Horses And Humans

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the Horses and Humans Symposium, held in 2000 at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History Powdermill Nature Preserve, in Rector, Pennsylvania, USA, in honor of Mary Aiken Littauer.

An eye-opening game-changer of a book that sheds new light on how horses learn, think, perceive, and perform, and explains how to work with the horse’s brain instead of against it. In this illuminating book, brain scientist and horsewoman Janet Jones describes human and equine brains working together. Using plain language, she explores the differences and similarities between equine and human ways of negotiating the world. Mental abilities—like seeing, learning, fearing, trusting, and focusing—are discussed from both human and horse perspectives. Throughout, true stories of horses and handlers attempting to understand each other—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—help to illustrate the principles. Horsemanship of every kind depends on mutual interaction between equine and human brains. When we understand the function of both, we can learn to communicate with horses on their terms instead of ours. By meeting horses halfway, we achieve many goals. We improve performance. We save valuable training time. We develop much deeper bonds with our horses. We handle them with insight and kindness instead of force or command. We comprehend their misbehavior in ways that allow solutions. We reduce the human mistakes we often make while working with them. Instead of working against the horse’s brain, expecting him to function in unnatural and counterproductive ways, this book provides the information needed to ride with the horse’s brain. Each principle is applied to real everyday issues in the arena or on the trail, often illustrated with true stories from the author’s horse training experience. Horse Brain, Human Brain offers revolutionary ideas that should be considered by anyone who works with horses.

Throughout the pages, the author explains what draws humans to horses is the representation of beauty and freedom. Most of this compatibility comes from the horses flexibility in joining with humans as partners. This material prompts the human to evaluate the reasons why he has chosen the horses as companions or athletic partners or why he has chosen to breed them.This book is written with the hope that the knowledge I have acquired these many years will be helpful to create new lines of communication with our partners, the horse she shares. With more than ten eye-opening chapters, Horses And Humans - The Real Connection is not a training manual, but moreover to open the lines communication. The book discusses choosing a horse that is right for each individual, according to that persons personality and that of the horse they choose, the horse and its psyche, humans and their psyche, trainers and instructors, diagnostics and therapies, including homeopathic, holistic and conventional treatments, the art of lunging, classic principles of all riding techniques, equipment, and more. This book is written for the inexperienced, amateur, and professional riders as well. The author finds many proposed trainers are lacking in the fundamentals of understanding people and horses; particularly the psychological and physical connections that need to be established and understood.

This original and insightful book explores how horses can be considered as social actors within shared interspecies networks. It examines what we know about how horses understand us and how we perceive them, as well as the implications of actively recognising other animals as actors within shared social lives. This book explores how interspecies relationships work, using a variety of examples to demonstrate how horses and people build social lives. Considering horses as social actors presents new possibilities for improving the quality of animal lives, the human condition and human-horse relations.

Equines are big business in this country, and that's not to be taken lightly, but as anyone who has spent much time around them knows, horses have a sense of themselves and refuse to be pigeon-holed, catalogued or otherwise restrained. When they are given their due as individual personalities, as they are in this book, an occasional startled giggle has to result. Calling on forty-plus years of experience, extensive research, and lots of trial-and-error, Joanne Friedman has put together a celebration of life with horses. A horseman's most important piece of equipment is a sense of humor, and Friedman liberally spices her advice with horse laughs. Whenever horses are called on to participate in human enlightenment, they do so with great enthusiasm and good humor. Meet the horses that populate Friedman's world, and your perception of life with horses will never be the same. Join Friedman and the horses of Gallant Hope Farm as they slog through mud season, experience Murphy's Law in full effect at a show, set up a (mostly) working farm, and learn about clicker training. Your perception of life with horses will never be the same.

As much as dogs, cats, or any domestic animal, horses exemplify the vast range of human-animal interactions. Horses have long been deployed to help with a variety of human activities—from racing and riding to police work, farming, warfare, and therapy—and have figured heavily in the history of natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. Most accounts of the equine-human relationship, however, fail to address the last few centuries of Western history, focusing instead on pre-1700 interactions. Equestrian Cultures fills in the gap, telling the story of how prominently horses continue to figure in our lives, up to the present day. ​ Kristen Guest and Monica Mattfeld place the modern period front and center in this collection, illuminating the largely untold story of how the horse has responded to the accelerated pace of modernity. The book’s contributors explore equine cultures across the globe, drawing from numerous interdisciplinary sources to show how horses have unexpectedly influenced such distinctively modern fields as photography, anthropology, and feminist theory. Equestrian Cultures boldly steps forward to redefine our view of the most recent developments in our long history of equine partnership and sets the course for future examinations of this still-strong bond.

The knowledge that humans have of horses is impressively extensive, if the number of books, magazines, research papers, websites, audio-visual documentaries and films is anything to go by, not to mention the reflection of humans' understanding and imagination of the horse in our culture and the arts. Yet, if we are utterly honest with ourselves, when we examine the way in which we keep, use, relate to and interact with horses, the bulk of the available evidence reveals a profound ignorance on our part of the intrinsic nature of the horse. An understanding of the true nature of the horse points to the opportunity to employ a completely new paradigm in our approach to the horse, one based on choice rather than control, connection instead of coercion, and communication as opposed to conditioning. In all of this energy is the key. It is an approach which appeals to the growing tide of humans around the world who are searching for a new way of being with horses, one that is more in tune with their needs and requirements as equines, which also contributes to their psychological and emotional well-being, and which facilitates understanding and trust between the species. This is not some pie-in-the-sky, air-fairy fantasy. Rather, it is a reality that I now experience with my own horses without tools of restraint, instruments of coercion and conscious training. And it is a dream that any human can live if they are really committed to doing so. A path to the horse is open to all of us. It is a simple one to take. All we need do is answer the call to being human(s) for horses. If this is a call which also appeals to you, why not join me and come for an entirely different kind of ride?

Since time eternal horses have walked beside us, helping to shape our destinies, taking us on journeys of the soul, and offering as a gift their power, mystique, and beauty. While it has taken some time, mental health professionals and educators alike have begun to formally acknowledge the emotional, mental and physical benefits that humans can receive by spending time with horses. In the U.S. alone, there are already more than 900 programs that offer therapeutic or educational programming provided in partnership with horses. Leif Hallberg has extensively researched the field of Equine Facilitated Mental Health and Educational Services, and this book reveals the many ways horses can help humans. Become familiar with: Key definitions Historical information about working with horses in therapeutic and educational settings Ethical considerations Practical applications Learn more about the healing power of horses and their rich history of working together with humans in Walking the Way of the Horse. For additional information about this book, and Leif Hallberg visit www.walkingthewayofthehorse.com