Monsters in the Woods

Horses are herd animals. They don’t like being alone. Even if they are the low horse in the pecking order they prefer being picked on rather than being alone. I recently had to take my horse somewhere alone. My wife’s horse called for him while he was gone. When we got to where we were going there were horses in a nearby pasture and he bonded with them even though he couldn’t get to them. When they walked out of sight he called for them. This condition is called being “Herd Bound.”

While horse camping recently there were 14 horses, each in their own pen. Some people bring extra horses to camp; sometimes for riders that don’t have a horse to ride and other times because they don’t want to leave their other horse at home.

One afternoon I decided not to ride with everyone. I wanted to stay in camp and read and someone was there to ride my horse. I was the only one left in camp and three other horses were left behind. One owner told me that I would be hearing some horrific sounds from one horse she was leaving behind. I’ve heard horses call before and I thought I knew what I could expect from him, but when the last of the riders left camp I got to hear sounds that I didn’t think possible from a horse. It was worse than an Ornette Coleman solo. It went on for hours.

When the riders returned some of the riders said they could hear him calling from miles away. While on the trail they came across two hikers that said they were getting out of the woods because they heard a beast. They thought it was a sasquatch. The owner laughed calmed their fears and told them that the sound they heard was her horse left in camp that was calling for the other horses.