: How to describe a horse from the POV of someone who has never seen one? In my story, my narrator has only recently met other humans and the biggest creature she has ever interacted with are

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She would focus on both the familiar and the parts that are out of place.

Familiar:
* It's an animal (mammal) (4 legs, hairy)
* It works in a helper capacity to humans

Bizarre:
* Its size! This is probably her first impression.
* It can be ridden. If this is part of her first view, it will likely be paired with size for her first reaction.
* Long face, neck, mane, and tail unlike any other she's seen.
* Those feet! Hooves not paws.

She might at first use words like "beast" and "monster." Some of the familiar vs the new will be simultaneous and in other cases she'll go back and forth while she gets her bearings. Not all new animals elicit this type of reaction, but one that is 10 times the size of any she's ever seen (and/or being ridden) surely will.

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Horses are very much like ramped up dogs; the long face, the legs. They have hooves instead of paws. You have to add on manes and hairy tails. But if somebody has seen large dogs, like a Labrador Retriever or Greyhound, the horse is very similar.

I'd look through breeds of dogs and see which one looks MOST like a horse, and describe it that way. Just imagine that dog five and a half feet tall at the shoulder.

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