Relative Something

Horses are experts at paying attention. That is one of the reasons they are so good as facilitators of our learning exercises. They don’t miss a thing.

During preparations for an exercise in the round pen, all 4 horses stood in close proximity to the participants, whether they were involved or not.

At one point during the afternoon, I spotted 2 of the horses turned around and facing the other direction. There was something in the distance, not visible to us, that the horses had alerted on from two different positions. Their heads were positioned identically, and moved together as if they were connected.

While they stood watch, the other two remained calm and kept their attention on our activity, feeling safe to entrust their well-being to the two sentinels. Whatever it was that had gotten their attention must have disappeared shortly thereafter, and they rotated like a compass needle, to point back at the round pen.

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