Horses communicating with people via signs

[SnowHorse]

http://www.horsechannel.com/horse-news/ ... mbols.aspx


Pretty interesting!!!

[Kelo]

I am pretty sure if I taught my horse this he would wear out the "more blanket" sign, and end up with about 20 blankets on when it hit 45 degrees.

He is the biggest wimp I have ever met; seriously horse, it is not that cold out!

[SnowHorse]

I though this was really interesting:

When horses realized that they were able to communicate with the trainers, i.e. to signal their wishes regarding blanketing, many became very eager in the training or testing situation. Some even tried to attract the attention of the trainers prior to the test situation, by vocalizing and running towards the trainers, and follow their movements. On a number of such occasions the horses were taken out and allowed to make a choice before its regular turn, and signalled that they wanted the blanket to be removed. It turned out that the horses were sweaty underneath the blanket.

It's in the link within the original article ( http://www.appliedanimalbehaviour.com/a ... 68-1591(16)30219-2/fulltext )

[Rhianon]

Thanks for this!

My favourite part:

The article mentions one young test subject in the group named Blue, who seemed to simply enjoy putting the humans to work; he always selected the symbol to have his blanketing status changed and needed some extra temperature conditioning so that he would understand that this form of entertainment could lead to consequences for his own thermal comfort.

[kande50]

My favourite part:

The article mentions one young test subject in the group named Blue, who seemed to simply enjoy putting the humans to work; he always selected the symbol to have his blanketing status changed and needed some extra temperature conditioning so that he would understand that this form of entertainment could lead to consequences for his own thermal comfort.

There's always at least one clown in the bunch.

[Flight]

I found this really fascinating and would love to try and learn it with my own horses. To me it shows just how much more we could communicate and how much animals put up with our ignorance.