| Featured Article - March 2008
In The Shadow of Equus Savvy Horses |
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| “Billy”
was bored. Loafing around in a stall was not his idea of a day of
contemplation and higher purpose. Besides, he was hungry. But then,
Billy was always hungry. Under the porch, the old bread wagon sat idle. George Smith, Billy’s owner who for half a century had been running a bakery with his brother Harry, carried a tray of loaves and bags of currant buns to the wagon for delivery later in the day. The buns were still steaming from the splash of sugar water that gave them their final gleam. The aroma of fresh baking was to-die-for. It drew customers to the bakery from miles around like bees to nectar. And it drew Billy. The little Welsh Mountain pony waited until George’s back was turned. Using his lips, he quietly slid the bolt that held his door, and then, with his teeth, worked the safety latch that had been designed to counteract equine bolt-sliding opportunities. A minute later, Billy nudged his stable door open, tippy-hooved across the concrete pad (he couldn’t risk being heard) and scuttled to the back of the bread wagon to pull out a tray and seize a six-pack of buns. There were no flies on this pony. His carefully laid plans for lunch were executed with the stealth of a Navy Seal operative... Was Billy showing intelligence, or demonstrating opportunistic learned behaviour? Or both? Is learned behaviour the product of intelligence? During my teen years when I looked after Billy for George and Harry, his bun raids were hilarious. But it was decades before I looked at his behaviour more analytically as a pony demonstrating both intelligence and an ability to apply a learning curve to his advantage. Too often, intelligence has been coveted as a human prerogative. But the animal world is rich in cognitive activity, memory, and thought processes. For centuries, domestic horses were never considered particularly intelligent. But their behaviour as visual, responsive animals wasn’t understood. Today, both field and controlled studies have shown that horses have high intelligence that should be viewed as a function of their environment and their complex social structure. |
From birth, horses respond to
every visual, auditory, and
sensory cue within their environment. If they are fortunate enough to
be raised with other horses, their social skills are honed and
sharpened, reinforcing a strong sense of self, place, and confidence
which can bode well under saddle later on. Like people, individual
animals vary in their level of intelligence, and horses quick to learn
define their mental sharpness. It is not just their ability to learn
but the speed at which they must learn. As a prey species, flight is
their instinctive response to threat. In the wild, those that don’t
connect the dots quickly and build survival skills will suffer the
consequences later. A domestic horse quick to learn is a valued equine,
whether working or showing. Whether horses can reason is still hotly debated but there are many anecdotal stories that back up a popular belief that they are capable of reasoned thought even though their instinct is one of reactive flight. Run first, think about the problem later. It’s that “looking and thinking” part that might trigger interesting behaviour. Every fall, an ancient apple tree in our pasture produces an abundance of fruit. They aren’t particularly great eating apples but they are good for stewing and pies. The horses love them and every morning at turnout they will run to eat the apples fallen to the ground or blown off in the wind overnight. Sometimes one of us will shake the lower branches to encourage ripe apples to drop. That human behaviour was not lost on a few in the motley band. Pony Spike made the connection that if the tree moved, food fell. He would stand back and intently watch what was happening. Using the DIY (you know, do-it-yourself) principle, he moved the tree by leaning all his weight into the trunk and pushing back and forth. It was enough friction to start a swaying motion of the branches, bringing the apples down. A savvy pony? Intelligence at work? Reasoned behaviour? Or just a good scratch? Equine intelligence may still be an open question, but I bet everyone who has enjoyed their company can tell a tale or two about savvy horses. |
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