Observing natural horse behaviour (or not...)

I recently heard about a clinic (Natural Horsemanship type of thing) in my area, where they turned a group of horses loose in the arena to let the participants observe 'natural' horse behaviour. This could be massively misleading and, I think, damaging to our view of horses. The behaviours you see might be in the horse's repertoire, but it is highly unlikely to be their 'normal' behaviour - when you put them into such an abnormal situation, you can't expect normal responses. The level of unfriendly interactions between this group of horses could (and I'm not saying it was, I wasn't there) then be used to justify us behaving in a confrontational way with our horses - its 'what they understand'.

This morning, I read a great article in the Journal of the Equine Behaviour Forum by Lucy Rees, 'Why Study Feral Horse Ethology'. Ethology, she explains, is the science of animal behaviour. She talks of students she has taken on field study trips  and says 'Watching normal horse behaviour makes them realize that they have never seen normal horses, for it is only when you see what normal is that you identify what is abnormal. Looking at social relations of domestic horses is about as useful as studying family relationships in a prison.'

She continues 'What we fail to realise is that even domestic horses kept in little, stable groups in fields - the best conditions we can offer - are considerably more aggressive to each other than are feral horses. One of the greatest impacts of feral horse behaviour is their peacefulness. They do not argue or give each other orders, but get on with staying alive together'

We do not have all the answers as to why domestic horses are more aggressive, but Lucy Rees puts forward several sensible possibilities - competition over food, overcrowding, boredom, poor socialisation to name a few.

For myself, I wouldn't discount the usefulness of looking at social relations of domestic horses - we need to understand the behaviour of domesticated horses - I watch mine all the time, and their social interactions play a significant role in how I manage them, for example, as well as helping me understand the individuals and how to interact with them. But we shouldn't confuse this with observing 'natural' horse behaviour!

What can you learn from standing still with a horse?

Well, millions of things! But here's a wee example from today at my yard.

I was doing stuff with Benson in the yard, and Elvis decided he wanted to join in. Clicker training doesn't work too well with 2 horses in on the action, one of whom is decidedly not doing what you want, so I asked Iain, who is quite new to horses, to hold on to Elvis while I worked with Benson.

So, Iain puts Elvis's head collar on and takes him to stand out of the way. I'm keeping half an eye on them, and am aware that Iain is managing fine, but there is some discussion going on between the two of them...

10 minutes later I'm finished with Benson, and Iain asks me the best way to respond to Elvis when he tries to nip. Iain is a competent dog trainer, interested in infinite levels of detail about horse behaviour and training, so off we go!

Firstly, the basic level - Elvis threatens to nip Iain, and Iain's response to this will either encourage or discourage his behaviour. So we talked about that a bit. If we are competent enough, we can certainly stop the nipping by ensuring that Elvis gets no enjoyment from trying this.

Then we stepped back a bit - why is he nipping in the first place? I watched the next incident closely. Elvis started looking over the field at some cows; within seconds his attention was totally on them, while Iain was standing passively next to him. Then Iain pulled a little on the lead rope, to get Elvis's attention. Elvis responded with a nip threat - the request for his attention was a bit abrupt and 'big' and his response was basically to say 'back off, that was rude and I'm busy' to Iain. So we talked a bit about keeping or getting back Elvis's attention, and how to do this.

However, stepping back again, I noticed that Iain's attention had been slightly diverted from Elvis before Elvis stopped paying attention to Iain!

So, in this case, Iain 'disconnected' from Elvis, so Elvis started paying attention to something else, then when Iain asked for his attention back it was irritating to Elvis and he said so. Once we got that cleared up, and Iain stayed focussed on Elvis, in this instance we had no more nipping.

Dull work, you might think :-) But this is very relevant to any work, ridden or on the ground, that you might do with your horse. There's not much you can usefully do with a horse if you don't have his attention (or a good 'connection' with him). Often when things that you didn't plan for happen, like your horse spooking, napping or heading high-speed for home, his attention was gone well before any physical action was taken. Keeping the connection between you and your horse isn't always easy, but the first step is being aware of whether you have it or not! And realising that if you're going to ask for your horse's full attention, whilst you think about what you're going to cook for tea tonight, it's not going to work out too well :-)

Did horses used to live longer?

Saw this today Irish draught Shayne, 51, put to sleep at Essex sanctuary.

It reminded me of an eighteenth century book on horses I read a while ago, which said that the average age a horse lived to was 51. At the time I made note of this, but didn't take it as fact - could be a misprint, or the author could be very poor at maths, or just mistaken :-)

The above article mentions that the oldest horse ever recorded was born in 1760, and lived to be 62!

Horses are getting more athletic, faster, 'better' in many ways (apparently), and the potential to treat their ailments and give them the care they need for a long and healthy life has vastly improved since 1760. So it seems very sad to me that in the last 200 years or so, no horse has managed to live as long as 'Old Billy', 1760 - 1822.

Although the thought of having Elvis around for the next 50 odd years...

Could laughing improve your horse's life?

More late night musings.

Tigger pulls quite a few 'funny' faces. I taught him to 'laugh' some time ago (actually Flehmen response).

Having had a few new visitors to the yard recently, and a lot of positive feedback on my silly video of when the training of this wasn't working (Tigger Laughing), I've really been struck by how appealing people find this, and that most of us find Tigger more 'likeable' because of he does this.

Somehow, this made me think of victorian fathers training their daughters to paint, speak french, sing and play the piano nicely - it supposedly improved their marriage prospects and thus, supposedly, their prospects of a good life.

There is good evidence that horses who are 'lovable' are treated better. I am in no way saying this is a good thing, but its interesting to think that teaching your horse a few silly but appealing tricks might actually better his life. Just as the victorian girl who sung and painted was 'more appealing'...

Of course, teaching him impeccable manners on the ground and under saddle will do even more for his future prospects, but that's another subject...

What horses really want...

My horses have a field shelter in a yard (so that's really a ‘yard shelter’ I guess), which opens onto their fairly huge, hilly field. The yard is maybe 20M by 30M – a big enough space for them to move around in, but not enormous. They are given hay and feed in the yard in bad weather, as conditions are pretty rough out in the field (that whole living half way up a Scottish mountain thing again…)

I’ve been watching their use of the field over the past few weeks, in a variety of weathers – snow, wind, rain, occasional crisp sunny days. As these horses have the choice of staying in or going out, it's interesting to see what they do. I don’t watch them 24 hours a day, so I can’t say for sure what they do when I am away, but here’s what I have seen. 

Flynn, the arab, hasn’t been out of the yard for weeks! He’s quite sound, happy to go and belt about loose in the school, or go out for a walk, but just looks quite content hanging about the yard. We know he hasn’t been out in the field as he has some cream on his leg just about his hoof, and it is untouched, legs are beautifully clean!

From the mud on their legs, I know that Benson and Paddy, the other two old gentlemen have been out in the field, but I haven’t seen them doing this.

Tigger and Elvis, the youngsters, go out for short spells to play, then come back in to doze and eat.

When it was snowy, I could follow their tracks into the field, and none of them had ventured more than about 60 metres from the yard, although they had clearly run about a fair bit in this space. 

I can also tell from the amount of poo picking there is to do in the yard each morning, how much they are in - right now, unless they are coming in to use the 'indoor toilet' then going out again (unlikely!) they are pretty much staying put in the yard. 

So, although they all behave a little differently, none of the horses are too interested in wandering around a large, bare field at this time of year. Their priorities are sticking close to the hay (they rarely stop eating for more than 1 hour at a time), and sticking close to each other. They also move about a lot, within this reasonably small space – the youngsters, occasionally joined by ancient Paddy will canter, chase each other, rear, buck – in general have a play quite often, whilst the older boys usually just amble from one lot of hay to another.  

Conclusions? As usual, I can’t generalise from such a small group of horses and limited observations. But what do this bunch want most at this time of year? 

To eat in the company of good friends - all day long :-)

Space to move about is also very important, but they don't want to just stretch their legs for 8 hours at a time. Horses who are turned out alone all day with no forage are often described as 'not liking' turnout, because they quickly grow tired of it and want back in. Provide an environment outdoors that they enjoy (and that'd definitely include forage and company) and I'm sure they would quickly change their minds! Stabling 24/7 for weeks on end because they 'don't like turnout' should not, in my opinion, be considered as a reasonable management option. 

On Horses Sharing Precious Resources

Consider a question: when would you expect to see more ‘arguments’ over access to hay between a group of horses –

• on a nice sunny day, when there is grass to be had, and everyone is getting plenty to eat

or

• on a miserable, rainy winters day, when the grazing has gone, and the supply of food is much more limited?

You might well expect there to be more problems with the horses ‘sharing nicely’ on the horrible winter’s day – after all, we know that horses have a social hierarchy, and that this hierarchy determines who gets the best access to food, so we might think they will all be out for themselves and the most ‘dominant’ horses will get the lion’s share of the food.

However, what I notice with my group of 5 is that when their other needs are fulfilled (i.e. they are warm enough, not particularly hungry or thirsty, feeling safe and physically comfortable and so on), they will ‘squabble’ on and off – moving each other off the hay, competing for water, and 'evicting' each other from the field shelter. They are not engaging in what we would normally call play here (although they do this as well) – they are telling each other what to do, albeit in a fairly low-key way.

On a miserable day, when they are hungry and would rather be in the field shelter than outside, they tend to settle down and share peaceably – nobody is told to leave the shelter, not even the most minor of threats are issued, they approach each other and share hay without any issue of 'social rank' appearing to be considered. 

What does this tell us? There are lots of theories we could call on here – about  friendship, bonding, sharing and so on. But I wouldn't want to generalise - this is one group of horses, observed by one person. 

All I’ll say is that trivialising horse’s social lives into some simplistic quest for ‘dominance’ does horse-kind a huge injustice. 

Dominant, Aggressive or Scared?

A wee while ago, I wrote something on natural behaviour, and used this very unflattering photo of Flynn. Just to annoy his owner, Eileen, here it is again!

Seriously, thought this showed some behaviour worth thinking about. What is Flynn up to here? He’s clearly driving the other horses off their hay, and is looking pretty full-on about it. So, we could say this is dominant behaviour, Flynn is ‘boss’ of those other horses and leave it at that.

But, why is Flynn doing this? Just because he can move the others around if he wants to doesn't explain why he is doing it now. Is he just evil? J. Does he want their hay? Have they been ‘disrespectful’ to him?...

Actually, if you take Benson (far right, concentrating on the serious business of eating as usual) out of the equation, Flynn will share peaceably with the other horses. Also, if you put all 5 horses out in the field with hay you won’t see Flynn doing this. 

Benson has a habit for just going where he wants, when he wants, and everyone else better move. He doesn't overtly threaten, but they all clear a path for him. So, Flynn knows if Benson  comes his way, he’d better move. With several other horses in the yard, I think he is anxious about his ability to move, worried about being trapped between horses. He could leave the yard if he wanted, but being out in the field alone isn't a great option either. So, his ‘dominant’ behaviour is caused by him feeling uncomfortable and unsafe about his situation.

Worth thinking about if your horse tries to move you away, or objects to what you are doing (hopefully not as vigorously as Flynn is doing in this picture!). Have a think about why he’s telling you to back off, then you can address the cause of the problem, rather than just telling him to shut up and behave!