At home: wintery friends.....x

A horse in winter, or any animal in fact is that much more connected to human contact. Its not really anything to do with the animal loving you any more than usual . Its purely food related. They realise in times of food shortage that humans are the herd leaders more than ever.

Humans, help horses out of hard times. When they run out of grass, the human moves them on. In a natural herd, a matriarchal mare, or old stallion would be responsible for keeping the herd alive in hard times. So whether its a handful of grass, throwing over a bucket of windfall apples, or a forkful of haylage, I think that this establishes respect more than any hands-on training.

We watched 'Life of Pi' this evening. I smiled at the point where he keeps the biggest Tuna fish away from the Tiger, and feeds it to him bit by bit. Animals see more sense than to bite the hand that feeds them...x