13/10/2024
Feeling brave, might delete later.
I’ve been pondering the dignity of the horse lately. At the level of collective species: “Horse”, and at the level of the individual horse, with a name, a place in the world and (hopefully) a loving human safeguarding them at their side.
I could mince my words and couch this, or I can speak to it plainly. If you’ll permit me, I’ll speak my view plainly here.
We can be doing better to keep in mind the dignity of our horses. Using them for our recreation and pleasure, is not something we are entitled to do. No matter how good our care and horse keeping is.
A well fed circus elephant, is still experiencing an egregious affront to their dignity when it is asked (nicely) to balance on the stool.
I am haunted by the expression in the eyes of some horses I saw in my past. The expression was one of a profound, deep, disassociation. To offer you a metaphor, to help you understand but not to describe accurately the horses experience, they had gone away in their mind. To the Bahamas. St, Lucia maybe. They were reclining in a hammock and sipping a Mai Tai under a palm tree, Bob Marley playing on the radio in the distance. While in the flesh, their flesh was being used by an upper primate for pleasure and fun.
Or sport.
They had long since stopped fighting. Their fight, their push back did flag them for their owner enough so that a trainer was called in. A trainer was called in who was a horseman. The horseman pet the horse and said
“I know.”
And then the horseman equipped the horse with some coping strategies. Explained to them that they are best off if they exchange a bit of their dignity and offer their owner what the owner wants of them: fun. If they give away a bit of their dignity- without trouble, and disassociate to tolerate the period of use that follow, they can protect themselves from a worse fate of trading all their dignity, or comfort, or safety, or life, for a period of use that follows.
Because Use of the horse is what always will follow.
I speak this as someone who enjoys riding as a pleasurable activity. I enjoy training as a pleasurable activity. But I am also someone who enjoys centering not MY desires, but I enjoy centering the horses dignity.
In fact, I seem to be a magnet for horses who have a pretty profound dignity streak. It shows up in a multitude of ways, but if I don’t preserve their dignity and centre their experience, they tell me straight away, and I am committed to the response-ability of what happens next.
All of us trade our dignity in disease, and the prevention of it. Almost nothing is worse than being a patient. Especially if you are a being who is impatient in the face of the loss of autonomy. If a horse finds basic care, trimming, handling, housing, an affront, then I triple check that I am firstly Doing My Best to offer the best conditions possible at this time. If I am not doing my best to afford the best possible conditions- I take action until I’ve exhausted the possibilities. I’ve put this to test thousands of times, long before I had my own land.
Then, I do my best to get the basics done as efficiently and painlessly as possible- I speak vetting, feeding, housing, trimming etc.
Then we come to training- horsemanship. And here my standards are much higher. A well fed, cared for, properly housed horse now doesn’t “need” human driven interaction, riding or training, in order to maintain base line of health and well-being. They feed, exercise and entertain themselves if you set it up so that they can. So… as an upper level high functioning primate (allegedly) I now have to prove myself worthy to be the thing that causes the horses cup to overfloweth. Not the thing that keeps the horse from the brink of the abyss.
Imagine a happy healthy horse who doesn’t “need” you, telling you that what you’re asking for, is an affront to their basic dignity. Imagine then upping your game. Getting better. Being honed- not by your selfish human desires, but being honed by the horse.
Now imagine a happy healthy horse who doesn’t “need” you, telling you that they love spending time with you, are interested in what you have to say, and find you the thing that makes their great life, an incredible life.
That’s what I mean when I speak about dignity.
And asking a horse to be ok with something that is not ok (to them) is only applicable if it is a Must-Do activity.
And our use of a horse for fun has never been a Must-Do activity.
But I guess that depends on what you define as fun. I don’t find “Use”, fun.
