39. Herd Behaviour...

After i did some ground work with Spice today i decided to sit and watch the herd for a while to see if there was anything i could learn about leadership...

As soon as i put Spice back into the pasture i noticed that she immediately started 'dominating' all of the horses who were as we think of it 'beneath' her. She used what could only be described as threatening, aggressive behaviour to do this and sure enough it worked - she managed to re-affirm her position as being above them in the herd putting herself in second place to fen the herd leader.

What i also noticed was that as soon as spice launched an attack on a horse 'beneath' her that horse would quickly follow suit and launch an attack on the horse they deemed to be 'beneath' them.

However, during this process i noticed that there were two horses that did not to take any notice let alone part in the shananigans and this was Fen the herd leader and her yearling pie. In fact, apparently they did not once feel the need to re-affirm their position...and throughout the whole ordeal remained completely calm and unphased by it.

What i noticed next though was even more interesting. Once spice had moved the rest of the herd around she walked over to where fen was and started grazing by her side. Then as fen moved away towards the rest of the herd spice followed and she continued to stay beside fen for quite some time until things had calmed down and everyone was grazing.

Knowing that spice is the most nervous horse in the pasture and definitely the least bold led me to wonder something...could it be that because spice is more insecure than the other horses she feels the strongest need to be looked after and has learned that in order to feel safe she must be able to stay near to fen her leader and that the only way of making sure this happens is to be 'higher' than the rest of the herd so no one can move her away from this safe place?

It seems to me that spices attacks on the other horses were not what at first glance look to be aggression based attacks based on her wanting to assert her authority and leadership over them but actually fear based motivated by a deep sense of self preservation. She isn't bold enough to ever be the herd leader and doesn't want to be which is why she never challenges fen but it seems she recognises that to be 'best buddies' with the herd leader is the safest position to be in and so wards off any horse she feels could threaten this position.

Fen on the other hand is an extremely calm horse and seems to have an inner sort of confidence, she doesn't seem to have or need to be looked after by another horse and so doesn't have any need to try to battle her way through to 'any position' is this why she doesn't take part in these attacks?

Fens yearling Pie, is also calm but does he know that no matter what position he is in (which is currently the bottom) that his mum will always protect him over any other horse and therefore like fen feels no need to fight for position?

For years, it seems we have assumed that horses which dominate other horses do so because they are re-affirming their positions as being the leader of that horse the more bolder and more confident...However having thought about everything i saw today...it seems that it is not the bolder more confident horse that attempts to put another horse in it's place for seemingly no reason but actually the less confident.

The only time i saw fen exert any dominance over any of the other horses was when she wanted to go in a certain direction and they were in her way - However, she never attempted to use violence or aggression to do this - more often than not she was most polite and merely suggested that they move for her to which they all obliged.

So what does this say about leadership?...well on reflection i think it says alot - it seems to suggest that by taking an un aggressive approach and being calm, fair and polite your horse will actually want to be with you and do as you ask because they know that you keep them safe and self preservation is what comes first to all horses. So provide a safe place for your horse and he/she will want to be with you just as spice wants to be with fen.

In human terms i think of it like this...in our life when another human puts another person down - it's often because they are insecure about themselves and are merely projecting their feelings of insecurity onto someone else. However, it is rare that such a person will ever attempt to put someone they see as 'popular' down in fact often as humans we will try to 'suck up' to the more 'popular' person and go out of our way to please. For instance if you befriend the most popular person in school the chances are they'll look after you and protect you from ever getting bullied or picked on. I wonder if this could be similar to what horses do...

Of course i could be completely wrong about all this... i've simply tried to look at things and make sense of them...