This is a point that I have touched on before, when I talked about animals and their ‘names’, it concerns the role that energy and body language play in communication between all animals, – including humans. Let’s start by taking a look at body language:

body language is the external representation of the thoughts and emotions that are going on in the mind.

For example, if a person or a horse is feeling uneasy or nervous (both emotions), this is likely to be reflected physically in their body language, equally, if a person or horse is feeling very laid-back and relaxed then that also will be reflected in their external body language but here is the important point, it will also be reflected in the energy they project to others. Energy is one of those things that are quite hard to describe but quite easy to detect, let’s take some human examples first:

1. Have you ever met someone who had presence or charisma, or something intangible about them that gave them authority? Usually this is a very quiet and understated thing but somehow you just know that you are in the presence of leadership, perhaps a teacher or a policeman or a parent, it could be anybody, but the important thing is they usually do not have to say a word for you to be able to feel this, you can close your eyes and still ‘feel’ their presence. This is their energy.

1. Have you ever met someone you just immediately liked and felt were they friendly and somehow you had a lot in common? If you observe the body language, both yours and theirs you might suddenly realise that you are subconsciously copying each other. If you watch courting couples you will see this a lot and if you watch a horse and a human that have a really close positive relationship you will see this as well. In both cases you will notice that very little of their communication is vocal because the connection between them is their body language and their energy.
2. Have you ever met someone you immediately disliked? Something about them warns you to be wary of them, and once again they don’t need to say a word, it’s just a feeling that this kind of person is best avoided.

All of these examples are examples of ‘energy’, all animals use energy, in fact animals use it much more often than humans do because animals do not have spoken language. You will probably find that these different energies are there in different horses as well, some have power and authority, frequently these are alpha members of a herd, some horses are naturally friendly and get along well with everyone and some horses, well, are best avoided although it is usually because humans made them that way.

Poppy

The animal that taught me most about energy and body language was my dog, Poppy. Poppy is an English Springer Spaniel, she is almost totally white in colour and, as is very common in many breeds and species, the predominantly white gene also carries with it the gene for deafness. Poppy has never heard a sound and is not aware that there are sounds in the universe. Poppy also has a pedigree that practically makes her royalty and was bred as a working gun-dog. Just as there is a utility model for horses there is a utility model for the working dog and just as with horses, if an animal is unable to fulfil their utility/purpose then they are deemed literally use – less. Poppy was originally sold as a working dog for the sum of some £800 but it was quickly discovered that she was deaf and so could not fulfil her utility and so was returned to the breeder who gave her away ‘free to a good home’, which is how she came to live with us.

Owning a deaf dog might seem as if it is going to be a big challenge, it is not, here is one reason why; I’m afraid, I often find myself telling people who ask about her, ‘Just because she is deaf it doesn’t mean she is stupid!’ This really sums up the problem, Poppy has no issues with being deaf because she doesn’t know that she is. The ones that seem to have an enormous problem with what they insist on seeing as a ‘disabled’ animal are humans and the reason they feel like this is because they can’t try to communicate with her in spoken English. I have actually had people insist that she must be able to hear something, perhaps a very high pitched sound or a very low pitched sound or ask me if I have thought of getting her hearing aids! (Anthropomorphism is everywhere).

Another big issue people have is about how I train her, actually I basically clicker train her, using positive reinforcement training. Of course, I cannot use a clicker but because I understand the principles behind classical and operant conditioning this doesn’t matter I just use a visual bridging signal instead, such as a nod of the head, which equates to the click. The biggest problem is that you cannot attract her attention you have to wait for her to look at you, but she does this frequently, especially if there is the potential for a reward. If she is at a distance she has learned to come to me when I wave to her. She will cross a five acre paddock in a straight line to my feet. So she is responding to my body language signals, but more importantly she also responds to my energy. Because there is no language to come between us and confuse our meanings, I feel that she and I are able to communicate far more closely than ever we could have done if she could hear.

When I come across anthropomorphic dog owners I notice they are always talking to their dogs, they are continually trying to explain to anyone they meet how their dog is feeling or tell me why it is behaving in the way it is why it likes some things and doesn’t like others. Usually the dog is ignoring them, because it doesn’t have the faintest idea what the owner is trying to communicate, and the garbled, complex sounds their human makes are meaningless parts of the everyday confusion of their lives.

Some dog owners might say, ‘but what about tone of voice’? And here they have a point, tone of voice can convey a message but it is conveying an emotional message but emotional messages are energy and don’t need words.

A long time ago I learned you could control a horse with your energy, I learned this first with a very nervous thoroughbred, I discovered that by controlling my breathing, by quieting my thoughts and relaxing my body I could bring this horse down from a fizzing boiling menace to a relaxed, calm and gentle horse in under a minute. I realised this is what horses do, this is how an alpha stallion in a herd can bring a group of galloping horses to a sliding stop in a few seconds, partly it is his body language but mostly it is his energy. This is real natural horsemanship.

Because of my experiences with Poppy and my other spaniel Charlie who is now 12 and actually becoming increasingly deaf in his old age, I am finding that spoken and verbal communication is actually of very little use in communication with animals and I find that I am actually talking less and less to them, but it seems the less I talk the more and clearer communication we have. So if you really want to communicate with your horse, spend a few hours with it and don’t talk. When you stop talking you will discover that all you have left is each other’s body language and energy and that is true communication.

I believe positive reinforcement, and training methods based on it’s principles, are the next stage in the evolution of the long relationship between horses and humans. Here are the reasons why I make this claim…

We have had millennia of historical and traditional training based on what was practical and efficient. Teaching that was usually taught to the horse by correction and the threat of consequences, (positive punishment), and although we have begun to move in the right direction with natural horsemanship techniques that took an interpretation of some of the natural behaviours of the horse but still used negative reinforcement and the inevitable threat of positive punishment. (In both cases this amounted to ‘do what I want or else suffer the consequences’), this was only the first tentative steps in the right direction, – we still have the most exciting part of the journey to go.

Because we no longer need horses to enable us to survive, for the first time in history we have the luxury of allowing ourselves to see our horse for the wonderful animal he really is. But there is more, by coming to understand the horse as a horse we will also learn more about ourselves as human beings, I think this is the the biggest reason of all to adopt positive reinforcement methods because of the positive changes it will make in us, for example, as we work with our horses and establish more trust with them we will build their confidence and that in turn will build our confidence, in other words not only does our horse get better, more trusting, more relaxed and more confident when it is around us, the same thing happens to us! This is just one of the hundreds of positive spin-offs that we discover as we change our thinking through positive reinforcement training.

So where do we start?

To begin to understand positive reinforcement training we first need to understand three basic ideas. The ideas are:

• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• The difference between a treat and a reward

These might sound daunting but actually they are really simple to understand, for instance the word ‘conditioning’ is really just a scientific way of saying learning. So stick with me you will soon see…

Classical conditioning

The key to understanding whether a behaviour is classically conditioned or not is the word ‘predicts’. When a behaviour is classically conditioned it simply means the animal learns that two or more events become linked together in the subjects mind in such a way as the event predicts that something will happen. Let me use my dogs as an example:

I keep my dog’s leads (leashes) hanging up on the back of the door in the kitchen. When the dogs see me open the door and take down the leads they know that it is time for a walk, this creates a change in their behaviour; previously they have been curled up fast asleep but now, they become excited and jumping around in anticipation of the walk (or ‘hunt’ as they would see it, – I also respect my dogs as dogs!). This is a typical classically conditioned response where an event predicts another event that, in this case, is emotionally rewarding (fun).

Operant conditioning

Some dogs are very clever, when they consider that it is time they went for a walk they will go and find the dog leash and bring it to their owner in order to get him to take them out, this is called ‘operant conditioned behaviour’, all it means is that:

the subject takes a specific action in order to make something happen.

Note: The odd word ‘operant’ refers to the subject, if for example you were training your horse, you would be the operator and the horse would be the operant.

When we train our horse we should always be looking for ways of getting our horse to learn through operant behaviour, in this way the horse is learning along with us and is getting rewarded, along with us. Basically all successful positive reinforcement learning is about operant behaviour, it is about teaching the horse to look for the right answer so that we can reward it, and then getting the horse to want to do that thing again because it was emotionally rewarding, speaking of rewards and such…

The difference between a treat and a reward

This is one of the most commonly misunderstood ideas around any kind of positive reinforcement, and this is why we clearly need to understand the three points above. Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in themselves it is the emotions they lead to that are important, for example, the arrival of the vet in your horses environment may predict a very bad event and the horse might want to make things happen to avoid the situation, it’s a flight animal after all. This is what sometimes confuses people about conditioning (learning) they don’t understand that the emotions that the events lead to are more important than the physical events themselves, or to put it another way the behaviour is a side effect of the emotions. Nothing illustrates this better than the confusion found around the ideas of treats and rewards.

Treats are not good – at all. I never treat my horses, ever, but I do reward them lots.

The reason treats are not good is that while, treats may, or may not, induce pleasant emotions in the horse, the fact is it doesn’t matter because treats are not about rewarding the horse they are about rewarding the human. Treating our horse is a way of giving us instant good feelings about ourselves, normally this is with food but we can also see this treating behaviour with people, (often very anthropomorphic people), who love to buy lots of material ‘stuff’ for their horses, they think that ownership of items and personal belongings are important to the horse. Of course this is rubbish (some of it literally ), but not to them, because they get pleasure from providing these items, and because they get pleasure from these activities, they will want to repeat the experience, thus, positive reinforcement of the human.

Treats only reward the human and the thoughts, feelings, instincts and emotions and needs of the horse do not matter.

In other words the emotions of the horse are ignored because they do not matter.

This is what leads to the paradox of the devoted benevolent, horse owner who is unable to see anything wrong with the use of whips, fear, pain, intimidation and so on on their horse. They think it is OK because they get good feelings from the situation.

Treats are actually a subtle form of coercion and as such are prone to all the side effects of coercion, for example coercion is always reinforcing for the coercer, coercion will always increase and sadly coercion will always result in counter coercion, (see my posts on the laws of coercion). This is why people frequently have an idea that treating is bad for the horse (‘spoiling’ them) but at the same time they don’t understand why this is because because it is so rewarding for them.

At the beginning of this post I talked about the positive side effects of positive reinforcement training, this is really where we should be getting or rewards, by rewarding the horse not by rewarding ourselves. Speaking of rewards…

Rewards

A reward is a specific event in a horse’s life intended to get a repeat of a behaviour. You have probably realised that repeating behaviour is reinforcing behaviour and the best way to reinforce a behaviour is to make it positive so that it leads to positive emotions; once again it is the emotions we are after not the physical behaviour or material result, although we usually get that as well. This is all part of the positive fallout associated with positive reinforcement training. As I said at the beginning, the best part of the journey is yet to come.

Both flight and fight have a physical and a mental component, physical flight or fight is fairly easy to understand and mental fight is usually associated with angry, aggressive horses exhibiting disturbed, abnormal behaviours, but what about mental flight; when the horse’s natural physical desire to escape a coercive force is prevented? Perhaps both physical and mental fight have been ineffective or, as is more likely, have met with further punishment, correction and coercion, the only option left to the horse is to resort to mental flight within their own head.

Negative reinforcement is the most common way to train horses, this is when a negative stimulus (a threat) is removed from the horses environment, the emotional result of this is relief at avoiding the negative thing. Horses will quickly learn to do what it takes to get to this reinforcing feeling of relief, the key thing to realize here is that ‘what it takes’ is the minimum thing they need to to get that feeling! They have no incentive to do anything else. Whenever you see a horse putting in minimum effort to avoid a negative stimulus and doing just enough to avoid punishment then you are looking at a horse that is learning to be compliant:

the problem is, most humans think this is ‘obedience’. Let’s look at an example of this, yielding to pressure:

The yielding to pressure myth

One common idea with negative reinforcement trainers is the idea of ‘yielding to pressure’, but their horse is not yielding to pressure at all, it is evading pressure and it is making the minimum effort to do so.

Note: Pressure, by the way, can be anything from a ‘feel’ on a rope, to to the infliction of severe pain, this sliding-scale of actions is often called something like increasing pressure phases.

A horse that is truly yielding to pressure is one that is moving away from a minimum pressure cue, because it wants to, – emotionally, because it knows that performing that action will lead to good things, by which I mean positive emotions, this scenario is only possible through the use of positive reinforcement. In behavioural terms we would say the horse has become operant, that means, it is performing an action because it wants to make something happen.

When a horse is behaving like this, it has every incentive to perform the action, it may even become creative in it’s approach, it will willingly cooperate with the human to find the right answer and because it is strongly emotionally reinforced to do so, it will associate this behaviour with previous good feelings and will happily repeat it at a later time, in this way learning will become rapidly and enthusiastically remembered.

How different to the compliant horse reacting to years of correction, threat and coercion, this horse is mentally in the foetal position, all it can do is work out the way that will attract the least attention and the least coercion, the very best emotional reward it can get is the feeling of relief. This phenomenon is well known to us humans as well, for compliance is a reaction to universal laws not just a reaction of horses. In humans this situation is well-known and documented, it is associated with depression and anxiety, it is very damaging both physically and mentally.

Negative Punishment

If you have read my posts on the four training methods you will know that apart from negative reinforcement there is also positive punishment and negative punishment. I have not dealt very much with negative punishment but it is important to realize that it is just as damaging as Neg R and Pos P because it is also a form of coercion. It has all the familiar side-effects of coercion, for example, it is positively reinforcing for the coercer, it always generates further coercion and ultimately it will lead to a state of counter-coercion. It has exactly the same side-effects as other forms of coercion and can only lead to a state of learned helplessness. The real issue with negative punishment is that it is usually associated in some way with the horses environment and it is nearly always unavoidable. That means, it never goes away!

• A horse that spends 23 hours per day or more, isolated in a stable from the presence of other herd members is a horse in a situation of negative punishment.
• A horse whose owner keeps it rugged day and night for many months of the year is being coerced by negative punishment.
• A horse who is fed meals of inappropriate foodstuffs such as sugar and cereals is being coerced using negative punishment.

Or how about this one…

• A horse who is being treated anthropomorphically by a human, is suffering from an inexorably oppressive environment of negative punishment.

In each of those examples the horse is losing a freedom as a result of being in an environment of negative punishment. If you want to see the results of this thinking, take a look around most livery yards and riding stables you will see compliant horses, horses that are switched off, horse that do not react to the environment around them, – think of the implications of that for a prey animal.

There is a great deal more that I could say about this subject but it is all rather depressing for me, let alone my readers! Suffice to say that:

all of this is totally avoidable.

It is our choice, we created these environments for our own pleasure and convenience, (coercion is always reinforcing for the coercer) we can choose to un-create them we can find better ways of doing things, we can start by returning our horses to the company of other horses and only keep them outdoors and in herds, we can start educating themselves to their needs as animals and stop thinking of them as machines (utility model) or pretending they have human qualities (anthropomorphic model), we can learn to understand their unique digestive systems and physiology but most of all we can choose to build relationships with them based on trust and mutual benefit for both species and to do that we need to develop training systems based only on positive reinforcement so that no horse ever needs to learn to be helpless just to survive.

To answer this interesting question, the first thing we need to define is what makes an animal a ‘pet’. I have read many books on the subject of the relationship between humans and the animals we keep as pets, but I’ve never yet found a satisfactory definition of what actually makes an animal a pet. So to get a handle on this idea, perhaps we should turn things around and first look at what defines an animal as not being a pet.

The animals we keep for food, such as chickens, pigs, cattle or sheep, are most definitely not pets, they exist solely for the purpose of producing meat, milk, wool or eggs, they live within the most rigid utility model of all, agriculture. In general not many farmers would describe their animals as pets. An old farmer once told me, ‘If your going to eat it, never give it a name’, and this is the first clue to the difference between those animals we regard as food and those we regard as pets. Pets always have names.

When we give an animal a name, we project something of our own feelings onto that animal. We start to personalize our relationship with it, by deciding on an appropriate name that usually sums up or idea of its ‘person-ality’. Although we are aware the animal is a different species we always look for ways in which the animal is like us, in other words, has human characteristics. We soon begin to notice that the animal behaves in a way that fits with our interpretation of this personality. This gives us enormous pleasurable feedback, ( a positive reinforcement loop!) and so we eagerly look for more ways in which our pet lives up to it’s name.

This is why people all over the world keep pets: – because it is positively reinforcing to do so, in other words, keeping pets rewards us with good feelings, – that’s why we do it.

So here is my definition of a pet:

A pet is an animal onto which humans are able to project their feelings and thus their emotions, typically through the assigning of a name, leading to an interpretation of the animal’s behaviour as a ‘human personality’ in such a way, as is rewarding to the human.

Of course, what I am really describing here, is anthropomorphism.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Well, in many ways keeping pets is a very good thing. There is serious scientific evidence that keeping pets is extremely good for us, there are important positive implications to our physical and mental health. Pets allow humans to learn about relationships, they provide us with instant positive feelings and gratification, they frequently become important part of our lives for many years. So keeping pets can allow us to become healthier and more well-adjusted people.

So keeping pets is very good for humans, – but not always so good for the animal. The root of the problem for the our pet, is that, when we project our feelings on them as human-beings we often lose sight of their physical and mental needs as an animal. We think that because we meet all their needs as humans we can therefore ignore their needs as animals and this is especially true for horses.

In many ways horses have a unusual relationship with humans, they live in a strange world, somewhere between their historical role as functional animals and our desire to enjoy them as pets. This puts them in a different category to almost all other animals, and more than any other species it puts them entirely at our disposal, so that we can, if we choose, exploit them in any way we want to.

This is when pet-keeping or anthropomorphism is a truly bad thing for the animal, when the idea of the animal becomes so associated with giving us pleasure, that we fail to consider the animal’s natural needs at all, – indeed they are, to all intents and purposes, irrelevant, because strangely, they do not fit with the animals purpose. Yes, just as in the utility model, the anthropomorphic model actually defines the horse as having a purpose but in this case the purpose of the horse is to reward us with emotional pleasure.

So this is why my horses are not pets, and neither are they machines, to me, their natural needs as horses are absolutely paramount, I respect my horses for what nature has made them, – not for what they can do for me.

But this does not mean I do not get any pleasure from my association with horses, neither does it mean that I do not see my horses as individuals, exactly the opposite, I get more pleasure. My horses are all highly individual, and my life would be a drab affair without the light of horses in my world.

I believe, the way I think about horses, (my mental model), is a healthy one, by which I mean, it is healthy for me and healthy for my horses, because I totally reject anthropomorphic feelings and thoughts about them, instead, by learning from them, by studying and respecting them as horses, taking the time to notice the infinite subtly of their behaviour and interaction each day, by learning all the positive things they have to teach me, my horses pay me back with interest a thousand-fold. One of the most important aspects of our relationship is the constantly building relationship of mutual trust, for example, when a prey animal leaves the herd to come over and spent time with you just because it wants to, not because you are training it or bribing it, – then that is truly a gift, – not from a misunderstood pet but from a free horse.

If I said to you that a stable is also in many ways nothing more than a cage. You might disagree, – but before you stop reading, here is a dictionary definition of the word ‘cage’:

• A structure for confining birds or animals, enclosed on at least one side by a grating of wires or bars that lets in air and light.

So, is that not also a (crude) physical description of a stable? Well perhaps not. Most people would agree that a cage is a ‘bad’ thing as it has all kinds of negative connotations with human imprisonment, zoos, suffering animals and even torture but surely a warm, cozy stable is not really a cage is it?

Cage or Stall?

The Element of Choice

One of the weirdest human oddities about the difference between stalls and cages is that we see cages as being bad because there is no element of choice. Animals or even humans confined in a cage have no choice about whether they are there or not, and bizarrely, somehow stalls are seen as a ‘good’ place to be even though there is exactly the same lack of choice! Humans truly are, the strangest animals on the planet.

So, stables and stalls give us generally good feelings and cages give us bad feelings so the only real difference is not physical at all, but it is a matter of mental perspective. It is possible to argue that these definitions really depend on your moral or ethical view concerning putting animals in cages or ‘housing’ them in stables, but whether you see it as a stable or a cage both are used to confine animals and the effects of confinement have very serious physical and mental implications for your horse.

First some basic observations about stables.

Stables are very convenient places for humans to keep horses, after all, the horse is, by nature, a flight animal and flight animals tend to be very a very inconvenient asset if they decide they don’t want to be caught. Historically, horses have been a mark of high status in human society and so it is a fairly natural wish to protect your valuable assets from exposure to the climate, death from other predators and of course theft by your enemies. In addition to this stables give you control over the horse and it’s behavior, they make the horses needs fit with to your time and your resources. Most owners would say they stable their horse because only stables can offer protection, warmth, and comfort to the horse within. You would think that protection, comfort, security, a regular temperature, (not too hot, not too cold), a regular food supply, water and all those other necessities and even luxuries, that life within four walls can bring, would be exactly what any self-respecting equine would want, wouldn’t you?

But you would be wrong – very wrong, because these are all things that humans want in their lives and from their homes and, as you probably know by now, when humans start putting human thoughts, feelings, instincts and emotions into a horses head we are dealing with the old enemy of anthropomorphism. In this post I will deal with the link between the idea of the human home and the horses ‘home’. I also hope to show that far from providing protection for your horse confining herd animals in stables could be exposing them to risks and pathogens that they would never deal with in a natural situation and consequently to which, they have very little natural immunity.

Anthropomorphism is the desire to see our horses as ‘being like us’. We consider that a roof over our head is a basic human right and so we imagine it is also a fundamental thing that our horses should have. Many of the extremes we inflict on our horses,for example, the wearing of clothes, shoes, the idea of regular hearty meals and so on is an extension of this basic human desire to house our horses but it is also the at fundamental root of so much conflict and trouble in our relationship.

A conflict of environments

First of all, the horse is a herd animal and very much a creature of of the outdoors, a macro-climate. If you live outdoors you live in the fresh air, the stable is obviously the opposite of this, effectively a micro-climate. Even with the very best ventilation the stall environment is prone to dust. This dust is unavoidable and is a by-product of the bedding and forage feeds such as hay that horses live on. Horses that are confined are usually provided with bedding as the horse moves and air circulates and recirculates, it carries this dust upwards into the air the horse is breathing, and it is this air that often carries with it viruses and bacteria. These are breathed-in along with dust that aggravates the horses airways, this aggravation causes the horses upper respiratory tract to secrete mucus over and above natural levels. The effect of this can be seen in a disorder called, inflammatory airway disease (IAD). This disorder and others like it ,have a measurable detrimental effect on the horse’s performance.

This dust also carries with it something known as endotoxin. This is a protein derived from the cell walls of bacteria as they die. Endotoxin is found in large quantities in hay, straw and fecal matter. The endotoxins stick to dust particles which are then inhaled. The trick here is that the body is fooled by the alien protein into thinking that it is being invaded and so the airways become inflamed, ultimately causing the horse to experience increased difficulty in breathing. When the body’s defenses are fooled like this we call it an allergic reaction, in one sense it is an allergic reaction to the dust in the air but in a bigger sense it is an allergic reaction to the horse’s environment.

Allergic Respiratory Disease

This is very common in stabled horses. This condition used to be called COPD or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, It is now more properly called recurrent airway obstruction (RAO) and many years ago was know by the old name of ‘heaves’. Some researchers have found that up to half of all stabled horses suffer from this disease. One of the recommended ways of managing this condition, by the way, is to return your horses to living outside, – funny that.

The horse is by nature a fiber-digester. And as fiber becomes more mature and dries out naturally it begins to break up and produces small dusty particles. For horses living outdoors this is not a great problem as the action of the wind carries these particles harmlessly away but for horses confined in the limited micro-climate of a stall the horse cannot escape them and so must attempt to adapt to the contaminated air by attempting to produce more mucus and to continually be fighting what it’s body sees as an attack by foreign protein particles (endotoxins). Simply attempting to increase ventilation is only a ‘sticking plaster’ solutions (humans love sticking plaster solutions), the real problem is an underlying conflict of environments.

Before we leave the subject of air circulation we must realize that there is also an anthropomorphic element to what is happening here. Humans are house-dwellers and before that were cave-dwellers. One thing that both these environments have in common is that they have a very small range of temperature change. It is strange that wherever you travel in the world you will find that either the heating or the air-conditioning are set to provide an environment of somewhere in the region of 21 degrees Centigrade or about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Anything either side of this and we usually feel too hot or too cold. But horses as I said, are outdoor animals they have evolved over millions of years to exist in a variable temperature, think how much the day/night temperature can vary at certain times of the year. What horses are not designed to cope with, is an environment in which the temperature never changes and the air remains relatively still, – but this exactly what we see as the ‘right’ state of affairs.

Confinement and the digestive system

Horses are fiber-digesters, although technically, that is not quite true, the microbes in the gut are the real fiber-digesters and horses are then able to utilize the nutrients they release. This means that the horse’s digestive system is far less adaptable to different types of food and this is the reason that any changes made to the horse’s diet must be introduced over a long period of time i.e. slowly. Because the horse needs time to adapt or rather the bacteria need time to grow and adapt to the change. A great example of this is the old horseman’s myth that bran is a laxative that should be fed once a week, to ‘clear them out’. Original this probably evolved as an idea that was a protect against colic. There are several types of colic with many causes but possibly the most serious and consequently most feared is called ‘impaction colic’, this is basically a blockage of the digestive system. Horses are unusual in that they are unable to do something most mammals can do, that is, they are unable to belch or vomit, this makes their digestive system effectively a ‘one-way street’, consequently any blockage is a very serious matter and potentially fatal. It is understandable that 100 years ago if your very livelihood depended on your horse you would be very careful to avoid something like your horse coming down with colic. So the practice began of feeding bran as a laxative, (strangely enough in the human, bran can also work in the opposite way and cause constipation, (or compaction), for the very reason that we are not fiber-digesters.

Bran (also called wheatbran) is fiber, so the idea that horses can’t digest it and it should pass straight through (hopefully!) is a little strange. What was really happening here is that the occasional introduction of a different food caused a disturbance in the microbial balance of the gut bacteria, which was temporarily unable to deal with it and so it passed through the system relatively undigested, leading to the mistaken idea that it was acting as a laxative.

Back to the stable…

Recently, imposed stall confinement has been found to be associated with 54% of impaction colic cases and other studies found that 62% of colon impactions occurred within two weeks of significant management changes, such as being brought into a stable or a change of yard (environment) or diet. So horses do not like changes to their diet or their environment. Yet this is exactly what they get when they are taken in and out of the stable during the summer or confined for long days and nights in the winter. This is also what they get when their natural foraging (browsing and moving-on) behavior is swapped for the anthropomorphic idea of ‘mealtimes’. Foraging animals spend most of their time feeding, up to 75% of their daily ‘time budget’. Animals fed ‘meals’, (a predator concept by the way), spend only a fraction of their day eating and this leads to the typical ‘bored horse in a stable’ syndrome.

Most owners comfort themselves with the idea that their horse will at least get a good nights sleep, except that horses don’t sleep for 8 hours a night, no prey animal would adopt such a strategy, horses only doze for a short periods on and off throughout the day and night.

Note: There is a disorder called equine sleep disorder where horses actually lose the ability to lie down and enter REM sleep (usually about 40 minutes in 24 hours) This is thought to be because they are too afraid to relax. This is another little ‘benefit’ of living in a stable. See other posts under category, sleep.

What we take away

If we consider the effects of what we add to the horse’s environment when we confine them, we should also consider what we are taking away. Horses are creatures of movement, in the wild this may be up to 20 miles per day. Horses in confinement get almost none of this. Fortunately, we are able to measure this accurately nowadays with the use of GPS devices. Pastured horses (24 hour turn-out) have been recorded as traveling about 6-7 miles per 24 hours, in contrast to horses in confinement with some exercise travel 2.8 – 3.2 miles. It is interesting to note that horses that were outside also had a greater increase in bone density, significantly different from non-exercised stalled horses.

Movement and Digestion

Movement and exercise also increase metabolism, even simple walking stimulates the movement of food through the digestive system (gastrointestinal motility). Fiber digestion is reported as increasing by as much as 20% in horses that can exercise. In other words, movement is an important part of the digestive process, horses need to be able to do this in order to function at the most basic level. Because movement has this effect it, increases the movement of digestive material through the body and therefore lowers the risk of impaction colic.

Exercise for Growth and Development

The correct musculoskeletal development in young horses has been shown to be detrimentally affected when they are prevented from exercising properly. One area that suffers is the animal’s joints, because lack of exercise inhibits the adaption of cartilage to supporting the growing weight of the body. Once again this is a situation where the horse fails to adapt to an unnatural state and an unnatural environment.

Confinement and Behavior

For me, and for the horse this is the really big reason for not confining horses, horses are herd animals, they need the presence of other horses to feel safe, by confining, and inevitably isolating them in stables we are putting them in a state of constant emotional fear and frustration and we are doing this both for our own convenience and because of our own misguided (albeit usually well-intentioned) anthropomorphic ideas. This means that whenever we confine a horse in a stable we are placing it in an environment it was never designed to cope with, and because the horse is constantly trying to cope it is constantly in the mental state of stress. The physiological implications of long-term unavoidable stress are well known, they include things such as allergic reactions to the environment, ulcers, gastric disorders and severely abnormal emotional responses such as stereotypical behaviors (AKA stable vices). We are also putting horses in situations from which they can never escape through flight – their natural, first-line defense, consequently we see animals turning to fight reactions in which they become aggressive and dangerous, or even the form of mental flight I term ‘compliance’, where they cease to interact with their environment in any way – a severe and potentially life-threatening response in a prey animal.

But my horse isn’t like this…

I know some people would argue that their horse has lived happily in a stable all it’s life and indeed it may seem to them that that is the case but this is because of the overwhelming feeling of emotional satisfaction that behaving anthropomorphically gives us. Anthropomorphism is intrinsically rewarding for the human being – it gives us good feelings about ourselves and only about ourselves. It actually causes us to distort what we see happening and most of all it causes us to distort our belief system. So for example we fail to see any difference between a horse ‘housed’ in a stable and an animal trapped in a cage.

Horses behaving badly

Some people will admit that their horse is, ‘lively’ or difficult to handle or aggressive or impossible to load or difficult to train, but they will always see this as the horse’s ‘fault’ or because he has ‘bad manners’ or ‘misbehaves’, they will never see it as a consequence of their own actions or their misunderstanding of even the most basic requirements that the horse needs to be a horse. They will never see that the alien environment of the stable is the root of so many problems that would disappear in an instant if we realized that horses should live in herds not in houses.

Finally, it is ironic that the most iconic symbol of freedom, majesty and power and free spirit, the wild horse, is the one animal we consider it most necessary to keep in a cage.

And yet…

All over the world it is the root cause of all kinds of human and animal suffering, and every year, globally, hundreds of humans and hundreds of thousands of animals die because of it. And the strangest thing about it all is that, most people don’t even realise they are addicted. Most people are totally blind to the fact that it even exists! What is the name of this curse? It is anthropomorphism.

For those of you who didn’t even know there was such a thing, don’t feel ashamed, millions of us don’t, in it’s most basic form anthropomorphism is: the human tendency to interpret animal behaviour as human behaviour, as simple as that.

By now you are probably thinking, ‘Oh no! Not another thing to feel bad about, and this time it ‘s something I didn’t even know existed!! (and even if you did know, perhaps you didn’t know it was bad). It just isn’t fair.’ I quite agree with you, after all, I have to confess that I am a reformed addict myself. But dear reader, bear with me, this is not an article that will tell you what a terrible person you are, or what a cruel and indifferent human being you have become, far from it, I hope, it is an article that will guide and enlighten you and help you break out into a new world of freedom and understanding with all animals but especially that most devoted of domestic animals our horses. But right now I expect you are wondering why I say:

Anthropomorphism is an addiction?

Humans love anthropomorphism. No! They really, really love anthropomorphism! From our earliest days we are showered with anthropomorphic toys, pink crocodiles, teddy bears and cute, cuddly, blue hippos etc., etc. Usually babies get toys that are anthropomorphic representations of animals a long time before they get their first human-like doll, so it is no wonder we grow up with anthropomorphic ideas about the world. Then there is all the media that we are exposed to. At the time of writing, in the UK we are being bombarded with messages to buy ‘cheap car in-sh-o-o-rance’ by a meerkat millionaire! Complete with a Russian accent, who lives in a mansion. It is one of the most popular advertisements of all time! Anthropomorphism sells because we are addicted to it.

There is also a whole genre of TV programs where viewers send in their clips and movies of their pets ‘doing the funniest things’. In almost every case the humour of the clip is based on animal behaviour that looks like human behaviour. This is pure anthropomorphism. It is deeply ingrained in our minds almost from day one. So why is anthropomorphism so appealing and so universal in humans?

It is because anthropomorphism works directly with our emotions.

Almost all addictions work this way, if you are addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, drugs, or even work, you are addicted at an emotional level and that is why no amount of reasoning and logic will get you unhooked. Take the example of one of the most addictive food additives we are exposed to, sugar. I’m sure you have never done this(!), but perhaps you know someone who has! Have you (or your ‘friend’) ever sat down with a new box of chocolates and thought: ‘Oh, I’ll just have one’. And an hour later the box is empty? This is because of something that behaviourists call ‘positive reinforcement’. Sugar is highly positively reinforcing. A reinforcement is something that is emotionally enjoyable and so we want more of it. We like the taste of chocolate (an emotion) so we are reinforced to repeat/reinforce the behaviour until all the chocolates are gone. Logically we know we have just exceeded our recommended daily sugar intake by many times, we know that our bodies will now convert all this extra sugar energy to fat, we know we might be risking obesity, diabetes, heart disease but we just can’t help it, then of course we feel guilty, – a negative emotion, and the best way to make ourselves feel better? Find some more positive reinforcement such as…. more chocolate. This is addiction.

Most people that deal with animals are addicted to anthropomorphism. Now I am not saying they are ‘bad’ people, far from it, most of them have nothing but benevolent, kind feelings for the animals that they genuinely care for. Most of the highly anthropomorphic horse and dog owners that I have met are among the nicest and most dedicated human beings it is possible to meet. If this is so, why do I say anthropomorphism is bad? Well, it is because although these owners think they are being kind and thus rewarding to their animals, but anthropomorphism is NOT about rewarding animals:

it is about rewarding humans.

To put it another way, anthropomorphism reinforces humans emotionally by making them feel good about themselves. This means that it then becomes possible to completely ignore the thoughts, feelings, instincts and emotions of the animal, as an animal, and replace them with emotional beliefs about them as human beings.

Treats and Stuff!

A good example of this is the human tendency to ‘reward’ their animals with treats. Actually treats may or may not be rewarding to the animal but it doesn’t matter, treats are not about rewarding the animal they are about rewarding the human. Taking a horse as an example let’s take the typical treat-aholic and let’s say to them, ‘Carry on with the treats and even give them more if you want, but here is the rule, instead of just dishing out treats randomly throughout the day, I want you to give them all at once by adding them to the normal daily bucket feed’.

Most treat-aholics’ will think about this for a moment and then say, ‘but what is the point? I would just be giving them a load of food that they didn’t want or need and then they would get fat’. What we have done here is take away the human (emotional) reinforcement. If the human got no pleasure from giving out treats they would no longer feel any need to do it. Therefore treats are never a ‘reward’ for the horse, they are always a reward for the human.

Of course treats don’t have to be just food rewards, most animal owners also reward themselves by buying their animal ‘possessions’. They love to buy their horse a new colourful stable rug or their dog some new toys, there is an endless list of ‘stuff’ you can buy for your animal, this is literally a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. Quite plainly animals have no concept of ownership or possession of material things, yet millions of us spend billions of Pounds, Dollars, Euros and Yen to buy stuff for our animals, why? Because it gives us good feelings.

Another bizarre aspect of this behaviour is the people who want to buy their animal’s affection with material things. Most horse owners for example, want more than just functionality from their horse, they want friendship, companionship, loyalty even love from their relationship with their horse. So they try to ‘buy it’ with material things, they think the horse will ‘love’ them because they make these purchases. And behaving like this, – (it’s called shopping by the way) is positively reinforcing so even if the horse doesn’t like the items they still get positive reinforcement, they can’t lose.

You might have noticed humans frequently behave like this with other human beings, especially children!

These emotional qualities are all noble and desirable things but of course they are also highly anthropomorphic.

Having said that, it is quite possible for horses to develop a relationship with certain special humans that is at least, something along these lines, but never with owners who are anthropomorphic. These special relationships are always based on trust and respect for the horse as a horse, they come from the horse to us, not the other way round. They are formed when a human proves to a horse that they make trustworthy decisions, decisions are always based on emotions, so that human has trustworthy emotions, out of this trust is born respect for the humans actions based on their decisions and if trust and respect are in place there is a least the possibility that the horse will actually come to be rewarded by human company in the same way that it is rewarded by the company of horses. That is the beginning of what can be achieved with horses and that is the real pay off for the ‘special’ human and the ‘special’ horse. One thing though is absolutely guaranteed, this relationship can never be bribed out of a horse by the purchase of material items and they can never be wished into existence by giving the horse special treats. So if you really want to get good with horses the first step is to kick your addiction to anthropomorphism.

Imagine your horse lives at the center of three concentric circles or better yet, spheres and imagine if you can that your horse is imprisoned inside these two outer shells. These shells are curved and semi-opaque and therefore distort what is inside. You can travel inside them at will but your horse is trapped, this is because these two shells are human inventions and under the control of humans, only the human can create them or destroy them through choice.

In this little mental exercise we are going to break down these shells and discover what is really inside.

The first shell

The outer shell is the anthropomorphic shell it is the largest and therefore most distorting and oppressive shell of all, in your imagination see that shell begin to crack and soften so that it dissolves away and your horse becomes free of it. Now go inside and view the world from the horse’s perspective, what has been lost and what has been gained? What has gone is the idea that a horse is somehow human and experiences the world as humans do, take away all the housing that we provide, discard the clothing that we put on it and even the shoes on it’s feet, take away the anthropomorphic mealtimes and the human approved diet of cereal and sugar. Take away the constant and usually negative interpretation of its behavior as human vices. Stop seeing the horse as being willful, and cunning, lazy or stupid. It isn’t any of these things. In fact it would be well to promise yourself that in the future you will never again interpret the behavior of the horse as being somehow human-like. This may seem a strange thing to do for do we not love our horses? Surely the horse will suffer if we cease to ‘care’ for it? What does that mean? For many of us the supreme and deceitful irony of anthropomorphism is that the more human-like we can make the horse’s environment, the better we think we are caring for our horse. If we build a stable which is lined with Italian marble, and we provide it with hay racks made of sold gold we would see ourselves as lavish and caring -if not slightly eccentric, but why would we really do such a thing? The answer is simple and obvious – because it makes us feel good about ourselves.

That is all. It has nothing to do with the horse!

It certainly has nothing to do with the horse’s needs, it has nothing to do with what the horse wants. Anthropomorphism is a systematic and utterly overwhelming suppression of every thought, emotion and feeling natural to the horse in a way that makes us feel good.

Reject forever the distorting shell of anthropomorphism and you will reveal something wonderful. For the first time you will see the horse as a being worthy of respect in it’s own right as a horse. You will see it in a positive way and marvel at it for it’s power and athleticism, its supreme adaptability it’s true beauty and it’s skill as a survivor. These are gains for both you and the horse. In reality of course you are just discovering something that was there all along and now you realize; it was just something we took away in the first place and replaced with our invented anthropomorphism.

The second shell

Now let us tackle the inner shell, the utility shell. From the outside this shell gives us a single, focused perspective on the horse, within this the horse has no individuality, no thoughts or feelings other than those we can exploit to the advantage of our species, for within the restrictions of this shell the horse is nothing more than a machine. An organic machine whose very existence is defined by one thing, – its function. We bargain with the horse, we say to it, “we will give you every luxury we can afford as long as you perform it’s function for us”. But when the animal is no longer able to fulfill this utility we will either assign it to another purpose or more likely discard it, because we have no further use for it, – (whatever that may mean!). The world is full of formerly valuable horses discarded by the utility model as no longer ‘fit for purpose’. Let us decide therefore, that this model is outdated and no longer of use to us or the horse. This model is after all primarily a legacy of history and the traditions of the past. Horses no longer have to exist for a role we define for them, so let us take this shell away as well and search for some new beginning with our horses.

Let us realize the importance of the things we discard if we do this?

Firstly we discard many of the physical tools and lessons of the past, lessons learned by the horse through a thousand years of intimidation and suppression. We take away correction of behavior by the threat of an increase in physical pain. We take away the bits and the straps and the chains, we take away the spurs and the whips and the saddles that distort the back of a horse. We take away as well, the isolation in a cage for reasons of human practicality. We take away stress of separation that is the greatest crime against the nature of the horse, we take away the diets based on human convenience and function that are so damaging to the gut of the horse. We take away all of this and a thousand other injustices that we inflict on our friend ‘for his own good’. By which we mean, – for our benefit and what are we finally left with?

All that is left is the uncomplicated and gentle animal that is the horse. The prey animal, the herd animal, the travelling animal that protects himself through his natural instinct of flight, the browsing animal who does not hunt or track or kill to survive but instead only wants enough of the right food to eat, to live peacefully and to pass on it’s genes if it can.

This does not mean that the horse is now use-less, this does not mean the end of the long and complex relationship between our two species, On the contrary this is our new foundation. This should be the new starting point for all horsemen and women in the 21^st century. We no longer need horses who’s only existence is defined as the ability to do our bidding and to make us feel good about our selfishness. We no longer need to own horses who have to perform in order to ensure the survival of our species, for the last sixty years we have increasingly owned horses simply for leisure and pleasure, isn’t it about time we allowed the horses themselves some leisure and pleasure also?

The the anthropomorphic and utility shells I am talking about are not fixed forever, they are in reality nothing more than human ideas, theories and hypothesis about the world – we call them beliefs, – but beliefs are not real. We constructed them originally to imprison horses and bend them to our ferocious will, but now we no longer need these beliefs, we should recognize them as the prisons that they are and reject them forever. It is it is only us, the predator that can set this prey animal free and if we do that we will find that what is left is simply, – the truth, and that truth should be the basis of the way forward for the future.

The answer to this question is not complex, it is rather obvious to those who have eyes to see, yet it is a source of huge confusion and misunderstanding to hundreds of thousands of horse owners around the world. These otherwise caring owners, cannot understand what they are doing wrong, – because in almost all cases, what they are doing, feels so right to them. This condition is, I believe, the single greatest threat to the relationship between horses and humans on the planet, it is growing with every passing day and it is inflicting enormous suffering and misery on horses and their owners and in the long run, it is killing horses and their riders all over the world. It is called anthropomorphism.

At first anthropomorphism seems rather harmless, it is simply the tendency for humans to interpret horse behavior in human terms. Most people regard it as innocent and harmless fun; but in reality, anthropomorphism is a cancer that eats away at the relationship between horses and humans. The reason it is so dangerous is that it blinds the human to the real needs of the horse – as a horse and replaces it with an all powerful and rigid false interpretation of the horses needs as a human being.

Ironically, the majority of horse owners are usually kind, caring people who simply want the best for their horse, and in order to achieve this they provide for their horse every facility and in many cases, every luxury that human ingenuity and money can provide. At the very least many owners would consider that they must provide housing, protective clothing (rugs) and regular meals for their horse, they will do this because, as they see it, a horse must be safe, protected, happy and healthy. It is very difficult to suggest that these goals are not a good thing and it is not unreasonable to suppose these are things that the horse would want as well, but this is  not so, because the things that make a human being feel safe, protected,happy and healthy are usually the opposite of what makes the horse feel this way.

For example, most humans feel safe and protected when they are sheltered by housing, a roof and four walls. Horses on the other hand feel safe when they are in the presence of other horses, that is,  a permanent, social group or herd. Humans tend to be happy and healthy when they receive regular meals and regular exercise. Horses are happy and healthy when they feel safe, can graze for most of the day and move constantly while they are doing it.

In the last post I looked at the traditional utility model and you might think that that is the end of the story, rightly or wrongly horses are defined by their use, – but this is not so.

At the end of the second world war (1945) and perhaps for some years before, the role of the horse began to change, the jobs that had previously been done by horses now began to be performed by machines, so horses, that had, for hundreds of years, been solely defined by their function, now no longer had any function. So they no longer had anything to dictate how they were bred or fed or trained or treated. In some people’s eyes the horse literally became use-less. But as we all know this was not the end for the horse because as people’s leisure time and income increased in the post-war years, more and more horses found a new use as ‘recreational’ animals.

This new model of horsemanship was developed originally from what was around at the time (the cavalry/utility model) and so it took ideas such as

• keeping horses in stables,
• working hard on their presentation
• routinely feeding
• routinely exercising
• routinely training them

- as central activities. But this model was very different from the practical historical model. I call it the anthropomorphic model.

Anthropomorphism

So what is anthropomorphism? Well, at it’s most basic level, anthropomorphism is defined as:

the human tendency to interpret animal behaviour as human behaviour.

The people that developed this model did so with the best intentions and all of them would admit that, although they may sometimes take things too far, they always do the things they do to their horses with the best of human intentions and all of this is done out of love for the horse.

So horse ‘users’ became ‘horse lovers’.

Anthropomorphism is something all humans (especially horse lovers) find irresistible, even me! – sometimes… It is something we all enjoy and many see it as harmless fun. Perhaps you have seen TV programs where viewers send in funny videos of animals doing ‘amusing’ things. In almost every case the humour of the situation comes from the animals behaving in a way that is interpreted as somehow human-like. So what could be the harm in this?

To answer this question we need to look at who is being rewarded here?

Here is the answer.

Anthropomorphism is always rewarding to the human,

That is why we enjoy it so much. But we also have to ask; is treating an animal anthropomorphically actually rewarding to the animal? The answer to that is, – it doesn’t matter, it is irrelevant because anthropomorphism ignores all the natural thoughts, feelings, instincts and emotions of the animal and replaces them with human interpretations of those behaviours.

I want to make a statement here:

I believe that anthropomorphism is the single biggest threat to health and well being of domestic horses (and their riders) in the world today despite the fact that it is based on benevolent feelings towards the horse.

I mean this, I believe anthropomorphism is a silent and deadly killer that masquerades as something harmless, yet it is killing horses years before their time and putting riders at risk every time they are around horses. I make no apology for this statement within the last five years within five miles of my home I know for certain of at least three deaths of people either riding or being around horses. One of these was a 14 year old girl who was killed by the pony she loved. This does not take into account the other injuries, accidents and the number of horses that get ‘sold on’ or otherwise disposed of. If all this happened within five miles of my front door, what must be happening nationally and globally?

In this blog, in other articles I will show you that the utility and anthropomorphic models are the very centre of all the behavioural problems, the stable vices, the illness and diseases that are afflicting our horses. Despite that, I don’t want to depress you by just banging on about the negative side of horse human relationships, there are also many positives and I will show you that you can still love, your horse, you can still have a horse who is your best friend, you can achieve all the things you want to do with your horse but you must base your relationship on something else, something new and that is what this website is all about.

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