Equine ABCs

08/07/2024

INDUSTRY STANDARD PREMATURE WEANING PRACTICES

Weaning is naturally gradual, whereby the physical and psychological bond between mother and offspring is ended. To date, there are numerous studies, across a wide range of species, showing the physical and mental harm that is done when animals are prematurely and forcibly weaned. The act compromises an animal's welfare and goes against best-practices for raising a physically and behaviourally healthy animal. Therefore, it should be avoided.

Premature weaning of horses (~4-7 months of age) is sadly still a common practice in the horse world. While young horses can physically be kept alive when weaned at this age, the practice is harmful in the short-term. It can also result in the creation of unwanted behaviour problems in the long-term.

While we have selectively bred horses to perform a wide range of activities for us, we have not been able to breed out the basic needs which they still share with their wilder relatives. Studying how horses behave under natural conditions gives us valuable information on how best we can provide for our domestic horses. For example, horses have evolved to need fulltime access to what I call the 3 F's of Friends, Forage, and Freedom: living in direct contact with other horses, having continual access to forage so that they can trickle feed, and having the ability to freely engage in a wide range of normal behaviours in their environment. When horses are denied access to one or more of these three F's, or when we interfere with their ability to engage in normal behaviours it results in stress, decreased welfare, and can result in the creation of unwanted behaviours.

To better understand the effects of weaning practices, researchers in France and Iceland examined how and when foals wean themselves when living under natural conditions. Of the 16 mare-foal pairs they observed, they found that all of the foals spontaneously weaned themselves at around 9-10 months of age. Two weeks prior to self-weaning, the mares and foals remained closer to one another than they did to others in the group, usually within 1-5 horse lengths of one another. Suckling bouts also didn't decrease in the two weeks prior to weaning, and the foals made no attempts to suckle once weaned. This self-directed weaning also caused no signs of stress to either party.

A frequent rationale for premature weaning is to preserve the physical condition of the mare. Interestingly, none of the mares in this study lost physical condition, despite the length of time mares and foals were together.

In summary, to quote the authors:

"Modern breeding practices generally impose strong constraints as compared to the conditions of development of foals in a more natural environment. One major aspect is the early artificial weaning, which is not just a stage of diet transition but also a stage of social separation. There is increasing evidence that such a practice, although carried out on a routine basis by horse breeders, leads to short- and in some cases to long-term severe negative outcomes.

There is therefore a clear need to better understand the factors at stake (e.g., cessation of milk intake, immature digestive system, maternal deprivation, absence of adult models, additional changes in feeding or housing…), to improve the domestic management of weaning and animal welfare."

You can read the full paper, 'Domestic Foal Weaning: Need for Re-Thinking Breeding Practices?' by accessing it at this link: https://tinyurl.com/PrematureWeaningHorses

Image by Hans Benn from Pixabay

08/07/2024

One full minute of a horse falling asleep while getting scratches.

No tricks, gimmicks, or drugs. No magical stick training. 1.5 years of hard work, consistent training, and trying to recreate a safe, enriching world. And finally this horse feels comfortable enough to begin not just enjoying scratches, but taking a nap after asking for them.

Pasture interactions can be a reflection of how the horse feels in its environment and with the training it does receive. For Oberon, even changing to primarily food-based training and having multiple acres didn’t change his opinions overnight. He has needed repeated, good experiences and opportunities to make choices in as many scenarios as possible. We have worked and reworked how we approach challenges. He came to me with an amazing set of behaviors—he loads, leads, ties, holds still for vet examinations, and even could have his feet trimmed. But, he would be rigid, you could hear his breath pickup, and he would sometimes startle explosively. He has a kick that will send you to the hospital.

His behavior didn’t reflect his internal state, because training is only the tiniest slice of the puzzle. You can create some behaviors in days, minutes even for certain ones. But recreating a horse’s world view takes years. For some, depending on past history, current living condition, and age, it may never change. For others, it may not take much to help them open up and begin to explore the world.

But, there is no speeding past to get to this point. Be prepared to buckle up and put in the work. But I promise it is worth it.

07/08/2024

GENTLE RESTRAINT

For emergency situations.

Teaching your horses how to respond to pressure and restraint is an incredibly valuable tool. You can apply it in a number of situations and it can help keep them calm with a behavior they know how to do even when the situation makes them uncomfortable. It is not a substitute for training and should be phased out where appropriate, but it can drastically reduce the risk of a behavioral injury in an emergency situation. Just like you would for formal training, try and introduce stimuli slowly and build your way towards the final goal rather than racing to the target—your horse will thank you, and it might save you an unintentional hospital trip for yourself!

07/08/2024

GENTLE RESTRAINT

For emergency situations.

Teaching your horses how to respond to pressure and restraint is an incredibly valuable tool. You can apply it in a number of situations and it can help keep them calm with a behavior they know how to do even when the situation makes them uncomfortable. It is not a substitute for training and should be phased out where appropriate, but it can drastically reduce the risk of a behavioral injury in an emergency situation. Just like you would for formal training, try and introduce stimuli slowly and build your way towards the final goal rather than racing to the target—your horse will thank you, and it might save you an unintentional hospital trip for yourself!

06/27/2024

HABITUATION: How wild horses can get used to explosions

Sound on. 🔊

This was loud enough I could feel it in my chest a little bit. I started filming after several detonations occured. Habituation can be an incredibly powerful thing!

06/26/2024

Understand Horses presents a webinar with equine veterinary behaviourist Roxane Kirton discussing mare behaviour problems.

06/15/2024

Excellent opportunity to learn and get feedback on cooperative care procedures from an excellent vet/trainer duo!

06/14/2024

Lauren always writes concise articles that are easy to understand.

Positive reinforcement horse training is a low-stress technique that can help us teach horses how to happily perform almost any behavior.

06/14/2024

WHY BEHAVIOR CONSULTANTS DON’T RECOMMEND TRAINING OR RETRAINING AS AN INITIAL SOLUTION FOR A PROBLEM BEHAVIOR

Obviously, horses still need care even if they don’t feel comfortable. For this situation, we took a few steps to ensure work could be done on the feet while also keeping the farrier safe.

1. Administration of pain medication prior to farrier visit as directed by a veterinarian
2. Moving to a spot with dirt and no gravel to help horse be more comfortable
3. Using a bucket with sloppy food, to keep the horse’s head straight and to indicate when frustration levels were increasing for the horse
4. Frequent pauses, aiming for stopping before the horse escalates to any problem behaviors
5. An amazing farrier

There may be residual behaviors even after pain goes away due to the horse remembering discomfort with the procedure. We can never be 100% certain a horse is pain free. But, we might begin retraining this behavior if we have enough other indicators that the pain is likely to be gone. And, in some cases, the problem behavior goes away when the pain does.

06/08/2024

DOES YOUR HORSE LOOK LIKE THIS DURING TRAINING?

Training is an art form and each horse is an individual. Your horse’s behavior is good information about where improvements can be made.

06/07/2024

FOLLOWER VIDEO: We love to see hard work pay off!

I got this fantastic video in from a client, whose horse is on an ulcer medication trial. They have been using the videos/tips/and tricks from social media to help there mare cooperate with receiving her medication. They are looking good!

Wormer tube training is a relatively easy behavior to train (assuming your horse does not have past trauma associated with it). And teaching it can teach you a great deal about timing and shaping. I always recommend starting with a barrier between you and the horse (protected contact). But this can be a fun one to train even if you don't usually use food in training!

06/06/2024

TRAINING TIP: Inclement Weather

Training on bad weather days is important—the goal is for horses to be comfortable performing behaviors in a huge variety of settings rain or shine. But, we don’t have to pair our most difficult behaviors with gross weather days. It’s often far more productive not to, so we don’t risk creating a situation that results in trauma for us or the horse. But that doesn’t mean we won’t ever use train those hard behaviors in difficult environments. Sticking to well known behavior the horse likes performing initially can help build your horse’s confidence in bad weather. And you’ll be amazed what they can perform even in the weirdest conditions with a strong foundation under your belt.

06/04/2024

An opportunity to learn about and observe wild horses in the wild!

06/02/2024

FOOD PREFERENCE TEST

When working with food, ideally we want to use the least valuable food the horse will still work to receive. But, sometimes the food we think is the most valuable sits somewhere else in the horse’s mind. Things like levels of hunger can also affect results. So, multiple tests over time are best for finding the food to use in training.

Have you done a food preference test with your horse? What did you discover?

05/31/2024

Life happens—we do our best to set equines up for success, but we will encounter situations where we are unable to follow a rule book. It’s okay if it’s not perfect. Great thoughts and a lovely video of donkey training from Whispering Horse.

I saw a question recently about horses shutting down or what I sometimes think of as dissociation.

When I think about horses shutting down, I remember the first few times I noticed it with my horses Mercedes and Grace. They became unusually quiet when the halter or bridle was put on and during other times as well.

That was many years ago and I re-started them both with R+ training and never saw those behaviours again. It's not something I see or want to see in my R+ training.

But then I got a mini donkey and he's been one of the most frightened equines I've ever met. It's enabled me to better analyse some of the stress, fear and calming behaviours he shows. I got to a point where I could precisely pin point moments where he shut down.

Even though I trained him incredibly slowly and carefully, I could trip on a stick on the ground and give him a big fright, or my trimmer could trim the other donkeys well away from him and he would colic from the fear and stress.

I'd also like to add that this is why I'm not a "purist" or "purely positive", because there are so many things I can't control, when you have an animal as terrified as Paddy was at the start. Yes he ran away from me when I would enter the paddock, yes that was (potentially) negative reinforcement or even positive punishment. But I didn't *use* it or make his feeling of safety contingent on my removal as the aversive stimulus.

Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent, ha!

I was looking for a video and came across one that shows how scared Paddy was and how he would often shut down.

I always go as slow as I can for the animal, I try to incorporate choice and agency wherever possible, train at liberty, use start buttons, have alternative food close by, etc. But his health and welfare is important too, such as trimming or just being able to be caught and haltered in case he becomes ill or injured. Luckily he was self trimming fairly well on his surfaced Paddock Paradise.

I can honestly say I don't think I could have gone any slower to avoid all moments of him shutting down or giving a calming signal. Sometimes what I am doing, even though it is force free, is going to trigger his memories and I can't prevent that. All I can do is be consistent, kind and generous with the food to counter those memories.

Please remember this video is a very small snapshot of many hours of training with Paddy. That means it's not a "how to" and don't assume what he's thinking or feeling, without understanding the full picture of training that led to this point.

The good news about Paddy is that he's getting better all the time. He's still a super sensitive donkey who is easily scared, but that is slowly fading over the years. I've definitely got him over to the dark side and he loves to train, I see a very strong positive emotional response to myself and predictors that we are training. He's vocalising at me a lot now and gets a little bossy about wanting more training than the others, which is super cute and so heart warming. We also do some fun stuff to break things up and he's awesome at stepping up on various pedestals in his paddock.

In this video, can you see when he checks out and goes very still? Do you know some of the signs of unease, such as when he stops chewing? Can you spot his Start Button, an organic untrained one he gives me, such a gift! He may be looking away as a calming behaviour or simply looking at Dorothy, his favourite donkey in the background, it's a bit hard to tell.

https://youtu.be/TX5LCJzu19A?si=eD_SkeDG8GhoPxg1

(A fun photo of Paddy, as fb doesn't like youtube links 😉 )

05/30/2024

NEXT WEEK!

There are a lot of interpretations about horse behavior out there—we review two and discuss some of their implications. And, we dive into how observation of wild horse behavior influences our domestic management practices!

11:00 AM to 1:30 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST)
12:00 PM to 2:30 PM Mountain ST
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM Central ST
2:00 PM to 4:30 PM Eastern ST

Tuesday the 4th of June

Learn more and your tickets here: https://www.understandhorses.com/interpreting-wild-horse-behaviour-webinar-04-june-2024

05/24/2024

COME WITH ME TO PASTURE ROTATE HORSES

Behavior nerds, what to do you think: synchrony or trained behavior?

The horses intially learned to go in the back with a series of buckets. And, Obie has learned to follow me to those. But, today, there are no buckets. No markers. No treats. This is also the first time Obie has stuck himself in the paddock instead of going down the alley from the main pasture.

I have no treats or buckets. Just some opportunity for fresh grass at the other end, some cues trained with food and a marker, and some knowledge of syncrhony under my belt. I’d say they did pretty good!

05/19/2024

OUR MORAL & PROFESSIONAL OBLIGATION TO NOT WORSEN THE BEHAVIOUR OF HORSES

In January I started a podcast, Not Another Dog and Pony Show, with my friend and colleague, Matthias Lenz. Recently, I had cooperative veterinary care champion Monique Feyrecilde of Teaching Animals on the pod. One of my favourite talking points from this episode was when we discussed our moral obligation as professionals to not cause animals to be dangerous for others to handle in the future.

I’m frequently the ‘last resort’ for horses with behaviour problems. When I see a new client, they’ve often been to several other equine professionals, including trainers, without success.

In most cases, the horse’s behaviour has also worsened after these interventions. The horse who pulled their leg away from the farrier now rears and can’t be touched. The horse anxious about loading now rips the lead out of the owner’s hands and runs away when led towards the trailer. The horse who bolted on the lunge line now comes off the circle and attacks the handler. The horse who wouldn’t stand still at the mounting block now explodes and bucks hard.

The reason these problems worsened is that techniques were used to try and suppress the behaviour: the horse who pulled their leg away from the farrier was aggressively backed up every time they did so; the horse anxious about loading was hit with a whip every time they balked; the horse who bolted on the lunge had a chain put over their nose, and they were je**ed when they bolted; the horse who wouldn’t stand still was worked hard when they fidgeted and allowed to ‘rest’ next to the mounting block while the person tried to mount again. The horses all learned that trying to escape the source of things that caused them fear or pain wasn’t effective, so they had to try harder. They reared. They ripped the leadrope out of hands. They attacked, or exploded.

In every instance, this worsened behaviour made it more dangerous for others who followed to handle the horse – whether that was the horse’s owner, or the next professional hired to try and address the problem. This is because suppressed behaviour isn’t changed behaviour. You can make an unwanted behaviour appear to ‘stop’ by making the consequences for performing the behaviour much worse for the horse. But, you won’t have addressed why the behaviour was happening. You won’t have eased pain, or removed fear. In the same way you can make a beach ball temporarily ‘disappear’ by pushing it forcefully underwater, if you don’t address the reason why the horse's behaviour is happening, it will once again pop up – but with more intensity.

Our industry (horse training) is unregulated, which I have mixed feelings about. But one of the clear downsides of a lack of regulation is that anyone can hang out their shingle, without knowing about things like the effect of behaviour suppression, making it more dangerous for the next professional. The actions we take as trainers don’t just impact the horse in front of us, they also impact people. If we know that we can make horses safer for others to handle in the future, by choosing appropriate training techniques, don’t we morally have this obligation?

It’s certainly food for thought as we work with our horses this weekend. Here’s a link to the episode with Monique: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/YRjPI0yiJJb

05/14/2024

I am incredibly excited to speak with Lucy at this webinar! Her insights from having watched many different herds in various ecological and management settings worldwide are fascinating!

Understand Horses presents a webinar with equine ethology and behaviour experts Lucy Rees and Samantha Couper discussing and analysing wild and feral horse behaviour.

05/09/2024

05/01/2024

Did you catch the moment the filly's behavior of walking in front of her dam got reinforced?

Bonus question for behavior nerds: Where would you stick this in our operant quadrants?

The dam is 7 years old and this is her first filly. The band separated from the main herd for the foaling, but are now back with the main herd.

04/26/2024

13-14 July 2024. A unique equine event - a weekend of lectures plus practical demos & workshops on horse behaviour, physiology and training at Writtle University College, Essex.

04/23/2024

For World Book Day, I highly recommend "Horses in Company" by Lucy Rees

Lucy has observed horses across the world, in a variety of ecosystems. This book is a must-have for those interested in learning how horses behave in the wild, and how this can help shape positive welfare in our interactions with horses in the domestic environment. This book gives the best, critical look at the concept of "dominance" in horses that I have seen in any document. It is broken down to a level that both professionals and horse owners can understand, and it includes in-depth citations for nerds that want to have a deeper dive. Finally, it provides an alternative model to the concept of dominance which centers around escape from predators and affiliative (friendly) interactions.

https://www.crowood.com/products/horses-in-company-by-lucy-rees

04/20/2024

WHAT IS STRESS AND HOW CAN YOU RECOGNISE IT IN HORSES?

Stress can be defined as the body's reaction to mental or physical pressure. Some stress is useful in a horse’s life to protect them from potential danger and allows a horse to learn and adapt to their environment. However, too much stress can cause a negative impact to their health and well-being.

The first step to reducing a horse's stress is to recognise the symptoms. However, the early signs of stress are often missed or ignored. Horses are all individuals and may show different signs of stress, they may also display more than one sign at a time. Horse owners and carers need to be able to recognise these signs to identify the cause and improve the horse’s situation.

The Horse Care & Welfare team at The British Horse Society have produced a really useful guide explaining what stress is, what causes it, how it can impact the horse, how to recognise signs of stress and what you can do to reduce it.

I have loved working on this project with the BHS and am so pleased this vital information is getting out to the wider equestrian audience. A massive well done and thank you to the BHS!

You can find the guide on the BHS website here: https://www.bhs.org.uk/horse-care-and-welfare/behaviour/equine-stress

04/16/2024

CONCENTRATION EARS
(Food for thought: an ethological perspective)

When delving into explorations of using food in training, it is likely that at some point we will come across the concept of “concentration ears”. I have seen this attributed to expressions where a horse has its ears flat back, its nose scrunched, and where the horse is typically engaging in movement (with handler on ground or in the saddle). An interpretation that is sometimes provided is that the horse is concentrating, much like human beings would when trying to solve a math puzzle or participate in a professional sport.

But, is concentration face in horses an actual phenomenon? Horses are not humans, so do their faces contort when they are in situations where intense concentration might be required?

To my knowledge, there are no rigorous, scientific explorations for ear-pinning during food training. Pain, frustration, conflict, and food insecurity are alternatively proposed explanations for pinned ears during movement with clicker trainer horses. This post does not provide you an “answer” as to if concentration ears are real, but I hope it will get you thinking about how you might test these various hypotheses if they show in your own horse. A key component is to compare to contexts that are less nuanced by observing them in the field. I invite you to explore the nuances in your horse’s expressions rather than being beholden to an explanation provided to you.

My hypothesis: If concentration face is an expected expression in a horse, we would expect to see it in feral or wild horses in situations that concentration would be required.

Here are some naturally occurring situations where I believe horses might need to concentrate:

1. Ingesting thorny plant matter
2. A stallion engaged in self-play (rearing) or play with another stallion
3. Running in synchrony with other horses during flight

Can you think of some others?

The last two are pertinent for comparison to the domestic setting as both involve movement.

In none of these situations have I personally seen a contorted “concentration face” appear in feral equids.

Now of course this is not a study, and it is in no way rigorous. Please don’t run off and say that “The question of concentration ears has been solved!” I offer this instead as a basis for further individual exploration with some very preliminary observations. For me, for now, what I have seen suggests that concentration ears are a domestic training phenomenon. Since flat ears and scrunched noses are often attributed to negative valence states by studies of stress and/or pain in horses, I would be inclined to interpret these expressions during training as indicating a horse in discomfort (physical or emotional).

But, let’s assume for a moment that concentration ears are indeed the closest fit to what the horse is feeling—do we want our horses to feel like they are taking a math test when we ask for movement? I would personally want to step back and break things down more thoroughly. I would prefer my horses feel fluid and confident in their movements. If I’ve done my job correctly, they are done with their test 30 minutes early and aren’t worried about the results.

And if they aren’t, if they are struggling, we stop the test. We figure out what core components are missing, and get those fluid before beginning again. Everything we see is data, tiny little insights into how our horse is feeling about the world around it. If we can treat what we observe this way, we can make tremendous progress. If we cover it with a more palatable explanation, we may unwittingly increase risk to ourselves and slow our progress. Hopefully, we will still be gentle with ourselves as we learn, even if we see undesirable behaviors that we may have created.

What do you think? Do horses show an expression akin to “concentration” in humans? And if they do, is it something you would be comfortable with in your training? Why or why not?

(Photos and videos of feral horses in the USA, taken from 100 feet or more away. Please follow viewing guidelines set forth by the managing agency of any wild or feral horse herds you visit).