The woman stood facing the colt for several seconds, and then slowly shifted her weight to the right. The colt followed with his eyes. She shifted again, and this time the colt dropped his head and took one hesitant step toward her. The woman took a step back. The colt took two more toward her. At this point, the woman stopped moving and the colt began to receive another image. It was the same picture he had gotten the day before, of him approaching the woman, and her gently touching him on the shoulder. He slowly lowered his head, then raised it, then lowered it again, making a mental map of the woman, the distance between him and her and the escape routes in all directions, should he need one.

He glanced at the man on the other side of the fence, making sure he was staying where he was, and then cautiously walked right up to the woman. The colt stopped near enough to the woman that she could easily reach out and touch him. As she slowly raised her hand, the colt tipped his ear slightly in her direction, as if listening for the sound her hand would make when it touched him. Unlike the day before, he flinched slightly when she made contact with him, but quickly relaxed when he realized she was doing nothing more than what she had the day before. She touched him in the same spot on his shoulder three times before lowering her hand, breathing deeply, then raising her hand and touching him again.

This time, her touch turned into a gentle, one-inch stroke with the back of her fingers. Then a two-inch stroke, and eventually she was quietly running the back of her hand nearly the entire length of his shoulder. The colt wasn’t sure what to think of the woman’s behavior. It was so foreign to him that his instincts were all at once telling him to stay and flee. He wanted to flee because of the perceived danger the situation provided, and he wanted to stay because of the comfort he was experiencing. He had not had such a feeling since he was young, back when he was still with his mother and long before he was forced out of the safety of the herd into which he was born. He wondered, as the woman’s hand slowly moved up toward his withers, if what he was experiencing with this human was in some way the same thing he had back then.

Within minutes, the colt was allowing the woman to work her hand over his withers, down his shoulder and around the front of his chest. She worked up his neck, under his mane, then back down to the spot where she started on his shoulder. She repeated this pattern twice, then lowered her hand and stepped away from the colt. He had become totally relaxed with the woman and as she stepped away from him, he sleepily raised his head and turned in her direction, his eyes soft and his breathing slow and regular.