What Horses REALLY Talk About 

I hope you have enjoyed the articles so far. In this article, I have to tell you about something that recently happened to me. I was walking in a pasture one day and I heard some voices. I looked to see who was there, but I didn’t see anybody. I just figured I was hearing things, but the voices persisted so I looked around again and saw no people, but I did see a couple of horses standing together and I couldn’t believe my ears. Yup, the horses were talking, so not wanting to pass up this once in a lifetime opportunity, I decided I just had to stop and hear what horses actually talk about. I don’t want to get any horses into trouble so I will not use they’re real names. I didn’t have a paper or pen but it was so intriguing I remember exactly what they said, and I’ll tell you what I overheard.

It started with laughter…. the horses were laughing so hard there were tears in their eyes.

Fred: You were priceless…I couldn’t believe how you got your human to run after you in the paddock shaking a bucket full of food and calling your name, it made my sides hurt, that human was so funny!

Gertie: Yeah, I know she’s a riot. I’ve often wondered what goes through her head. 

Fred: My human’s not as funny as yours; he’s teaching me stuff, and one of the things he taught me was to come to him in the fields.

Gertie: Wasn’t that when he put his palm facing down and then called your name and had you walk over to him. Didn’t he reward you with a treat for doing that too? Dang, I never thought of that, I just thought of making her run after me… I get her feet moving like crazy. (Starting to giggle again) Besides all she ever wants to do is make me work hard and only ride, ride, ride, and there’s nothing ever in it for me. When your human does that, doesn’t that take all the fun out of it? You never get to play with him and you never get to run away either.

Fred: Actually he plays with me too sometimes, but that’s not the only reason I don’t run away. When he comes it’s always something different. Sometimes he comes and takes me back and grooms me and then lets me go back out and play, sometimes he grooms me and then we longe, sometimes he rides me and sometimes he comes to the field and just gives me a pat and a treat and just turns and walks away. I’ve even seen him come out to the field and just lay there and watch me. I never know what he’s going to do and that REALLY gets my curiosity and you know how curious we are. They say cats are curious; they’ve got nothing on us. So, he keeps things interesting and I like that. But, you know, it’s taken me a long time to teach him horse stuff. He thinks he learns all by himself, but I help him. Man it takes him a long time to learn though. I would have thought he’d get it quicker…oh well, you know what I say, C.P.P and a human can learn anything.

Gertie: Yeah, I guess you’re right, but it does take them a long time. Sometimes I think they’re stupid, but I know they all just learn at different speeds, although I’d swear, some don’t want to even try to learn, they just think they can take advantage of our sweet nature and bully us into submission.

Fred: (chuckles) Remember Bucky? His human learned that not all horses would give in to a bully. Remember that guy was slapping him every time he rode him, and he always asked Bucky to do things that he never taught him, then one day Bucky got so scared and confused that he just started bucking and that man came off and landed in that wet poop pile that Bucky deposited because he was so scared. That mans clothes were just covered in poop. (Both horses were now laughing)

Gertie: (still giggling) what happened to Bucky? I heard that guy thought he was stupid and un-trainable and sold him and now Buckys at a new barn where he’s jumping colored fences and his new human’s sweet and she teaches him what he needs to know. Sort of like you’re human.

Fred: That’s what I heard too. Honey said she went to one of those places where humans bring their horses to schmooze, I think they call it a show or something, and she saw Bucky there and said he was really much happier. My human’s pretty cool. It’s actually a lot of fun working with him. The more we work together the more I get to know him and he doesn’t ask me to do anything that he hasn’t tried to teach me, and the best thing is the more we work the more I use my brain. You know how boring our lives can be.

Gertie: I’ll say, eat all day, play a bit, catch a few winks, and groom each other…. it does get boring after a while. One thing that does break up the day is when she comes to get me with the feed bucket and we play but eventually that loses its appeal and I let her catch me. I guess you’re right. I do like it better when she gives me stuff to do. But I do love to play other games with her, like “stop when she’s leading me”, or “bump the handler”, or “not stand when she’s trying to mount”, man that gets her talking loud, or one of my favorites, “bucking”, especially when she’s on my back. I know she squeals and I think that means she enjoys it, but I’m not too sure, she’s soooo confusing sometimes. I think she really likes that, because she hasn’t told me not to do it.

Fred: I’m not so sure about her enjoying the bucking thing. You can’t see her face, but from where I stand, her facial expression is not one of pleasure. You know how good we are at reading body language, and I’ll bet a month worth of hay that she hates it and that squeal isn’t pleasure.

Gertie: Well, if she doesn’t like that, why hasn’t she told me? I know I hear the squeal, and she starts yelling. I don’t understand the words she’s saying, but she never does anything except for smacking me with that stick, and that only startles me and makes me buck again because it scares me. Sometimes my instincts just overcome me and I only think of safety. It’s like my reflex reaction, so I buck again and she squeals and gets loud, so I figure that’s what she wants. Geezzzz they can get so confusing. I know you don’t buck. How come?

Fred: I buck, but I’m only allowed to do it when he’s not on my back or if I’m not attached to him in any way. If I’m on that longe line thing I’m still not allowed to do it. When he plays with me, its ok to do it as long as I’m not connected to him but I make sure that if we’re together I don’t buck out at him …they break easy, but he does let me do it, however he has rules.

Gertie: Rules?  No way… like we have in our herd?

Fred: Yup, rules, but his rules are a little different; they’re like ours, so they are easy to follow. You know, like I always say, keep it simple. Because he can’t move his ears, and I wonder why humans can’t. They are certainly big enough; but he does use his body and he uses some words that I can recognize too. Like “whoa”. I know that it means to stop and keep my feet where they land and to basically not move. I sometimes hear your person saying, “Stand” and “quit it” and yelling and even sometimes giving you a smack and other things, and I see you keep moving.

Gertie: I know, I’m never quite sure what to do and then my instincts start to take over again and I want to leave, but I know I can’t because I have those ties on each side of me, and I just find it tough to get comfortable and relaxed, but tell me more about the rules that your guy has.

Fred: Well, he has basically the same rules we have. Someone has to be the boss, and I let him be the Big Kahuna.  He’s shown me that he deserves to be Number 1. He takes care of me, he is stronger, faster and smarter than me, he can get my feet to move and he does all this in a way that’s not mean and makes it easy for me to understand, and I actually have fun with him. He gets me to think, and I like thinking. So, I’ve learned to respect and trust him and that makes me happy. When he comes around, I’m calm, I know what to expect, because he only has a few rules and he consistently applies them, and that’s another thing that we horses like…consistency. The rules are always the same, not like Buckys owner. He was always confusing poor Bucky.

Gertie:  Yeah, that’s sort of like my owner. Sometimes she lets me do some things and sometimes she doesn’t, so I’m not sure what to do and that makes me nervous, and sometimes I don’t want to be around her. Mostly she’s nice but…

Fred: See, that’s my point. Take the bucking thing. Whenever I would buck, my guy would get me to stop and back up a few steps and then we would lope again and if I got excited and bucked again with a whoo hoo, again he would bring me to a stop and back me up a little further and then ask me to lope again. If I bucked again we would back even further and that got me to thinking. Why is asking me to back up because he knows I don’t like it, so then I got to thinking and did something different and just loped and he didn’t do anything. He just relaxed and he said “good boy” and we continued to have fun loping. Then another day we were loping and I was so happy and, yup, I bucked again, and he immediately stopped and backed but this time I thought. Hmmm, he likes it when I don’t buck, and sure enough, when we just loped along quietly he said “good boy “and relaxed again. I know that “good boy” means I did well, because he’s said that whenever he’s happy with me and his voice is soothing. That makes me feel good because I love to try and do whatever he asks.

Gertie: How did you know that the backing up thing meant that you weren’t doing something right?

Fred: That goes back to other rules he taught me. In the beginning he taught me to come to him, to stop, and to back up, so I knew what he was asking and when I got excited he would just calmly ask me to come to him and that would calm me down and get my brain focused back on him, and then he put some more rules into place like no bumping the handler.

Gertie: Hee hee, I really like that one! I bumped mine so hard once she tripped and fell in the mud…hahahaha… you should have seen her. She wasn’t hurt but she was using words I never heard before.

Fred: Yeah, but she could have been hurt.

Gertie: Well, she hurts me a lot. Does she think that smacking me with the stick doesn’t sting, or when she slaps me, that my feelings aren’t hurt? Actually, she’s below me in the herd anyway, and I don’t hurt her, and you know we can.

Fred: Yeah, I know we can, but it doesn’t mean we should.

Gertie: Your right, but sometimes I just don’t know what to do and since she’s below me in the herd I just do horsey things to her anyways. It’s how we behave with each other and I’m just treating her like a horse.

Fred: That’s exactly how my guy treats me …like a horse…but he takes charge, so if, or when I bump him he’ll turn his body 180 degrees and that gets my attention and then he’ll move into my space to get me to move my feet backwards. If I don’t move, the first thing he did was touch me on my shoulder to say I want this to move away from me, and that made sense to me, and then if I didn’t move after he taught me what that meant, then he would give me a tap with the lead to wake me up and then he would ask again. That’s another thing I like about him, he always gives me another chance to respond, and that started me to figure out that there was a repercussion for not doing the correct thing. That’s where the back up thing started. It started in the beginning and by the time we did lopes I knew what he was saying.

Gertie: See, now that’s something I could understand. That makes sense. What other rules does he have?

Fred: Like I said, he’s the boss and that’s never open for discussion and I like that better. I can eat grass while he keeps look out. When we walk, I have to be in a specific place, and I have to pay attention to him, because he slows down and speeds up or even stops with no warning. I am never allowed to bump him, because that would show disrespect. It’s sort of like when Zeus is around. You never bump into him accidentally or on purpose because he’ll chase our butts around this paddock and try to bite us too. (Giggles). No biting, no bucking, no kicking out or striking, and “Whoa” means whoa …I guess that’s just good manners anyways. He will not ask me to do anything he didn’t teach me and if I do something wrong; he’ll let me know …just like in our herd.

Gertie: You said no biting, and I can understand that, but what about your owner’s attention span? Is it true their attention span only lasts for 3 seconds? I find that people forget things easy. For example, when you mentioned no biting it reminded me about the time I bit my owner just before she was going to get on my back. She yanked on the strap that holds the saddle on, and that startled and actually hurt me, so I just reacted to the pain and turned and bit her, not too hard, but I got her on the arm and she yelled some strange words at me and let go of the reins. I was so scared that I ran about 20 feet away and by the time she got to me she had forgotten all about it, and that only took about 3 or 4 seconds.

Fred: I’m not too sure about that. My guy seems to have a good attention span and he remembers all the rules so I would say he can remember for more than 3 seconds.   I think we have to work with our owners more to get them to concentrate and learn how to communicate with us on our level. That way they will learn to focus for longer periods of time.

Gertie: I guess like we said earlier, they all learn at different speeds and I guess it makes sense that the more we all work together the better we all become.

Fred: I’ll ask Zeus about that 3-second thing. He should know the answer to that one. Anyways, I like all the work that we do together, and I know the more work my guy and I do the better he is when he works with me. He pays more attention to all the little things and he corrects me early, before I make a big mistake and he lets me do stuff too. He asks me to do something and then he lets me do it and if I make a mistake he corrects me and then lets me try it again. That way we are both paying attention and our time together is nice…I really enjoy it.

Gertie: That actually sounds cool and interesting; it’s got my brain getting excited already. How can I get my owner to do this stuff?

Fred: Well you’re going to have to misbehave one more time and stop where you weren’t asked to. There is a poster on the wall talking about the guy that my owner went and learned from and he gives lessons at anybody’s barn, and he’s actually giving a clinic. It’s called “Better Communication Through Understanding.” So if you stop by that poster, and bring it to her attention by rubbing your nose on it, maybe she’ll read it and give this guy a call. My guy used to confuse me a lot before he worked with this horse guy too, but since he’s worked with him, we’ve gotten much happier. That horse guy is pretty nice for a two legged type, and he’s pretty calm and relaxing to be around too. Its one of the best things my owner ever did.

Gertie: Cool, I’ll do it!

That was all I heard because they started walking away and then they both broke into a beautiful gallop and began bucking and laughing as they got out of listening range. Both horses seemed very happy, and that’s what I overheard that day in the pasture.

Until then, Walter

If you would like to contact me, please do so at, eternaldreamshorse@hotmail.com