Animals want to have a say in their own lives

If there’s one thing I’ve witnessed time and time again in my communications, it’s how important it is to animals that they get to have some say in their own lives.

Let’s stop and consider for a moment who makes decisions about our pets throughout the day. We generally set meal times and they have to eat what we decide to give them. Horses don’t generally get a say in whether or not they want to wear a rug, to be in the stable or out in the field, and if, when and how they are ridden. Dogs get walked at a time, for a distance and in a location that is convenient to their owners. We even ask dogs to toilet on our command! Sure, while our horses are in the field they can choose what they want to do, and so can our dogs after their morning walks, but both are within a frame of restrictions that we place on them – mainly through geographical containment and provision of resources.

Who wouldn’t want some autonomy of choice in their own life?! Just like people, some animals cope better with having everything decided for them than others do. Ever heard the phrase, “tell a gelding, ask a mare, discuss it with a stallion”? And my labradors from working stock were certainly more amenable to taking direction than my ex street dog terrier is!

I’ve noticed that even the meek and rule-loving animals I communicate with, have requests. Things they have a preference for, things that often seem inconsequential to us but make a huge difference to them. Animals have asked for a huge variety of things via our communication sessions, not all of which are very practical – I once had a cat ask their human to put a roof over the whole of the outside so that he could go out without getting rained on! Sometimes, it’s just helpful to the animals just to have their voice and wishes acknowledged. At others though, the smallest of requests can make the world of difference to them. Things like preferring wet or dry food, or having somewhere in the house that only they are allowed to go to if the kitten gets too raucous. Several animals have corrected me on what they want to be called, and their owners report back that they seem happier and more settled since being called their preferred name.

Humans can be weird about giving animals choices.  Dog and horse trainers can sometimes be very authoritarian, and have strong principals that animals should do as they are trained to do all the time, as if they were in a military regime. Somebody once told me that they didn’t agree with training dogs with treats, because dogs should walk to heel out of respect, not because they have been bribed. I didn’t follow up with them but the behavioural scientist in me did wonder what he meant by respect, and how he thought he got a dog to respect him – I assume what he really meant was compliance due to fear of punishment for non-compliance. I don’t know, that doesn’t really seem all that desirable to me in a creature that is supposed to be man’s best friend.

The other extreme is extreme permissiveness – the idea that animals rights include the right to make decisions, and that we shouldn’t do anything to them without their consent. I much prefer the ethics of animals having as much autonomy as we can give them, and ability to give or withdraw consent for touch, training, riding, etc, but in the extreme this also has it’s difficulties. Partly due to the complexity of what is freely- given consent (a whole other blog post!) and partly because there are some times when actually, an animal does just need to be able to tolerate going along with a human’s choice rather than theirs, for example while we clean a wound, administer medication, or stop them running in front of a car. We bring animals into a human-centric world, we have responsibility to keep them safe and healthy within that. I generally hover somewhere in between the two extremes in my own approach, tending towards giving animals as much autonomy of choice as I can, whilst doing my job as their guardian in a human world. I like the way Caroline Booth, one of my animal communication, healing and horsemanship teachers put it: “We need the balance of power in our relationship with our horses to be as close to 50/50 as we can, but we always need to have 51% of it for safety’s sake.” I like that philosophy.

There are lots of simple ways that we can give our animals a bit more freedom and autonomy in their day to day life. I’d encourage you to keep looking for opportunities to give them a little freedom, like stopping to let your dog sniff for as long as they want to, or relaxing the rein and letting your horse travel at their preferred pace when it’s safe to do so. Offering an A or B choice, like “would you like to wear this rug today?” or “Would you like to turn left or right?” is also a lovely way of building your intuitive connection with them. Make your question as clear as you can in terms of asking verbally and with your body language, and look out for signs that your animal might be thinking, or giving you their preference. In the case of a horse and a blanket they may stare into the middle distance for a few moments to think about it, and then perhaps turn their back on you, or turn towards the rug that you are holding. You may get a gut feeling that it’s a good idea to put it on today, or a different rug might pop into your mind as a 3rd option you didn’t think about. If you don’t feel like you got any response don’t be disheartened – it takes time and practice to tune in, and for animals to work out what you’re on about and trust that you are offering them a genuine choice. Persevere. The payoff in terms of relationship and your animal’s mental wellbeing is SO worth it.