IS LOVE ENOUGH?

By Ben Hart

One of the questions that I ask on behaviour home visits is, “Why do you have horses?” 

As you are reading this, why don’t you pause for a moment and answer that question for yourself, “Why do you have horses?” 

I get a variety of answers, such as, “Good question!”, “Because I always have”, “They make me happy”, “I am not sure”. However, the most common is, “Because I love them.” Even if this is not their first answer, it usually follows pretty quickly after their initial thoughts.

It seems reasonable, and perhaps it was one of your thoughts too. However, what does it mean to love a horse, donkey or mule? Love is an easy word to throw at our equine relationships. Do we consider what love is or more accurately what love requires?  

There are different types of love and lots of ways to love. We love a friend, we love a spouse or life partner, the dog, our cat, maybe our children, our new car, the house, garden, perhaps a hobby or our favourite sporting team. Do we love all of these things the same way? And is there a right way to love our horses?

Love is something I hear a lot from pet owners in general. Dogs and cats or rabbits, hamsters, reptiles and even fish owners say they love their pet companion. However, what I often see in their behaviour or their pet’s experience doesn’t look like love. 

Dogs that are loved but are going crazy and developing behaviour issues because they do not get the right amount of exercise or are not allowed to fulfil their breed needs. Rabbits and small rodents living in impoverished, tiny unstimulating environments with little chance to perform natural behaviour, but their owners love them. It makes me wonder if love is enough or if we have confused romantic love with real love.

Love is a feeling. A lovely feeling. Romantic love can be all-consuming, changing brain chemistry, altering behaviour, and lifting us to new heights of euphoric oxytocin-fuelled activity that can either lead us to ruin or a lifetime of happiness. I get that sort of love and I hope you do too. Is there more to love than just these romantic feelings? 

What sort of love might serve our horses better? It always seemed to me that if you loved an animal, you would not let them suffer. I feel that if you love an animal, you do your best to meet their needs even if doing so makes us a little uncomfortable.

In his classic book, The Road Less Travelled, psychologist Scott M. Peck defines love as ‘The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.’ So perhaps real love is work, it is stretching our comfort zones and being absorbed in the needs of the object of our love, be that our car, garden or horse. Real love is working to be the best version of ourselves as we learn about ourselves through the work of relationships with others.

While we might not be trying to nurture our horse’s spiritual growth, I would argue that nurturing their mental capacity to deal with domestication is akin to spiritual growth. We should be helping build their resilience. We need to help them increase their problem-solving skills, confidence and trust in themselves and us, if they are to lead their best life. 

If we love our horses, then we need to provide an environment that supports their growth. Resilience, the ability to bounce back after any setback, is strongly influenced by the environment. When we really love our horses, we provide an enriched environment, one that is mentally stimulating and allows them to move, rest and socialise with appropriate friends. The act of doing this often requires us to learn, to explore new ideas and ways of improving our horses’ lives that previously we might have been resistant to. 

Does our training fit the needs and physical and mental abilities of our horse? It is easy to get focused on the requirement to ride. For some methods or people, it almost appears that riding is an entitlement. They just want to fix their horse so they can ride out or ride out without fear. There is nothing wrong with wanting to ride, provided tack fits, and physical and mental wellness are preserved. There is nothing wrong with wanting to help a horse feel more confident or have more trust in us, so they can ride out, but are we “fixing” them for their sake or ours? 

It is common to hear horses talked about as the best teachers or the lessons we have learnt from them. The work of real love means that if we help another to reach their potential, we have the opportunity to grow too.  

Loving our equids can stretch our comfort zones in so many ways. Paying for and creating an enriched environment requires more of our time, physical effort, and mental preparation. Solving our horse’s physical issues can take us on a journey of discovery to the latest treatment and methods that in some cases lead us to a whole new life and career. 

The greatest opportunity for personal growth is behaviour. Working to overcome behaviour issues means working on ourselves more than the horse.  Our motivations, goals, communication skills, personal fears, self-esteem and confidence levels can all be drawn into question.  Questioning ourselves and our beliefs can be a massive stretch of our comfort zones, but if we do it for the love of our horses, the discomfort can bring new growth and great comfort, as we cut the ties with old habits and thought patterns that have been holding us back.

What does real love look like? I once watched an animal program where a behaviourist was called to work with an unhappy hamster. This young Syrian hamster couldn’t be handled, as he would bite the fingers of whoever tried to pick him up. If they let him out while they cleaned his small metal cage, the only way to get him back in was to scoop him up with a dustpan. The family were naturally upset. They loved him but had been hoping for love and cuddles and a friend for a 3-year-old daughter. 

The behaviourist’s answer was to build a large, three-storey hamster palace, with places to hide, different surfaces to roll and bathe in, tubes, eating spots, and plenty of choices. The hamster was placed in his new home, and much to the family’s sadness, they were told not to touch him for 3 weeks. They were sad because they couldn’t see him or even try to hold him. The behaviourist’s reply was perfect behaviourist logic, “ You’re not supposed to touch him. He is a nocturnal rodent who is fearful of people.” 

Yet three weeks later, the behaviourist opened a door of the enclosure and placed some of the hamster’s bedding on the small human’s hand to make it smell familiar. For the first time, the hamster walked out onto the outstretched hand, with no biting.  After two more weeks, the children were able to lift him out of his home and play gently with him, as he explored the cardboard forts and palaces they built for him, with no sign of any of his old behaviour. 

The first challenge with really loving our horses or hamsters is to take the focus off what we need or want. We have to see the world through their eyes. We have to open ourselves to the possibility that their needs are not being met. This painful first step is the first stretch of our comfort zones, and the truth can feel like a punch in the stomach. We don’t want to feel the pain of guilt if their life is coming up short or to pay the price of regret for past deeds that we would now find unacceptable. However, it is this first step of love that allows us to nurture their growth and ours. 

So, is loving our horses enough? Yes, but only if it is the right kind of love.  

P.S

If you are brave enough to take this first step in love in any area of your life, sit with it. Let the emotions come, don’t try to push them away or bury them. Don’t beat yourself up – you did the best you could, with who you were and what you knew at the time. These emotions are not obstacles but guides to how you feel and what might need to change. By letting them exist, you can learn from them and they will fade faster, allowing you to move on. You don’t have to fix everything at once. You just need to use your love to create the discipline to make small changes over time.