A Life Lesson from Bonnie Blue 

The Dali Lama has often pointed out that animals are sentinel beings like humans but lack the higher cognitive powers. Certainly this is true. Animals do not write essays or poems. They don’t produce TV documentaries or Holy scripts. But, humans are mammals and we do share much of the same DNA and evolutionary history as other mammals. Especially other social mammals like dogs, cats, goats, horses and the like. By studying these creatures I often find patterns reviled that are common in both animals and humans but may be masked in humans by our higher neo cortex with its language, logic and reason.

When we adopted Bonnie Blue last year. She was called “Bones” by the rescue folks but we renamed her “Bonnie Blue.”  The unfortunate creature had nearly starved to death due to neglect.  Her recovery over the past months has been nearly miraculous. Her body and spirit recovered in stages. Big changes started to occur at about three month. Her body was stronger and she gained confidence that her situation was stable with the routine of daily farm life and lots of attention. She is an Arabian, a bred that is considered bright, spirited and known to form strong bonds with their humans. And Bonnie Blue started to demonstrate all of these characteristics. In the three to six month period after she came to live with us life was good and stable and she continued to grow in body and spirit.

We decided to adopt a second horse so she would have a friend or “pasture pal.” Horses are social animals and it is essential for them to be a member of a herd.  According to most sources, this is part of the fabric of being a horse driven in part by the psychology of prey animals. The herd is one of the defenses these creatures have against attack by predators.  In order to accept the new horse a stall which had a collection of junk, including a canoe, needed to be cleaned out. So I went out to the stall (which was adjacent to Bonnie Blue’s stall) and started removing the old junk. At first Bonnie was very curious. She followed me every step and was generally a total nuisance. But, then as the process continued and items were removed from the immediate area, she became very agitated. I stopped and tried to console her with stroking and soft words, but she would have no part of it. And when I removed her canoe, she got downright upset. She would run out of the stall area make a sharp turn, run back slamming down her hooves, skidding to a stop. Then buck, spin, kick and race away only to repeat the process.  It was like she was saying,” WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? You are taking my stuff including my canoe. Please STOP!”  She was exceedingly distressed that I was disrupting everything and it was threatening her basic security. I continued to try to console her with little success. However, when the new horse arrived, a couple of hours later and took up residence in the cleared stall, all was forgiven and life was even better than it was when she had her own canoe.

How often have we reacted from our mammalian brain (horse brain) when change, we did not control or understand, occurred to us. I was very upset when I got drafted into military service during the 1970’s. My life was not in my control, far from it. But I survived, had some great learning experiences and a G.I. Bill that allowed the continuance of my education that I could not have afforded otherwise. Just like Bonnie Blue, I kicked, bucked and vented my frustration and then embraced my fate, tried to make the best of the situation and finally reaped the benefits of the change I could not control. Things do not always work out as well as they did in these two cases. Change can bring disaster, but that is life.

My observation is that social mammals that are comfortable fear change that could destroy the good situation they enjoy. Not only is this logical, it is part of the DNA that has helped us to survive, horse and human alike. The question is:  can we humans use our logic, reason and compassion in addition to our emotions to help us work through changes to make the best of the situation for ourselves, our social group and the world?

Lessen to the horse in your head but don’t let it be the only voice. I hope we will use all of our capabilities to grow in wisdom and deal with the changes in our lives that are inevitable?