Reading a Horse’s Emotions

Horses are Prey Animals

I often ask children, “do you think a horse is more like a lion or more like a bunny rabbit?” Most children rightly answer, “bunny”, but they aren’t sure why that is. Or they know it’s because horses and bunnies eat grass.

I then talk to them about horses as prey animals and what that means to the psychology of a horse.

Horse owners will tell you that their horses spook over crazy things….a butterfly, a discolored part of the ground that is discolored because the same horse urinated there, a small bird. Humans can look at these things and think it’s ridiculous that a 1000lb + animal would be scared of something so tiny. But the prey animal mind is ever vigilant to small changes in the environment that may mean danger is near by.

Some horses are more sensitive to these small changes than others. My horse Zahra, is very sensitive and can spook easily. So when you see pictures of her wearing a tarp, she does not come to these things easily or naturally.

How Can I tell When My Horse is Relaxed?

These are signs of relaxation

• licking
• chewing
• lowered head
• relaxed sigh
• blowing air (there is another blow that is stress….but they are different sounds…..the relaxed one is closer to the sigh and the horse’s muscles are relaxed)
• cocking a foot
• closing the eyes and looking drowsy
• relaxed, soft looking eyes

These are signs of stress or tension

• showing the whites of the eyes
• “hard” eyes (hard to describe but sometimes it’s not as extreme as showing the whites, but you can still read stress or grouchiness in the eyes)
• high head
• arched neck
• snorting (may sound somewhat similar to the soft blowing of a relaxed horse, but the entire body language is different….and this snort means SOMETHING IS WRONG)
• trying to flee
• moving backwards away from the stimulus

 

Being able to read these signs is critical to successful clicker training for bombproofing!