Emotions in horses

Although Darwin published a book entitled "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" in 1872, the majority of scientists have long forbidden themselves from speaking openly about emotions in animals. This era now seems to be over. Thus, it is now recognized that emotions are at the heart of the animal's perception of its environment. They therefore contribute to its state of well-being or discomfort. What about horses? Do they feel emotions? How can we recognize them and take them into account in their daily management and training?

What is an emotion or emotional state?

An emotion is a transient reaction to a triggering event, associated with behavioral changes in facial expressions, vocalizations, activity, postures, flight, fight, approaches, investigation. Changes can be physiological in heart and respiratory rates, blood pressure, sweating, and hormonal levels. They can also be cognitive with the perception, analysis, and memorization of information by the brain.

In horses, for example, a negative emotion, such as fear, causes avoidance or flight and an increase in heart rate. A positive emotion, such as the pleasure resulting from scratching the withers, induces characteristic behavior, with head extension, lip movements and a decrease in heart rate.

It is mainly negative emotions, such as fear, that have been studied in horses, probably because their expression is more intense and their consequences more harmful. We still know little about positive emotions. Work carried out on farm animals allows us to understand how play, care, and social relationships lead to states where animals feel pleasure or joy. A recent study (Statton et al.) carried out on horses made it possible to list situations that can induce positive emotions, such as grooming on preferred areas of the body. The same is true for the distribution and consumption of appetizing food or positive social behaviors between familiar individuals.

Beyond emotion, which is, by definition, fleeting, recent studies show how the accumulation of these emotions can lead to prolonged affective states, called emotional states, felt positively or negatively. Negative states are also better known in horses, such as anxiety or depression. Generally speaking, in animals as in humans, negative emotional states will generate a change in attention towards potential threats, a propensity to memorize negative events and an alteration of judgment. Taking horses' emotions into account in their management and training is therefore important for their well-being, their learning abilities and the safety of their rider.

How to recognize an emotion?

Little work has been conducted on emotions in horses, and most of it concerns fear, pain and stress, which induce negative emotions. This is a field of research that is currently booming. Potential indicators are proposed in the bibliography, but not all have been fully validated. It is the behavioral indicators that are the most interesting for the rider/horse owner. Here are some examples.

Stress indicators

Stress indicators are potentially linked to negative emotions. Stress can be induced by a large number of factors or situations: fear, pain, non-satisfaction of needs, frustration... It can be acute or chronic. Acute stress in horses is rather associated with increased reactivity, with an increase in locomotor behaviors, a decrease in resting behaviors, a decrease in feeding time.

Acute stress in horses is also associated with an increase in alert behaviors: raised head and neck, mobile ears, wide open eyes, little support on 3 feet, vocalizations such as alert breaths and snoring, dilated nostrils, muscle shivering. Acute stress is also linked to an increase in defecation behaviors. Chronic stress has been described in horses, associated with a frozen posture: head extended with the jaw-neck angle open, neck and back at the same height, fixity of the head and ears which are most often back, open eyes and fixed gaze. They are more indifferent to stimuli in their environment, but more reactive to challenge situations in the new object test. It corresponds to a negative emotional state.

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Indicators of discomfort or pain

Indicators of discomfort or pain are also related to negative emotions. In equines, pain can be recognized from behavioral changes: significant agitation, nervousness, unusual anxiety, aggressiveness, or on the contrary, stoic posture with isolation, reluctance to move, abnormal distribution or transfer of weight, low head not associated with sleep or drowsiness, fixed gaze, dilated nostrils, clenched jaws. These last criteria correspond to facial expressions, produced by movements of the underlying musculature.

Some pains have a more specific behavioral expression. Thus, for pain in the limbs, we can observe changes in posture, loss of support, lameness, reluctance to move. A horse suffering from abdominal pain will roll, look at its flanks, slap its belly with a hindquarters, stand as if to urinate, or be unresponsive and appear depressed.

The horse may only show signs of discomfort or pain when being worked. The boundary between discomfort and pain is not well known. The behaviors described are numerous and vary in intensity: reluctance to move, contractions, asymmetries in the bends, defenses, tail whipping, ears back.

Some behavioral signs are more indicative of discomfort or pain in the mouth, caused by poorly adapted or poorly used equipment (bit that presses on the tongue or palate, poorly sized, etc.) or due to injuries to the mouth, possibly associated with overteeth or wolf teeth. Thus, the horse will try to get rid of this discomfort by various avoidance behaviors that can become violent: pressing on the bit or on the contrary losing contact, opening the mouth, sticking out the tongue, passing the tongue over the bit, locking itself in or sniffing.

The position of the ears

The position of the ears is certainly a good indicator of emotions in horses, the meanings of which are not yet fully understood. Ears pointed forward can be a sign of alert or sustained attention to an event, without it being possible to really link it to the positive or negative nature of the emotion. The backward position of the ears for prolonged periods would be an indicator of chronic stress, possibly associated with physical or moral pain and therefore reflecting negative emotions.

Ears pointed back, but transiently in the face of an event, are also considered a sign of aggression, also an indicator of negative emotions. Ears forward, in an attitude of attention towards Man (gaze directed towards Man, interactions with Man), in the context of positive reinforcement work, could correspond to positive emotions.

Vocalizations

Vocalizations allow animals to communicate with each other and are thought to be associated with emotions. Thus, the contact call, a soft vocalization of the mare towards her foal or her caregiver, is probably associated with a positive emotion. On the contrary, the open-mouth neigh is often emitted when horses are separated and reflects stress, therefore a negative emotion. The same is true of the hissing or snoring, emitted in case of fear.

Other behaviors

Certain behaviors, part of the behavioral repertoire, such as play for young people and friendly behaviors between conspecifics, are proposed as reflecting positive emotions or emotional states.