Can animals have complex thoughts and emotions? Can they plan ahead, or do they live only in the moment?

One thing I was taught during my degree in Equine Science, was that scientifically animals don’t have thoughts and feelings, and that whenever we witnessed horses showing emotion it was anthropomorphism - us projecting human emotions and motivations onto a species that was incapable of such things. We all - including the lecturers - knew this to be a convenient lie to explain the truth - that animal science didn’t at the time have the means to prove or disprove the hypothesis. The field of equine science has come on a lot since then and there are some nice and interesting studies that make anybody who knows animals say things like “thank goodness the scientific literature is catching up with what we’ve always known,” and more commonly the more succinct version, “well duh!”

It’s worth noting here before I continue that I appreciate the value that cautioning against anthropomorphism brings, even as I discuss it’s limitations. When we attribute human motivations to animal behaviour, we commonly miss the real cause of the behaviour. In equestrianism this commonly presents as “he’s just being naughty” whereas I’ve yet to meet a horse who wasn’t acting up for good reason - and it’s usually pain or anxiety related. Assuming that a horse is “being naughty” does nothing helpful in terms of resolving the unwanted behaviour, and can often be harmful to the horse and to the horse-human relationship, so in many ways I am grateful that “don’t project human emotions and motivations onto horses” is a widespread message.

During the course of my studies I focussed my research on equine facilitated coaching or learning (EFC or EFL for short); the art of life coaching with a horse or horses present to help to facilitate the session. I have always been fascinated by the seemingly magical connection between horses and humans that can facilitate transformational experiences, deep peace, connection and insight, if we slow down and let it. Still seemingly in spite of the magic the articles and research around the subject often referred to horses as “mirrors who reflect our own emotions back on to us” with two persistent underlying assertions: 1) that “horses always and only live in the moment” and that therefore 2) they don’t bring their own emotions, thoughts and expectations to an interaction with people. Just like “animals don’t have emotions” I find these assumptions to be convenient over-simplifications. I think that the mirroring they describe is more likely to be that people can project their own emotions onto horses in equine facilitated sessions (how yuck that must feel to a sensitive horse, by the way), and that horses like any other living being react to their environment including the people who are around them. I also think that EFL coaches are generally sensitive to their animals, both selecting their co-worker horses with care, and keeping them in low stress situations, which leads to generally calm and mentally well balanced horses who could be mistaken for being merely “mirrors” who are happy to be present in the moment.

I have hundreds of examples of horses who think about the future and the past, and who have their own complex thoughts and feelings. Recently I had a communication with Lords, a horse whose owner wanted to know if there was anything that was worrying him. He’d had ulcers and she wanted to check to see if there was anything stressful about his life with her that was contributing to them. The short answer was that there wasn’t much, but it prompted him to give her some information that wouldn’t have otherwise come up. He is a lovely chap of a horse who wants to get things right, and worries when he doesn’t. This is a source of worry for him when they are navigating jumping grids. Lords shared that he felt that he needed extra thinking time to be able to work out what was needed as he hates getting things wrong. He is rather a perfectionist, and one who likes to plan ahead!

I think it’s true to say that horses are better at living in the present moment than we are. It’s an evolutionary advantage for a prey animal to be present to potential threats in the moment, and to be able to return to an energy conserving state quickly, and I think that’s what we tend to see in horses when we talk about them living in the present moment. I have however talked to horses who have shared future goals with me, (like wanting to win a class, to try a certain discipline, or even in one case to be allowed to play with the sheep!) and who have plenty to say thinking back to their past experiences and the emotions they still hold around them. We do them a real discredit when we over-simplify our theories around animal emotions and cognitions. They have just as rich emotional and cognitive experiences as we do.