Inside Your Horse's Mind: A Study of Equine Intelligence and Human Prejudice

Rating:
Summary: Not very objective
Review: I was pretty disapointed with this book. The author (who doesn't have any credentials in equine behavior or animal science) starts out tearing down noted scientists' and behaviorists' research and findings and accuses them of saying like the horse as an inatimate, unfeeling, stimulus-response being. Most of the examples and knowledge she draws upon are from her own horses or horses owned by friends (and seem to be mostly Arab horses), so it's pretty biased to begin with. Some of her points are valid, but she doesn't have the research to back these points up and continues to give examples of her horses throughout the book. You end up reading about how smart they are, what emotions she projects on them to feel. She also endorses practices such as aromatherapy for horses; again with not a lot of research or concrete evidence to support her opinions. I wouldn't recommend this. There are much better, objective reads out there about equine behavior that doesn't reduce the horse to a mere stimulus-response "machine".