12/21/2024
Today with
I spent probably about an hour and 15 minutes out with her in the round pen.
We did some moving around at a walk on the circle, then we turned it into some lunging at the trot over single ground poles, and then some canter without the trough poles.
But in between walk, and then walk trot, and then taking the poles out to set it up for canter we did a lot of hanging out, and other little exercises at the halt.
I was starting to work with her front legs and she kept offering to check in with my hand. Then she started the teeth scraping, which I believe is not related to biting but related to allogrooming (mutual scratching as a bonding ritual between members of the herd). She has also started exploring my clothing with her muzzle and mouth. Since they don't have hands & fingers, and they can't see what their muzzle is touching, they gather a lot of sensory data through their muzzle.
I think this is the first time I've seen her have a series of big yawns with the eye rolls.
Since we can't know for sure what repetitive yawning with eye rolling means (because we can't ask the horse) many people speculate this is the horse processing (with their brain ) what happened prior to the yawning, as if saving work on a document on a computer. Another theory is the horse is down regulating from some stress. And stress doesn't have to be negative. Going outside of our comfort zone is a form of stress. We don't become more fit, more resilient, more educated by staying in our comfort zone.
I'm going to hypothesize that having a little bit of exercise and then taking the break with me working on her front legs created an opening for her to find a little bit of relief, a little bit of soothing by allogrooming.
