hi there. i just started reading this post, so i have not read any replies yet. it will take me a while. i only read the very beginning....
Quote:
An interesting article (I used the Search tool, I didn't found mention of it into this forum):
The Thinking Horse: Cognition and Perception (Evelyn B. Hanggi),
http://www.equineresearch.org/support-f ... ghorse.pdf
This is particularly relevant from the "Equus universalis" point of view:
Quote:
Evidence of this can be seen in a recent study that
showed that, compared with horses involved in other
disciplines, high-level dressage horses displayed the
lowest level of learning performance in simple
tests. It was hypothesized that because these
horses are trained to perform highly sophisticated,
precise behaviors, riders give them minimal freedom;
therefore, they are inhibited from learning to
learn or generalizing.
Obviuosly the author is speaking here about conventional dressage.
There is a trainer over here in Aus, (well tazmania, dont tell him i called it Aus
) who i have watched become more and more popular in the dressage world. he is a pressure release person, as far as i am concerned, but uses a scientific technique.. he has written a book called "the truth about horses" and his name is Andrew Mclean. he believes that horses cannot think. i am going to quote his book, that really gets my back up every time that i read it.
..." published investigations indicate that horses are unable to learn new behavior by observing another horse performing that behavior. for example, although horses are very motivated by food, hungry horses do not learn to press levers to obtain hidden food by observing other horses doing it. my own experiences show that horses are unable to reduce their fear of scary places by watching other horses go there."
now this is one of my favorite hated passages, that i can PROOVE is stupidity. all horses learn from watching another horse. even in nature, when things get harsh, like in the dessert areas in australia. a mature horse will teach a young horse to dig for water. this may seem like nothing to someone, but it is a learned and mimicked behavior.
i also have mentioned in myb diary often about my little pony Flossy. i have not had to teach her much at all. i tought danni and bandi around her, sometimes not even in the same paddock, and she watched. then offered the behaviour to me. this happened with rear, leg lift, spannish walk, pedistal, and now, picking things up!!!
here we rescue many horses, but have learned to avoid a wind sucker. this is because the behaviour will be mimicked by other horses.
the even biggest mistake he comments here is about reducing fear by watching another horse do something or go near something that is scary. well....... i know, just in our training, we always use a mature and sensible horse to assist us in training a young horse. that is because their lack of fear guids a young horse. if the young horse is frightened of something, i will use it's senior member of the herd to demonstrate how, "not scary" this is.
now. this book infuriates me, because it talkes about people that think that horses have a personality as being stupid, and that they are putting their own hiuman feelings into something that does not have this. also, talks about how horses cannot think because they cannot solve a new problem on their first attmept. well, most of the time, i cannot either, so i must be un intelligent!!!
he also talks about horses that prove on his property that they are unintelligent because they will go to the closest point and not work out where the gate is.
now, i do have a point for this rant, and i may seem totally off the subject, but i am not. what i want to say, is that this man made me furiouse. i was ready to track him down and have my say. but then i realised something. his horses are proving his case. his horses are that way. he is not lying. it is because his horses are not switched on.
mum and i looked about our herd and looked at the way we treat our horses. we talk to them and they understand. we ask them to go into their dinner paddocks and they do. we ask them to solve complex situations and expect that they have the brains to do that. so in the way we give them respect as a thinking creature, we have allowed them to be switched on.
i agree totally that this will definately be true of most traditional dressage horses, and alot of quater horses that i have mentioned. they have no social skills. they are locked in a pen or a stable and are "dumbed down" by low expectations. they are treated like robots, and there for behave exactly like that. i dont think it has anything to do with the "highly sophisticated,
precise behaviors, " because they are only behaviours that we have taken from nature that they already posess. but i think that it is treatment of the dressage horse. that every step they take is directed.
i watch dressage tests sometimes, i used to judge them. but these days, i am discusted. they cannot simply say to the horse "trott" and then leave it at that, but they feel that they have to kick constantly to say "trot, trot, trot" every stride. they are nagging the horse and directing the speed, the tempo, which foot goes down first. as we know on this forum, none of that is necessary. we have learned to let go. to appreciate the natural beauty of dressage, and are not wrapped up in the technical and robotic side of the sport. so i believe that if you have a horse who is anticipating what you are going to ask next because they are enthused and excited about the game, then you have a thinking dressage horse, but if you have a horse that needs you to tell it where to put its foot, because it is drilled into it with dicipline, that if it does not do it this specific way, it WILL hurt. then you have a non thinking horse.
i am going to put a you tube of elle on my diary. she was raised in a stable. that was her life. she was not socialised and did not even know how to graze when i got her. i find it difficult to get any enthusiasm in her, but i am getting there slowly. she shows moments of character, and you can see her thinking constantly. but she will take quite some time to rehabilitate i think. i reward just about anything that she does, because i think she is brilliant, but SHE is yet to learn that she is clever.
anyway. i had to get on here and vent, as you have struck a chord. i will get to reading other peoples replies to this post and probably kick myself for maby going in the wrong direction. but i had to have my little tantrum.
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that horses identify each other through whinnies, which seems fairly obvious to anyone who spends time with horses.
