We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth. Henry Beston
If we judge the intelligence of horses by our own standards, we are likely to be wrong every time. I hear all sorts of opinions about how smart or stupid horses are. Some people seem to think they have little or no intelligence. Others think they are smarter than we are. Why such extreme opinions? You would think that we could come to some kind of consensus on this.
How smart are horses?
Human beings have a highly developed frontal cortex in the brain which gives us an unparalleled ability to conceptualize, generalize, plan for the future, and review the past. This overdeveloped ability to conceptualize should not be confused with across the board superior intelligence. As Temple Grandin suggests, we pay a big price for this advanced type of intelligence. Because of our overdeveloped ability to conceptualize, we have an underdeveloped awareness of the present moment and poor awareness of our surroundings.
Most everyone would agree that horses have a superior awareness of their surroundings and immediate attention to the present moment. How often does your horse see or sense something before you do? How often do you get stepped on or bumped because your horse is leaving before you even sense that something is wrong? Horses have superior intelligence to ours when it comes to being in touch with what is happening around them right now.
Equine intelligence exceeds ours in other ways. Horses have a highly developed ability to read emotions and moods. When we have to ask someone how they are feeling, horses know without asking. This intuitive ability protects horses from being eaten by a predator, but allows them to live side by side with predators. For instance, they know instantly when a lion is hungry and on the hunt, or equally as instantly when a lion is not looking for a meal.
Our superior ability to conceptualize can lead us to think that horses are stupid. Horses have very little ability to conceptualize, but this does not make them stupid. If we train a horse to do something from the left side, we should not expect him to get the “concept” and then be able to do the same thing from the right side. Equine intelligence does not work that way. Military conventions for horsemanship dictate always mounting horses from the left side. Horses can be mounted from the right, but they need to be taught the routine from the left and then again from the right (or vice versa) to “get it” on both sides. The military convention was established to cut down on training time.
Horses have another kind of superior intelligence. They don’t let past failures in relationships prevent them from starting over in the present. You’ve heard the saying “To err is human, and to forgive is equine.” Equines are always ready to start fresh in a relationship. They may be sceptical, but are usually easily convinced with the right kind of leadership. Try starting over with your “ex” some time and you’ll see that we are not nearly as intelligent.
Horses also don’t worry about the future the way we do. As far as a horse is concerned, the only thing that is worth getting upset about is what is happening right now. We would do well to learn that lesson.
So, if we stop measuring a horse’s intelligence by his ability to conceptualize, what are we left with? We are left with a intelligent animal who is in touch with your every move, and is assessing your ability as a leader from moment to moment. For many horses, the standards for leadership are very high. They are watching your every move in detail and deciding if you are worthy of their cooperation and trust. A far cry from many of us who give away our trust for the most naive reasons some times.
