An interesting study on attachment between horses and humans

[Jane&Ziggy]

My best friend sent me this study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815912030232X . It is a LONG read but interesting.

The scientists were seeking to test:

*whether horses respond to their owners differently from other humans: and

* whether the owner's training style (positive reinforcement/negative reinforcement) affects the horse's attachment.

I was quite surprised by the outcome, but the scientists do explain that they had a relatively small sample size for comparison.

If you just want to find out what they did and what they learned, scroll to the end and read the "discussion" section.

Enjoy!

 

[Bodshi]

My best friend sent me this study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815912030232X . It is a LONG read but interesting.

The scientists were seeking to test:

*whether horses respond to their owners differently from other humans: and

* whether the owner's training style (positive reinforcement/negative reinforcement) affects the horse's attachment.

I was quite surprised by the outcome, but the scientists do explain that they had a relatively small sample size for comparison.

If you just want to find out what they did and what they learned, scroll to the end and read the "discussion" section.

Enjoy!

Oh I'm looking forward to reading this later ?

 

[MrA]

Makes some interesting reading. However I do have a couple of issues with some of their conclusions. Perhaps it would have been better to swap between the owner going first and the stranger going first, because the 2nd time in the new area they are surely going to display different behaviours to the first eg. less exploratory?

Also the heart rate rising when the person left, if you unclip a leadrope and the horse starts moving around the heart rate will increase surely?

Interesting though!

 

[Jessey]

Interesting but faulted I would say, of course a herd animals heart rate will increase when you leave it alone, this would hold more weight for me if they tested when the owner left the horse with its herd, that could demonstrate true attachment to a person, or not. Similarly the spending more time with the stranger, that could well be the novelty effect. Sadly I’m sure you could demonstrate the same attachment to a food giving machine as to a person that uses food routinely in training (actually I may have inadvertently done exactly this with Niko and his wheelie bin), where a horse will hang around more to see if they might get something.

 

[GaryB]

I read that too. Im my (limited) experience I think horses do have some sort of preference for their owner. Harvey used to be in a herd and we oftern fetched them all in at once - each horse would invariably go to its owner to be brought in.