Q: Is there anything we can use on a horse's teeth to get all the gunk off and the grass out of their gums?

"Until recently, horses have been estimated to have average intelligence at best," said Evelyn B. Hanggi, MS, PhD, president and, along with Jerry Ingersoll, co-founder of the Equine Research Foundation (ERF) in Aptos, Calif., during her review of literature on equine cognition and perception at the 2005 American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention. "Even today, gaps in knowledge, myths and misconceptions, and limited research affect how horses are understood or misunderstood by the public, the horse industry, and even the scientific community. Luckily, both professionals and lay people are becoming more interested in equine learning/cognition."

Why is it important to know how and how well horses can think and learn? "If the cognitive abilities of horses are misunderstood, underrated, or overrated, their treatment may also be inappropriate," said Hanggi. "Equine welfare is dependent on not only physical comfort, but mental comfort as well."

In other words, if we understand how a horse thinks and learns, we can avoid mentally abusing a horse by not expecting him to learn what he is unable to learn. Conversely, we can also provide him with proper stimulation to learn that which he is able to learn quickly and easily.

Hanggi described various types of learning and perception in horses, and she reviewed research describing each one. These include:

Habituation,

Desensitization,

Classical or Pavlovian conditioning,

Operant conditioning,

Discrimination,

Visual perception,

Generalization,

Observational learning,

Categorization, and

Concept learning.

She also provided several videos of horses at the Equine Research Foundation in research environments and training situations to show how positive reinforcement can help horses quickly learn a task.

Habituation/Desensitization

Habituation is a very simple form of learning, said Hanggi. It consists of a horse initially responding to a stimulus, then learning to filter it out and responding less or not at all. This is helpful because it allows the horse to focus on just what is important in its environment, not every little thing. Desensitization is similar, but it is a process that consists of extinguishing a response in a horse that is or has become overly sensitive to a stimulus through experience.

"Good trainers take advantage of these learning abilities by exposing horses in a positive manner to all sorts of sights, sounds, and contacts," she said. "When done correctly, horses become habituated and desensitized, even to potentially overwhelming stressors, and are much more capable of handling novel events calmly."

Classical and Operant Conditioning

Classical or Pavlovian conditioning occurs when a horse learns to associate some unimportant stimulus with one that generates a response, such as learning that the rattle of the feed cart means dinner is coming, she said. Eventually the horse responds to the originally unimportant stimulus as if it were the important one. However, he has no control over these events; this is different from operant conditioning, in which the horse has or perceives he has control over the outcome. One example of operant conditioning might be a horse learning to roll around a food ball so the food (his reward) falls out of the holes for him to eat.

"Operant conditioning is a horse training standard, and negative reinforcement has been the primary means of shaping behaviors," Hanggi said. "Horses typically are trained to perform actions in order to avoid something aversive (such as moving away from pressure)."

Positive and Negative Reinforcement

At this point, she described the principles of positive reinforcement (rewarding of desired behavior) and negative reinforcement (removal of something somewhat unpleasant such as leg pressure) as they relate to horse learning. She noted that while various studies have found conflicting results regarding which is more effective for horses, training for research purposes is primarily based on positive reinforcement. Little work has been done on negative reinforcement in horses. "Ideally, trainers and handlers should incorporate intelligent use of both positive and negative reinforcement into a well-balanced program," she recommended.

"A good understanding of positive reinforcement is very useful in working with equids," she went on. "For instance, on hearing grain hitting a bucket, a horse may inadvertently kick the stall door, perhaps out of impatience. If a person then hurriedly feeds the horse (in a misguided hope of quieting it down), the kicking behavior will have been positively reinforced, and the person can quickly become a prompt for kicking the stall door. Reinforced this way, it does not take long before the horse becomes an avid ruckus raiser capable of training humans effectively."

"People often confuse food reinforcement with treat giving, which can lead to invasion of personal space, biting, etc.," she commented. "Teaching a horse to look away or straight ahead for food reinforcement is the key toward establishing your personal space.

"Positive reinforcement teaches the horse to become an active participant seeking the right answer," Hanggi explained. She offered several videos of positively reinforced target training to overcome problems like head shyness when bridling and when having a facial cut medicated.

Discrimination

Discrimination learning involves positive reinforcement at the Equine Research Foundation; the horse learns that one stimulus, and not another, will result in reinforcement, said Hanggi. One example might be the horse learning to select a particular bucket color, size, shape, etc., rather than another consistently when presented with both. This type of learning in horses has been reported since the 1930s, she noted.

An interesting finding from discrimination tests has been that many horses will "learn to learn," applying successful behaviors from one trial to another with a resulting increase in success. Hanggi noted that this is a worthwhile tool in training, and it supports the use of cross-training to improve a horse's handling of novel situations (more on this shortly).

Owners might wonder what types of things a horse is able to visually discriminate, such as colors or shapes. Hanggi said studies have shown that horses do possess some degree of stereopsis (vision melding the images from both eyes to gain depth perception), have a visual acuity of about 20/30, and probably have red/green colorblindness.

It has often been said that horses can't recognize with one eye things they have only seen with the other eye, said Hanggi. "This notion is used to explain why horses startle at the same object when viewed from different directions (such as when riding out and then coming back on a trail or reversing directions in an arena)," she explained. However, an ERF study has shown this to be untrue. Horses can easily transfer information between their eyes; this is called interocular transfer.

According to some research, spatial cues (when objects move around) seem to be easier for horses to discriminate than some other cues. Also, she reported that horses recognize rotated objects in most orientations except upside-down.

Another ERF study "showed evidence that horses can indeed recognize photos of objects, and objects from photos," Hanggi reported. "We are also looking at a long-term study on facial expressions."

Generalization

This type of learning means the horse transfers the response he has to one stimulus to other similar stimuli. For example, lesson horses learn to respond to leg pressure even when it is applied in various locations and to different degrees by different riders, Hanggi explained. However, generalization is discouraged in some highly trained horses, such as dressage horses.

"Many horses could benefit from opportunities for generalization," she opined. "Horses in specific riding disciplines are frequently not allowed to participate in activities other than what interests their riders. As a result, they go through mechanical motions that rarely enhance any cognitive skill. Evidence of this can be seen in a recent study that showed that, compared with horses involved in other disciplines, high-level dressage horses displayed the lowest level of learning performance in simple tests. It was hypothesized that because these horses are trained to perform highly sophisticated, precise behaviors, riders give them minimal freedom; therefore, they are inhibited from learning to learn or generalizing."

She suggested that horses and riders would benefit from adding variety to their riding and ground work programs.

Observational Learning

While nearly three-quarters of owners in one study believe that horses can learn negative behaviors from each other (such as cribbing), Hanggi said as yet there is no research supporting this theory. "In reality, the appearance of stereotypies in horses living near each other is more likely caused by genetic relatedness or to the stress of existing in the same, inappropriate environment," she said.

"Nevertheless, it is difficult to accept that horses cannot learn by observation in any situation," she commented. "More likely, the proper experimental procedure has yet to be developed."

Categorization and Concept Learning

"Categorization and concept learning are the highest levels of learning that have been tested in horses," said Hanggi. One example of categorization might be horses learning to pick open-center shapes over solid ones regardless of the actual shape or its size, as occurred in one ERF study. "The ERF has also shown, for the first time, that horses are capable of some degree of conceptualization," said Hanggi. "In one groundbreaking experiment, horses demonstrated that they could solve problems using the concept of relative size. They were trained to always choose the larger (or smaller for one horse) object regardless of whether or not it was previously correct. This means that when a medium-sized circle was paired against a small circle, the medium one was correct. However, when the medium circle was paired against a large circle, the large (and not the previously correct medium) circle was correct. This relative class concept transferred to other shapes such as triangles, hexagons, and icons of U.S. states, as well as to three-dimensional real-life objects such as foam balls and plastic flower pots.

"This is not to say that horses possess the same conceptualization abilities as humans, non-human primates, or other so-called advanced species, but it is an indication that they possess more cognitive ability than what was known," she stated. "Much more focus should be placed on these types of abilities, not just to satisfy scientific curiosity, but also for practical purposes. Studies combining equine learning, perception, and behavior are the next step in understanding this remarkable animal."

Participants in our learning and riding vacations at the Equine Research Foundation (ERF) have a strong desire to gain a better understanding of not only how the horse’s mind works but also how to apply our scientific findings to everyday training and handling. At first glance, it might not seem that science and training are closely related but, in reality, they go hand in hand.
From daily contact with our horses we know how easily they can be taught through the more simple forms of learning, such as habituation or desensitization and operant conditioning using positive or negative reinforcement. But our research at the ERF shows that horses are capable of much more. Most exciting are our findings that show how well horses generalize and how they are able to think using categories and concepts, at least to some degree.

This is new to the horse world. In the past, horses were trained mostly through negative reinforcement, e.g., horses learned a behavior by moving away from a somewhat unpleasant stimulus, such as leg pressure. More recently, positive reinforcement training has started to draw attention. Trainers are discovering that horses are extremely interested in learning behaviors that result in reward and, when done properly, training proceeds rapidly and nearly effortlessly. At the ERF, we supplement these methods by developing our horses’ abilities to generalize and to use simple concepts.

With this, we are able to improve our training methods so that they are geared more towards how the horse perceives the world, rather than the typical anthropocentric tactic. As we incorporate each new ERF finding, we notice remarkable changes in our horses. Their attention and focus improves dramatically. They learn to learn so that new tasks are picked up more quickly and easily. They deal with trailer loading, vet and farrier care, under saddle work, groundwork and just about any other handling without stress. They handle new experiences better and startle much less. Their desire to be around us becomes noticeably stronger and the human/horse bond grows into something amazing. Our horses seek out the correct answers eagerly and actually appear to enjoy what they are doing with us. Likewise, we have fun working with them. Indeed, when training is enjoyed, it is better for both horse and human and creates a relaxed state of mind.

Anyone who trains horses takes advantage of science and psychology, whether intentionally or not. Those who excel at training also possess a solid understanding of the principles behind the practice and that makes the difference between a mediocre training experience and one that ends in great success.

In the June 2006 issue of Horse & Rider magazine, Joan Schroeder of Schroeder Ranch in Gainesville, Texas, walked readers through a basic mane-and-tail care program. She explained that she doesn't typically bag tails.

"If you use a bag, you have to attach it to something--usually the base of the tail--and that can cause breakage," she said. "Instead, we use knots to keep it tangle free and clean."

Follow along as Joan shows you her tail knot technique, step-by-step (written instructions are below the images):

1. Clean and condition your horse's tail. Add detangler and comb through it carefully, making sure it's free of all knots and tangles.

2. Take about an inch or so of tail hair, and make a loop about two-thirds down...

3. ...twist it twice...

4a, 4b. ...then reach through the loop to grasp the loose end...

5a, 5b. ...and draw the end through the loop...

6. ...to make a loose, figure-8 knot that won't come out with tail swishing.

7. The finished tail knot hangs up near the tip of the tail bone.

Repeat the process until there's no loose hair left. Depending on the tail's thickness, a horse's tail may have six to seven knots. These knots aren't so tight they'll cause breakage, but they'll keep the tail from tangling or being stepped on in the pasture. And the horse will still be able to use his tail to swat flies.