Equine Communication: What Horses Can Teach Us About Listening

In our fast-paced, word-focused world, we often forget that communication extends far beyond what we say. At Speaking of Horses, our equine therapists demonstrate daily that sometimes the most profound communication happens in silence—and that true listening involves much more than hearing words.

The Masters of Nonverbal Communication

Horses are nature's experts in nonverbal communication. As prey animals who evolved on open grasslands, their survival depended on detecting subtle signals from both potential predators and fellow herd members. This evolutionary history created beings with extraordinary sensitivity to body language, energy, intention, and emotional states.

Unlike humans, who primarily rely on verbal language, horses communicate almost entirely through:

• Body positioning and movement

• Facial expressions, particularly eye and ear position

• Energy and intention

• Touch and proximity

• Vocalization (used sparingly for emphasis)

This sophisticated nonverbal system serves horses well in their natural environment, allowing them to coordinate group movements, establish social hierarchies, express needs, and maintain safety—all without saying a word.

What Makes Horses Exceptional Listeners

What's particularly remarkable about horses is not just how they communicate, but how they listen. Their listening involves the whole body and all senses:

1. They listen with their eyes – scanning for the tiniest changes in posture or movement

2. They listen with their ears – constantly rotating to track sounds from all directions

3. They listen with their skin – feeling shifts in air pressure and vibration

4. They listen with their noses – gathering chemical information about emotional states

5. They listen with their entire nervous system – remaining exquisitely attuned to energy shifts

This comprehensive approach to listening allows horses to perceive far more than most humans typically notice in an interaction. They don't just hear what we say; they read our intentions, our emotional states, our confidence levels, and our authenticity—or lack thereof.

Horses Don't Listen to Lies

Perhaps the most profound lesson horses offer about communication is their insistence on authenticity. Put simply: horses don't listen to lies. They respond not to our words or even our conscious intentions, but to our embodied truth—the physical reality of our internal states.

This creates interesting challenges for humans who are used to masking their emotions or saying one thing while feeling another. A nervous rider who pretends to be confident will quickly discover that the horse responds to their actual nervous state, not their performance of confidence. A therapist who claims to be patient while feeling frustrated will find the horse reacting to the frustration, not the patient façade.

For children with communication challenges, this insistence on authenticity creates a uniquely supportive environment. Horses don't judge, criticize, or have expectations for how communication "should" happen. They simply respond honestly to what is genuinely communicated, creating clear, consistent feedback that helps children understand the impact of their communication efforts.

How Our Therapy Horses Listen to Children

At Speaking of Horses, we've witnessed countless examples of our therapy horses demonstrating extraordinary listening skills with children who struggle to be heard or understood in traditional settings.

Phil: The Emotional Intuitive

Our 25-year-old therapy horse Phil has an uncanny ability to detect emotional states, even when they're carefully hidden. During one session with a teenage client, Phil refused to walk forward despite all the usual cues. He stood completely still, ears focused back toward his rider.

After several minutes of this unusual behavior, the rider finally admitted she was upset about a social situation at school that day—something she had denied when directly asked at the beginning of the session. Once she expressed her feelings, Phil immediately began walking forward, as if to say, "Thank you for being honest about what you're really feeling."

This moment illustrated Phil's ability to listen beyond words to the emotional truth that needed acknowledgment. His refusal to move forward wasn't stubbornness; it was his way of communicating, "I hear what you're not saying, and it matters."

Blink: The Personal Space Respecter

Blink, our gentlest therapy horse, demonstrates exceptional sensitivity to nonverbal cues about personal space and touch preferences. With children who show signs of tactile defensiveness or sensory overwhelm, Blink maintains a careful distance, approaching slowly and respecting subtle body language that signals "not too close."

With one particularly touch-sensitive client, we observed Blink adjusting his position during grooming to always allow the child to initiate contact rather than pressing his body toward the child. Without any training to do this, Blink naturally "listened" to the child's nonverbal communication about physical boundaries and respected those boundaries perfectly.

As the child's comfort with touch gradually increased over several months of therapy, Blink adjusted accordingly, allowing closer contact as the child's body language indicated readiness. This responsive listening to nonverbal cues created a safe environment where the child could develop greater sensory integration at their own pace.

Whinny: The Rhythm Matcher

Our therapy pony Whinny shows remarkable ability to match his movement to the internal rhythms of his riders. With children who present with rapid, shallow breathing and tension patterns indicating anxiety, Whinny automatically slows his pace and adopts a gentler, more rhythmic walk.

For children with low energy or under responsive sensory systems, he naturally increases his animation and energy level. Without any specific training to do this, Whinny "listens" to the internal state of each child and provides the complementary movement pattern that helps regulate their nervous system.

One child with significant anxiety began her first mounted session with tense posture and rapid breathing. Within five minutes of walking with Whinny, her breathing had synchronized with the pony's rhythmic movement, her shoulders had dropped, and she began speaking in a clearer, more modulated voice. Whinny had effectively "heard" her dysregulation and responded by offering a regulating rhythm that helped her find calm.

What We Can Learn from Equine Listening

The extraordinary listening skills of horses offer powerful lessons for humans, particularly those of us who work with children with communication challenges:

1. Listen with your whole body, not just your ears

Horses remind us that true listening is a full-body experience. When working with children who struggle with traditional communication, we can expand our listening beyond words to include:

• Watching for subtle shifts in posture, tension, and movement

• Noticing breathing patterns

• Observing facial micro-expressions

• Feeling the energy in interactions

• Being aware of our own physical responses

This multisensory listening often reveals messages that words alone might miss, particularly with children who may not have the verbal skills to express their full experience.

2. Create safety through predictable responses

Horses listen and respond with remarkable consistency, creating communicative safety. A horse that moves away from pressure or steps forward from a leg cue does so with reliable predictability, helping children understand cause and effect in communication.

We can create similar communicative safety by:

• Responding consistently to communication attempts

• Honoring nonverbal communication as meaningful

• Prioritizing connection over performance

• Following the child's lead when they show interest or initiate

• Providing predictable, understandable responses to their communication efforts

3. Honor silence as communication

Perhaps most importantly, horses demonstrate that silence isn't the absence of communication—it's often communication at its most profound. They remind us to create space for silence, to allow processing time, and to value the quieter forms of connection that don't rely on words.

For children who process language more slowly or who need more time to formulate responses, this respect for silence creates the conditions where authentic communication can emerge without pressure.

Listening Leads to Being Heard

The ultimate gift horses offer children with communication challenges is the experience of being truly heard—often for the first time. When a horse responds appropriately to a child's subtle communication attempts, that child receives powerful feedback: "I hear you. You matter. Your communication works."

This experience creates a foundation of communicative confidence that can transform a child's relationship with expression. A child who feels heard by a horse often begins to believe they can be heard by humans too, leading to increased communication attempts across environments.

As one parent shared: "My son spent years in therapy being encouraged to use his words, but it always felt like he was performing speech rather than truly communicating. With the horses, he finally feels listened to—even when he's not speaking. That feeling of being understood has made him more interested in communicating with everyone in his life."

Learning to Listen Like a Horse

At Speaking of Horses, we're not just teaching children to communicate—we're learning from our equine partners how to listen more effectively. Every day, our therapy horses demonstrate that:

• Authentic presence matters more than technique

• Connection precedes communication

• Listening happens with the whole body

• Silence can be as meaningful as sound

• True understanding requires attunement to more than words

By embracing these equine wisdom principles, we create an environment where children don't just learn to speak—they learn that communication, in all its forms, can create meaningful connection. And that lesson, perhaps more than any specific speech skill, is what makes our approach transformative.

The next time you interact with a child who struggles with traditional communication, we invite you to listen like a horse: with your whole body, without agenda, with respect for silence, and with unwavering attention to the many ways meaning can be shared beyond words.

Ada Haensel is a certified speech-language pathologist and the founder of Speaking of Horses, a nonprofit providing equine-assisted speech therapy in Barboursville, Virginia. Learn more about our programs at www.speakingofhorsesincorporated.org or schedule a visit to meet our therapy horses in person.

Supporting Our Work

Creating and maintaining our unique equine-assisted speech therapy program requires resources beyond what insurance reimbursements can cover. If you've been moved by the wisdom our horses share and the transformative experiences they provide for children with communication challenges, please consider supporting Speaking of Horses through a donation.

Your contribution helps care for our therapy horses, maintain our facilities, and provide scholarships for families who couldn't otherwise access our services. Every gift, regardless of size, helps ensure that more children can experience the profound gift of being truly heard.

To donate or learn more about supporting our mission, please visit our website or contact us directly. Together, we can help more children find their voices through the wisdom of horses