This is a good example of the power of positive reinforcement training to alter a horse’s attitude to being touched. This ‘paint pony’ (paint coat type being bicolour or piebald – brown and white) did not like to be touched. We are not told why …
It seems extraordinary to me that at one point in time perhaps not that long ago so-called experts in horse behaviour did not have the common sense to understand that when a horse behaves in a stereotypical way as seen in the video that they …
I have seen quite a few videos of King’s Guard ceremonial horses, such as the horse carrying a Blues and Royals soldier, and another on Horse Guards Parade, Whitehall, London, gently biting tourists while they capture their precious selfies in front of the horse and …
The video shows a mare who had lost her baby accepting almost immediately a foal who had lost his mother. It seemed a natural step to put the two together in the hope and expectation that the mare would be a foster mum to the …
Horses are obedient because they have a strong willingness to cooperate with their human companions. There will cooperate as best they can. This strong willingness to cooperate originates in their temperament which stems from their sociable lifestyle in the wild. The horse is naturally sociable …
The question sounds extraordinary, even ridiculous. However, a study concluded that free-living stallions in the USA preferred mares of a certain coat colour. For example, one stallion preferred buckskin mares while another chose bay mares. And a third favoured very pale-coloured mares. I tried to …
Horses walk the fence because they’ve been allowed out into a new paddock with which they are unfamiliar. Their first instinct is to set off on a territorial patrol which means walking all around the perimeter next to the fence to learn the scope of …
This TikTok video begs the question as to whether horses like being ridden. It seems to me that the average person almost automatically believes that horses like to be ridden because we see so much of it. Because we don’t see horses rejecting their riders …
Yes, horses are one of a rare group of species who appear to have self-awareness and are able to recognise themselves in a mirror. The testing process is called mirror self-recognition (MSR). The degree of recognition appears to be variable and is not a black-and-white …
