Horses Who Care
Sometimes we tend to view our horses as just objects. Maybe they allow us to participate in certain riding disciplines that we enjoy, or maybe they give us a certain image. The horse is viewed as a nonreactive thing. The eyes are seen as blank and empty, and all the horse cares about is getting back to the stall and being able to eat and be lazy. Although people often see their cats and dogs as more advanced emotionally, many times people don't consider their horses as living beings with emotional lives, capable of forming caring relationships. But they are; and not only horses, but even animals who we consider really nonadvanced, such as chickens. Let's look at a few examples.
It's not uncommon for horses to develop sight problems as they age, and I know a woman who had an older mare who was blind. She also had a younger mare in the same pasture, and the younger mare sort of took over care of the blind mare. She made sure the blind mare got around. She had a way of leading her, constantly looking back to be sure the blind mare was following. If the blind mare strayed away, the younger mare went back and got her. It was really heartwarming to see them together. But then the older mare got down and it was apparent she was very sick. So the owner called out the vet. He said what the owner feared, that the mare was dying, and that the humane thing would be to go ahead and put her down and save her several days of wasting away. And so the owner made the decision to do it. The owner didn't want to watch the vet put her down, so she went over to another barn in the pasture and waited. But it upset the younger mare. She ran over to the barn where the woman was waiting, squealed out, then ran back to the older mare, then back to the woman and squealed again, and kept on doing that. It was obvious that she was trying to call the woman to help the older mare...it was also obvious that she was very upset about what was happening. It broke the owner's heart, as you can imagine. But she felt she had made the right decision by sparing the older mare several days of dying. She said that for several days after the older mare was put down, the younger mare didn't do anything but stand around with her head down...wouldn't eat, wouldn't graze, showed no interest in anything. She was grieving.
The Park Service biologist who works on Shackleford Island, North Carolina told me similar stories about the wild horses there. The Shackleford horses arrange themselves in small groups of one stallion and several mares. When the mares are younger, there is quite a bit of jockeying around between stallions...another stallion might come along and lure a mare away. But as the mares get older, they pay the other stallions who come by no attention...they are devoted to "their" stallion. And as they all age, they take care of each other--the mares help out the stallion as he ages and gets more feeble and loses sight and has trouble getting around. They form a little family group that stays together and looks out for one another. The biologist said she sees this over and over. They form attachments and care for one another.
I have two hens who are thirteen years old. That is old for hens. One hen is still fairly healthy, but the other is showing the effects of age. She is more susceptible to cold, so the healthy hen broods her. The sickly hen shoves her head up under the healthy hen and the healthy hen broods her just like she would chicks...she fluffs her feathers out and lets the sickly hen nestle up under her where it is warm. The healthy hen is taking care of the sickly hen.
We usually don't think of animals like horses and chickens forming attachments like this and showing care and concern for one another, but they do. Maybe this realization should influence how we treat and use our horses.
