LLEARNING happens throughout life, with the behaviour of a horse shaped by learning from birth onwards. Independently, all juveniles are born with a set of hardwired behaviours, which help them survive, called instinctive behaviours. These include standing up, seeking the udder, suckling and flight.

Some instinctive behaviours in time fade and disappear (such as suckling), while others will persist throughout life (e.g., the flight response). While trying to stand up for the first time is driven by instinct, from the first attempt, learning is also influencing the foal’s progress, as, through trial and error, the foal learns which leg placements and adjustments of position result in a better outcome.

As mentioned in previous articles in this series, the type of learning involved is operant conditioning (OC); where an animal carries out a behaviour, and gets a result. If the result is good, that behaviour is likely to be repeated.

Unwanted behaviours

Throughout the horse‘s life, operant conditioning is one of the most widely used types of learning, and also very influential in the development of a variety of unwanted behaviours. Some examples of operant conditioning in action include:

Asking a horse to step back by pressing on the shoulder/chest, releasing the pressure when they do.

A horse fidgeting with a bolt over a stable door: the bolt releases.

A horse pins the ears and extends the neck to threaten a companion: the companion retreats.

In each case, a good outcome for the horse ensures that the behaviour is likely to occur again. Most handling, training and riding relies on operant conditioning - applying pressure through the bit/reins, legs and elsewhere to ask the horse to move forward/slow down/turn, etc. Classical conditioning (CC), developing associations between things that happen together in quick succession, was first discovered by a Russian scientist called Pavlov, who, while measuring the amount of saliva produced by dogs in a laboratory, noticed that, a few weeks into the trial, the dogs began to salivate when they heard their food being prepared. They had, over time, come to associate the sounds of food being prepared with being fed (and salivating).

As with other types of learning, CC occurs throughout life, is present in all animals, and influences a horse’s behaviour in many situations. Common examples of CC include:

Horses responding to the rattle of a bucket (if they have previously been fed concentrates from a bucket).

Horses showing anxiety in advance of or during the preparations for a competition/hunt/event.

Horses reacting with anxiety at the approach of a vet/introduction of a syringe, clippers.

In the case of fear of vets, or injection shyness, the horse will have initially regarded the approach of the vet as a neutral experience, and fear will only have developed once the horse has experienced fear or pain associated with the vet/handler/situation. Many aspects of the environment at that time may also become associated (through CC) in the horse‘s mind with the painful or frightening experience (such as the colour of clothing worn by the vet, the scent of disinfectant used, the voice, the location). In future, a horse may continue to associate those aspects of an approaching person or environment with the fear/pain previously experienced, and many will develop avoidance responses.

An in-built reward

When handling and observing the behaviour of horses, especially when trying to understand certain difficult behaviours, it is very helpful to try to analyse the behaviour from the perspective of learning. Could this behaviour have an in-built reward (OC)? Could this behaviour be as a result of an association that has developed, particularly where the horse is showing tension/avoidance/escape responses (CC).

Avoidance and escape responses may be as a result of a combination of different types of learning, e.g., if the escape or avoidance efforts are as a result of a negative association (CC) and have resulted in a good outcome for the horse (OC). In such cases, it will be necessary to address the original fear issue, to eliminate the fear (to be addressed in future articles) and once the fear has been addressed, to teach the horse alternative acceptable responses to that situation.

As humans, we are prone to anthropomorphism - attributing human attributes or motives to behaviours. Such an approach usually offers us an incorrect answer. Taking a step back and analysing the behaviour in terms of the horse’s learning capabilities will usually yield more accurate answers to our questions, and offer us more appropriate and effective treatment options.