Anthropomorphism

I love flipping through old Western Horseman magazines..you never know what entertaining stuff you might find!! I love reading the back page articles by Baxter Black. He has an amazing sense of humor, but he knows how to get down to the point..here's one of my favorite articles, and I can relate to it a lot.

" Anthropomorphism is a word that has often been used in a negitive context by people in the livestock business. By definition, it is the ascription of human characteristics to things not human--particularly animals.

"In our continuing effort to raise animals for meat purposes humanely, we confront huge moral, biological, spiritual and logical differences that distinguish man from beast. Yet, we who spend our lives caring for animals know better than most that incidents occur that cannot be explained or denied.

"Horse people know that bonds exist between horses. 'Buddy' relationships are established if horses are penned closely for a period of time. Take out just one of them for a ride and the other will nicker and pace, and watch every new arrival until his buddy is back. At which time they may renew their biting. bullying and trash-talking with each other!

"'Just like my brothers and me,' I remark, anthropomorphizing."

"Gary's 31-year-old mare died of old age. Her 20-year-old gelded offspring and two other horses were in the pasture with her. On the advice of his veterinarian, Gary left the dead body unburied for three days. Allow the other horses to grieve, the vet had said.

"Gary said the offspring stood vigil over the mare's corpse. After she was buried, he saw the gelding pawing the grave eventually scooping out a good sized hole before he gave up. Was he trying to bring her back?

"When my old dog, Hattie, didn't come into the backyard for the night, I went ahead and locked up her co-dog, Pancho. Next morning, Pancho and I went out to feed. I called for Hattie. Finally, I asked Pancho, "Where's Hattie?" He took me west, out of the corrals, up into the horse pasture, all the way to the far gate. There she was. She had died in the night.

"I buried her immediately. Pancho went off feed. Everymorning for several days, when I let him out of the yard, he would go straight to her grave and lie beside it. Try as I might, I cannot explain what I think was going on in his ming without using terms that describe human emotions.

"Maybe that's the way it should be. We aren't supposed to know everything"


I absolutely loved this article. When I was in middle school, a boy always picked on me and made me cry because I believe my horse had a "soul". He thought differently after me when I gave him a black eye...'nuff said. I never really thought much of it. To me, horses are a lot like people; they have happy moments, they laugh (even though not audible), they get depressed, they fall in love, etc. Sure, that might not be whats really happening, but it sure seems like it to me. Maybe it's an instict thing, we will never know. From what I know, horses have one main instinct. Fight or Flight. Now if you really think about it, isn't that what us humans have, we run from things that scare us, but if need be we will fight, won't we?
When my late gelding, Mango passed away, Dream and Sassy knew it (I only had three horses at the time). Mango's body laid in a stall, and Dream fought Sassy away from the door for hours. This was Dream's time to say goodbye to Mango, she didn't want her pesky daughter in the way. When we dragged Mango's body onto the flatbed, we let the horses sniff him all over. Sassy lightly licked his neck for a while. I'm sure if horses could cry, she'd be crying tears of sorrow. My friends came over and they said goodbye to Mango. Everyone hugged his neck, patted his face, attempted to close his eyes, and did their best to ignore the blood dripping from his nose.