the very least, “subordinance” hierarchies.

Personally, I see this tendency to project human thoughts onto animal behavior as an unconscious, instinctive behavior. If I recall correctly I think Bekoff and Horowitz wrote a paper on this very topic.

As for dogs, I see them as projecting their emotional energy onto objects of attraction: toys, tennis balls, other dogs, their owners, squirrels, skateboarders, etc. In my view this is consonant with the neo-Freudian concept of object-relations theory, where we unconsciously project our “libidinal” energies onto love objects, sex objects, etc.

Horses would also project their desires onto grasslands, members of the group, etc.

Anyway, that’s my perspective on projection.

Cheers!

And then there’s that thing called swarm intelligence. I have not seen any attempts to make that happen in human herds (that I know of). It just happens somehow, sometimes. But maybe that is what one can have a little taste of with a horse. Collision avoidance, cohesion, synchrony: these are words. When you are doing it, you are not thinking: now I need to avoid bumping to that guy, stick to what neighbours do, all at the same time. These are labels but in the action there’s no time to label and process by thinking – that would be too slow. And bees don’t have the equipment (or not in the way we think) but they do have the swarm intelligence. A vast (almost) unmapped territory, the swarm intelligence. Yes, there’s algorithmic applications, but that remains at rather crude level. How does an intelligent swarm form? How do you join? I want to know because I want to expand my consciousness. Making truck routes more efficient with algorithms may be good for the truck company, but from the perspective of why we’re here – I don’t know…