I've said it before but Mag is a very strange horse. Not normal, in so many ways.
One example is he talks to me like I'm a mare. It's disconcerting.
Today he did the same with Bellis and I admit, I feel like I'm back in Zoology 301 at UW, observing and tracking animal behavior. There is something going on between them that I am too human to understand.
They had an entire "conversation" in front of me, full of subtle gestures, eye movements, flirty talk on Mag's part, and Bellis exerting dominance passively by snorting at his whuffling at her nose, and ending the entire sketch by abruptly stamping a foreleg into the mud. Which Bellis NEVER does. Stamping is not her style.
He got the message and left her alone. We hung out a while, me rubbing Bellis' ears, Mag rubbing his jaw on my tools cuz Strange Mag always wants objects under his jowel to toy with. Do you know a horse who always wants to rub the underside of his jaw on a pooper scooper?
Do you know a horse who talks to you like you're another horse?
Baasha always seemed to understand I was a human.
.JPG)
10 comments:
Never - anthropomorphic thinking can get you into trouble with 1,000 lb. beasts :-)
Could Bellis have been in heat? Carmen talks to me often. Usually when I come home from work and get out of the car Other times as well.
My horse only speaks horse to other horses. She yells (in horse) to the dogs, but they are oblivious.
The house cat (Rumplecatskin) only speaks cat to me, but he converses verbally with Jim ALL THE TIME. The barn cat (Esmeralda) only talks out loud to Monica.
One goat verbalizes, the other doesn't.
Right now we have a yard full of immature roosters who haven't quite got the hang of "cock-a-doodling" and it sounds like they are shouting through kazoos.
Never a dull moment.
Connie, I know!
Teresa, did you see the video I made where Bellis was in heat (September?). She would not have stomped or snorted at him then! How does Carmen talk to you? I know the "food!" nicker and this is very similar, it's the food nicker without the food. No food to be had, just "nice to see ya" and it's always offered with an arched neck. I would wonder if he was incorrectly gelded but I've seen him around mares in heat and he ignores them completely, even with them sticking their "under-tail" parts into his muzzle.
Aarene, have mercy, cats make me cry still. I loved the sound of your goat, can you please do a video of their sounds? I know young rooster noises way better than I'd ever wished. However our good neighbors up the street have a particular hen that out-screeches the rooster with her egg lay screams. Seriously awful, like someones killing her, every day.
Yes - learning how to use my eyes like the mares do has helped so much. Having to work with the idea that my eyes/perception isn’t s*** in comparison with any of theirs, and that I need to rely on what they see/hear that I can’t. I’m slowly coming to accept the idea that they know more about my pregnancy than I do, as my closest friends (and favorite stallion) touch her after saying hello. Granted I am in the middle of an active broodmare herd with foals and bracketed by stallions on either side. Sure, it may be anthropomorphic but if it improves everyone’s life does it matter in the end?
My favorite stallion had a deep whuffle/nicker that was similar to how he greeted mares, but it had a lower pitch. To an untrained ear it probably would have sounded the same, but his tone and demeanor were clearly different.
That said: he was a gentleman around mares, even when they were in heat (I rode him in jump lessons with other horses and his attention was 100% on me, his rider, even when mares where lifting their tails at him.) He also absolutely 100% understood that I was not a mare: I was his human best friend, and he was incredibly respectful and gentle with me and my personal space. He is the only horse that has ever truly hugged me back also: I had been away on vacation for two weeks and I returned to the barn to find him in his turnout paddock. He was flirting with a mare two paddocks away (she was ignoring him). When I called his name, he turned around and gave that deep nicker, then, mare forgotten, trotted eagerly towards me while still "talking" to me and stopped right in front of me. I wrapped my arms around his giant neck (he was an Argentinean TB over 17 hh) and he placed his head across my back and pulled me closer towards his chest. He stayed that way until I let go.
Gracie has a similar nicker for me. So did my heart horse Cloud. I don't see a problem with it; I actually love it and I missed having a vocal horse when I had Lily. (She was very vocal with other horses but not with me.) It tickles me no end when animals understand that we are verbal creatures and try to communicate with us on our level. My cats CONSTANTLY talk to us. Aengus has distinct meows for when he's hungry, when he's happy, when he's upset at me, when he wants me to pick him up. If he's sitting next to me and I look at him, he'll make eye contact and chirp, "What's up?" Zombie also has a whole gamut of sounds that are reserved for the humans in the house, not his feline housemate. One of my dogs growing up, a Dalmatian mix, also understood we were verbal and she was always talking: barking, grumbling, whining, or modulating her voice in ways that almost sounded like human words. It was hilarious and so intelligent of her! Even though she sometimes drove us nuts! lol
Re: Mag and Bellis: I wonder if she was about to come into heat, or if there was a mare in the vicinity that was, and he was redirecting towards Bellis? It sounds like he was flirting with her and she was tolerating it until she said "Enough." I've seen mares do that among themselves as well; it's not just a gelding/stallion vs mare behavior.
Mag is SUCH a cool horse who very obviously adores you to the point of trying to verbally communicate with you. I don't see anything wrong with that. His abnormality is that he is abnormally smart and seems to be more attuned to you than you are to him. All I ever see when you describe his behaviors towards you vs towards other people is how much he loves *you.* He is a one-person horse and you're it. <3 It makes me sad that you don't seem to see it. :'(
Saiph, I'm intimidated by a horse talking to me like that. It's lovey talk and Mag is a bit of a live wire. Did you know he drops when doing in-hand work? (Every time.) That obviously means he's super relaxed, but I'm not familiar with that.
When you said it makes you sad that I don't see it, I recall the time a neighbor came out of her house, right after I got Mag. She said, "That horse is always watching you. He loves you." I was like, WTH who are you...but I trusted and believed her because why else would a stranger say that? Also, I'm not totally blind: )
Mag is not a safe horse. He is not comfortable in his own body. Putting his blanket on and off every day is a risky task. I suspect he has suffered electric static shocks from blankets like your Lily did when she took the tying post away and bashed in her head.
Similarly, riding him with a rain coat on has caused accidents. Something my last, good trainer realized in time to save herself.
I love this horse. I imagine the years we'll share together deepening the relationship.
Muppet, why is it that horse trainers never mention your facial expression, only your body positon? Isn't a facial expression an influencer of your intention? hrmph
Truly, I don’t know. Since taking on the broodmares, I realized the classic horse texts weren’t helping at all and I went for anything else I could find: raptors, camelids, zoo handling techniques....your face, your feelings, your smell are all important. 🤷🏼♀️
Facial expressions: horses can TOTALLY read those. My first language (probably before English) was "cat", which is totally a postural language--if a cat is speaking to you, the words almost always translate as something rude. Since I lack both a tail and movable/pointy ears, I've learned to use my eyebrows in place of ears, and use my head movements to do the tail.
And it turns out that "cat" is not terribly different from "horse", or at least, horses are usually able to decipher my pidgin version of cat.
However, I've noticed that people who do NOT speak cat or dog often get verbal interactions with those animals--apparently, the animals are trying to reach out to us in ways we usually communicate, and they obviously know that we are verbal! Maybe Mag is trying to speak human to you, but he only knows horse words :-)
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