Felicity George - Understanding Equines

21/06/2025

I'm looking for 'practice clients' for EBA professional trainees in July and August. This would involve a visit, lasting probably around 2 hours, during which we would discuss a concern you have about your horse, and some practical work with the horse as appropriate. The 'concern' could be an unwanted behaviour, or you might be looking for ideas about improving your relationship, or improving your equine's well-being (e.g. helping them to become less reactive), or getting new insights into their psychology.

As we'll be centred in Dunblane, we're looking for people within 35 miles of Dunblane. If you'd like a visit, let me know.

04/06/2025

Lovely to get a mention at the Equine Cultures in Transition conference this year, for a paper Carole Valentine and Felicity George - Understanding Equines wrote. Complete with the EBA logo :-)

29/05/2025

Thanks Venya Bonebakker - Equine Psychology Specialist for the reel and organising this webinar an lots of video work

21/05/2025

Lucy Rees documentary - wonderful insights into the relationships, behaviour and way of being of all horses, not just feral. Highly recommended.

Could the need for peace and cooperation, the affiliative links be the true basis for a social organization? Given freedom, horses live together in groups be...

03/05/2025

Spent an amazing 3 hours recently exploring equine relationships with Lucy Rees and Venya Bonebakker - Equine Psychology Specialist. Discussions centred around videos taken last October, on a trip to visit Lucy and the Pottoka ponies in Spain.

This webinar comprises much of these discussions. A wonderful chance to listen to Lucy talking freely about the ponies she knows and loves so well.

Book at:

Webinar full of exploration of the rich lives of feral horses, guided by Lucy Rees—an expert who has spent the past 15 years living with and learning from Pottokas, horses whose way of life has remained nearly untouched by domestication.

12/04/2025

Thanks Sharon Smith - EBA Registered Equine Psychology Specialist for spotting this!

INAPPROPRIATE TOUCHING

I'm reading an amazing book called Amphibious Soul by Craig Foster, the Academy award winning documentary film maker of "My Octopus Teacher".

If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it, it is simply profound.

In the book he says "As a rule, I never touch an animal unless they touch me first".

In my work building relationship with horses, I do this too. Most times a horse will touch you with their nose/muzzle first, and matching that greeting (versus labelling the horse as a biter) is a game changer.

But there's a phenomenon I have noticed going on with people trying to build relationship with their horses that I have labelled "inappropriate touching", and it looks a bit like the photo below.

This picture was taken at a horse expo in Pennsylvania recently, where I worked with a demo horse who has a "biting issue". He would reaching out in a way that his owner was termed as nipping, whereas I interpreted as him saying hello, similar to reaching out to shake hands with someone.

When he reached out I would greet him with a flat hand that he is able to to nuzzle, lick or even scrape his teeth on. After doing this a while his snappy acting motions got less so, and he was no longer needing to say "hey, pay attention" , but was more "hey, how's it going". I was explaining to the audience that I was meeting him in the way that he was meeting me (with his muzzle) and that it's not an invitation to touch other parts (yet).

I then said that it's many people's default to reach up and rub a horse between the eyes, whether that's what they are offering or not, and that if you do, it's inappropriate touching and it gets in the way of connection. It doesn't meet their needs, and is all about yours.

With the horse in the picture, he'd been engaging me with his muzzle, and I said to the audience "watch what happens when I try to rub him between the eyes". As you can see in the photo, he has raised his head up and is clearly indicating "No, not there, on my muzzle".

We had a Connection And Attunement retreat here at the Journey On Ranch a week ago, and I used my wife Robyn to illustrate this point to the participants. I said "imagine I'm at a gathering and meeting Robyn for the first time". We walked up to each other in that way people do when they see someone new and they can tell an introduction is shaping up, Robyn reached out with her hand to say hello and instead of me reaching out to shake her hand, I gently reached up and lightly brushed a wisp of hair from her cheekbone and tucked it behind her ear.

The participants all gasped and the ick factor was high.

Even though it was caring, and gentle, it was inappropriate at that moment.

Now Im not saying you can't rub your horse on the forehead. I'm saying if your horse has a disregulated nervous system around humans because they don't feel seen (and safe), try to meet their needs first, before trying get get yours met.

I recently saw an instagram post from a University in the UK, and the professor was explaining that they were doing studies on horses to determine levels of stress. In the background a horse was standing with his head out over a Dutch door. While he was explaining their investigations on stress, a female student (or maybe another professor, I don't know which) walked up to the horse. The horse reached out with his muzzle to greet her.

She ignored this and reached up to rub the horse between the eyes.

He turned his head 90 degrees to the left to communicate that wasn't what he was offering.

Her hand followed him and kept rubbing.

he then turned his head 180 degrees to the right, saying "No, not like that".

Smiled, gave him another pet between the eyes, and walked of camera.

While the professor was saying that they are doing experiments determining the amounts of stress horses are under, someone in the background was actually creating stress, without either of them even knowing it.

Once you understand how sentient horses are, and how subtle their communication, you can't unsee it.

28/03/2025

Reminder - webinar on Monday. Booking at https://www.trybooking.com/uk/EOWH, hope to see you there

15/03/2025

My first attempt at a reel...

15/03/2025

An extract from our upcoming webinar - mainly discussing working with people here, but many other topics covered.

Booking at https://www.trybooking.com/uk/EOWH

11/03/2025

Booking at https://www.trybooking.com/uk/EOWH

Since ‘Applied Equine Psychology’ was published last summer, we’ve had quite a number of questions from readers. In this webinar, Dr Veronica Lac, from The HERD Institute®, puts some of these questions to the authors – Felicity George, Marie-Louise Holmes and Sharon Smith.

Discussions are wide ranging, touching on most of the topics presented in the book. Part of the webinar will present the pre-recorded session with Dr Lac and the authors. There will also be plenty of time for further discussion on the questions raised in the recording, and for new questions from webinar attendees.

Booking at https://www.trybooking.com/uk/EOWH

16/02/2025

07/02/2025

Lovely.

“It’s not pain, it’s just behaviour”

I saw a post with this sentence recently, it’s something I’ve seen a lot, and I have some ramblings to share. I don’t like the narrative of pain vs behaviour, as if our horses are either physically hurting or just choosing to do things we don’t like. This black or white thinking prevents us from investigating any other possible reason for unwanted behaviours, we stop thinking about what the horse is communicating immediately after the vet has left, if it’s not pain it must be choice right? Imagine if I said “it’s not behaviour, it’s just pain”, that doesn’t sound right at all.

Emotional discomfort is still discomfort.

Horses, like all sentient animals, have 11 major factors influencing mental well being. Physical needs being met is just one of those factors and even that includes more than just the absence of pain (think also of nutrition, sleep, shelter, water, thermal control etc ) [Franklin D. McMillan (editor), 2005. Mental Health and Well-being in Animals, Wiley-Blackwell] When we stop investigating behaviour after we have ruled out pain, we are turning a blind eye to everything else in our horses lives that is affecting their well being and as a result, damaging our relationships with them.

I recently have had to re evaluate my horses’ environment, he was showing signs of discomfort when coming in to be handled - pulling me to grass and being very overstimulated around food. I am confident he is not in pain, so it would be easy for me to just assume that he’s just being “muggy” and rude and only thinking about his stomach. But in reality, he’s doing all this because he doesn’t feel safe. His social needs have not been adequately met this winter; he was on restricted forage so didn’t have control over how much he could eat and when. He hasn’t been receiving a lot of mental stimulation as I’ve been busy and as a rehomed rescue his early experiences are still influencing his behaviour. There are many more factors influencing his behaviour and all are worthy of investigating and addressing so that he can feel safe again.

There is always, always a reason for every behaviour, good or bad. There is no such thing as “just behaviour”, all behaviours have a purpose and they are your horses only way of communicating with you!

If you are struggling with a behaviour problem, investigate pain. But then keep investigating, keep making changes to help your horse, let them communicate with you, help them feel heard.

Here’s a picture of Mr T not feeling happy because I hadn’t managed to resolve his emotional discomfort, I’ve been working on his environment and slowly but surely he’s starting to feel better, it takes time but it’s worth it for him ❤️