How do horses react to human emotions?

Horses generally respond to human emotions authentically, honestly and without judgement.

They are highly social animals and so highly attuned to the emotional and energetic state of others. Not just horses.

Humans and Horses share core mammalian emotional behaviours and motivations. Their social intelligence has a natural awareness.

To explain the horses’ reactions simply – they move towards or away from. Emotions in all mammals are motivators, those motivations offer rewards or threats. We are drawn to the rewards and or move away from threats. The horses’ behaviours are essentially scales of approach or retreat, do they want more of something, or to move away from it. It is the role of the facilitator to work with these actions on the part of the horse(s).

Science is increasingly understanding just how good the horses are at recognising and understanding human emotions, as well as intuitive “sensing” how we are, much as they do with each other.

The inital pioneering work of understanding animal emotional behaviour and its commonality to humans was carried out by Jaak Panskeep in his books Affective Neuroscience and Archaelogy of the Brain. Other pioneering work has been led by ethologists such as Frans de Waal and Lucy Rees.

The writings of Carl Safina are also a strong voice in support of recognising emotional behaviours in the animal world and their interaction with humans.