Horses are by nature very different from other animals we meet in our daily life, and their behavior is closer to human than one would think. Horses are social creatures and seek attachment relationships – just like us. They live in herds and establish hierarchical, family-like structures.
Most members of my herd are rescued from a situation of abuse, abandonment or at least maltreatment. Those horses suffer from trauma in certain degrees and while living in a herd has brought all of them back to normal horse behavior, some do get triggered in training and especially when ridden.
As a horse person and as a professional in the mental health field who has treated many human victims of abuse, I have been disturbed in particular by the long-term, even permanent psychological damage suffered by horses which have been traumatized in the course of training, competing, and by general mismanagement.
