Reviews

This book has taken some time to review, not because it was a difficult volume to read (far from it) but because each and every time I mentioned it to someone they all wanted to borrow it and it’s taken time to get it back!
During her school years and much to the annoyance of the Head Mistress, my sister used her form prize of book token to purchase ‘A Problem Horse’. Though really useful, this book was of its time in that it sought to identify a ‘vice’ or trait in a horse and then eliminate it. This IS NOT the approach taken in Bensusan’s book.
Understanding Your Horses Emotions takes the reader on a different journey, one that will enable them to understand the way that their horse views the world and therefore the way that it interprets various events. Did you know that horses will use different nostrils to given them information about a new experience or information? Or that horses can be categorised in an emotional context as ‘right side dominant’ or ‘left side dominant’?
A left side dominant horse can be a very dominant animal that loves to play and this ‘pushiness’ can result in him being naughty, but if stabled for too long he can get depressed and angry. Though this horse is food orientated If he becomes too stressed during training he can lie down and refuse to participate further.
Whereas a right side dominant horses approach to the world is governed by the //fight or flight// mechanism with self-defence and survival as his priority. If he becomes spooked whilst being led he may well run into you. However to a right side dominant horse this is not aggression but is his way of trying to get his ‘herd’ to run from danger with him. If fearful he will kick out then run away just in case of retaliation.
The author then goes on to explains in a detailed but highly readable style just what all of this means for us as horse keepers and how we can use that knowledge to improve the rate and quality of communication between horses and humanAt 184 pages this is not a long book, it is written in a highly readable style and it deserves a place on any horse-keepers bookshelf. This is a book worthy of anyone’s Christmas list, so go out and buy it. Your horse will thank you for it.