A Contemporary Approach to Equine WELFARE
This is a review of the
current behavioural science regarding the horse. This paper is a primer on equine behaviour, and portrays the
educational approach to fulfill the health and welfare of horses from the
horse’s perspective, rather than from the human perspective. Behavioural study and appreciation of
the evolved nature of horses provide the foundation for the contemporary
principles of equine welfare.
Friends, forage and locomotion are the long-evolved requirements for
healthy horses to facilitate optimum health, performance and healing.
Equine Behaviour Through Time
Horses began their journey
through time 60 million years ago. Three million years ago the footsteps of
humans were fossilized next to the hoofprints of horses, suggesting that humans
have been contemplating horses for some time. But it was not until perhaps ten
thousand years ago that human societies began the dance of domestication with the
horse. Over thousands of years, perhaps tens of thousands of years, the horse
herds gradually merged with human societies. A shared language described by
contemporary scientists as kinetic empathy, a language of movement, and similar
compatible social structures facilitated the merging of the two species.
There is archeological evidence
that humans had formed an intimate and intermingled relationship with horses by
5500 years ago in Botai, where the horsefolk stabled and milked horses, and
probably rode them. Horses provided these early horsefolk with much of the
essentials they needed for group survival. It is interesting to note that large
domestic dogs lived with these early horsefolk as well, but no other domestic
animals. To understand the domestication process is to enhance our appreciation
of equine behaviour. Horses apparently became domesticated because they found a
niche with people long ago on the steppes of Kazakhstan. Both trained and wild
horses existed in this realm south of Russia and west of China. A population of
horses more amenable to captivity and taming than their wild counterparts
likely provided the stock for the first horse societies. Rather than plucking
wild horses out of the wild and taming them, it is thought that over tens of
thousands of years a relationship developed in a shared niche.
By the early 20th century the
closest living relative to Equus caballus, the Tarpan, had gone extinct.
No truly wild horses remain. All of today’s caballine horses are descended from
an original, and possibly separate, population of horses that were amenable to
being tamed and selectively bred by humans. It appears to have taken tens of
thousands of years to fully domesticate the horse, and to eventually attain
control of breeding. Breeding initially consisted primarily of selection for
docility and amenability to captivity, and later milking, riding, driving, and
stabling. In contemporary culture, selective breeding often involves selecting
for the best athlete, or attempting to select for the best athlete. In addition
to genetics, this presentation will focus on the socialization aspect of
raising horses, and portray the importance of nurture on the eventual behavioral
and physical health of the adult athlete.
No longer does human society
depend on horse society for survival as it once did. Although still bred for
trainability, more and more horses are today bred for specific performance
goals. These days, horses provide people with entertainment, recreation, sport,
esteem, performance, and pleasure, and, as ever, but in fewer and fewer
reaches, utility. Other than stockfolk, few others rely on horses to sustain a
pastoral livelihood. This new role of the horse requires renewed studies and
considerations of equine behavior.
Horsefolk and veterinarians alike
remain enticed and intrigued by horses. The science of equine behaviour
attempts to appreciate just who horses are, and from the horse perspective. To
appreciate the horse perspective, behaviourists explore the evolution and
domestication of the horse. We continue to find ourselves attempting to
appreciate how the current human/horse relationship came to be so as to
facilitate a smooth trouble free relationship with our horses. As well,
appropriate breeding, socialization, and training of horses helps minimize
behavioural wastage.
To understand where our
relationship with the horse is headed, veterinary behaviour practitioners
attempt to see where the human/horse relationship has been, and to subsequently
help modify and refine the relationship to favour the horse. Humans continue to
live with horses and continue to learn from them, as all horsefolk have through
time. Now, however, much less time
is spent with horses and learning from horses, so contemporary practitioners
must research and make themselves aware of the behavioural principles that were
once gleaned from a near-constant exposure to horses through all stages of
their development. We study the evolution and domestication of the horse to
better help us appreciate the horses we have in our hands today. Evolution and
domestication provide a basis for the understanding of equine behaviour. Man
has attempted to refine his relationship with the horse ever since the first
kid grabbed a mane and swung atop a horse. To become a partner with the
flighty, powerful (but trainable and tamable) grazer of the plains remains the
horsefolk goal.
Appreciation and sensitivity to
all of our caballine horses' evolved preferences results in optimum health and
soundness, and therefore optimum performance. A horse cannot be coerced to win
the Kentucky Derby. The people must work with the horse, and from the horse’s
view. If we understand equine behaviour, we understand what makes horses do our
bidding, and do it willingly and well. To this day, horses seek to appease
their domesticators much as they appease others in horse societies and herds.
Horses are willing learners. This learning behavior is a result of evolutionary
development of a complex social lifestyle. More recently, selective breeding
has influenced equine behaviour.
The nature of the horse is
enhanced by the horse’s social development. Appropriate socialization with
other horses in the herd pasture setting best prepares horses to be
subsequently trained by horsefolk. Pastured horses train up and learn more
efficiently than stabled horses. The appropriate, efficient, and considerate
training of horses is highly dependent on their previous socialization by the dam
and other horses, as well as their current husbandry situation. Trainability is
heavily influenced by the intensity and type of stabling and husbandry, not to
mention the type of training. In the latest revolution of horsemanship, the
area of appropriate socialization and stabling has not received the attention
it deserves.
Horses are a quiet species. They
prefer calm, and learn most efficiently in tranquil, familiar settings. Horses
must know and be comfortable and secure in their environment to be able to
learn as horsefolk hope them to learn. Horsefolk all know what we want from our
horses, however in this paper I shall present the science of what our horses
want and need from humans, the science of equine behaviour. Equine behaviour is
not only the basis of training and trainability, but also the very basis of
equine health. To succeed in our endeavors with horses (whatever the our equine
goals or pursuits), our horses are best served to receive what they
preferentially need and require behaviourally, nutritionally, socially,
physically, environmentally, visually, and metabolically. In order to properly
care for horses and successfully teach and train horses, horsefolk must know
horses. They must know who the gregarious grazers of the plains are. They must
know how to properly socialize horses through their growth phase to ensure that
their horses grow up to be horses. Horses raised out of the herd context are
vulnerable to behavioural insecurities later in life. Most behavioural wastage
is due to improper socialization and husbandry.
Rather than being dissimilar to
us, horses are much like us. In this presentation, I attempt to clarify
humankind's social and communicative similarities to horses. As with people,
strong social bonds develop between individual horses and groups of horses.
This herd nature results in intense social pair and herd bonds. Horses need
other horses. Horses require other horses for security, comfort, and
behavioural health. Horses need friends throughout their entire life, first their
teaching mother, and then their teaching herd. Today’s domestic horse needs
horse friends and human friends, although horses do retain the wherewithal to
survive just fine without horsefolk. Horses need friends so greatly and
constantly, that horses allow horsefolk to substitute as friends. This is
possible because man shares a sociality with domestic horses. We speak their
gesture language, and horses speak ours. We share a language of movement, and
language described as kinetic empathy.
Domestic horse is no longer human
prey, and has not been for thousands of years. Horse has been brought into the
circle of humanity, along with a dozen or so other domesticates that share an
adequate sociality with mankind to be allowed to develop a mutually beneficial relationship.
Horse and man have co-evolved
together for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years. Each knows the
other, well, and horses have proven to know the nature of people more
consistently than people know the nature of horses. It is paramount that
horsefolk appreciate the social and communicative nature of horses, and deal
with horses in a fashion that is appropriate to their long-evolved social
nature.
In addition to adequate and
appropriate sociality and socialization, the importance of the need for near-constant
motion is paramount to proper application equine behaviour. Locomotion is
essential for horse health. In natural settings, horses move about grazing,
playing, trekking, and variety of other movements as much a two-thirds of the
time. Abundant movement provides constant connection and communication with the
other horses in the herd, and as well, sustains the overall and physiologic
functions of the horse. Plentiful locomotor activity facilitates behavioural
expression and maintains physiologic health. An essential interdependence
exists between horse health and locomotion. Horses evolved to be near-constant
walkers and grazers. Horses did not evolve to be confined in stalls and
stables, but rather evolved to live in open herd settings. Despite
domestication and selective breeding for docility and captivity, horse health
remains dependent on locomotion. Locomotion is inherent to grazing. Locomotion
is inherent to digestion, to respiration, to metabolism, to hoof health and
function, and to joint health. If horses are not allowed to move about freely
and socialize with other familiar horses grazing and chewing as they evolved to
do, they become metabolically vulnerable and subsequently troubled. Horses
deprived of locomotion and constant forage ingestion develop strategies to
maintain the motion and oral security they feel they need to survive. When
horses are deprived of adequate and abundant locomotion, they develop
strategies to keep themselves and their jaws moving, as is their essential and
inherent nature. Horses deprived of
friends, forage, and locomotion are at risk to develop stereotypies to provide
themselves with the movement they need to survive.
The primary premise of equine
behavioural health is this: in natural settings, horses walk and graze with
other horses two thirds of the time. They take a step and graze, then another
step or two grazing and moving along, always observing their surroundings,
grazing while in touch with other members of the herd unless playing, occasionally
dozing or sleeping, but only under the secure and established watch of others.
Horses that are not afforded the opportunity to graze and walk much of the time
take up with behaviours to replicate essential locomotion. When stabled, some
of the horse's long- evolved survival behaviours become unwanted and unwelcome.
Horses require friends, forage,
and locomotion to stay healthy and productive. Additionally, horses need clean
air and abundant space for optimum health. In rural settings, these requirements
are easy to fulfill. Open grasslands and steppes are the geography and environs
from where the most recent predecessors of Equus
caballus evolved. The further we remove horses from their social grazer of
the plains preferences, the more health issues develop that require treatment
and management by veterinarians and horsefolk.
Stabling, stalling,
hospitalization and transport all deprive horses of their preferences for
friends, forage, and locomotion. Although convenient for horsefolk, stabling is
inconvenient for horses. Stabling limits the resources of friends, forage, and
locomotion. Stabling creates bad air, and allows pathogens and parasites to
travel easily between horses. When stabling is required, horses are best served
to have their natural needs re-created in the stable. The air must be kept
clean, and forage must be always available. Opportunities for movement and
simulation of grazing with friends must be provided in abundance. Once our
horses’ behavioural needs are understood, appreciated, and fulfilled, the
learning and training can begin. Enrichment strategies re-create the needs of
stabled horses. Horses deprived of friends, forage, and locomotion are not able
to learn as well as appropriately socialized horses. Those strategies that best
replicate the grazer of the plains scenario promote the best health, learning,
and performance from horses.
Locomotion and socialization are
essential for both horse health and healing. Husbandry, healing, and
rehabilitation nearly always benefit from appropriately managed locomotion
strategies that are constantly tailored to the horse's healing process.
Locomotion is required not only for normal healing, but for normal digestion,
respiration, hoof health, circulation, and all other physiologic functions of the
horse. Stall rest is at the expense of many systems, especially the hoof and
metabolic systems. Digestion and respiration are compromised by confinement and
restriction of movement. Metabolic, digestive, circulatory, hoof health,
musculoskeletal, and nervous, systems, as well as the all other systems and
functions of the horse, are dependent upon adequate and appropriate locomotion
for normal functioning and/or healing.
For horses that are hospitalized,
paddocked, stabled, and corralled; active implementation and re-creation of the
social pasture setting is required to optimize and maintain health and promote
healing. Medical conditions are apt to deteriorate in the face of the
deprivations of forage, friends, and locomotion created by stabling and hospitalization.
Re-creation of a natural setting in the stall is the biggest challenge
veterinarians face in maintaining the health of stabled horses.
Stalled horses not only heal
poorly, they learn and train poorly. Locomotion, social, and forage deprivations
create problems for horses. In addition to appropriate medical treatment,
veterinarians and stable managers must creatively provide horses with abundant
socialization, forage, and locomotion to maintain health and facilitate healing
within the parameters of acceptable medical and surgical treatment. Restriction
of locomotion to facilitate healing necessitates the implementation of
enrichment strategies to simulate locomotion, including massage, passive
flexion, and a wide variety of physical therapies.
Horses also heal horsefolk, and
those horsefolk that implement these healing strategies often experience a
sense of healing themselves, it seems. The human/horse bond runs deep.
Domestication of the horse is a co-evolving evolutionary process. The human perspective
is being shaped by the horse's perspective these days. Appreciation of the
science of equine behavior and equitation is encouraged to support the renewed
interest in equine medicine and welfare, and to facilitate the veterinarian’s
role of providing horses with their essential needs.
Recommended
reading
Chyoke A, Olsen S & Grant S 2006 Horses and Humans, The Evolution
of Human-Equine Relationships,
BAR International Series 1560, Archeopress, England, ISBN 1 84171 990 0
Magner D 2004 Magner’s Classic Encyclopedia of the Horse
Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books
McGreevy P 2004 Equine Behavior: A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine
Scientists Philadelphia: Elsevier Limited. ISBN 0 7020 2634 4
McGreevy P, McLean A 2010 Equitation
Science, Wiley Blackwell, UK, ISBN 2009048321
McGreevy PD et al 2007 Roles of
Learning theory and ethology in equitation Journal of Veterinary Behavior 2:108-118
McGreevy PD 2006 The advent of equitation science The Veterinary Journal 174:492-500
Waran N, McGreevy P & Casey RA 2002 Training Methods and Horse Welfare in Waran N, ed The Welfare of
Horses, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, p151-180
Dr Gustafson is an equine veterinarian, veterinary behaviorist, and novelist. He helps refine horse and dog training methods to accommodate the inherent nature and behavior of horses and dogs. Applied veterinary behavior enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in animal athletes.
Natural approaches to development, training, nutrition, and conditioning sustain equine health and enhance performance. Behavioral and nutritional enrichment strategies enhance the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in content, cooperative horses.
DrSid provides equine behavior consultations to help recreate the needs and preferences of horses in training and competition.
By nature the horse is a precocious grazer of the plains, a social and herd animal, and flighty. Horsemanship and training are best accomplished through behavioral appreciation of the horse and facilitation of the horse's nature, rather than by force or coercion. Horses are best trained in a relaxed, calm state. Training that puts the horse into the flight or sympathetic state generated by fear and punishment while restricted by rigs or round pens is discouraged, and not in accordance with acceptable standards of animal training. Horsetraining and horse teaching methods are best based on scientific studies regarding the nature of the horse. Horses learn preferentially in a relaxed state from a calm experienced handler with adept communication skills.
