For a person who has ever been touched by the healing power of a horse, they understand they are not mere tools to be used for our greater good. They are powerful, brilliant, strong and sentient creatures. For these reasons, they are historically humankind’s greatest companions. 

At New Hope, we know horses deserve care equal to their human counterparts. They are not another thing for humans to dominate, use and dispose of when people are finished with them when they become disabled or ill as was the case of many of the horses now in our care. Program Director and Founder Sharla Kershen and her team have rescued some of their horses from kill barns, sale barns (the step before kill barns), or left neglected from someone’s pasture. 

“One size fits all” doesn’t work well with animals. Each horse — like each human — is unique, with a different background, and various experiences, strengths, and weaknesses,” writes neurologist Janet L. Jones in “Horse Brain, Human Brain: The Neuroscience of Horsemanship.” What may be a beneficial treatment or training method for one horse will not work on another, and Sharla is aware of that. Like a teacher in a classroom full of students, or a doctor at a clinic, team New Hope would be amiss if they forced the same pedagogy and application for all of their horses or riders. Some need more affection, more attention, less attention, partnership, alone time, sugar-free snacks. This takes a team of volunteers and paid staff. This takes medicine, supplements, the proper grooming materials, feed according to various dietary needs and restrictions, reliable footing in their pens, to name a fraction of items needed. 

A horse and a human brain communicate in a dance. Jones writes it is a mistake to think that horses must bow to the human ways of thinking and communicating. Yes you can communicate calm, ease and leadership to the horse you are working with, but what you are trying to say is much more effective if you listen to your horse as well, she writes. Horse whispering is not whispering, but rather listening with compassion and understanding, she says. Jones suggests we must connect with animals at their level instead of demanding they meet us where we are.  

Like Francis of Assisi’s prayer suggests, it is far more virtuous to seek to understand rather than to be understood. To demand to be understood by the horse or a fellow human, is the egoic mind at work. Horses ask that we communicate to them from our pure heart and soul. They teach us how to be free of the ego. This is why the horses at New Hope are teaching veterans how to communicate better with people, young people how to deal with disability and people of all ages to better cope with anxiety.

It would be nice if our fellow humans listened and met us where we are and stop demanding that we adjust to them. Horses teach us not to be egocentric. They remind us that it isn’t just our world we live in — it also belongs to countless species, not to mention other humans.