Simple delight in life's experiences is a characteristic of love that is shared in both horses and humans. Horses express this daily and show their love through gratitude and appreciation. One example is the food and care that we give them. Almost all horses enthusiastically accept their food.
Feed him, brush him, train him, take him out for a walk, ride him, let him eat grass, give him interaction time with other horses or other animals and repeat the order next day.
Apples and carrots are traditional favorites. You can safely offer your horse raisins, grapes, bananas, strawberries, cantaloupe or other melons, celery, pumpkin, and snow peas. Most horses will chew these treats before swallowing, but horses that gulp large pieces of a fruit or vegetable have a risk of choking.
While they often talk with their ears and eyes, they show feelings through snorts and whinnies. In general, snorts mean horses are happy or feel at peace. The more frequently they snort, the more comfortable they are.
The most basic equine exercise is to connect with an untethered horse in a paddock. An Equest facilitator explained that the proper way to say hello to a horse is by gently extending your closed hand. The horse returns the greeting by touching your hand with its muzzle. Simple enough.
A horse's respect is earned by moving his feet forward, backward, left, and right, and always rewarding the slightest try. Think about respect from your horse's point of view. When horses are thrown together out in a pasture, it's natural for them to establish a pecking order.
Speak in a soft voice to let them know your presence. As you are walking towards the horse you want to meet, speak to it in a soft voice. You can greet it by saying “hi” and its name. It doesn't matter what you say, as long as you use a soft, gentle voice.
If a horse is grazing in a field and they come towards you when you are around you can be sure they like you. Horses that follow your movements in their presence show they are focused on and give you 100% of their attention. If your horse follows you around when they see you, they consider you as a friend.
Horses Trust You When They're At Ease Around You
Their bottom lip is tight. Their nostrils are tense. Their tail is moving quickly or not at all. Their ears are pinned back on their head, or alert and facing you.
Approaching You
Having your horse approach you unprompted is a sure sign that they both recognize and appreciate you. Horses easily pick up on human emotion. If you are stressed, frustrated, and angry, they will associate you with those emotions.
Much like other pets, horses use licking as a way to show their love! Breathing on you, licking, and kissing are all ways a horse may be trying to tell you how much you mean to them. They also may grasp you with their lips to pull you in, and then lick.
Horses can read human facial expressions and remember a person's mood, a study has shown. The animals respond more positively to people they have previously seen smiling and are wary of those they recall frowning, scientists found.
One of the more popular Internet horse searches begs the simple, sweet question, “Can a horse love you?” The short answer, of course, is a resounding yes. We know that animal love is a different emotion than that of human love.
Stand beside your horse and wait until they are calm with the head straight or turned away, give an audio cue such as 'good girl/boy, click or whatever you want to use, then give the reward. Chances are your horse will immediately try and get more food.
Yes, they do. Very much so. And they have long memories for both the humans they've bonded with in a positive way and the ones who have damaged or abused or frightened them. The depth of the connection depends greatly on several things, not the least of which is the amount of time the human spends with the animal.
Moreover, horses reacted in accordance with the valence of the vocalization, both behaviorally and physiologically (heart rate). These results show that horses can cross-modally recognize human emotions and react emotionally to the emotional states of humans, assessed by non-verbal vocalizations.
Do horses smile? They sure do. Recent study results suggest horses have specific facial expressions that reveal positive emotions akin to “happiness,” in a sense. And while those expressions might not be the cheesy cartoon grin or the human ear-to-ear, they do represent the “equine happy face.”
Some horses enjoy having their heads and ears rubbed. Horses often groom each other on the whither, so this would be a good place to try too.
Affection in Horse Terms
Kissing and hugging are human ideas of affection. Horses do “spar” (play fight) and bite at the lips, but that's even more of a reason not to kiss them there. Keep your horse's lips away from your lips. You don't want him to think you're playing and be bitten.
Emotional mirroring, motor mimicry, and synchronized movements are viewed as evidence of primal empathy,² and the responses are typically unconscious and immediate.
Horses aren't just for humans to show one another affection. Did you know that horses hug too? Just make sure that you're on the horse's good side before hugging them, and remember that if they start licking you or breathing on you it is often because they appreciate your company.