An article entitled, the Neigh-Neigh Sisterhood in Natural History magazine explains how female friendships help wild mares cope.
Writer Stephan Reebs says,
Wild mares that form strong social bonds with other mares produce more foals than those that don’t, researchers have found, in what may be the first documented link between “friendship” and reproductive success outside of primates.
The three-year study followed several bands of feral horses in the Kaimanawa Mountains of New Zealand. Elissa Z. Cameron, now at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and two colleagues computed sociality scores for fifty-six mares.
Sociality? How is this measured? They chose parameters such as the proportion of time each animal spent near other mares and the amount of social grooming she did. Cameron et.al. found that the scores correlated well with foaling rate: more sociable mares had more foals and also suffered slightly less harassment by the bands’ few males.
Correlational studies are difficult to interpret, and do not prove cause and effect, but they are a start. These data are consistent with the idea that bonds between females—even unrelated ones, as in horse bands—help them fend off pestering males, thus reducing stress and promoting healthy pregnancies.
Note: They shouldn’t need a study of horses to know that bonds between females help them fend off pestering males! Ever been to a club or bar?
There is no real independent self aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world and inspecting other people; you are in fact connected…quite literally connected by your neurons…and there is no real distinctiveness of your consciousness from someone else’s consciousness. This emerges from an understanding of basic neuroscience.
Harm or violence can be defined as “coercive action based on an illusion of separateness, or the inability to recognize oneself in the other.”
How much of horse training and horseback riding involves coercive action, albeit what we think of as kind coercion? You can’t do much with a horse without, well, getting him to do something you want him to do. Whether or not you “make it his idea,” it’s coercion. I’m not equating coercion in horsemanship with violence and harm, though it seems that way from what I’ve written thus far.
I’m trying to delineate those two ideas, if possible. Radical animal rights activists will say that no delineation is possible. these are the people who advocate not keeping pets, etc. because it’s demeaning and abusive to them and an unnatural state. I see their point, but in my humble opinion, it’s not realistic in today’s world. If you choose not to have a pet based on this assumption, that’s great. It does not solve the companion animal population crisis overnight, nor does it address the issue of where the breeds came from in the first place. They are here to stay unless there’s a mass extermination, and I don’t think they want that. I merely want to think about the ways in which we interact with these animals, and to examine the core principles that inform our common activities.
If our core value is not compassion, loving kindness, and the will to do no harm (in short–met(t)a horsemanship), then we delude ourselves. Minute failures in metta, coercion without kindness, amount to violence against our horses. When we do violence to another, we do violence to ourselves. As V.S. Ramachandran states above, there is no duality–the Golden Rule, Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You–is not just an aphorism, but a necessity for living as a human being. We are all one being.
To go one step further, watching another doing violence (read: in the media, TV, video games, in our family relationships and in our relations to animals), we also experience that violence ourselves. Remember how you felt the last time you witness something unpleasant occur between two beings. See what I mean? Mirror Neurons virtually guarnatee that we experience this kind of empathetic response, because violence is based on an illusion of our separateness. Itt affects us all as interconnected beings.
Unfortunately, we can raise our tolerance to violence and even our ignorance of its existence by taking more of it in. You’ve watched horse training videos or presentations in which there was great violence against the horse, cloaked in modern training-speak and perpetrated by charming media-savvy stars. I’m willing to bet that, like me, you’ve come to realize that methods you accepted in the past are not compassionate, as and such do not recognize the inherent oneness of the human and horse. You have resolved to find a better way.
Nonviolence is a force that reveals itself via an ability to see ourselves in the other, a realization of the non-separation between ourselves and those around us. Research on mirror neurons … can help us to begin to understand the science behind this interrelationship between ourselves, other beings, violence, and nonviolence. This video, and the scientific paradigm of which it is a part, is worth watching, and worth developing.
I’m curious to know what you think. What are your opinions on the subject? With posts like this, have I gone off the deep end? Addressing the foundations of horsemanship or strayed too far?
Much of traditional horse training relies on negative reinforcement. I know I’m going to take some heat on that statement, but, well, come get me. The term, negative reinforcement does not by definition indicate dominance or stressful training. There, I’m covered. However, many trainers and riders intuitively feel that negative reinforcement can elicit dominance behaviors in trainers and induce stress in horses. They choose eliminate it from their programs, opting instead for positive reinforcement programs like Clicker Training.
We teach our horses a variety of tasks to gain their attention and trust and to teach them what they need to know to be our ideal partners. In natural horsemanship training circles, the ability to get your horse to walk calmly over a rippling, crinkly tarp is be a bomb-proofing feather in your horsemanship hat.
Heleski, Bauson, and Bello of the Department of Animal Science at Michigan State University in East Lansing did a study* to see whether the positive reinforcement people are wasting their time and the NH folks’ often more expedient methods work just as well.
This study tested the hypothesis that adding positive reinforcement (PR) to negative reinforcement (NR) would enhance learning in horses (n = 34) being taught to walk over a tarp (novel/typically frightening task).
Subjects were Arabians, and the same person handled all of them. This person handled half “traditionally” (NR only)–that is, halter/lead were pulled; when horse stepped forward, pressure was released; process repeated until criterion met (horse crossed the tarp with little/no obvious anxiety).
The same person handled the other half traditionally–but with addition of PR (NR + PR).
Subjects “failed” the task if they refused to walk onto the tarp after 10 min.
Nine horses failed; 6 of 9 failures were from NR only–no significant difference detected (p = .41). The study detected no difference in time to first crossing of the tarp (p = .30) or total time to achieve calmness criterion (p = .67). Overall, adding PR did not significantly enhance learning this task. However, there were practical implications–adding PR made the task safer/less fatiguing for the handler.
PubMed Abstract PMID: 18569217, indexed for MEDLINE, authored by Heleski C, Bauson L, Bello N.
These studies always seem to leave too may variables flapping in the breeze like tarps with blown grommets. The authors cite a single practical implication in favor of positive reinforcement: handler safety!
I’d like to know: What was the positive reinforcement?
and
How the numbers would look if
a) a study’s standard of success were measured by some other parameter than initial learning speed; and
b) a study examined the effects of positive reinforcement as opposed to negative reinforcement rather than as an additive technique.
From a precis from the Department of Equine Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands, I copied the following obfuscatory summary:
REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY: Behavioural tests as well as observers’ ratings have been used to study horses’ temperament. However, the relationship between the ratings and the responses in behavioural tests has not yet been studied in detail.
OBJECTIVES: The aim of the present study was to examine this relationship between ratings and responses.
METHODS: Eighteen mature Swedish Warmblood horses were subjected to 2 behavioural tests, one relating to novelty (novel object test) and one to handling (handling test). Subsequently, 16 of these horses were ridden by 16 equally experienced students, having no former experience with the horses. Immediately after each ride, the students scored the horse for 10 temperamental traits using a line rating method.
RESULTS: It was shown that for each temperamental trait all 16 riders agreed on the ranking of the horses (0.212<W<0.505, P < 0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: Correlations between behavioural and heart rate variables in the behavioural tests revealed that horses with a high level of locomotion or much restlessness behaviour exhibited high mean heart rate and low heart rate variability. In particular, heart rate variables in the behavioural tests were found to correlate with riders' rating scores. Furthermore, the underlying components of the handling test, retrieved with a principal component analysis (PCA) correlated with riders' rating scores while the underlying components of the novel object test did not.
POTENTIAL CLINICAL RELEVANCE: It is concluded that it is possible for a large panel of assessors to agree upon a horse's temperament and that objective measures from behavioural tests correlate significantly with temperamental traits assessed by a panel of assessors.
Here is my attempt at translation into human language. If you have suggestions, comments, or corrections (provided you speak scientific obfuscation), speak up (in English, please)!
Human beings, whether or not they have experience with a given horse, can assess temperament on a given day that corresponds accurately with heart rate variability, which is often used as a measure of heart coherence or contentment. Or: It is easy to tell when a horse is upset.
I once bought my daughter a pair of Rein Aids on the recommendation of her trainer because she has weakness in one arm and hand, and that caused uneven tension on her reins, and you know what that does. Other riders who have equal use of both hands use them, too, along with all sorts of other aids that are intended to reduce or equalize pressure on the horse’s head and mouth. I’ve always wondered if they actually worked in the way intended. The following summary of a study done by Dr. Hillary Clayton and colleagues at the Department of Animal Science, Michigan State University, and published by PubMed gives some information, but not enough to answer my question completely.
Unsteady hand position can cause discomfort to the horse, potentially leading to conflict behaviours (CB) such as head tossing or tail lashing. Some instructors feel that martingales or elastic rein inserts can reduce discomfort caused by inexperienced and unsteady hands. Others consider these devices to be inappropriate ‘crutches’. Four horses and nine riders were tested under three conditions in random order: plain reins, adjustable training martingales (TM), and elasticised rein inserts (RI). Rein-tension data (7s) and behavioural data (30s) were collected in each direction. Rein-tension data were collected via strain-gauge transducers. Behavioural data were assessed using an ethogram of defined behaviours. No differences in the number of CB were observed. Mean rein tension for TM was higher than that of RI or controls. Relative to the withers, the head was lower for horses ridden with martingales. Carefully fitted martingales may have a place in riding schools that teach novices.
The martingale, image courtesy www.sustainabledressage.com
The rein tension data are very helpful. I always wanted to know if there was a detectable difference in what the horse can feel. The fact that mean rein tension was higher with the martingale should have been pretty obvious! Isn’t that the whole point? But the fact that there was no detectable difference in conflict behavior with and without the aids was kind of a surprise. I never knew a horse who didn’t object (at least at first) to wearing a martingale. Sure, it eventually does its job–head down!–but I don’t think it’s fun. It’s not only unsteady hand position that can cause discomfort and conflict.
Rein-Aid, image courtesy sustainabledressage.com
I do not understand the conclusion. Whether or not these devices are seen as crutches (for whom? the horse? the rider?), who is being trained? Do the devices train the rider to have softer hands? Do they train the horses to better tolerate unsteady contact or to keep their heads down and soldier on?
After a few discussions with Bonnitta of The Horses at Alderlore about HeartMath and heart coherence, I think I might like to talk a little about Heart Rate Variability. Heart rate variability (HRV) refers to the beat-to-beat alterations in heart rate. As humans age, heart rate variability decreases. This is not a good thing, and can be an indicator of poor health. A healthy person has high heart rate variability. High heart rate variability can also correlate positively with Heart Coherence. There is no telling whether horses’ hearts and systems work in the same way.
Forty-one Dutch Warmblood immature horses were used in a study to quantify temperamental traits on the basis of heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) measures. Half of the horses received additional training from the age of 5 months onwards; the other half did not. Horses were tested at 9, 10, 21 and 22 months of age in a novel object and a handling test.
During the tests, mean HR and two heart variability indices, e.g. standard deviation of beat-to-beat intervals (SDRR) and root mean square of successive beat-to-beat differences (rMSSD), were calculated and expressed as response values to baseline measures. In both tests, horses showed at all ages a significant increase in mean HR and decrease in HRV measures, which suggests a marked shift of the balance of the autonomic nervous system towards a sympathetic dominance. In the novel object test, this shift was more pronounced in horses that had not been trained.
Furthermore, statistical analysis showed that the increase in mean HR could not be entirely explained by the physical activity. The additional increase in HR, the nonmotor HR, was more pronounced in the untrained horses compared to the trained. Hence, it is suggested that this nonmotor HR might be due to the level of emotionality. HR variables showed consistency between years, as well as within the second year. These tests bring about a HR response in horses, part of which may indicate a higher level of emotionality; and horses show individual consistency of these HR variables over ages. Therefore, it is concluded that mean HR and HRV measures used with these tests quantify certain aspects of a horse’s temperament.
Sometimes I can barely figure out what these things say, much less interpret them. I think this says that the authors theorize that more emotional horses display a greater HR response and a decrease in HR variability in novel object testing. Leaning toward sympathetic nervous system dominance is never a good thing with a horse, especially if you’re on it! The trained horses seemed to show significantly less variability, meaning that training can help shift the horse into the parasympathetic nervous system and away from fight or flight responses.
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Do you ever feel like your horse might be watching your every move? He very well might be, according to a new behavior study by British scientists. Their research indicates that horses are highly sensitive to the attention we attribute to them, including our gaze.
In an August article on body language an horse-human communication in the Horse.com, Christa Lesté-Lasserre chronicles a series of tests involving 36 horses and ponies aged 10 months to 38 years. Also in the study were two humans who stood motionless in a paddock, each in a different position, demonstrating more or less attention to the horse. According to Leanne Proops, PhD, a researcher at the Centre for Mammal Vocal Communication Research at the University of Sussex in Brighton (and primary author of the study), in the three primary tests, almost 80% of the horses walked toward the person showing the most attention.
During these tests, the animals were to distinguish between a person standing facing the horse or with his or her back to the horse; between two people standing facing the horse but one with the head turned to the side and the other with the head facing forward; and between two people facing the horse with their full bodies and heads but one with the eyes closed and one with the eyes open.
In a fourth, “mixed cue” test, one person stood sideways but with his head turned toward the horse, whereas the other stood with her body forward and her face turned to the side. Although 60% of the horses in this last test chose the person with the face forward, the results were not considered significant enough to be conclusive on the mixed cue test.
In all the tests, the testers maintained neutral facial expressions. The horses were not rewarded for choosing correctly. However, the horses did receive commercial horse treats between tests in order to maintain motivation.
No significant differences in responses among horses from a private riding stable and those in a refuge were reported, which Proops says suggests that the horse’s prior experience with humans has little effect on their attention to human cues. In other words, this is not a learned response.
One of the most interesting results of the study is that when horses chose to engage the inattentive person, they often entered that person’s field of vision and actively made efforts to gain his/her attention.
These results show how sensitive horses are to very subtle body cues when interacting with humans, in the same way that they are sensitive to tiny changes in posture and muscle tone in other horses. Knowing that you are communicating with your horse subconsciously in every move you make can only lead to an improved relationship with him.
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I was delighted to trip over the following abstract by Murphy J. Arkins of the Department of Life Sciences, University of Limerick, Ireland, at PubMed He has tossed me a line. Go raibh maith agat, Professor Arkins! See the bold portion of the quoted abstract below.
Scientists and equestrians continually seek to achieve a clearer understanding of equine learning behaviour and its implications for training. Behavioural and learning processes in the horse are likely to influence not only equine athletic success but also the usefulness of the horse as a domesticated species. However given the status and commercial importance of the animal, equine learning behaviour has received only limited investigation. Indeed most experimental studies on equine cognitive function to date have addressed behaviour, learning and conceptualization processes at a moderately basic cognitive level compared to studies in other species. It is however, likely that the horses with the greatest ability to learn and form/understand concepts are those, which are better equipped to succeed in terms of the human-horse relationship and the contemporary training environment. Within equitation generally, interpretation of the behavioural processes and training of the desired responses in the horse are normally attempted using negative reinforcement strategies. On the other hand, experimental designs to actually induce and/or measure equine learning rely almost exclusively on primary positive reinforcement regimes. Employing two such different approaches may complicate interpretation and lead to difficulties in identifying problematic or undesirable behaviours in the horse. The visual system provides the horse with direct access to immediate environmental stimuli that affect behaviour but vision in the horse is of yet not fully investigated or understood. Further investigations of the equine visual system will benefit our understanding of equine perception, cognitive function and the subsequent link with learning and training. More detailed comparative investigations of feral or free-ranging and domestic horses may provide useful evidence of attention, stress and motivational issues affecting behavioural and learning processes in the horse. The challenge for scientists is, as always, to design and commission experiments that will investigate and provide insight into these processes in a manner that withstands scientific scrutiny.
I’m really interested now to learn more about the horse’s visual system. Let’s start looking into it. If you find anything good, let me know.
I am an admitted National Public Radio addict. One of the things I’ve missed most living here in Hawaii is the non-stop stream of NPR I used to get while driving. Here in Hawaii I don’t get to listen to NPR because I don’t drive very much. It took me at least a half hour to get almost anywhere in central Virginia. Here, it’s five minutes tops. There are apparently no satellites that cover this area of the North Pacific, so there’s no Sirius Satellite Radio, either. No all-day NPR for me. I can get a few minutes’ worth if I’m lucky enough to be in the car at the right time. Phooey. One of my favorite things about NPR was Ira Flatow’s Science Friday. I have learned so much from his fascinating guests and had more than a few driveway moments listening to something worth staying in the car for. For the net few weeks, I’m going to host my own little Science Friday here at Enlightened Horsemanship Through Touch. I look forward to your thoughts on the subjects I plan to present.
The first article is a real doozy, right up my alley, so to speak. As a writer whose self-assigned mission is to find all the science she can to back up the intuitively-derived methods of some of my favorite horsemanship practitioners, I get all excited and jump around when I find good stuff like the following article, # 14464, from The Horse.comby Nancy Zacks, published July 1, 2009.
Horses React to Human Heart Rates, Study Finds
An increase in a human’s heart rate affects the heart rate of the horse they are leading or riding, researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences recently reported.
Linda Keeling, PhD, and several colleagues tested ten horses and 20 riders to find out if humans nonverbally communicate fear or anxiety to horses. The researchers used heart rate as a fear indicator. In the study, conducted in an indoor arena, 20 people with varying levels of horse experience walked and rode 10 horses from Point A to Point B four times while wearing heart rate monitors. The horses also wore monitors. The researchers told participants an umbrella would open as they rode or led the horse on the fourth pass. The umbrella never opened, but heart rates in both horses and humans increased during the fourth trip between the points, when the human expected the umbrella to open. According to the study, these findings indicate that analysis of simultaneously recorded human and equine heart rates under different experimental handling or riding conditions can be a useful tool to investigate horse-human interactions.
The increase in the horses’ heart rates probably means that they are more alert and prepared to react to any potential danger. In the wild, horses are adapted to respond to other animals in their group. A startle reaction is more likely when the horse is very alert.
–L.J. Keeling
Each and every one of us knows that if you’re nervous, you may well induce the very spook you’re trying to avoid. But is it solely your heart rate that cues your horse to the fact that you are nervous? I wonder if these scientists are looking at other physical parameters to measure the horse-human interaction.
The study, “Investigating horse-human interactions: the effect of a nervous human,” was published in the July 2009 issue of The Veterinary Journal and abstracted in PubMed.
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"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
-Victor Frankl
12. Mar, 2010 
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