anthropomorphism and horses

Over and over again, I read and hear horse people saying, "I don't want to anthropomorphize, but..."  Or it's used as a cautionary statement, "You shouldn't anthropomorphize your horse."

What IS anthropomorphism anyway? And why shouldn't we do it?

One definition from dictionary.com defines anthropomorphism this way:

The attributing of human characteristics and purposes to inanimate objects, animals, plants, or other natural phenomena, or to God. To describe a rushing river as “angry” is to anthropomorphize it.

On some level I agree that we shouldn't make a habit of attributing human characteristics to anything other than humans. However, the case for not anthropomorphizing our horses has become a way to say they don't have human characteristics, therefore they don't think with logic. They don't feel emotion. They don't share affection. They can't truly bond.

My frustration with this mindset is that we assume all those characteristics are human in the first place! How presumptious!


Back in 1927, Pavlov wrote that animals should be viewed "without any need to resort to fantastic speculations as to the existence of any possible subjective states." 


That makes it really easy to subject them to both experiments and a kind of treatment in training and caretaking that we wouldn't dare apply to our children or other family members.  Yet this approach is all too common in horse training the world over.

That kind of training works, but at what cost? If we merely observe and seek to shape a behavior without also looking at underlying emotion, we discount an entire layer of a horse's state of being. 


Darwin wrote:


Even insects play together, as has been described by that excellent observer, P. Huber, who saw ants chasing and pretending to bite each other, like so many puppies.

Many of us who live with horses see on a daily basis the complex emotional responses they are capable of: playfulness, affection, annoyance, anger, loneliness, fear, compassion. The list goes on. 

Why then are we discouraged from saying: my horse loves me, or my horse misses his buddy, or my horse is afraid of the umbrella?


Probably so we can feel okay about selling the horse when he gets too old to ride, or too expensive to keep, or his buddy gets too old or too expensive, or so we can feel just fine about shoving the umbrella in the horse's face against his will in the name of de-spooking him, all the while considering that any movement away from us, self-appointed herd leader, is disobedience.


Do I sound frustrated? I am. I've been reading anecdotes of horse people saying I don't play with my horses, as if doing so might make them less 'professional.'


And that when helping a young horse learn about fly spray, you put him on a halter and lead line and never stop spraying until he stops moving, because god forbid you reward him for his fear.


To eschew anthropomorphism allows us to also eschew empathy, and to do things in the name of training we would never do if we had to consider the emotional impact of our methods.


Frans de Waal wrote:

To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.

So yes, the next time someone suggests I'm anthropomorphizing Keil Bay, or Rafer Johnson, YES, I will say, ABSOLUTELY.

Because every time I open my mind to the reality that these equines are thinking, being, loving, intentional creatures, I allow the beauty of real relationship to blossom and flower.

My life, and theirs, is richer for it.