Ride Every Stride | Horsemanship And Personal Growth With Van Hargis

Some of my favorite questions are more philosophical in nature, and recently I’ve been asked an interesting one: How do you know if your horses are happy? Understanding this boils down to the main differences between horses and people. We tend to apply human emotions and characteristics to our horses that often don’t apply to them. But horses don’t jump out of airplanes or go to the movies or go on hikes to find happiness like humans do. Horses are very different animals from us with different ways of expressing themselves. In this episode, we’re going over signs that your horse is anxious or frustrated and thinking about what horse happiness actually looks like. Key Takeaways In order to give a cure you first have to find the cause - this is something Jack Brainard once taught me. So, if we want to make our horses happy it will do us well to figure out why they are unhappy first. Horses can show their anxiety and frustration by swishing a tail or pinning their ears, even if they go on to do what you ask