Horses, Sourwood and All Of The Things that We Do Not See

The horse notices everything and understands nearly nothing. The human notices nearly nothing and understands somethings. I will soon be sixty one years old. Between decades of hunting and many years in the saddle I have spent as much time in the woods as could be hoped for in this century.

While converting a large section of mature, mixed wood forest into silvopasture I encountered a strange bent tree that I was certain I had never seen before. Because of its rarity I decided to leave it to grow. As I cut through more of the forest I found several score of them. 

I began to notice this odd tree in mature hardwood forests every time I rode in the woods. Yet, I had never noticed it before.

And now for the real shock, I could not find anyone else who knew what it was either. I could not find anyone who had noticed such a tree before.

It is a sour wood tree. I was blind to it's existence all of my life.

The overwhelming majority of horse owners are in a similar boat. They have been exposed to horse behavior for decades and have never noticed or even remotely understood what they were observing. They interpret horse behavior through the prism of human or canine behaviors. 

A horse is not a human, and it certainly is not a human infant. A horse is not a dog. A horse deserves the respect of being treated as a horse. The horse deserves an owner who works to understand the mind of the horse. The horse deserves an owner who has the courage to reject the edicts of the established horse world and the intellectual curiosity to put the hours of solid research into understanding the mind of the horse.