ChinDig, my boy

So,  I have made it through almost a week and I haven't mentioned horses yet.  Today is the day.  So I decided I should touch on something very unusual about them for non-horsey readers to find interesting.  Horses have five highly developed senses: taste, touch, hearing, smell, and sight. They also have an enigmatic sixth sense, heightened perception, which is very rare in humans. 

Horses are unique in that they are the only domesticated animal that evolution has set up for flight and the horse's sensory system is acutely organized for heightened awareness. This extra sensory perception is the key to a horse's ability to transport a person to a place where one feels safe, loved and whole. 

Though some people, including scientists, think horses have a sixth sense. There are a few reasons for believing this. Horses can mysteriously find their way back home when in a strange place, miles away. They can sense the approach of a storm or other natural disturbance too. They seem to know when the vet is on his way before he’s even at the barn.

Henry Blake, an English author, has studied, observed, recorded, tested and re-tested horse conversations, which he has turned into a dictionary in his book, Talking With Horses.   According to Blake, there are 47 basic messages and 54 sub messages, usually connected with sound. However, he says, some messages are conveyed solely by signs. His work of identifying and listing horse messages is very useful and a solid contribution to the understanding and care of horses, but maybe his most important offering is that on extrasensory perceptions and telepathy.   Blake offers a number of experiments as examples of mind communication between man and horse.

Too many people already think love and kisses and good mental vibes will conquer all problems. There is much more to it than that, and the number of serious injuries to horse-huggers proves it. 

Horses, with a perfect understanding of horse talk, don’t rush in where angels fear to tread. And that’s telling you something. You don’t just decide one day that mental communication with horses is all you need to be a great trainer or rider.

Look at earthquakes. Many animals can sense an earthquake before the first windows in a building start shaking. But what they are feeling are actually pre-tremors and the ground moving - they can detect it before we can because they feel it. In earthquakes, where tremors don't occur often, it's been noted that animals don't seem to sense what is coming.

Likewise, many animals - especially horses and cattle - can sense a thunderstorm before it occurs. 

So Cool......horses!