Imprinting versus Imprint Training--The Mare Knows Best

Imprinting is an evolutionary phenomenon in precocial species, including the horse and certain waterbirds. The foal is born with a nearly fully intact and functioning nervous system needing a final tuning from the mare to function quickly. 

For horses, precocious is the ability to birth, rise, suckle, and run within minutes or hours. To imprint is to permanently learn from the immediate environment immediately after birth, hours or days. The imprint phase is the culmination of 11 months gestation, the objective being to be born and run within hours, if not minutes. Flight, born to flee.

The foal imprints on everything in her environment in the first few days of life, especially moving beings, her dam primarily, and any others in close proximity, moving things, animals, horses, humans, the like. The results of this experience are more or less permanent. 

Horsefolk need to take care to make sure the foal properly imprints primarily upon her mother, her teacher, as this is the phase in which the mother teaches the foal to be a horse. The foal is best imprinted in a natural environment when possible, a pasture, that is, with an intact social herd, or alone with the mare.

Imprint training is quite another issue involving aversive handling, restraint, physical manipulation, repeatedly putting fingers in and out of all orifices, etc. Molestation or terrorization are more accurate descriptions than imprint training, which is scientifically considered a misnomer. Leave the foal and mare alone to bind and imprint naturally, please. To interfere can take the racing heart out of a racehorse, and for this reason, most thoroughbred foals are only handled briefly to address and assure health, and perhaps be haltered. The human should focus on interacting and handling the mare, rather than the foal. Assure the foal is nursing and nourished, and then leave the foal alone to be trained by her mother.

We are grateful that Dr Miller brought forth the biological phenomenon of an imprint phase shortly after birth, where the foal is quickly expected to learn to be a horse from her mother, and pronto, so as to survive. We are not so sure that his idea to train a newborn foal is a good idea, as humans really do not have the knowledge or capacity to teach a foal what she needs to know to survive, and then later in life pass on to her foal. After the foal has appropriately imprinted upon her mother during the first week of life, then the human horse training can begin. When the foal approaches the humans, the foal training can begin. In the meantime, let the mare do her instinctual teaching. learn how to train a horse by observing the mare train her foal. Emulate those training strategies later in life. Pressure and release. Mimicry. 

Foals that are imprint trained are often deprived of proper imprinting with the mare, therefor many are improperly imprinted, rendering them difficult to train later in life. Imprint training takes something away from the foal that can never be restored. Many imprinted foals do not know how to learn, as their ability to learn was altered by uneducated horsefolk thinking they know more than the mare.  To force a newborn foal to learn by abusive restraint and inappropriate, relentless force is abusive, unnecessary, and can be harmful. First, do no harm, please. Let the mare train the foal. When the foal is ready to be trained by humans, the foal will approach the humans handling her mother. 

Humans can best serve the horse by avoiding any training of the foal until the foal is past the imprint phase. Handle the mare, let the colt ascertain the relationship between the handlers and his mother.

So yes, differentiation between the term imprinting and imprint training is necessary. 

The foal imprints to her world based on her neonatal experience and environment with her mother. The newborn foal imprints to her environment and the horses in the environment, the mare in particular, of course. If humans are in the environment, the foal will imprint upon those humans to some degree. Initially, behaviorists and welfarists insist that the foal primarily imprints on the dam, more than anyone else. If you must handle a horse in the post-partum phase, please avoid handling the healthy foal and handle the mare. Of course, if the foal needs a hands-on health assessment, or  help nursing handling is necessary, but it should be as brief and forceless and kind as possible, please.

To attempt to train a foal in the imprint phase carries the potential to cause a great deal of permanent behavioral and physical harm to the foal, so unless you know more than a mare about foals, I suggest you First, Do No Harm, and let the mare take care of teaching the foal. The mare has 60 million years of evolutionary experience at this, while you have none.

Regards, DrSid

Dr Gustafson is a practicing veterinarian, equine behavior educator, and novelist. The application of behavior science enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in animal athletes. Behavioral and nutritional strategies enrich the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in content, cooperative horses who are willing to learn and perform.

One of my goals, is to develop the racehorse mind.

What equine behavior principles do you follow to develop the appropriate competitive mindset to persevere and prevail? Or perhaps, what do you avoid beyond the obvious (harsh weaning, for example). Time and again, I see unnecessarily induced stress, fear, and pain, as men attempt to isolate and confine their weanlings and yearlings. The poorly planned unorchestrated movement restrictions result in injury. Chain-shank handling, punishment and force applied during these critical stages of development ruins many thoroughbreds, rendering them unfit to race. 

At Keeneland, the inappropriate horsemanship was devastating. A growing horse’s potential to run and win can be harmed with coercive, chain-shanked sale preparation. Halter or saddling training must be a good deal for the horse to maintain their racing spirit. When pain is inflicted to achieve handling compliance, the side-effect is ruining a horse's competitive spirit, especially fillies. 

Imprint training newborn foals falls into this category of coercive training. It is believed interfering with the mare/foal bond in the first hours and days, or even weeks, can harm the foal’s future confidence to race. The mare/foal bonding is critical, best achieved uninterrupted. If one feels the need to interfere, handle the mare, hands off the foal early on. The mare is the preferred teacher, the one who knows with near certainty if she has been properly nurtured through life, herself. It is she and other broodmares in the herd that instill the winning mind into the foal. Humans have no idea. The mare and herd enhance the foal’s flight survival mechanism to win derbies. Abusive attempts to subdue flight when haltering and handling has the potential to subdue all subsequent flight. Chain shanking is counterproductive. Imprint training is counterproductive. To be effective, training must be a good deal for the horse.

Too often, at all stages, I observe trainers and handlers damaging the horse’s inherent desire and confidence to win. To preserve the inherent flight responsiveness needed to win races, training of the foal should be delayed until the foal approaches the humans, save the early haltering and perinatal preventive medical measures, best done slick and quick. Avoid products that damage or interfere with the mare and foal’s sense of smell. 

This imprint phase is critical. Coercive handling can cause great psychological and physical harm. No interference unless nursing assistance or health monitoring is indicated helps ensure the future is one of heart and try. 

Development of future willing partnerships between race horse and rider, requires that the foal be taught to be horse as taught by the mare. Winning the Kentucky Derby has to be the horse’s idea. 

The dam nurtures and sprouts that genetic seed during the imprint phase, or not. Humans can only interfere with the essential process. 

The minutes, hours, and days following birth are a critical learning period due to the precocious nature of the horse. Birthed to run within hours to survive. The mare is the long-evolved teacher here, and the immediate ability to flee is the foal’s long-evolved survival mechanism. No one teaches a foal the notion of flight better than her dam. Humans can only get in the way. 

Interference is to be avoided if it is races you want your foal to someday win. There are safer methods to teach the foal to be an easy-handler later in life. Taking away all urge to flight via imprint training may be appropriate if the goal is a service pony desensitized for life so as to be un-reactive to the environment altogether. 

Care must be taken to not inadvertently take flight away from competition horses by interfering during the imprint phase. Observe from a distance. Handle the mare, and let the foal learn by observing your relationship with the mare, and make sure that relationship is a good one beforehand, please. No shanking the mare, either, please. European horsefolk demonstrate appropriate training and handling. Very few chain shanks are used or needed. Their yearlings are trained to willingly enter the horse-friendly ring. Please note there are a wide variety of foal birthing, handling, and graining protocols, and each must be crafted to favor the horse. Creating a natural a setting as possible to allow the mare to safely teach her foal to rise, suckle, and run in the first hours of life is the preferred method to breed a Kentucky Derby winner. 

We have secured talent from the genes with our breeding, soundness with your appropriate nutrition. To facilitate and ensure sway we put the mare in charge and stay out of the way. 

How do you help ensure that your weanlings develop the confidence to paddock and load, and to then run by and through horses in tight company to win tough races, please? In Europe, they emphasize enrichment training in earnest, and at their sales the yearlings are handled with dignity. 

 

 

The Tao of Horse, Foraging and Digestion

 Ingestion and Elimination.

Tout le cheval est dans son intestin. 

Horses evolved to ingest and chew two thirds of the time, 70% of each and every day. When we do not facilitate this, horses chew anyway, some take up cribbing to fulfill their need to chew.

Horses should always have a bite of appropriate forage to chew. Clean, shiny, straw can be used as a forage extender. Of course, horses need to walk miles each day as well, so hand grazing is an excellent enrichment for stalled horses. When we see a cribbing horse, we know the horse went one time too often without a bite of hay or grass. Horses need to chew all the time to survive, and if forage to chew is deprived too long, some horses crib to survive.

We know the health of our horses by observing their eliminations.

By now everyone knows a horse should never be without a bite of forage unless it is troubled horses we are looking for. We know that cribbers and windsuckers were without a bite of forage one time too often. Horses need to chew and move most all the time. If we take chewing and moving away from horses, they find unwelcome ways to chew and move, don't they? What with all that cribbing, weaving, pawing, etc that you have all been reporting that we see in mismanaged stables we need to better manage stabled horses to support their behavioural health and physical welfare.

Many of you have taken nutrition classes. What is the volume of a horse's stomach, please? Colon? Small intestine? The length, please? Does a full gut slow a horse down? How much poop a day, how many BMs? Urination frequency please? Of course, we all know now that locomotion is essential for proper digestion, as well as for proper respiration and metabolism. Everything horse is dependent on their near-constant movement. If we keep horses from moving, they find other ways to move, es verdad? And their veterinarians stay busy, yes.

The color of poop and pee, the smell, volume, consistency, all critical, all things every horse guardian should know about their horse. To know a horse's bowel and bladder habits is to know your horse's health status. Colic does not appear without notice. Nor do gastric ulcers. In equine behavior we learn to read horses, and that means constant and daily observations of their eliminations, please. Pay attention, por favor.

Locomotion is essential to digestive elimination. As you all know, when a horse moves, they most often eliminate. Colic is most often caused by deprivations of movement and forage. So there you have it. The leading cause of death in stabled horses is colic, and colic is caused by nutritional mismanagement. We know the cause of colic, and it is in inappropriate stabling and feeding practices. Horses need to move about miles each day, my friends, so get out there and move those horses standing about, please. 

We know where our horses have been. In natural settings, horses had miles and miles of prairie and they took care not to soil their range. When horses are confined, they have no choice but to eliminate where we have put them. With limited space, their pastures become soured by manure and urine, rendering the grass unfit to graze. Pasture management is a huge factor in maintaining appopriate grass to graze. As well, stalls need to be cleaned several times a day to re-create natural. Locomotion is essential to digestion, respiration, metablism, and hoof health. Everything about the horse is dependent on abundant locomotion and near-constant chewing.

The accumulation of manure can be massive when space is limited, not to mention unhealthy. Digestion is a constant process oft impaired by stabling, as colic surgeons attest. Often the quality of stables can be determined by the efficiency and tidiness of manure management. Manure harbors bloodworms, nemesis of the stabled horse. Manure sours the grass. Manure deteriorates hoof health. Get that manure out of the stable please, unless you like veterinary bills.

Colic is seldom, if ever, noted in natural settings, where horses take great care to avoid grazing where they have eliminated. One thing I have noticed, is that farms where I am called to deal with colic sure have a lot of horsepoop around. Piled-up manure usually means the horses aren't moving much. The accumulation of manure correlates directly with the accumulation of veterinary bills. The more manure allowed to accumulate, the more horse unthriftiness. 

24/7 forage, friends, and locomotion is what keeps horses healthy.

Of course as we all know by now 24/7 forage provides consistency. With 24/7 forage there is no digestive change, my friends, and often no colic, as feral horses attest.  All systems in the horse are interdependent and interrelated. When the digestive system fails due to horsefolk changing  diet inappropriately, the other systems follow suit quickly. With horses, death comes fast, a compassionate survival characteristic. 

Speaking of interrupting vital digestive flow, always let your horse eliminate when he or she wants to eliminate, please, especially when riding. Horsefolk should seldom if ever interrupt the flow of the digestive tract, as the digestive tract of a horse is something that operates non-stop. To move a horse is to stimulate the bowel. Riding stimulates the bowel and woe be you to interfere. If you do not want your horse to eliminate in the ring, then properly train and feed and prepare your horse to avoid that indiscretion. Remember, horses use elimination to communicate to people, as well. Horses reflect what they think of you and your horsemanship by pooping, you know.

A constant monitoring of the feces production and urination is required to monitor and assure the health of our stabled steeds. Horsefolk know road apples inside and out. Road apples reflect health and illness for those able to see, smell, and count.

Digestive disturbances are best addressed early, and this requires keen observation of what our horses are eating, when and in what quantities and quality, and the outcome. You all should know how many times each day your stabled horse eliminates. It behooves you to recognize any change in your horse's elimination pattern immediately. Very important, as well, is your constant monitoring of your horse's borborygmi and respiration, especially with horses taken out of their routine to attend competitions. Remember salt. Do not forget water. Horse need their vibrissae to properly handle changes in feed and water, so please do not deprive them of those critical sensory structures, por favor. I hear repeated reports that a horse will not eat or drink for three days after their vibrissae are clipped. Colic surgeons have flourished. Have you seen the cars their kids drive?

Although we have little use for our eliminations, the survivalist horse utilizes manure to communicate with other horses. Horses use their acts of elimination as well as the scents of their manure and urine to enhance their survival in ways in which we can only sit back and wonder.

We are nearly halfway through the course, as we forage into more serious behaviour territory. 

DrSid

https://youtu.be/maWXVKI-gq4?list=PLF336B4465ECC2ADF

Dr Gustafson is a practicing veterinarian, equine behavior educator, and novelist. The application of behavior science enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in animal athletes. Behavioral and nutritional strategies enrich the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in content, cooperative horses who are willing to learn and perform.

The Stabled Horse's Behavioral Needs

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.

References

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

Preventing Stereotypies

Horses require abundant friends, forage, and locomotion to maintain behavioural and physical health. Horse health is dependent on body and jaw movement. Digestion, respiration, metabolism, and musculoskeletal and hoof health are all dependent on abundant daily exercise, walking, and socializing.
The causes of cribbing, weaving, and other stereotypies are clear. Deprivations of friends, forage, and locomotion are the causes of stereotypies. Abundant daily friends, forage, and locomotion is the prevention and treatment of stereotypies. Horses are born to socialize, communicate, move, and chew on a near constant basis. The nature of the horse is to move and graze with others day and night. For behavioural health, these preferences need to be re-created in the stable.
Stabled horses require 24/7 forage, and miles and miles of daily walking, as well as abundant socialization to re-create a natural existence. When these needs are not provided in adequate measure unwelcome behaviors develop.

Foals raised by the mare and herd in a grazing setting develop into easily trainable animals, as it is the mare and herd that teach growing horses how to learn. It is the in-depth socialization and interaction with the herd of mares and foals that nurtures and develops athletic ability and prowess the growing horse. In the case of thoroughbreds, it is the mares and cohorts that instill growing horses with the confidence to run by and through other horses at speed. The herd teaches the horse how to prevail. Horses learn how to cooperate from other horses. They learn how to see and graze and move, and perhaps most importantly, how to communicate with others as taught by other horses. This is socialization. Please appreciate the necessity of socialization in the development of equine athletes. It is the herd that provides the foundation for the horse to learn, endure, and prevail in athletic competitions.

The horse's genetic potential is usually well-documented and identified. It is appropriate socialization that develops the equine athlete. Foals raised in stalls and stables seldom develop the wherewithal to become consistent reliable winners, as it is the herd that develops the foal's inherited abilities to perform. Much of this development occurs during the first hours and days of life, and this development phase with the mare should be nurtured rather than interfered with. The mare and herd are the most qualified individuals to teach the newborn foal to become a developmentally healthy horse.

 All physiologic, behavioural, and metabolic functions of the horse are dependent on abundant daily walking. In natural settings, ingestion is paired with walking, and takes place 70% of the time. Horses requires miles of daily walking to maintain homeostasis. Digestion, respiration, metabolism, musculoskeletal function, and behaviour are all dependent upon abundant daily locomotion. Locomotion is the most overlooked and deprived maintenance behaviour of stabled horses.

Horse Behaviour, the Nature of Horses

http://www.amazon.com/Horse-Behaviour-Nature-Horses-Gustafsons-ebook/dp/B00ILG3JX0/ref=la_B00IN7XNNI_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393961474&sr=1-1

Dr Gustafson is a practicing veterinarian, equine behavior educator, and novelist. The application of behavior science enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in animal athletes. Behavioral and nutritional strategies enrich the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in content, cooperative horses who are willing to learn and perform.

Locomotion is Equine Behaviour

Hello pacers,

The horse and dog and horsefolk evolved to depend and rely and thrive on locomotion for vigor and survival. If there is anything more detrimental than the roughage deficiencies and social deprivations we impose on horses, it is the locomotor restrictions we place upon our stabled steeds. For some reason, many people believe horses evolved to live in a stall. They did not. When horses are forced to live in a stall, their natural preferences and behavioral needs are required to be re-created. Lots of friends, forage, and locomotion, miles and miles of daily walking, please, for your stalled horses, por favor.

It appears confinement is what created the need for shoes, so important constant locomotion is to the development and maintenance of strong and durable hooves. Stabled hooves deteriorate due to lack of the stimulation locomotion provides. Genghis Khan conquered the world with horses without shoes or stirrups, you know. His horses always had abundant friends, forage, and locomotion.

Shoeing born from stabling. 

Imagine that, no locomotion; no development of strong feet. And now the movement to restore locomotion to acclimate hooves to go shoeless! How welcome. My daughter, Nina, just achieved her 3rd level bronze rider in dressage on her shoeless raised and trained horses, the only horse in the show without shoes. Here is her willing partner's bronze performance. Please note the difference between being a horse who is a willing partner and say, a horse who is a reliable slave. Which horse ends up in the winner's circle, please?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG96smuolxw

She walked her horse 10 miles a day while travelling and at the show, and as you can see the horse showed up to perform on an even metabolic and behavioral keel. 

Those horses who do best shoeless are seldom stalled for much of the day. Pastured and free-roaming horses are those that acclimate best to performing shoeless, as the constant movement strengthens the hooves, you know.

The leading cause of laminitis is lack of locomotion. It is stalls bedded in straw that keeps stalled horses grazing and moving. The leading cause of metabolic disease is deprived locomotion

And now, as learned students of equine behaviour, we all know more about how behavioural-locomotory-need turns into stereotypies when horses are deprived of friends and constant-roughage-availability. If we don't allow horses to adequately locomote, they find their ways, now don't they? Lipping, pawing, weaving, cribbing, tonguing, bucking, bolting... and what else?

The long-evolved fascinating characteristic of locomotion is integral to understanding horses. Early in the course we set the stage for behaviour by talking about the four gaits. Some of you continue to believe there are more gaits than four, but there are only four gaits, nearly all horses of all breeds have all four gaits, the walk, trot, and canter are nearly always expressed, and the pace is often limited to swimming or to alleviate pain when trotting.

Gaited horses have versions of the four gaits. The Icelandic tolt is an accelerated, accentuated walk, one hoof always on the ground despite high speeds, 20mph. Now that is some walk! The walk has no suspension phase, esta correcto?

The lateral gaited horses also have a pace, as the pace is the lateral gait, es verdad estudiantes?

Our Goals:

1. Understand the normal behaviours between the foal and mare which are necessary for normal development of locomotion and sensory awareness and assessment of their environs.

2. Relate the interdependence of locomotion with survival instincts, ingestive, communication and courtship behaviours. Locomotion is connected to grazing, which is digestion, so locomotion and digestion are integral to each other. The movement of locomotion also moves the guts, and propels the roughage ingesta through the massive, tortuous, yet compact system that allows 45 MPH flight in seconds.

When either forage or locomotion is restricted enough, colic kills the horse. Salt deprivation is the most common cause of colic on the road, my friends. Salt is cost effective nutrition, and don't forget to appropriately supplement your growing horses with calcium and phosphorous, the macrominerals that create integrity to bone, joint, tooth, tendon, and ligament. The microminerals are important as well.

Most all colic is related to forage deprivation,l ack of salt, grain feeding, and restricted locomotion, as well as restriction to express sociobehavioral interaction (friends). Worms and bloodworms are happy to help twist a gut, as well.

3. Understand human influences on equine locomotion and their consequences. Rigs, bad seats, bad banging boots, hanging on the head. Broken ribs affect locomotion, making movement quite painful. Bruised ribs hurt as well. Make sure you palpate all your horses ribs in their entirety during your massage sessions, please. Girthiness is no mystery to me. Ultrasound them ribs if you don't believe in the touch of a palpating diagnostician.

4. Know the gaits and footfall patterns and sequences of the various gaits. This is the secret to knowing which gait a horse is travelling in, the footfall pattern is the thing hardwired into the CNS. It will not change, but the tempo, action, and all that will vary, giving usother named gaits.

5. It is said accomplished horsefolk know when and where each hoof travels through the air and meets the ground as they ridein each gait. Much of this is known subconsciously. It is our goal to become this accomplished, and to cue the horse in rhythm with her gait.

6. When we speak of locomotion in the horse we are speaking of rhythm. Horsefolk aspire to connect into the rhythm of their horses. Horses, willing partners they are, aspire to their riders riding in rhythm with them.

7. Appreciate horses need to move much of the time, most all of the time, both their legs and jaws and tongue. Respiration, digestion, hoof health, muscle metabolism, and behaviour are all dependent on adequate (near-constant, my friends) locomotion.

Timing is so important in training horses. To know and appreciate timing is to develop trust. Trust is accurate, concise timing with your horse. Your horse trusts you because she trusts your timing because your timing is concise, be it the timing of the cue, the release, or the reward, or pray tell, the punishment. 

For your punishers out there, appreciate punishment must be executed within a second of the alleged crime. This getting bucked off and catching up the horse and punishing him only trains your horseto buck you off and not get caught. When caught and punished, he believes he isbeing punished for joining up with you.

Students of the horse must understand and appreciate locomotion in all its splendor, simplicity, and complexity to succeed in their equine pursuits and aspirations. Last time one of the students complained I harped on locomotion all class long, and it was then I knew I had persevered in fulfilling my passion of teaching this fundamental aspect of equine beahviour, along with friends and forage, of course. Horses need to move as much as behaviour teachers cry about their need for forage, friends, andlocomotion

So, let's get in rhythm with our horses by doing what we can to appreciate the locomotion of Equus caballus.

Learn your locomotion, because locomotion runs all over the final exam, and hopefully your growing horses are running all over the farm.

To know horses you must know how they move, so as to move with them rather than against them.

See you in the winners circle.

Cheers, 

SleipnirSid 

  

Dr Gustafson is a practicing veterinarian, equine behavior educator, and novelist. The application of behavior science enhances optimum health, performance, soundness, contentment, and longevity in animal athletes. Behavioral and nutritional strategies enrich the lives of stabled horses. Training and husbandry from the horse's perspective result in content, cooperative horses who are willing to learn and perform.