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Intelligence and Learning
by David W. Ramey, D.V.M. |
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| Do horses think like people? Learn more about horse intelligence from this excerpt from Dr. Ramey's book, Horsefeathers: Facts Versus Myths about your Horse's Health. |
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Horses are generally given credit for some intelligence, usually depending upon how the person who is doing the crediting feels about the animal at the particular time that the credit is given. For instance, as you watch your horse go bucking off into the distance after having deposited you on the ground, you will be less inclined to credit his intelligence than if he were performing one of his cute behaviors at the stall. Horses are intelligent and have the capability to learn. They are not rational, however; that is, they do not analyze situations and respond. They learn behaviors and repeat them or they act by instinct. It's a myth, however, and it's wrong to think that horses are completely stupid.
Knowing how horses learn is important in understanding the behavior of horses in general and helps them to be taught in a manner in which they can learn. It can also help you understand how behavior problems develop and give you clues as to how to solve them. Sometimes learning is intentional, that is, horses learn something that people try to teach them. Sometimes horses learn things almost accidentally because they are amazingly observant and have good memories. The two most common ways that horses learn are called habit-uation and conditioning.
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| Habituation |
Habituation is one of the simplest types of learning. This is the type of learn-ing that results in horses adapting to (getting used to) their environment. For instance, in young horses, a variety of stimuli may make them run in fear. As horses grow older and habituate, things like blankets, leaves and barking dogs lose their ability to scare. The common practice of sacking out a young horse to get him used to stuff hanging all over his body is a good example of habituation.
If a horse stops seeing something that he is habituated to, it is possible that he will react again when exposed to it. In that way, horses do seem to forget something that they knew about before. A horse may also react to a habituated response if he reacts to another stimulus first. For example, let's say that your horse no longer jumps away from dogs running at a fence as you ride by. If, however, there is a bright yellow tarp on the ground (you know how menacing those can be), the horse may react if he has not been habituated. If, after that reaction, a dog runs up and starts harking, the horse may run from that as well, sort of as part of the overall program or reaction. The first reaction can there-fore override the previously habituated response.
Practically, the more often that a horse is exposed to a strange stimulus, the more quickly he will become habituated to it. Also, the more he is exposed to it, the less likely he will be to forget it. This means that for training purposes, you should repeat the exposure to a stimulus many times during a training ses-sion and repeat the exposure on other occasions when you are working with the horse. Often, during training, once a horse has responded correctly, the training is stopped. It would seem more reasonable, given their learning pat-terns, that insisting that the horse repeat his response several times (and con-gratulating him each time) would be a more appropriate method of training. |
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| Conditioning |
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Conditioning refers to an association between a stimulus and a response. There was a very famous horse at around the turn of the century named Clever Hans. His master was sure that he had taught him how to perform complex feats of arithmetic. The horse would indicate an answer by pawing the ground until the correct answer was obtained and would even answer questions from indepen-dent questioners. This marvelous animal was unmasked when it was finally observed that his master would anxiously (and unconsciously) lean forward when Hans started to answer and relax and lean back when the correct answer was reached. The horse observed that when his master leaned back, it was all right to stop pawing. Once that was discovered, Hans stopped pawing and his master lost a meal ticket.
Conditioning allows a horse to learn cause-and-effect relationships between his behaviors and stimuli in his surroundings. This is not, of course, always positive. Horses are tremendously observant and may become conditioned to things that you are not even aware of.
Here's a great example. You walk into the stall. Your horse turns his rear end to you and lifts his hind leg. You get him a carrot and he turns around and lets you halter him. Day after day the problem gets worse. You may be training your horse to lift his leg up and threaten you so that he can have a carrot before he gets haltered. Or is he training you? See, horses are not that dumb. One of the most important things about training a horse is that you have to be smarter than he is. You have to make sure that you understand what you are trying to teach him.
You really have to watch how horses react to conditioning. Trailering a horse is an experience that is rife with opportunities for conditioning results that you may not be expecting. For instance, your horse seems reluctant to load in the trailer. You come up behind him and hit him with a whip. He loads (or not). The next time, he's worse, so you hit him again. It is not at all inconceivable that your horse will begin to associate loading into a horse trailer with being hit (as opposed to associating not loading with being hit, as you would hope).
It's pretty easy to over-interpret horse behavior. Horses do what they do for rea-sons. Horses are not logical or rational, but they are consistent. They firmly believe that because "b" follows "a," "a" caused"b." So it sometimes becomes quite a challenge for the observer (you) to try to figure out what the "a" is that caused the "b" from the horse. Since you are the only one of the two of you who can think, it is your responsibility to try to assess the consequences of your behavior on the horse.
If your horse starts to do something that you don't like, there is most likely a reason for it. Most of the time the reason is quite simple. Some of the time that reason isn't apparent. You will have to observe your horse and think about what is happening to try to figure the reason out. You have to love a sense of mystery to keep horses. |
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Vet Talk with Dr. David Ramey
is a monthly column for tips on horse care. Dr. Ramey, author of numerous books and articles, is Dominion Saddlery's resident online vet. Dr. David Ramey is a 1983 graduate of Colorado State University. After completing an internship in equine medicine and surgery at Iowa State University in 1984, he moved to Southern California and began general equine practice, specializing in the care and treatment of performance horses from a variety of disciplines. Dr. Ramey is the author of numerous articles in the lay and professional press, as well as several books, including Horsefeathers: Facts vs. Myths about Your Horse's Health and the Concise Guide Series on equine health care. Look for them at Dominion Saddlery. |
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