A Horse by Any Other Name

Sapphire (aka Baby) age 33 in Retirement

“Horses are not intelligent enough to learn their own names,” I once read in a “scientific” magazine. Really? Obviously, the author had never seen a horse’s head pop up when his name was mentioned in conversation, or seen a good driving team at work, each horse responding individually to commands preceded by his own name. So where did this strange idea come from? Well, there are horses who do not answer to whatever name humans currently use for them, but the reasons have nothing to do with lack of intelligence. For one, a horse learns his name by having it used in context. I use my horses’ names when giving commands (“Bronzz, trot.”), when greeting them (“Hi, Brandy.”), praising them (“Shiloh’s a good girl.”), when calling them (“Brandy, Bronzz, Shiloh! Dinner time!”), and in casual conversation with them. Our horses all respond to their own names, an amusing example being the morning I went out and saw only the mares waiting for me in front of the barn. “Where’s Bronzz?” I asked the girls. From behind the barn came Bronzz’s baritone bellow. “I’m right here!” Studies of cats and dogs suggest that they are most likely to respond to names with sounds that they can easily differentiate from other words. I’ve never heard of equivalent studies related to horses, but it stands to reason that names with some sounds are less distinguishable to horses than others. Perhaps a more pertinent issue is that horses are routinely bought and sold. Even buyers who know the horse’s name often change it. How many name changes does it take till a horse either loses track of what he’s called this year, or ceases to care? We bought a 2 year old quarter horse called Tasha. We saw no reason to confuse her by changing it. It soon became apparent that she did not know her name, and was not learning it. Furthermore, there was a confusing similarity to the name of our collie-mix. When we called Tasha, the filly ignored us, while Sasha dutifully came to see why we interrupted her mouse hunt. Time for a new name, we decided. Months went by. Ideas came and went. Nothing seemed to fit. One day I ran across the vaccination record that had miraculously followed the filly from original owner to dealer to another dealer, another owner, a boarding stable, and finally to us. “Shiloh Star”, it said. It would have been at least a year and a half since anyone called her that, but we didn’t have any better ideas. Within a week it was obvious that she knew, or remembered, that she was “Shiloh”. This raises the question, if a horse knows his name, do we owe it to him to keep it? Not necessarily, I think. Names evoke images and expectations, and I always want those associated with my animals to be positive. When my husband got his first mare, the Palomino registry had her as Babette; her barn name was Baby. That, he said, did not fit a dignified, well-trained 15-year old mare. He named her Sapphire, for his favorite gemstone. There is also a philosophy that a new name can signify a fresh start for an animal from bad circumstances. If you change a name, some suggestions are:
1. Use the new and old names together until the horse connects them.
2. Use similar sounds in the new name, like "Grandie" / "Gracie" or "Tony" / "Joey".
3. Change the name completely to dissociate it from an unpleasant past. The next question is, do horses know each others’ names? I think so. More than once I asked Sapphire, “Where’s Bronzz?”, and at the sound of his name she flicked her head in the appropriate direction to indicate where he was lounging out of sight in a shed or behind the barn. It might be interesting to watch horses you know, noticing how often they react to their own names spoken in conversation, and now many show signs they recognize each other’s names.