What Horses Teach Us About Judgment

A couple of days ago I walked out to the pasture and found the big water trough almost empty again.

This has been happening a lot lately. The water is low, sometimes nearly gone, and the trough is usually pretty dirty too. That told me someone had been playing in it.

I was about 98% sure I knew who the culprit was.

Thor.

Thor has always been curious and a little mischievous. If something can be pushed, pawed, splashed, or rearranged, he’s usually the one experimenting with it. So when the trough kept turning up empty, I didn’t spend much time wondering about it. I figured I already knew.

Case closed.

Or so I thought.

One afternoon while I was feeding and watering, I heard someone splashing around. I decided to catch the culprit in the act. I grabbed my phone and turned around.

Sure enough, someone was happily playing in the water trough.

Except it wasn’t Thor.

It was his mom.

She was splashing, stirring the water with her nose, and having a great time making a mess of it. Meanwhile, Thor was standing nearby looking completely innocent.

Of course, in my excitement to capture the moment, I managed to do something I’m famous for around here. I grabbed my phone, quickly turned the camera on by pressing the power button twice like I’ve recently learned to do… but I didn’t have my glasses on.

So I thought I was recording when I wasn’t.

And when I thought I had stopped recording, that’s when the video actually started. (Video is from another time.)

A classic move of mine that everyone likes to tease me about.

But even without the perfect video, the moment stuck with me for another reason.

I had already decided who was responsible before I actually took the time to observe what was happening.

And I realized how easy it is to do that — not just with horses, but with people too.

When we judge too quickly, we stop being curious.

Instead of asking why something is happening, we simply assign blame and move on. But that shortcut prevents us from discovering the real reason behind the behavior.

Horses have a way of teaching us these lessons over and over again.

The more I try to understand them, the more I realize how often my own assumptions get in the way.

Sometimes the horse we’re sure is the troublemaker isn’t the one causing the trouble at all.

And sometimes the lesson isn’t really about the horse.

It’s about learning to slow down, observe more carefully, and stay curious a little longer.

Because curiosity opens the door that judgment closes.

Experiences like this are what inspired stories like The Horse Who Waited, where horses quietly teach us lessons about patience and understanding.