Fear control with a calm companion.
| Fear control with a calm companion. Danish research suggests that the presence of a calm companion may help overcome fear in young horses. The horse's initial response to danger is to flee. While this may improve the chance of survival in the wild, it is potentially dangerous in the confined spaces more often encountered in the domestic situation. Frightened horses present a risk both to themselves and to their handlers. Experienced horses are often used to accompany youngsters starting to workin traffic or during transportation. |  |
Young horses have to learn to cope with many potentially frightening situations, such as clipping, hoof trimming, shoeing, and visits from the vet. Could calmer horses be used in those situations to help young horses overcome their fear of new experiences?
A study led by Dr Janne Christensen looked at whether horses would react less to a standard frightening stimulus if they were accompanied by a calm horse.
Thirty- six two-year-old Danish Warmblood stallions were involved in the study. They were placed two at a time in a test arena, in the middle of which were two feed containers. Opposite the feed containers was a black plastic bag. This provided the frightening stimulus. While the horses were eating, someone standing out of their line of sight pulled on a piece of string to raise the bag.
One of each pair of horses was the subject of the study and was fitted with a heart rate monitor. Some horses were paired with a "calm" companion that had been trained previously not to fear the moving black bag. Others were paired with horses that had not seen the moving black bag before.
The researchers found that horses paired with a calm companion showed fewer signs of fear. They returned to feeding sooner after being exposed to the frightening stimulus. They also had lower heart rates than did the horses paired with inexperienced companions.
The test was repeated later with the horses being exposed to the fear-inducing stimulus without a companion present. The difference between treatment groups persisted.
So, not only did the horses with calm companions show less fear when exposed to the frightening stimulus, they also seemed to learn from the experience.
Dr Christensen concludes that there seems to be the potential for using social influence for reducing fear in horses. Rather than simply keeping young stock in groups of their own age, it may help to include older experienced horses. It may be possible to use older companion horses to help youngsters overcome fear of practices such as dentistry or hoof trimming, thus reducing the need for sedatives.
She points out that more work has to be done to determine whether gender, age or social standing in the herd affects the value of a horse as a calm companion.
Written by Mark Andrews. Published 27.03.08
© Copyright Equine Science Update 2008
For more details see:
Effects of a calm companion on fear reactions in naive test horses.
JW Christensen, J Malmkvist, BL Nielsen, LJ Keeling.
Equine Vet J (2008) 40, 46 - 50.
Added on: 01/04/08.
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