Horse Information - Aussie Horsemen

We’ve decided to provide definitionsof some key terms that will be used in the upcoming articles. Because we will begoing back and forward between accepted horsey terms and scientific writings itshelpful to use terms whose meanings are well defined and accepted, especially on thescience side.

One of the benefits of science is that there is agreement about the correct terms touse to describe categories and phenomena, which means we aren’t beholden to what webelieve about something, rather we can simply describe what we see without having toanalyse what we think about it. This is actually crucial when we come to analysehorse behaviour- if we rely on fuzzy, imprecise or anthropomorphic terms we canattribute all kinds of meanings to horse behaviour that may have nothing to do withthe mental, physical or motivational states of the horse. These terms specificallydo not attempt to “think” horse but they do allow us some insights into what horsesmight be thinking at any given moment.

We suggest having a read of these now and then checking back if unclear later on.They are not in alphabetical order.

Anthropomorphic
The attribution of human characteristics to non-human things, including animals.Calling a pony which repeatedly bucks off its child rider as cunning is an example ofanthropomorphism

Anthropocentric
Doctrine of the human- centred universe- that is viewing everything that happensthrough the prism of its effect and impact on humans. Thus a horse which refuses ajump knows it is doing the wrong thing and disappointing it’s human, rather thanbecause it is in pain or scared of the jump.

Ethology
Ethology is the study of how animals behave towards other animals, mostly in wild orferal settings. Many of the claims made by NHS trainers are ethologically based-that is they are descriptions of how wild horses interact with other wild horses. Inorder to assess these claims we will be looking at what studies of wild and in somecases domestic horse ethology can tell us.

Applied ethology is the study of animal interactions with humans- so any study of howhorses interact with their human handler is at least in part, applied ethology.

Motivation or drive
An animal’s motivational state to gain a resource or outcome- that is how motivatedis it to perform a behaviour that will achieve the resource or outcome. If an animalis hungry, it will be highly motivated to perform eating (or prey chasing) behavioursto satisfy its hunger drive. If it is more thirsty than hungry its drive to drinkwill be higher than its drive to eat and it will be more motivated to performdrinking behaviour than eating behaviour. If it is hungry but also in danger from apredator, it will be more highly motivated to perform escape behaviours than eatingbehaviours, it will be more driven to run than eat.

When assessing why animals perform behaviours, including their interactions with ushumans, its worth considering what their motivation or drive to perform a behaviourmight be. Individual horses vary in their motivational drives, both throughout theday (hungry, vs thirsty, vs tired) and innately (food motivated vs freedom frompressure motivated). Motivational drives are not related to character, horsepersonality or temperament, they just describe the drive and how motivated the horseis to achieve the goal at which the drive is directed.

Resource
Something that an animal wants or needs for its survival or comfort. Resourcesinclude food, rest, sex, play, water, companionship and shelter. Animals haveevolved behaviours which allow them to gain all or some of these resources. Howmotivated they are to access them (see below) will depend on their internal state(homeostasis- eg how hungry, tired, thirsty, in season they are) and a combination oftheir genes, physical abilities and their past experiences (eg prior to eating aspecifically yummy plant a horse may by only mildly motivated to graze in that area,after learning how yummy the grass is, their motivation to eat there will increaseand consequently their motivation to prevent others eating in the same spot will alsoincrease and they will behave with more aggression towards herd mates than beforethey knew how yummy those plants were). Humans provide many resources that horsesgenuinely value- eg food, water, companionship (of other horses) and sometimes sex,however many of the things we also provide horses are not necessarily intrinsicallyvaluable to them- eg companionship with us, verbal praise, rugs, stables, trips awayfrom herd mates. Many of the things we do in the name of caring for our horsesprevent them from accessing resources they do value highly (such as individualstables without access to a preferred companion).

Animal scientists have developed a range of tests to determine how much an animalvalues a particular resource. These tests include preference tests, consumer demandtests and rebound tests. In preference tests the animal is trained to perform a taskto gain one of two rewards and then is given the choice between performing task A toget reward A or task B to get reward B- the reward most frequently chosen will be theone that the animal values more highly. Consumer demand tests measure how hard willan animal work to achieve a reward. The “work” may be lever pressing, pushing aweighted door, running on a treadmill. The more work the animal does, the more itvalues the resource. Rebound tests measure what happens when an animal is preventedfrom accessing a resource or performing a behaviour. We do our own rebound testswhen we turn out a stabled horse into a paddock and it carries on like a nutter-galloping, bucking, snorting etc. It is performing a previously prevented behaviour-locomotion and because it is doing more of the behaviour and for longer it ischaracterised as post inhibitory rebound- viz post =after, inhibitory =prevented fromperforming, rebound=back to ‘normal’ levels. Where the behaviour or deprivedresource is highly valued or the animal is highly motivated to perform it, the postinhibitory rebound effect should be longer and stronger. In the case of our stabledhorse, its rebound behaviour is telling us that it values being able to move about.

We can use the concept of resources to analyse our horse’s behaviour- for example itscommon to see horses standing next to but not inside a paddock shelter on a rainy,windy day and think they must be dumb not to get out of the cold. If we considerhowever the resource that they value the most- being able to perceive and respond topredators versus getting out of the rain, it’s clear that they value predatorsurveillance more highly than staying dry. It seems like pointless behaviour to usbut makes sense to our horses.

Resource Holding Potential
This is term from Game Theory, which uses mathematical formulae to analyse animalbehaviour. Despite appearing at first glance to have nothing to do with animals,various game theory elements have been successfully applied to a huge number ofanimal species and used to predict the outcomes of animal interactions based onvariables such as size, (bigger usually is better), age (experience helps, but beingold doesn’t), residency (if you know the pitfalls you are better equipped to beat anopponent), sex and so on.

Resource holding potential (RHP) refers to the ability to access and maintain accessto a resource that is contested between two animals and is a function of some or allof the factors listed above. It is used to analyse the likely outcome of a disputebetween animals over a resource and can reliably explain why some animals win thesecontests, why some choose never to fight certain animals but will take on others andwhat characteristics are shared between animals which always win or always lose suchfights. In the study of horses, RHP is applied to dominance contests within herds,stallion fights, play fights between youngsters and how herd hierarchies function. Wewill look at RHP as it could be applied to horse-human dominance ‘contests’.

Learning
A relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of interaction with theenvironment. The environment includes current experiences as well as pastexperiences encoded as memories. What can be learned is a function of the cognitiveand physiological characteristics of the animal.

Cognition
The study of perception and learning- that is how does an animal interact with itsworld via the senses, memory and experience and how and what can it learn. Essentialfor assessing any training method- do horses possess the mental and cognitive skillsto learn what we ask of them and what are the processes by which the learning isachieved.

Cognitive ethology
The study of cognition and ethology- that is the perceptual and cognitive abilitiesof horses and their ethological characteristics- herd dynamics, reproductivebehaviour and so on.

Ethogram
A description and interpretation of all the behaviours exhibited by a species in awild context. Ethograms are developed by observers watching and categorising all ofthe myriad of intra and interspecific interactions of groups of a species and thengrouping them within broad categories such as reproductive behaviour, agonisticbehaviour, play, friendship, flight and so on. A detailed equine ethogram has beendeveloped which is now widely applied to studies of wild and domestic horses.

Applied equine ethogram
Takes the information from the equine ethogram and applies it to human-horseinteractions. This work has been recently undertaken by Professor Paul McGreevy andothers and provides us with a simple way to examine how human-horse interactionscorrelate with horse-horse interactions. Again, because NHS training claims to relyso heavily on horse-horse interactions being able to make these comparisons to testthe claims is very helpful. The results can be very surprising.

Conspecific
Another member of a species. So if we say that a horse is grooming a conspecific wemean that it is grooming another horse. Conspecific interactions are interactionsbetween two or more members of a species.

Intra specific
Same as conspecific- within a species

Inter-specific
Two or more species. So a horse directing aggression towards a cow, or a human isexpressing interspecific aggression.

Dominance hierarchy
The organisation of a group of animals (or) people on the basis of dominance andsubordination. Can be linear- (a straight line between who is at the apex and who isat the bottom), or non-linear-eg Animal A is dominant over animal B, who is dominantover Animal C who is dominant over animal A.

Agonistic
Any behaviour relating to aggression or appeasement. A mare kicking out at anothermare is displaying agonistic behaviour. The mare who moves out of the way of thekicking mare is displaying agonistic behaviour. Most agonistic behaviour isappeasing, outright aggression is much less common.

Leader
In animal science terms, the leader is simply that animal which is at the head of anorderly line of conspecifics- eg; the leader of a group moving to a waterhole wouldbe the horse at the head of the line. In this definition, leadership is not relatedto the animal’s position in the dominance hierarchy. (See Fraser & Broom, 2007 formore details)

Initiator
An animal which initiates a new activity- say from grazing to having a drink, or whomoves from one grazing location to another. The initiator may or may not be at theapex of the dominance hierarchy in a group.

Controller
An animal which controls the actions of other animal. May or may not be aninitiator. May prevent group members from following the actions of the initiator.May or may not be at the apex of the dominance hierarchy.

Follower
Any animal which moves behind a leader within a group movement.

Contagious
Behaviour which is copied between group members. Needs an initiator, but forexample, one horse gets thirsty and walks off for a drink and the other horsesgradually follow.

Socially facilitated behaviour
Similar to contagious, in that one or more members of a group start the behaviour(rolling, running away from a perceived threat) and the other members do the same.

Learning theory
The body of knowledge which covers how animals acquire new behaviours in response tostimuli- which can include their environment, each other, humans, pastexperiences.

Stimulus
Something that elicits a reaction from an animal

Training
Putting an animal under the stimulus control of the trainer- meaning that theanimal’s behaviours (both wanted and unwanted) are under the control of the stimulior cues delivered by the trainer.

Conditioning
Similar to training, means that an animal’s behaviour is brought under the control ofa stimulus. Conditioning can occur with or without a trainer- eg horse can getconditioned to avoid an electric fence even when no human is present. The electricshock is the stimulus, the response which is trained/conditioned is the horseavoiding the fence. There are two main types of conditioning- associative and nonassociative conditioning.

Non associative conditioning
The animal learns to either react to or ignore a single stimulus. If they ignore thestimulus they have habituated to it, if they react to it, they have been sensitisedto it.

Habituation
Getting used to a stimulus so that the animal no longer reacts to it. So a horsewhich eventually stops bucking when the saddle is put on the first time hashabituated to the saddle. A horse which is no longer reacting to pulls on the bit orkicks on its side has also habituated to the bit and legs. It doesn’t mean that theanimal doesn’t still feel the effects of the stimulus (eg the girth, the bit or therider’s legs) but that they are no longer reacting to it. NHS trainers usually callthis desensitisation and many have detailed techniques to habituate horses to a widevariety of stimuli.

Sensitisation
The opposite of habituation- the animal’s reaction to a stimuli increases over time.The more sensitised the animal, the less of the stimulus will be needed to get theanimal to react. A horse which gets a whack from an electric fence and then won’t goanywhere near the wire is sensitised to the fence. Stimuli that cause sensitisationare usually noxious- that is either frightening or painful. For the horse, thestimuli come to predict a bad consequence so the horse reacts precipitatively toavoid that bad consequence. Sensitisation can override habituation and because itusually involves fear it can be very difficult to re-habituate the horse topreviously innocuous stimuli. For example, if your horse accidentally touched anelectric fence while you were doing up the girth it might become sensitised to havingthe girth done up because the girth tightening has come to predict it will get anelectric shock. It may be that the sight of the saddle causes the horse to reactwith fear because the saddle is predicting an electric shock even though you haveturned off the fence or even chosen another location to saddle your horse.

Associative conditioning
The horse forms an association between two stimuli- eg a cue and a response. Thereare two types of associative conditioning- operant conditioning and classicalconditioning.

Operant conditioning
Conditioning that allows an animal to either gain a reward or avoid an unpleasantexperience. There are two types of operant conditioning- reinforcement (rewards) andpunishment (unpleasant experiences). Whether or not a behaviour or response has beenreinforced (rewarded) or punished is determined by what the animal does after thereinforcement or the punishment. If the animal repeats the behaviour it has beenreinforced, if it does less of the behaviour it has been punished. In the followingarticles we will use these terms frequently.

Reinforcement
Anything that makes a behaviour more likely to happen again in the future. Anotherway of viewing reinforcement is as a good consequence- any behaviour that deliversthe animal a good consequence will be repeated to get that good consequence again.

There are two types of reinforcement- positive=additive and negative=subtractive.

Positive reinforcement
Adding something to reinforce a behaviour. The horse plays with the gate latch, opensthe gate and gets into the feed shed. Next time it feels hungry and the owner islate it will probably play with the gate latch again so it can get back into the feedshed and get its reward. The food rewarded the playing with the gate latchbehaviour, so the fiddling with the gate latch behaviour is reinforced and repeated,much to the owner’s frustration.

Negative reinforcement
The removal of something which results in a good consequence. The horse standing outin the sun feels hot and moves into the shade of a tree and cools down. The coolingdown is a good consequence and the walking into shade removed the effect of the sun,so the walking behaviour is negatively reinforced. Alternatively, the rider appliespressure on the rein to the bit, the horse slows and the pressure is removed. Theremoval of the pressure of the bit reinforced/ rewarded the slowing down behaviour.Since the horse doesn’t like the pressure of the bit, its removal is a goodconsequence for it and it’s likely to slow down again next time it feels the bit,order to get the reward of the removal of the bit pressure. NHS trainers use termssuch as pressure release to describe this form of conditioning or training, or theymay use comfort zone, or making the horse uncomfortable. Negative reinforcement isthe bedrock of all horse training, irrespective of the method and we will explore themechanics of this throughout these articles.

Punishment
The opposite of reinforcement and simply means anything that makes behaviour lesslikely. So a horse which leans on the fence and then gets a shock from it becausethe owner has turned on the energizer will no longer lean on the fence because a badconsequence arose from the leaning. The shock has punished the leaning behaviour.Like with reinforcement there are two forms- positive/additive andnegative/subtractive.

The electric fence example above is positive punishment. The shock is added, theleaning behaviour is reduced or punished. An example of negative punishment would beif your horse is mugging you for treats, you keep your hands in your pockets andeventually your horse stops mugging you. By removing access to the food, you havepunished the mugging behaviour.

Punishment only tells an animal how to avoid a bad consequence, unlike reinforcementwhich tells the animal how to gain a good consequence. NHS trainers use terms likereinforcement and punishment, however as we shall see, they use these terms quitedifferently to scientists and sometimes things get a bit confusing as a result.

Classical conditioning
A form of learning whereby the animal makes an association between something italready knows and a new stimulus. Horses are extremely adept at this form oflearning. Take for example horses which see you with a bucket and canter up to youwith a whinny. What association have they made? That food (something they know andlike) is provided after the sight of the bucket. On its own, the bucket meansnothing, but when food comes soon after they see it the bucket comes to predict foodand its worth cantering up to the person with bucket because its likely food willsoon follow. If you kept entering the paddock with a bucket, but didn’t feed thehorse, after a while the horse would stop bothering to come up at the sight of thebucket, because the bucket no longer predicts food. It might take a while for thisto happen but eventually the association between bucket/food/come and get it would bebroken and there would be no reason for the horse to get excited by the sight of anempty bucket. Conversely if every time you catch your horse you ride it hard and putit away sore and thirsty over time it’s likely to associate the sight of you withfeeling sore and tired and become hard to catch because it has associated you with aconsequence it doesn’t value (being sore and tired). Horses are extremely good atclassical conditioning and will form associations between two stimuli without usrealising. This ability is the underlying reason for most of what NHS and non NHStrainers achieve and we will discuss an example of this in action when we look atMonty Roberts’ Join-up.

While at first these terms may seem overly technical and hard to understand, gettingyour head around what they mean and learning how to analyse horse behaviour throughthem will give you the key to decoding the mysteries of NHS and indeed all horsetraining.

So now we have the basic tool kit to start to examine some elements of the work ofNHS trainers. We advise keeping these definitions handy as we will be using theseterms a lot throughout the next articles.

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