Fun fact, as a kid I spent a series of summers at a gorgeous horse farm. One of my favorite memories from that time was wandering out to the pasture early in the morning and watching the horses trot around. It was mesmerizing. So when the movie The Horse Whisperer came out, I, of course, tried whispering into the horses’ ears. If you know me, that’s not at all surprising, but sadly, my horsey sweet nothings did nothing for either parties involved.

Now that I’m older and, let’s assume, wiser, I’m on the mission to figure out what exactly is horse whispering?

Horse whispering is a holistic practice which involves working with a horse’s instincts; it’s often called natural horsemanship (Many, but not all, practitioners of natural horsemanship adopt the nickname “horse whisperer” to describe their practices). A horse whisperer uses his or her understanding of a horse’s nature and its point of view to communicate with the horse s/he is trying to train. Natural horsemanship techniques were derived from observing the way that wild horses communicated with each other. It’s a gentle training method, especially in comparison to “breaking a horse,” which often involves punishment as a way to domesticate or train.

The origin of the term “horse whisperer” dates back to the early nineteenth century. An Irish horseman, Dan Sullivan, was able to calm and train unmanageable horses just by standing face to face with the horse and whispering into its ear. No one knows what he said to the horses or what his practice involved, but eventually others followed in his footsteps, including American Willis J. Powell, who worked with traumatized horses all around the country.

Horse whispering is about learning the horse’s language and knowing how to respond to it and using equine language to communicate back with it. Horse whisperers take special notice to the movements of a horse’s ears, leg movement, hooves, head positions, body posture, eyes, eyelids, mouth, tongue, neck posture, nose, tail and leg positions. In addition, they will look at the speed of the horse’s movements, body placement, and study reactions like snorts, hoof beats, and mouth noises. All of these observations together help shape and determine equine language.

A few examples of hands-on horse whispering practices include:

• Breathing into a horse’s nose with your nose is perceived as a sign of friendliness. In horse language it means hello.
• “Feathering the tongue,” or stroking the tongue briefly encourages a horse to relax and submit. Horse whisperers do this by securing the horse’s muzzle with one hand (so the head can’t whip around) and sticking a finger into the corner of the horse’s mouth with the other.
• Standing next to a horse’s head, face forward and bend your body at the waist with your head down while using pressure on the lead rope. Then, ask for the horse’s head to come down close to the ground. This reinforces the idea that a high head is an alert horse and a lowered head is relaxed horse.
• Kneading the withers, or the top ridge between the shoulder bones of a horse.  We know that this technique works with other animals. For horses, when they are bonding or mutual grooming, they will cross necks with their teeth and they will knead each other in this spot of the back.

Now that I finally know what a horse whisperer is, I don’t I’ll be trying to catch a wild mustang by whispering into its ear, but I enjoyed learning about the fascinating practice.

Images:  e3000, david.nikonvscanon, moocatmoocat

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