Yesterday while taking a break from artwork I had a chance to watch Spirit and Ari standing in their play arena (the round pen) interacting. They were face fighting very gently. I think Spirit is the king of this type of play, he just loves to face fight. I have often seen him playing with a horse who is wearing a halter and grab hold of the halter and move the other horse around.
So anyway, here they were with their lips stuck out nibbling around each others muzzles. Then they would just stop and move their heads away and both yawn and yawn and drop their heads. Then more face fighting, then back to yawning. It was very interesting, how/why they were doing this. Dogs have lots of calming signals and I wish someone as talented and observant as Turid Rugaas would write about these behaviors in horses. I believe horses do offer similar types of signals to each other and on their own.
That's it, just a curiosity on my part!
No comments:
Post a Comment