Something Was Off

“Speak to your animals as if they understand, and one day you will be surprised to discover that they do.” - Unknown

Yesterday I walked out to check on my herd as I do every day. Twenty hectares of rolling hills, and somewhere in it: five horses and Jakob the donkey. This daily ritual - trying to find the herd, checking water, watching movement, just being present, has become as natural to me as breathing. It's like my own little private time and ritual. It's also what allows me to notice, immediately, when something is off.

Yesterday, something was off...

I found three horses, not six. One of them, Lua the rescue mare, kept glancing behind her, over the hill. Not anxious, not panicking, but attentive. Watching. Then she called out, and from somewhere far away, an answer came back.

I decided to follow the sound, with Lua following closely behind me.

After maneuvering through the woods I discovered the rest of the herd,: trapped on the other side of the fence were the other two horses and Jakob. One of them was Jiya (Lua's daughter) with her front leg caught in the sheep wire (again!). The kind of situation that, with a different horse, could end in a broken leg, a torn tendon, sheer terror. But Jiya was standing quietly. Waiting. Knowing that it's only a matter of time before someone will show up and get her out.

Right beside her stood Jakob.

This herd has been together for over five years, roaming these hills, and in that time each of them has found their place. Jakob's place is the steady one. The one who shows up. He was doing exactly that: standing close, calm, present, while Jiya held still and the second horse waited quietly under the trees.

I untangled her carefully. Lua looking on and silently waiting for the next move. There were no wounds. Jiya stepped away as if nothing had happened.

What I witnessed wasn't just a horse staying calm in a crisis. It was a whole system regulating itself. Jakob co-regulating Jiya. The herd holding itself together across a fence and a hillside. Each member responding not with panic but with something that looked, unmistakably, like trust.

I've spent years learning about nervous systems, on how co-regulation works between human and horse, how safety is transmitted through presence rather than command. What I hadn't fully appreciated until moments like this one is that this doesn't only happen between me and my horses. It happens within the herd itself, when I'm not even there.

They've learned it from each other. Or they are balanced enough and just inherently know

I've been doing this long enough to know that moments like this aren't accidents. They are the slow accumulation of thousands of small interactions. Days when I showed up without an agenda, when I listened instead of directed, when I let them be horses and trusted them to be intelligent ones.

And still, when it happens, I am surprised. Not because I didn't believe it was possible, but because the depth of it keeps exceeding what I imagined.

This is so far outside what the conventional horse world expects that I sometimes wonder whether I've simply been lucky. The dominant view (and it IS dominant) is that horses must be controlled, dominated, shaped into compliance. That their value lies in their obedience, not their judgment. That what I'm describing is naive, sentimental, even irresponsible.

I have doubted myself more times than I can count. I have often stood in that field and wondered what exactly it is I think I'm doing.

And then something like yesterday happens.

Not as proof that my way is the only way. Not as a performance of how well this can go. But as a quiet, private confirmation that choosing a different path, one built on trust rather than control, on relationship rather than dominance, is worth the risk of being misunderstood.

I am grateful. Genuinely, unexpectedly, still-surprised grateful. For horses who think. For a donkey who shows up. For the years it took to earn this. For moments that make the doubt worth carrying.

♡