Emotional horses

All horses are capable of emotion. That might sound anthropomorhic, projecting human

attributes onto the horse, but I never said horses are capable of human emotion! Horses amaze me in their emotional capacity, it is precisely because they're not quite like us that fascinates me. The reason why they're not like us is because they are adapted to a different lifestyle and are motivated by different things. But they have some similarities, pretty much all mammals have the same basic emotional neurocircuitry, like that for fear & anxiety, frustration & rage, for seeking the good stuff in life, lust, joy and nurturance.

To help build a good relationship with horses, for the purpose of having fun or competing seriously, the emotional stuff is important. Horses that aren't emotionally fit find it hard to learn technical stuff, and their behaviour shows it, they can become shut down, or be going in every direction at once. Neither state is fun or going to give a competitive edge.

I find that horses can be affected by fear and frustration every day of their lives with us if we restrict their natural lifestyle excessively, confuse them through our efforts to school them and fail to provide some of the fun stuff in life.

Take horses that get stabled at night and go out in the day, especially at this time of year. Number one, they might be affected by reduced day length as neurochemical production is altered. That can be emotionally sensitising all on its own, but normally it may set the scene for stronger emotional states to have a negative effect.

That leads me on to number two: the horse gets wet, hungry and uncomfortable in the field, and by tea time is positively hanging over the gate to come in. That's because he expects that any minute he'll have relief from the wet ground and he'll get his short feed and some hay to munch. That drives his 'SEEKING' system (see Jaak Panksepp's book, Affective Neuroscience). In his anticipation he gets frustrated because he can't get to the dry stable with the lovely nourishing food because someone left a fence and a locked gate in the way! In his frustration he switches from SEEKING to RAGE and bites the pony next to him. That makes the groom mad so she yells or hits him making him fearful, and he didn't know what he did anyway he was just so wound up just then, and now the human is too. Now even more wound up and emotional he drags his owner up the yard and won't stand still to have his legs washed, even though he's done this 100, 000 times before. He gets shouted at for this and the lead rope gets yanked for good measure - not that it works but the human feels less frustrated, but will probably feel guilty in the car on her way home. Finally he gets into his box and digs into his food, now he feels better and settles for the night... But horses sleep for no more than 5 hours a day, so he has a couple of dreams and he's hungry again. But, the haynet's run out and it's still just one more hour before breakfast and release into the field where at least he can run around, have a nibble of grass and chew the fences for a bit until he gets too wet and hungry again...

See how it goes? We've probably all been there but there is another way. Maybe the horse has to live in the stable at night, limited grazing and all that. That's ok, no need to reach for the birch twigs here! The horse could be fed more hay and be fed some additional forages like carrots, swede, alfalfa, readigrass, a nutritional lick - horses love to pick through different flavours, that's what grazing is all about. The horse can get all his dietry needs from feeding this way so no need for a short, sweet feed for him to get psyched up about. The horse's turnout could have some hard standing put in and a hay feeder or two placed there, so that hay can be put out to prevent hunger setting in at 2pm. Then at coming in and going out time the owner can practise some new horsemanship skills to safely lead her horse, hose his legs and change his rug. Then he'll be a pleasure to have and the owner can have warm fuzzy thoughts as opposed to guilt on the way home :-)