Tips for Improving Your Relationship With Your Horse
We all love our horses and we all want our horses to be happy.
If they are happy they will be healthier and willing to 'work' for us.
When we arrive at the barn each day they will greet us and want to be with us.
What Makes a Horse Happy? Happy horses starts with meeting their basic needs in life.
Their basic needs start with the need to feel safe.
Safety: the ability to feel safe and to be able to react and respond to stimuli in the environment is the foundation to all other maintenance behaviours in the horse.
This is normally achieved by living in a herd and as such having many eyes to keep a look out for danger.
If danger is detected, the horses react and flee from the danger.
Solitary and socially isolated horses as well as those who have no visual contact with other horses have the ability to completely fulfill their need to feel safe removed.
Changeable or inconsistent environments can also detrimentally affect the horses ability to feel safe.
Examples of a changeable or inconsistent environment are; regularly moving field or stable and field companions change on a regular basis.
Grazing and Drinking: horses graze for 70-75% of the day and naturally, have a varied diet which includes; branches, twigs, bark, leaves, bushes and if grazing is poor, they will also dig up thistles and other plants to eat.
In the wild, horses tend to drink once per day when water is in good supply and less in times when the resource is more scarce.
Stabled horses tend to drink more and more frequently than this.
If the horse does not feel safe, the ability to eat and drink is disrupted.
If not eating and drinking, the subsequent basic needs on the list of priorities will also be affected.
Body Care: horses naturally not only groom themselves (on posts, trees etc) but also mutually groom.
Mutual grooming is part of socialising within a group, and is usually seen between pairbonds, as well as about body care.
Lack of ability to self-groom (e.
g.
wearing rugs) and lack of socialisation removes the horses ability to fulfill this need Body care also includes being able to defecate and urinate freely and be free from standing in it.
It also includes temperature regulation and the ability to self-regulate body temperature can be disrupted by lack of shelter from (e.
g.
no field shelter) or move away from (e.
g.
stabled, over-rugging) heat or cold.
Rest and Sleep: horses are poly-phasic sleepers, i.
e.
they sleep in short bursts of about 10-15 mins with a total amount of sleep per day being approximately 4h.
Horses also experience REM sleep and to be able to do this, need to be able to lie flat.
Sleep patterns are easily disrupted by an unstable environment and can also prevent the horse from experiencing REM sleep, which has significant implications for a horses health.
For example, If a horse is moved to a new field or transported, it may take several days before the horse feels safe enough again to lie flat and so will be deprived of REM sleep during that time.
Motion: In addition to moving their feet every 3-5 seconds, motion also includes playing and running with the herd.
Exploration: Horses are active explorers and this allows learning the locations of resources and about novel items they find.
It is how they naturally learn about their environment and what is in it that is harmful and what is not.
Horses who have the ability to explore often become good at solving puzzles.
The natural desire to explore is very useful when enriching the environment of a horse who is perhaps on box rest or even just in the field (see handout on environment enrichment).
Territorialism: horses are home rangers moving to new areas to find better resources.
The herd will protect the space that they are occupying at that time.
Horses also have their own personal space which they protect, however pairbonds will allow each other in to their personal space.
Socialisation: horses interact with each other frequently and form secure bonds within the herd.
Socialisation is about the relationships with other horses, especially their pairbond.
Once we are sure that all needs are met then we can start to work on our relationship with our horse.
If they are happy they will be healthier and willing to 'work' for us.
When we arrive at the barn each day they will greet us and want to be with us.
What Makes a Horse Happy? Happy horses starts with meeting their basic needs in life.
Their basic needs start with the need to feel safe.
Safety: the ability to feel safe and to be able to react and respond to stimuli in the environment is the foundation to all other maintenance behaviours in the horse.
This is normally achieved by living in a herd and as such having many eyes to keep a look out for danger.
If danger is detected, the horses react and flee from the danger.
Solitary and socially isolated horses as well as those who have no visual contact with other horses have the ability to completely fulfill their need to feel safe removed.
Changeable or inconsistent environments can also detrimentally affect the horses ability to feel safe.
Examples of a changeable or inconsistent environment are; regularly moving field or stable and field companions change on a regular basis.
Grazing and Drinking: horses graze for 70-75% of the day and naturally, have a varied diet which includes; branches, twigs, bark, leaves, bushes and if grazing is poor, they will also dig up thistles and other plants to eat.
In the wild, horses tend to drink once per day when water is in good supply and less in times when the resource is more scarce.
Stabled horses tend to drink more and more frequently than this.
If the horse does not feel safe, the ability to eat and drink is disrupted.
If not eating and drinking, the subsequent basic needs on the list of priorities will also be affected.
Body Care: horses naturally not only groom themselves (on posts, trees etc) but also mutually groom.
Mutual grooming is part of socialising within a group, and is usually seen between pairbonds, as well as about body care.
Lack of ability to self-groom (e.
g.
wearing rugs) and lack of socialisation removes the horses ability to fulfill this need Body care also includes being able to defecate and urinate freely and be free from standing in it.
It also includes temperature regulation and the ability to self-regulate body temperature can be disrupted by lack of shelter from (e.
g.
no field shelter) or move away from (e.
g.
stabled, over-rugging) heat or cold.
Rest and Sleep: horses are poly-phasic sleepers, i.
e.
they sleep in short bursts of about 10-15 mins with a total amount of sleep per day being approximately 4h.
Horses also experience REM sleep and to be able to do this, need to be able to lie flat.
Sleep patterns are easily disrupted by an unstable environment and can also prevent the horse from experiencing REM sleep, which has significant implications for a horses health.
For example, If a horse is moved to a new field or transported, it may take several days before the horse feels safe enough again to lie flat and so will be deprived of REM sleep during that time.
Motion: In addition to moving their feet every 3-5 seconds, motion also includes playing and running with the herd.
Exploration: Horses are active explorers and this allows learning the locations of resources and about novel items they find.
It is how they naturally learn about their environment and what is in it that is harmful and what is not.
Horses who have the ability to explore often become good at solving puzzles.
The natural desire to explore is very useful when enriching the environment of a horse who is perhaps on box rest or even just in the field (see handout on environment enrichment).
Territorialism: horses are home rangers moving to new areas to find better resources.
The herd will protect the space that they are occupying at that time.
Horses also have their own personal space which they protect, however pairbonds will allow each other in to their personal space.
Socialisation: horses interact with each other frequently and form secure bonds within the herd.
Socialisation is about the relationships with other horses, especially their pairbond.
Once we are sure that all needs are met then we can start to work on our relationship with our horse.