My silent time is when I get to go to the barn for a long ride with my boy horse. My girl horse is very very new to riding and needs a lot of praise and encouragement, but my boy horse has been mine since he was three and I was 17 and we just understand each other in silence at this point.

He's such an athlete that he enjoys the exercise of a ride as much as I do, down to the point of enjoying fighting me on every little point. I've known, owned, and ridden horses so emotionally sensitive that arguing a point with them as intensely as I do with the boy horse would be abusive, and who would never disobey intentionally to provoke a quarrel like he does, but with the boy horse I can genuinely feel his enjoyment of challenging me and how much he appreciates the physical exhaustion he experiences after a hard ride. I understand him completely, because I feel the same way when he wears me out. He's so well-trained that if he feels like it he can respond to me just moving my eyes--while on his back, where he can't see my eyes--but he likes to test me for fun, and because he knows it entertains me, too (except when he catches me off guard and I eat dirt). The girl horse would NEVER do such a thing, and when she accidentally makes a mistake and realizes it, she's mortified.

Sometimes other riders will put on music, and I grit my teeth and don't say anything, but until I manage to tune it out it drives me crazy. That's my non-verbal communication time, and I NEED it dangit!