My horse Ted is a 17 HH Irish Sport Horse and he has a magnificent long thick mane, the trouble is if it is not brushed out fairly regularly he starts to develop dreadlocks so he needs regular brushing.

I never tie my horses up to groom them or tack them up, the reason I do this is because I see them as prey animals and I consider that it is the absolute right of a prey animal to move it’s feet if it wants too. If my horse decides that it wants to move away from then I always consider that a clear message from my ‘teacher’ about what will constitute the next lesson! This is a good example of respecting the horse as a horse, but it doesn’t mean that I just quit and never brush them again. No, I try to think of a way where we both get what we want.

When I brush Ted’s mane I always make sure he understands that there are rewards to be earned by standing still, I do this by having some food rewards with me, that’s food rewards NOT ‘treats’. Remember, a reward is a specific event in a horse’s life intended to get a repeat of a behaviour. A treat is something that rewards the human.

So, by having these rewards with me, (he knows they are available) I make whether to stay or go his choice. If he wants to move away then that’s fine but it is his choice, and of course if he chooses to move he is also choosing not to earn a reward; so in a way, if he chose to move he would actually be using negative punishment on himself and he won’t do that, so he stays with me because he wants to.

A couple of other points to note, when I am teaching a horse to do nothing, I don’t use the clicker, I just give random rewards, (technically called a random reinforcement schedule), the reason for this is that the clicker marks a specific behaviour, it also marks the end of the behaviour, I am not looking for a specific behaviour here (do something) I am looking for a general behaviour (do nothing) so just being with me and doing nothing is the thing that is rewarded.

The second point to notice is that in the same way negatives have negative side-effects, positives have positive side-effects, and lots of them. How do you think the horse found the experience of being with his human, having his mane brushed, and getting random rewards for apparently doing nothing at all? Was it a good experience or a bad one? Obviously it was a good one, – it led to pleasurable emotions for us both. How do you think the horse will feel next time I want to brush his mane? And most important of all how do you think the horse will learn to regard me in the future as he now associates me with pleasurable emotions and random rewards. There many more positive things to notice here, for example the other horses in the herd are all watching this and seeing the alpha male in the herd enjoying human company, how do you think they might react when it is their turn? What is my status in the eyes of the herd now? Am I still a cunning predator that is liable to rip them to shreds and eat them or am I now a rather interesting element in their life?

To recap, I made it so that it was the horse’s choice to stand still and do nothing and by doing that he got rewarded and I got rewarded. But the best side-effect of all was that this exercise helped to build the atmosphere of trust between us, no tools, no threats, no coercion.

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.

Our management of the horse  must always create good-health and well-being in the herd.

This is the most fundamental principle on which we base our thinking about the horse. Every thing we do with our horse should stem from this principle, it makes sense on every level. Good-health and well-being should be more than just a principle, it should be a right of all horses.

This principle is at the heart of the responsibility we accept when we take on ownership of a horse, or any other animal for that matter!

There is no occasion where the human can justify anything less than this, it is a policy that will lead to enormous benefits for both horse and rider, happier, healthier horses mean less vet’s bills, safer horses, longer lived horses and that will lead automatically to riders who no longer see the horse as a means-to-an-end or a dumb animal that we can project our feelings on to, in order to make us feel good about ourselves.

Principle #2.

We base or relationship on the Natural Behaviour of the horse. That means: Life in a herd, a life full of natural movement, a diet that closely relates to the natural fibre-based diet.

We must educate ourselves, and those around us to begin to see the horse as the animal it truly is. Natural behaviour is defined by the science of ethology in the form of an ethogram of the species. An ethogram is list of verified behaviours observed by scientists and taken from the wild horse. Even though these behaviours are sometimes inconvenient to our traditional approach they are easily incorporated into our management system, some examples: if we begin to understand that a horse must always live in the company of other horses, that movement is not only a fundamental right of the horse it is a vital component of a healthy digestive system, that horses are fibre-digesters that need only to be fed on low energy fibre-based foods from which their efficient microbe-based digestive systems can extract large amounts of energy, if we start to accept new ways of managing the environment of the horse such as track-based systems we will lose forever the ‘cages and coercion’ approach that is killing horses and riders all over the world.

Principle #3.

Horses need to move. Constant movement any time, day or night is a fundamental right of the herd.

The most profound effect to the horse, of humans deciding that they must live in houses, is the loss of freedom of movement, horses don’t just need to move, they must do it to remain healthy. They must be able to move in order to digest their food, to maintain their physical bodies, to wear down their hooves, to stimulate themselves both physically and mentally. It is a fundamental right of a prey animal, a flight animal, a foraging, herd animal to move when it needs to. Horses that are able to move at will in the company of other horses are able to interact and react to the environment around them in the only way that is natural to them. Once again humans do not lose by this, they gain by having happier, healthier, safer horses.

Principle #4.

Management is based on the environment, – not just the horse.

When I see a problem or a factor that I wish to change in my horses, I do not change the horse, I look at the horse’s environment and see if there are changes that I can make there that will benefit the whole herd, not just the individual, for example, I might notice that one of my horses is getting too fat, rather than singling out the individual horse and ‘putting it on a diet’, I will try to find ways to increase the daily exercise the herd takes, I will place forage in places where they have to go looking for it, I might also increase the fibre in the horse’s diet by adding say, chopped straw to the daily haylage ration, the effect of this is to have the horses work harder to obtain the same amount of energy, this is something that benefits the whole herd rather than the individual. Always treat the environment, – not just the horse.

Principle #5. The opportunity to feed is the main daily activity. Up to 16 hours + per day!

One of the commonest anthropomorphic misunderstandings of all is the myth that your horse is spending too much time eating. The truth here is that it probably not spending anything like enough time eating, the problem is what it is eating. The digestion of fibre to extract energy is a slow process and because the horse’s primary defence is running away, it is not possible to spend hours of the day and night standing in one place digesting bulk, so the horse has become a ‘trickle-feeder’, nibbling and foraging just enough bulk to keep the process ticking over while still retaining the ability to run away at great speed if necessary. This process is so fundamental to the horse and takes up such a large proportion of a 24 hour period during which the sociable and gregarious horse spends much of it’s time eating in the presence of other horses I say that eating is not just a physiological (physical) need it is also a major psychological (mental) need. Horses actually show their relationship to others by the proximity and length of time they spend grazing with others.

Principle #6.

There is always something to look at or do. Horses have a right to live in a stimulating environment.

Many years ago I worked in zoos, in those days, sadly, animals and birds were often kept in dull rectangular cages with little or no stimulation, not surprisingly they didn’t last too long, fortunately zoos realised this was not a good thing, mostly because the public noticed this as well and stopped attending. The answer to this was to provide environments that were far more stimulating, in which the animals could exhibit their natural behaviour, in addition zoo keepers actually started a process know today as ‘environmental enrichment’, where, for example, they would hide food around the environment so that animals could once again spend their day hunting and foraging food. This has lead to happier, healthier animals that breed readily in captivity. See other posts with the tag ‘zoos’ for more on this.

Horses are intelligent. I have heard some say as intelligent as dogs or dolphins in their own way, (this is likely to be a very different way, as dogs and dolphins are both predators). It would make sense for prey animals to be highly selected by evolution for intelligence, the stupid ones would get eaten!

I have certainly seen horses perform highly complex actions that I cannot explain other than reasoning at a high level. I have seen them solve problems, I have seen them give up on a problem and return to it later with new ideas, I have certainly seen evidence of creative thinking and evidence of problem-solving and I have seen horses that are very fast learners indeed.

In 1945 a scientist called Donald Hebb discovered that rats kept in a stimulating environment were able to excel in learning tests. To cut a long story short his conclusion was that animals that were exposed to stimulating environments became more intelligent and a stimulating environment actually caused the brain to develop and learn, in other words animals in a stimulating environment had more developed brains, which made them more intelligent.

How much stimulation does a horse that may spend weeks or months or even years of it’s life confined within a 12 foot by 12 foot stable get? What is really happening during those passing hours physically and mentally? I guess it all comes down to the last principle.

This principle is the key to enlightenment, it is the key to happy, healthy, safe horses, it is also the key to your own happiness, health and safety and for that reason alone is worth writing down somewhere that you can see it every day.

Principle #7.

RESPECT THE HORSE AS A HORSE

Principle #1.

Our management of the horse  must always create good-health and well-being in the herd.

Principle #2. We base or relationship on the Natural Behaviour of the horse. That means: Life in a herd, a life full of natural movement, a diet that closely relates to the natural fibre-based diet.

Principle #3. Horses need to move. Constant movement any time, day or night is a fundamental right of the herd.

Principle #4. Management is based on the environment, – not just the horse.

Principle #5. The opportunity to feed is the main daily activity. Up to 16 hours + per day!

Principle #6. There is always something to look at or do. Horses have a right to live in a stimulating environment.

Principle #7. RESPECT THE HORSE AS A HORSE

These are the basic principles on which we must base everything we do with our horse:

1. How we manage it’s environment.
2. How we feed it.
3. How we regard it’s veterinary treatment
4. How we breed it.
5. How we train it.
6. How we ride it.

These principles must be applied throughout it’s long life.

These principles are the responsibility we accept as horse owners.

• When we look at the typical relationships between horses and humans, it is sad to see how often they are based on misunderstanding and human convenience, rather than human intelligence and the needs of the horse. When we deal with traditional models of thinking as in the utility model, or modern methods based on rewarding the human such as the anthropomorphic model, we can see that the root cause of conflict between the two species are dogmatic human ideas about the horse, based on our beliefs about what the horse ‘is for’.
• Because this approach will always lead to the suppression of the horse and the reward of the human, I have developed a new set of principles a new basis for our relationship and this time they are based on rewarding BOTH the horse and the human.
• We can still get what we want from the horse but this time the horse gets something out of the deal as well, the horse gets to live the life it was designed for, to be rewarded with the emotions that every prey animal seeks, to be safe and live in the company of other members of it’s herd.
• This can only lead to horses that are:
• Happier
• Healthier
• Safer
• Longer-lived
• Easier to train
• More intelligent
• More willing to be trained
• More rewarding for us!!

These principles are the seven principles of natural horse keeping.

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This rug features all the technology developed over millions of years of research and refinement. The Equine Natural gives your horse a rug that is:

• Fully automated integral thermo-regulatory mechanism (FAITRM)^(TM)

• Uses ‘seasonal adjustment technology’ (SAT)^(TM)

• Prevents overheating

• Totally wind proof

• Fully waterproof

• Keeps your horse warm in winter and cool in summer

• Self-repairing, self-renewing and self-cleaning

• Forms a high level defense against bacteria,virus fungal infections and parasites

• Generates Vitamin D – Just add sunlight
  

• Resistant to physical damage

• Covers the whole horse

• Has no buckles or straps

• Integrated mane and tail extensions

• Constructed using 100% natural materials

• Available in a full range of colors according to breed

• Owner maintenance is unnecessary or purely optional

• Will last a lifetime – guaranteed

Imagine being free from the winter drudgery of rugging your horse. Imagine a technology so advanced that your horse itself can operate it! Imagine your horse wearing a rug that gives your horse absolute choice over its environment. You and your horse can enjoy these benefits all year round with the Equine Natural, – and the best thing about the Equine Natural is the cost, it comes absolutely FREE with every horse.

The Equine Natural, – anything more is inferior! Available Worldwide.

My second principle of natural horse keeping states:

We base or relationship on the ethogram of the horse. That means

Life in a herd, a life full of natural movement, a diet that closely relates to the natural fiber based diet and barefoot .

The first thing about this principle that you might want to understand is, what is an ethogram?

Technically an ethogram is a list of the recorded (natural) behaviors of an animal species. These observations are made by scientists who specialize in animal behavior, collectively these scientists refer to themselves as Ethologists.

Early Ethologists often worked for zoos and some were also animal collectors, because in those days (late 1950s to the early 1960s) zoos animals existed in a very different environment from that we know today, basically the zoo animal’s purpose was to be on display for public amusement, entertainment and interest. Therefore they were housed in practical environments that were easy to clean and maintain with diets usually adapted from that of domestic farm animals. The survival of an animal was of relatively little consequence and it’s death not much more than inconvenient because, of course, wild animals could always be replaced from the ‘infinite’ wild, (having an empire helped!) However, as we know only too well today, the world is not filled with an infinite number of animals and obtaining new ‘specimens’ became more difficult with the destruction of habitat and increased human influence.

So zoos sent out their collectors to more and more remote parts of the world in the search for new species. Among these collectors were people such as Gerald Durrell and David Attenborough who originally began their illustrious careers as collectors and went on to found and influence world conservation as we know it today. As these collectors traveled they took with them cameras to record their adventures and the films they made they showed on the new medium of television.

This had a profound, if not surprising effect, on zoos, – In the 1970s people stopped going to them. Why was this?

It was because the behavior people saw on their television screens in the comfort of their own homes bore no resemblance to the behavior they saw in the cages of zoos. Public opinion began to change radically, it was as if, for the first time the public started to see not just the animal but also the cage. Many zoos closed down, the public decided that it was no longer acceptable to display animals simply for public entertainment and amusement as had been the case in the traditional zoo utility model, the Victorians referred to as a ‘menagerie‘: another area that was similarly affected was circuses.

Zoos across the world realized that they had to change; they discovered ethology. Consequently, today most animals are not simply there for public display but are housed in environments and fed diets that mimic their natural behavior. This leads to animals that are happier, healthier and so, crucially are more likely to breed.

Modern zoo keepers spend a lot of time thinking up what they call ‘environmental enrichment activities‘ these are activities that allow animals to use their natural instincts and behaviors, for example, their instinct to hunt or to travel or to socialize with other members of their species, in other words, environments that the animals don’t just live in, but environments they interact with.

So what has all this got to do with horses?

Well, there are several strange parallels with stories of zoos and circuses and with the world of horses. In the utility/menagerie model animals, like horses were kept in small restricted livestock houses and if they were lucky given a rectangular featureless paddock. It was considered quite adequate just to supply food water and shelter and this was believed to be all that was needed for the animal to sustain it’s life. Naturally all this was backed up with arguments about how a system must be practical in terms of time money and labor and other resources. This was all very well, but let us ask ourselves, how much say does the animal have in all this? How much opportunity does the animal have to express it’s natural behavior, to interact with others, to find the things it needs in it’s environment, to escape from things that it fears such as predators? The answer is of course, none.

So let us return to the second part of our principle of natural horse keeping, I believe that our horses have a ‘right’ to live:

Life in a herd, a life full of natural movement, a diet that closely relates to the natural fiber based diet and barefoot .

I will explain this in much more detail in other posts.

PRINCIPLE NUMBER ONE: ALL OUR MANAGEMENT OF THE HORSE MUST ALWAYS CREATE GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IN THE HERD.

This is principle number one for a reason. It is of no advantage to anyone in any model of horsemanship to have a horse that is in less than perfect health.

• In the Utility Model where horses are defined solely by their purpose a horse that is sick or in general poor health may be unable to fulfill it’s function and so would literally be use-less. Treatment would be given as long as it was financially practical to do so. If it wasn’t the horse would be designated, uneconomical to treat or ‘no longer fit for purpose’ and so would be either assigned another function or otherwise ‘disposed of’.
• In the Anthropomorphic Model the sympathetic owner would not accept ill health in their horse any more than they would in themselves. Typically they would see the problem in terms of human disease and would immediately confine the horse to it’s ‘inner-sanctum’ or sleeping chamber and isolate the animal from contact with other horses, in case the disease proved contagious. They would then consult an animal doctor. Because the situation is emotionally driven, there would be the potential to spend an unlimited of money on treatment but this would be in order to reward the owner, not the horse.
• In the Ethological Model – the natural horse behavior model, a horse that was sick would seek out the comfort and security of it’s herd it would place itself at the center of it’s herd so that it’s companions and family members could be it’s eyes, ears and nose temporarily, and alert it to the presence of predators. It’s recovery would be a swift and stress-free as possible. This is cooperative herd behavior.
• In the Natural Horse Keeping Model, we work, as always, in a way that is based on the ethogram of the horse. We see that the natural behavior of the horse is be with other horses, so our horse is never removed from the herd, never isolated from other horses. In the rare event that the horse is suffering from a disease that would threaten the integrity of the herd we might isolate it from others but this would be an absolute last resort. We would avoid the unnecessary use of chemical treatments – especially the gratuitous use of antibiotics*. Personally I believe that the horse knows a great deal more than I do about what is wrong with it so rather than treating the horse using invasive human techniques I will try to set up the natural environment in a way that facilitates healing as fast as possible, for example, in a way that minimizes stress.*Don’t misunderstand this, there are times when veterinary medicine can be a wonderful thing and antibiotics can be the blessing they truly are. The wisdom here is in knowing the difference.

If we create an environment that is founded on the good health and well-being of the horse, we need to create something that acknowledges the horse as a prey animal, a herd animal, a flight/movement animal and a browsing animal, therefore we create a herd environment, with unlimited movement potential, we will not use shoes or unnecessary clothing in the form of rugs. We will allow the horses to choose where they shelter and allow them to control their own body temperature. We will create diets that replicate the nutritionally poor environment that horses thrive in. The Romans believed in the concept of a healthy mind in a healthy body, therefore we need to develop mentally stimulating environments where horses can play and investigate, we need to use training methods that stimulate the interest and enthusiasm of the horse and do not use mechanical devices and the threat of punishment to train the animal. All of these factors and more fulfil our first principle of natural horse keeping.

The following principles are the basis of all of my management of the horse. I introduce them here as a point of reference for further posts.

1. PRINCIPLE NUMBER ONE: ALL OUR MANAGEMENT OF THE HORSE MUST ALWAYS CREATE GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING IN THE HERD.
2. We base or relationship on the ethogram of the horse. That means: Life in a herd, a life full of natural movement, a diet that closely relates to the natural fiber based diet.
3. Horses need to move, constant movement anytime day or night is a fundamental right of the herd.
   
4. Management is based on the environment not just the horse
5. The opportunity to feed is the main daily activity. Up to 20 hours per day!
6. There is always something to look at or do. Horses have a right to live in a stimulating environment
7. RESPECT THE HORSE AS A HORSE