Pawing may be due to colic. If also the animal sweats and keeps
looking at his flank, there is certainly pain in the abdomen.
Pointing with a forefoot. When standing, a horse rests his hind legs
by changing weight from one to the other at intervals of a minute.
As he has no mechanism to do this with the fore limbs, he expresses
pain in one of them by pointing the foot forward. He rests better
facing down a slope then facing up as in a stable, and when in pain
may be relieved by tying to the stanchion instead of to the manger.
Dragging the fore foot means injury to the shoulder.
Head out, chin up, feet apart, and sweating, mean that the chap is
choking.
Head down and tail tucked in, mean misery or sickness.
(12) Gestures of joy.
Bright eyes, a glossy coat, head carried proudly, and tail high, dry
nostrils, hard droppings, free movement, and a willing gait are signs
most eloquent of health. To pass the time of day with other horses,
shy at the {92} clouds, paw the moon, and dance, with pig jumping or
even a little bucking after breakfast, are signals of youth, joy and
good fellowship.
Then one may watch the play of the nostrils making a thousand
comments on scents borne in the air, while the ears will point and
quiver to all sorts of sounds beyond man's hearing. The mood will
change from sober thoughtfulness in the shadow of clouds or trees, to
sheer intoxication of delight with sparkling frost, dew on the
flowers, sunshine in the skies. No creature on earth expresses
feeling with sweeter quickness than a happy horse.
(13) Nuzzling is sometimes an appeal for help, more often an
expression of loving sympathy.
[Sidenote: Thought transference]
(14) Nothing so far explains how a couple of horses will put their
heads together, touch nostrils, and in a second come to some sort of
mutual understanding, which leads to immediate concerted action such
as the bolting of a team. In one or two cases I am not sure that the
nostrils actually touched. In many cases when I saw nostrils rubbed
together or the beard bristles in contact, no sound was made within
the compass of my hearing. Neither were there such lip movements as
would be {93} made by speech, nor was there any self-conscious,
found-out expression in the faces of conspirators caught plotting
against the white men.
When I have been in company with some very dear friend, and one of us
would answer out loud to an unspoken thought of the other, or both of
us were moved to say the same thing in the like words, we called that
thought-transference. When my horse came to me in camp, and standing
behind caressed my neck or ear with his lips or nostril trying by
thought-transference to tell me all about his pain or sorrow, he
might get his face slapped before I realised exactly what he said.
Only as I learned to welcome horses when they came to me, I seemed to
sense their feelings. They converse among themselves by
thought-transference, and try to speak that way to men they trust.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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