Horsethinking

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Horsethinking

Horsethinking is a centre offering Life Coaching with Horses Offering residential retreats for Equine Assisted Psychotherapy

12/01/2025

It might be midwinter but some of us have our own central heating!

31/10/2024

Shout out to my newest followers! Excited to have you on board! So many people have responded to my last post introducing the amazing benefits to be had when humans and horses interact, communicate and interact. Please contact me if you would like to know more.

19/10/2024

Really happy to have been invited to talk to TY students at St Brendan's College yesterday. I love to share how amazing horses are and how humans can learn so much from them. Perhaps some of you will be visiting the herd here soon!

27/08/2024

Here is a new visitor to Horsethinking! Rosie, a 'mature' lady is visiting us for the summer and having some remedial hoof work. She has been sampling a new delivery of hay, and seems to have really got into it!!

22/01/2024

These two are brother and sister. Born within a few weeks of each other, in a family herd, they lived together all their lives, in the UK, then Ireland, back to UK and finally in 2019, it was all arranged to return to Ireland. Sadly Midnights mother had died shortly before this and Libre had lost his mum a few years before. Without their mothers, both had lost a bit of confidence and found it hard to leave the environment they had last shared with them. Libre was able to load to travel but Midnight just couldn't as her loss was still very fresh. Then Covid and Brexit arrived, several failed attempts at bringing her home, and finally she arrived at Horsethinking in Co Mayo to rejoin her herd and her brother. Like all siblings, they have their moments, she tells him off sometimes, he plays rough boys games with her c**t foal Sonny and the other boys. But underneath it all their bond and connection is strong. They find peace, security and above all complete acceptance in each other. Souldn't this be the model for human siblings. We can learn so much from horses.

13/10/2023

Horsethinking is starting on a new and exciting journey with Life Coaching with Horses. For adults, young people and children, finding your own answers to life's questions amongst our family of naturally living horses, in their beautiful surroundings of the Wild Atlantic Way in Co Mayo, Ireland.

31/05/2023

Here we see my homebred mare Midnight, bringing her 20 day old foal Sonny to meet his new family. Wild mares leave the herd to give birth and then hide away until the foal is strong enough to meet his family. Maybe human births should be managed like this with mother and baby cared for in peace until both have recovered. No human made this decision for her, she had a quiet pony friend with her as she gave birth and for a week afterwards. Then her brother quietly made it clear he wanted to meet his new nephew and they spent several days grazing together. Today Midnight decided it was time and so a family/herd was created!

06/05/2023

Looking at these two photos of chilled out horses at , what do you see? Horses sleeping in the morning sun? Both photos show trust, care, responsibility, community and love. Horses are prey animals, always on the look out for predators from which they must flee. Lying down and sleeping is their most vulnerable time, so there is always one of the herd who stays 'on guard'. Who decides which horse takes up the role? We don't know, but does it not demonstrate how they trust and care for each other. Something we humans could learn from.

08/10/2022

Sharing is something that we all believe is the right thing to do with those we love and our close friends. Horses have evolved to live in small family herds where food is all around and available to all. In captivity, food sometimes becomes scarce, and might even run out! This creates great stress in an animal who is designed to wander and browse for most of the day and night. Our herd usually has constant access to a big round bale of hay that the whole herd shares peacefully. However currently we are having to feed them small square bales, and these need replenishing regularly. Sometimes their human - me(!) inadvertently allows the supply to run out and I notice that even a short time of non availability, causes the dominant ones to hog the new bales at first. Once they have had their fill, they gradually allow the others to share and the stress reduces. I can only compare this to how us humans respond to periods of scarcity be it food, money or loved ones. The current crisis worldwide is fuelled by news of scarce essential resources for power, fuel and even food as winter approaches. Perhaps we can all learn to cope with this stress by sharing, so that everyone has enough, but no one tries to have it all. 🤔🤗

04/06/2022

Horses have one of the most expressive faces of all species using a combination of 17 distinct movements (that yields over 355 trillion possible combinations) to communicate and read each other.

Horses also read human facial expressions - not only in real life but also in photographs.

In a study done by Amy Smith et al in 2016, horse avoided photographs of angry human faces and displayed a rapid spike in heart rate upon seeing them. Photographs of relaxed, smiling humans did not elicit any avoidance and did not alter heart rate.

Equine brains are built to experience emotion (the amygdalas) without evaluation (the prefrontal cortex).

This architecture creates an emotional but non-judgemental animal.
By nature (and intentional creation) equine brains have the capacity to heal human wounds.

That’s why there’s about 900 certified equine therapy centers in the US helping to treat PTSD, anxiety, disorders, substance abuse, trauma, grief, or just a bad day.

Everyone needs a horse in their life. 🖤

Address

Horsethinking, Tullaghanbawn, Geesala, Co. Mayo
Ballina
F26K840

Telephone

+353852665896

Website

https://www.horsethinking.com/

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