The Journal of Animal Consciousness Vol 1, Issue 2 Vol 1 Issue 2 | Page 16

allowed complete control over his own
nutrition (within the confines of his place)
completely resolved what I erroneously
had thought to be a ‘behavioral issue’. A
horse should always be allowed free
access to a clean, non-fluoridated water
source; a healthy horse will consume five
to fifteen gallons of water per day, and
possibly more depending upon
temperature, humidity, etc (Reagan 2012,
p. 41). The horse should be allowed rest
time undisturbed; horses can sleep
standing up due to a unique ‘stayapparatus’ but need about an hour or two
of REM sleep in a twenty-four hour
period, which is generally taken in
relatively short bouts; it should be noted
they can only achieve REM sleep when
lying down (Goodwin 2007, p. 9).
U n f o r t u n a t e l y, t o o m a n y h o r s e s
experience REM sleep way too
infrequently. Exercise for a horse should
be on his own volition and given ample
space and opportunity, the horse will do
so. The reality for a horse is that many
times they are forced into exercise; horses
in the wild do not run around in circles
like many domestic horses are forced to
do, instead they walk many miles over
any 24-hour period. A horse that is let
‘out of his cage’ will typically display
extreme bursts of energy that is not seen
in one who is free.
Any one or a
combination of these aspects that are not
species-appropriate has the potential to
trigger pathology and/or behavioral
anomalies.

Ø Place20 - this can be defined as: “any
environmental locus in and through which
individual or group actions, experiences,
intentions, and meanings are drawn
together spatially” (Seamon 2014, p. 14).
The wild horses in the past met this
definition precisely, however domestic
horses experience a ‘built environment’ of
varying degrees, and even if there is no
physical structure (such as barn), there is
almost always restriction placed upon all
four of these definitive aspects due to a
dire lack of understanding regarding what

a horse sees as ‘appropriate place’. The
list of potential domestic place detriments
include:
inappropriate stocking rates,
confinement, transporting from place to
place or bringing in unfamiliars (such as a
boarding situation), forced weaning,
forced separation of dams and foals,
forced breeding, and so on. The horse is
a highly social and affiliative animal;
anything less than species-appropriate in
this regard has the potential to negatively
affect the horse, again, both
physiologically and with respect to
behavior. The very act of bringing a
horse into domesticity constitutes change
in a horse’s lifeworld. This shift, while
demonstrably workable for humans,
requires re-thinking whether it is truly
workable for the horse; most, if not all,
research toward this end has been from an
anthropocentric and behaviorist
perspective. A domesticated situation for
horses need not exist to the horse’s
detriment and can work within speciesappropriate parameters; however it takes
a phenomenological perception of the
animal, as well as putting human centric
desires into proper perspective to see
things differently and thus to accomplish
a species-appropriate place and lifestyle
for the horse (indeed, any domestic
animal).

Ø Trauma – this aspect involves all the
differing ‘assaults’ upon the animal, both
physiologically and mentally; they are a
result more of human decisions than
physical accidents; over time the
cumulative effect of these traumas
becomes greater than their sum. These
traumas generally result from
inappropriate Regimen, the disruption
within Place, and/or the destruction of
Resonance (see below).

Ø Resonance with Human – this includes the
emotional/vibrational interaction between
animal and human, although the human’s
active role in the foregoing determinants
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© The Society for Animal Consciousness 2016.

Issue 2, Vol 1, April 2016.