Getting in Touch: Understand and Influence Your Horse's Personality [Paperback]

Linda Tellington-Jones (Author), L. Tellington-Jones (Author), Sybil Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1995

The internationally recognized equine expert and creator of the Tellington TTouch tells you how to analyze your horse's physical traits in order to understand and influence his personality.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Linda Tellington-Jones, renowned animal expert, is the author of books that include The Tellington TTouch, Improve Your Horse's Well-Being, and Let's Ride! With Linda Tellington-Jones.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Trafalgar Square Books (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570760187
• ISBN-13: 978-1570760181
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #332,389 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Medical Books > Veterinary Medicine > Equine Medicine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and Provocative, April 20, 2000

By 

"barngirl" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Getting in Touch: Understand and Influence Your Horse's Personality (Paperback)

This focus of this book studies a horse's physical characteristics as providing insight into a horse's personality. Linda Tellington-Jones has complied information on over 1500 horses and in the process has noted some astounding connections between physical traits and personalities. She presents separate sections analyzing a horse's profile, muzzle, lips, ears, nostrils, eyes, chin, and jowls. Line drawings illustrate the various shapes, positions, or placements these features take. Linda then notes her observations for each physical type. For example, she notes that horses with small, complex muzzles tend to be "opinionated" and that "fine, fluted" ears usually mean the horse is intelligent, but ones with tufts in their ears tend to be willfulness and inflexible. After focusing on each feature, she has a section of horse photographs to allow the reader to practice analyzing the entire package. She includes her assessment of the horse's personality with each photograph.

Of course, while all of this made for interesting reading, I wasn't sure at first if it really meant anything. I quickly found her observations all the more fascinating when I started to take a hard look at the physical characteristics of horses that I knew. I would run home from the barn to compare the horses' physical features to the personality descriptions in the book. By and large, she's right! The most uncanny part was her assessment of horse personalities given particular or unusual facial swirls. The remainder of the book goes into how a horse's conformation and health (and soreness) may affect his personality. She concludes by briefly introducing her method of equine massage called "Ttouch." (This was the least meaningful part of the book for me.)

This book presents a very unique approach to understanding horses. It opens the horse person's mind to allow for different personality types and adjust how he or she may interact differently if the horse is withdrawn, uncomplicated and steady or if the horse is anxious, clever and timid.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MUST HAVE IF YOU ARE A HORSIE PERSON, December 6, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Getting in Touch: Understand and Influence Your Horse's Personality (Paperback)

I volunteer as a horse wrangler with a non-profit group and get to work with a number of different horses. I read this book cover to cover and carry it with me whenever I'm around horses. It is All the horse people I work with borrowed it so much I had to buy a second copy just for myself! The information in the book is very easy to read and understand. Every time I see a horse or look at a picture, I look for the "moose-nose", the "pin ears" and the forehead swirls. And its amazing how these characteristics are tied into personality! A must have book!

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great insights to horses, December 8, 2004

By 

Shannon Weil (Cool, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Getting in Touch: Understand and Influence Your Horse's Personality (Paperback)

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK! What are those people thinking who don't understand the premise of Linda's book about reading your horse's personality? Perhaps they are making this technique more complicated then it really is. I've been using these skills for over 30 years and continually learn more about horses every year. It's fun to meet a new horse and describe their traits to their owner. This is also a very insightful method to know when buying horses.