Horses not only remember people who have treated them well, they also understand words better than expected, research shows.

By Jennifer Viegas | Wed Mar 17, 2010 04:58 AM ET

THE GIST:

• Horses remain loyal to humans with which they have had past, positive encounters.
• The animals remember people even after long separation.
• Horses understand vocal commands better than expected.

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Horses reacted positively to trainers they recognized as friendly, even after not seeing them for eight months.
MorguefileHuman friends may come and go, but a horse could be one of your most loyal, long-term buddies if you treat it right, suggests a new study.

Horses also understand words better than expected, according to the research, and possess “excellent memories,” allowing horses to not only recall their human friends after periods of separation, but also to remember complex, problem-solving strategies for ten years or more.

The bond with humans likely is an extension of horse behavior in the wild, since horses value their own horse relatives and friends, and are also open to new, non-threatening acquaintances.

“Horses maintain long-term bonds with several members of their family group, but they also interact temporarily with members of other groups when forming herds,” explained Carol Sankey, who led the research, and her team.

“Equid social relationships are long-lasting and, in some cases, lifelong,” added the scientists, whose paper has been accepted for publication in the journal Animal Behavior.

Ethologist Sankey of the University of Rennes and her colleagues studied 20 Anglo-Arabian and three French Saddlebred horses stabled in Chamberet, France. The scientists tested how well the horses remembered a female trainer and her instructions after she and the horses had been separated up to eight months.

WATCH VIDEO: University of Minnesota gives Discovery News a tour of their cutting-edge horse treatment facility.

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The training program for the horses consisted of 41 steps associated with basic grooming and medical care. For example, the horses had to remain immobile in response to the verbal command “reste!” which is French for “stay.” The horses also had to lift their feet, tolerate a thermometer inserted into the rectum and more. When a horse did as it was instructed, the trainer rewarded it with food pellets.

With tasty rewards, the horses “displayed more ‘positive’ behaviors toward the experimenter, such as sniffing and licking,” the researchers wrote. Horses do this as a sign of affiliation with each other, so they weren’t necessarily just seeking more food.

The scientists added, “Horses trained without reinforcement expressed four to six times more ‘negative’ behaviors, such as biting, kicking and ‘falling down’ on the experimenter.

Nevertheless, after the eight months of separation, the horses trained with food rewards gravitated towards the same experimenter. The horses also seemed to accept new people more readily, indicating they had developed a “positive memory of humans” in general.

“From our results, it appears that horses are no different than humans (in terms of positive reinforcement teachings),” according to the researchers. “They behave, learn and memorize better when learning is associated with a positive situation.”

While people often train dogs in this way, also using verbal commands, Sankey and her team point out that “the majority of horse-riding training is based on tactile sensations — pressure from bits, movements of riders’ legs, weight change in the saddle.”

Since “horses are able to learn and memorize human words” and can hear the human voice better than even dogs can, due to their particular range of hearing, the scientists predict trainers could have success if they incorporate more vocal commands into their horse training programs.

Jill Starr is president and founder of Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue, a non-profit that provides refuge, training and adoption placement for otherwise slaughter-bound wild mustangs and domestic horses.

Starr told Discovery News that she’s observed horses responding well to verbal commands, such as “trot,” but she still feels “horses and people get along better if the person doesn’t chatter, since this causes the individual to have greater awareness of body language that is more familiar to horses.”

She, however, agrees that horses are loyal, intelligent and have very long-lasting memories — of both good and bad experiences.

Starr said, “Horses can be very forgiving, but they never forget.”

I thought this article by Dr. Lenz has some good comments about walking a horse versus letting them lay down. For many of our clients it is faster to load the horse and haul to a clinic. For our veterinarians the workup done at a hospital is more in depth and can be performed more safely. If a horse is wanting to lay down, that is not a reason to avoid a trailer ride. It is much easier to pull a horse off a trailer, than it is to try and do colic surgery on the farm. Intense pain is an emergency and one we believe should be addressed at the hospital as quickly as possible. – Ben Buchanan, DVM, Specialist Internal Medicine, Specialist Emergency and Critical Care
What Is Colic?:

How to recognize the symptoms and what to do about them.

What should you do if your horse is showing signs of colic? Journal photo.

_By Dr. Thomas R. Lenz in_ The American Quarter Horse Journal

Colic remains a major cause of sickness and death in horses.

Approximately 10 percent of all horses suffer at least one bout of colic during their lifetimes. And a little more than 6 percent of those die, nearly twice as many horses as are affected by other diseases or injuries. Here, we’ll focus on what to do while you’re waiting for the veterinarian to arrive.

What Is Colic?

The word “colic” simply refers to abdominal pain. It covers a multitude of abdominal and intestinal problems, ranging from simple excess gas in the intestines to severe torsion or twisting of the intestines. It can also include stomach ulcers, uterine pain in pregnant or post-foaling mares and pain associated with disease in organs of the abdomen.

It is critical for horse owners to recognize the early signs of colic, because the sooner the horse is seen and treated, the greater his chances of recovery. All colics begin with mild pain and subtle symptoms. If the horse is lucky, it will be a mild colic and resolve on its own or with moderate treatment from a veterinarian.

However, the first clinical signs might be an early stage of a life-threatening colic that will eventually require extensive treatment or surgery. Unfortunately, no one can tell at the beginning.

Signs

Signs of colic in the horse vary, but include not eating, yawning, restlessness, groaning, repeatedly curling the upper lip, looking at the flank, continuous or intermittent pawing, circling, backing into a corner or post, standing in a stretched position, lying down repeatedly, rolling and sweating excessively.

Remember that these signs are not specific for any particular type of colic and no colicky horse is likely to show all of them. Know how your horse acts normally to recognize anything unusual.

What Do You Do?

Remember that all colics are emergencies and a veterinarian should be contacted as soon as possible. Once you’ve determined that your horse is colicking, call a veterinarian immediately. Provide the veterinarian with as much information over the phone as possible. This should include the clinical signs (pawing, sweating, rolling, etc.), the horse’s rectal temperature (normal between 98 to 101.2 degrees Fahrenheit), the horse’s heart rate (normal is 30 to 40 beats per minute), and the horse’s gum color (normally pink, but might be blue if the horse is in shock or dark red if the horse is toxic).

Now that you’ve made the call, and the veterinarian is on his way, what should you do while waiting?

Here are a few simple guidelines. First of all, do not allow the horse to eat. In severe colic, the horse will not want to eat, but in a mild colic or during periods of low pain, the horse might attempt to eat. Although interest in feed is a good sign, it could make the colic more severe or interfere with oral treatments. If nibbling a little green grass seems to help, that is OK, but do not allow access to hay or grain. If possible, move the horse to a grassy area with good footing and few obstacles. This will make it easier to handle the horse if he wants to lie down.

To Walk or Not to Walk?

The big question is whether or not to walk the horse. It is commonly believed that if a colicky horse rolls, he will twist an intestine. That can be true in horses with severe colic where intestines are filled with fluid and devitalized. However, in the vast majority of horses, rolling is not going to twist the intestine. Most twists and displacements occur while the horse is standing, and rolling is an attempt to get comfortable. The real problem with horses rolling, especially uncomfortably, is that they are very likely to injure themselves or their handlers, and they expend huge amounts of energy.

Here are my guidelines for when and when not to walk a colicky horse.

Remember that a horse lies down and attempts to roll to relieve pain and find a more comfortable position. If the horse lies down and stays down quietly, even in an unusual position, leave him alone. If he wants to get up and change positions periodically and then lie down again, leave him alone. If he constantly gets up and down and tries to roll frequently, walk him around.

Long-term walking can actually tire a horse, so do it only when absolutely necessary to take the horse’s mind off his pain. There is some debate as to whether or not walking stimulates intestinal motility. Occasionally, a horse suffering from gas colic will benefit from trotting or a trail ride, which seem to move the gas along. But there is no evidence that walking either stimulates intestinal movement or corrects a twist. Unless specifically instructed to do so by your veterinarian on the phone, do not medicate the horse before the veterinarian arrives. Many common sedatives and painkillers decrease intestinal movement and might actually make the colic worse. Others affect heart rate or lower blood pressure and can put the horse at risk of shock.

Note any unusual character, color or composition of the horse’s manure and the frequency of defecation or urination. Also, note if the abdominal girth has changed during the colic episode, especially if it is enlarged. Note the frequency and intensity of the painful episodes and whether they are continuous or increasing in severity. All of this information will help the veterinarian determine the cause of the colic.

Colic is a true emergency, and getting a veterinarian on the scene as quickly as possible is the key to saving the horse.

The herd of wild Mustangs at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, part of a birth-control vaccine study. | Photo courtesy of Terry Netts, Colorado State University

Deep inside the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, a herd of wild Mustangs are doing what wild horses do–grazing, resting, playing, pooping and reproducing.

And Colorado State University researchers are hoping that last one is starting to slow down.

“Theodore Roosevelt National Park is a unique park in that is it totally enclosed by fence,” said Terry M. Nett, a professor of the Animal Reproduction & Biotechnology Laboratory at Colorado State University. “So there’s no place for the animals to go, and as their numbers increase, they’ll start causing problems such as forage damage, and then they’ll start dying of starvation.”

To prevent that, park officials became interested in limiting the Mustang herd’s numbers, Terry said, and wanted to try the same gonadotropin-releasing hormone (Gnrh) contraceptive vaccine that proved to be successful on the elk herd in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park.

While the vaccine can be administered by dart, Terry said, researchers instead opted for the wild horse herd to be rounded up and treated, in order to make sure all the Mustangs got the full vaccine at the same time.

So 110 of the wild horses were rounded up, and that number was culled to 67 by selling part of the wild horse herd for domestic use. Of the remaining wild horse herd, half the mares were treated with the vaccine, and half were treated with a placebo.

Now for the next four years, researchers will be observing the herd and collecting poop samples left by identified mares in order to run pregnancy tests on them.

“We’ll check their fecals to see if any are pregnant or lost a foal,” Terry said.

And who gets that fun job? Some Colorado State University students, as well as some volunteers who have been observing, photographing and identifying the herd for years, he said.

The study, which began in October 2010, will run through October 2014, Terry said. It’s co-sponsored by the Colorado Horse Development Authority (CHDA), as well as the Morris Animal Foundation.

“It worked great on the elk–the vaccine had a 90 percent success rate after the first year,” Terry said. “It’s too early to tell if it’s going to be effective on horses, but observations after the first year are that the vaccine is 50 to 60 percent successful so far.”

Categories: Horse Breeds & Information, Wild or Rescued Horses.

Tags: Colorado State University, horse, horses, Morris Animal Foundation, mustangs, vaccine, wild horse, wild horses

By Amy Herdy

By JOE DRAPE Published: October 28, 2011

Under pressure from the charities bureau of the New York State attorney general’s office, the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation conceded it was short of money on Thursday and put out an “urgent plea” for horse lovers across the nation to adopt one of its herd of former racehorses.

Rob Hinkle, president of the foundation, said it was looking for 100 horse owners or farms to take two to five horses for a minimum of a year in the hopes of reducing its herd of 1,100 by up to half.

“Like thousands of other nonprofit organizations throughout the country, T.R.F. has been adversely affected by the downturn in the economy,” Hinkle said in a statement. “Drought and flood conditions have contributed to the rising costs and shortages of hay and feed, and we are coming into winter.”

The plea comes in the midst of a seven-month investigation by the attorney general’s office into complaints about fiscal irresponsibility and improper care given to former racehorses by the foundation, one of the largest private organizations in the world dedicated to retired thoroughbreds.

The investigation was opened in March after articles in The New York Times about how, despite receiving millions in donations, the T.R.F. has been operating at a deficit for the past two years, owing money to many of its more than 30 satellite farms, and how horses had been neglected and malnourished to the point some had either died or were euthanized.

John C. Moore, chairman of the foundation’s executive committee, said the organization was providing financial documents to investigators and making board and staff members available for interviews. He said the T.R.F. had virtually depleted a $1 million line of credit that it took out to stay current with the farms it contracts with to shelter its horses.

He acknowledged that the foundation, based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., was in poor financial shape. From 2001 to 2005, it took in more than 1,000 horses, straining its thin resources.

“We’ve had a hand-to-mouth existence ever since,” he said.

Moore said the T.R.F. met with representatives of the attorney general’s charities bureau on Oct. 18 and was told the foundation had three weeks to demonstrate it had the financial wherewithal and will to carry out its mission to provide for retired racehorses.

“We were told we need to come back with several six-figure gifts from donors as well as beef up our board,” Moore said. “We are not filled with Rockefellers or Mellons.”

Over the years, the foundation’s board has included some of horse racing’s most influential owners, and the farms it contracts with have been homes to many of the horses those owners have bred and campaigned. Tom Ludt, the current chairman of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, for example, was chairman of the foundation until August and remains on its board.

Moore also said that the organization was told it must reduce its herd size. That, he said, was why it went public with its plea. The foundation pledges to pick up veterinarian and farrier costs if the adoptive farms request it, but it will not pay the $3 to $3.50 per day per horse it currently pays the farms that stable its horses.

“We have 55 horses in foster care today, and we need to get up to 200 or 250 horses,” Moore said.

Lauren Passalacqua, spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, declined to comment on the investigation into the foundation because it is continuing.

Last December, the estate of the breeder and owner Paul Mellon, which in 2001 established a $5 million endowment for the foundation and later contributed $2 million more, hired a veterinarian to evaluate the health of the herd after years of concern about the foundation.

When the doctor, Stacey Huntington, reported that many of the horses required urgent care and were in various states of neglect, and that the foundation’s education of the caretakers and its oversight of their farms were poor, she was fired by the board.

Beverly Carter, another co-executor, is skeptical that the foundation can meet the attorney general’s demands at all — let alone in the face of a looming deadline.

She said, “We are concerned about how they are going to do in three weeks what they haven’t been able to do in seven years.”