Horses Never Lie

Insightful and Delightful

I have lost track of any specific reasons why I originally purchased this book; however, I know at least in part I was curious with respect to this book on working with horses (which I have never done except for minor interaction in daily caregiving), how the author’s tips and techniques might also correspond to, and assist me in dog training.

Too often, we humans want to impose ourselves on our companion animals and either don’t realize or forget easily, that working together is the object of the game! Partnership rather than domination and submission naturally lead to better results, and our failure to read the animal’s questions, misunderstanding, apprehension, need for affirmation of connection with us, etc. in response, can be ‘ground zero’ for where we jointly or severally then go wrong. Trust is not earned and/or is eroded and spirals to be lost, with attendant negative behavioural responses (our perception) which we then try to figure out how to handle, not properly taking in that our human behaviour may be unfathomable and less than clear and logical from the animal’s perspective. This becomes extremely clear through the stories in this book.

Generally speaking, training has certainly evolved for dogs in the last 30 to 40 years, so I expect similarly for this kind of horse training also. Fortunately we more often have people informed better, who will, in fact do in practice, allow animals to respond individually, including not being punished for not performing for us, but observed for the not-so-hidden tells and messages involved (when you know what to look for). Switching from a search for the negative and routing perceived ‘wrong’ behaviour out is replaced by examining if the animal may simply not have understood what was required! Or, have a reason perfectly sane and logical to it, for not following through, that we might discover if we are paying proper attention.

When we insisted, thinking our animals should know how to perform what we asked, we were often, so simply, wrong about the causal links and sundry (to us) aspects and thus how to handle the misunderstanding. Rashid’s ability to see these things for what they are, to read horses and so intimately understand their behaviour, as well as that of us humans, to observe and respond compassionately to both, allows him to paint vivid pictures and us to gain so much knowledge from his words and storytelling.

A reader cannot help but be drawn in and to ‘root’ for the horse and owner duos; it is almost like hearing it in person, resulting from his highly personal and very effective writing and storytelling style. And the retrospective commentary at the end of each chapter sheds a bit more light, updating and clarifying where necessary. The author candidly assessing and revealing in this way just adds tasty icing, so-to-speak, to the multilayered cake of the book overall.

If you love horses and equine tales, read this book. If you train horses, you may be the obvious audience. But many more of us can and do benefit from introductory learning about horse behaviour and the many stories of partnerships created or restored do make for te most heartwarming reading. Thus, I highly recommend this book and give it five stars.