Thankfully, Ben Hart, a successful equine trainer is giving the horse owners the chance to improve the way they take care of horses and learn how to behave in equine relationships. Detecting the symptoms of stress in horses is very important and he gave an interesting perspective on that issue, that should be read by every horse owner. Early identification of stress will change the animal’s health and will help you evade critical situations. But how does stress show up in horses?

1.In times of struggle, anxiety, and pain, the stress elements get released in order to get the animal ready for fight or flight. Trailer loading might be very stressful for a horse who is nervous by nature and has had a prior bad experience during loading. A self-confident horse will presumably experience moderate stress in the same situation.

2.During higher levels of stress, horses will start to show strange behaviors. They are flight animals and will give a flight reply, and these changes are implied signs that something is not adding up. Stress can be defeated if you work regularly with your horse to boost his problem-solving ability and also his confidence level.

<p>The post Learn How Horses Express Stress And How To Prevent It first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>

Especially when the babies are at a growing age and need their mother’s care and attention throughout the whole time. Horses are no different from humans in this perspective, a mare will always keep her babies away from danger and whenever she doubts that her foals are at risk, the mare will always go to protect them no matter where they are.

In case you didn’t know, horses are some of the most loving and caring parents amongst all the animals. All horse owners can confirm that horses love their newborns so much and spend all their time taking care of them. But just like any other creature, horses can also show different feelings depending on the situation they are on and don’t mind posing for the camera.

As you can see in the beautiful photos presented throughout this article these mares show deep feelings towards their babies and you can feel the warmth, love, affection, respect just by looking at them. Kudos to the photographers of these photos for doing such an excellent job! Enjoy them and don’t forget to share this article with your friends if you liked it!

<p>The post Beautiful Photos Show The Incredible Bond Between Mares And Their Babies first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>

1.Flightiness Does Not Equal Lack of Intelligence

There are a lot of people who link horses’ flightiness as a sign that they’re not very clever, but it’s essential to realize that flight equals life for horses, who must defeat their natural predators of cougars, wolves,  bears in order for them to survive.

2.Horses’ Senses Are Incredible

As you know responding fast is the most important matter for horses, therefore they have evolved into astonishingly sensitive senses, from their vision to their nose and real awareness. Miller says they’re the most rational of all domestic animals, with a perfect skill to sense even the slightest changes in position in a rider on its back and see with virtually 360-degree vision. Because a horse’s eyes are set on the sides of its head, it’s able to see what’s on both sides, but their pitch perception hurts as a result. This is why horses stop before crossing a river, they first want to wait until they have memorized the route or come to trust their rider.

3.Horses Learn and Are Desensitized Quickly

Miller believes that horses are faster than most animals. They are able to decide what’s a threat and what’s not, which is fundamental for a prey animal like a horse. if you’re a flight animal and an unfamiliar incentive — a thing you’ve never seen before or sound you’ve never heard, accelerates flight, if that stimulus was harmless and you didn’t quickly desensitize to it, you’d never stop running.

4.Horses Have the Fastest Reply Times of All Domestic Animals

This is both a blessing and a curse, therefore it is a very important detail to remember if you spend any time around these noble animals. “If a horse seeks to kick you’re going to get hurt. We simply can’t move that fast,” Miller says. This is particularly important if you’re standing in one of horses’ two “blind spots” — directly in front of or in back of them. You should always talk to a horse when surrounding these areas so the horse knows you’re there and doesn’t become scared.

5.Horses Have Excellent Memories

Miller states horses never forget, and this holds both great and terrible experiences.  He later visited a horse, Cimba, whom his daughter had a solid relationship with more than seven years ago. They didn’t know if he would remember her when they went to the barn, but his response was clear and heartwarming; he was as happy to see her as she was to see him.

6.Horses Are Easily Dominated

Horses are herd animals and there are heads and followers within the group. Horses are considered as the most easily dominated among domestic animals, willingly accepting leadership from other horses or humans, provided the leader uses the appropriate behaviors. In the wild, the leader of the herd is typically an older mare, which some think it earns its alpha role not by force or strength, but rather by experience and character, according to Carey A. Williams, Ph.D., extension specialist in equine management at Rutgers University.

7.Horses Have Their Own Body Language

Miller thinks it’s crucial to learn horses’ bodily signals. A horse with its head down, as it is during grazing, signals obedience and trust whereas a horse with its head up suggests it’s vigilant and considering flight. He also suggests using non-predatory body postures when nearing a horse, such as avoiding gazing at the horse and keeping a comfortable posture.

8.Controlling a Horse’s Feet Leads to Control of Their Mind

If you control a horse’s movement, you’re in charge of commanding the horse, because a horse relies on its feet and technique to flee to survive.

9.Horses Hit the Ground Running

Horses are able to stand on their feet and run shortly after giving birth and have full control of their senses. It’s during this time, in the first few days after birth, that imprinting is most excellent and foals rapidly learn to distinguish threats.

<p>The post Inside The Minds Of Horses:  9 Incredible Revelations About The Way Horses Think first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>

“Horses are really emotional sponges, and they react vigorously and very quickly to our human emotions,” said Léa Lansade, Ph.D., of the French Horse and Riding Institute and the National Institute for Agricultural Research’s behavior science department, in Tours.

In their latest study, Lansade and her fellow researchers questioned horses’ capacity to unite human vocal and facial emotional expressions. They threw short video clips without the sound of an unknown woman on either side of each study horse, precisely 34 Welsh mares. In one video the woman was making an “angry” face; in the other, she was making a “happy” face.

At the same time, the experts played an audio clip of a different, also unknown, woman vocalizing either rage or happiness through nonverbal sounds, such as grrr and aah. The results in this experiment were as expected, horses can tell the difference between the positive and negative facial expressions of humans.

The mares’ heartbeats also increased dramatically, and their behavior became suggestive of stress—with strong, alert postures—when they heard sounds of angry human emotions compared to happy ones. The horses responded even though they were shown with recordings that had nothing to do with them. So, it’s correct that horses react to human emotions even when they’re not directed toward them.

<p>The post The Latest Study Confirms That Horses React Strongly To Human’s Emotions And Can Read Our Expressions first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>

So it is best for you if you try to understand them better by knowing what sets them off and how to fix your attitude near horses. Sometimes they hate a specific thing us humans do, or they simply become spooky from different objects we never would have thought. Over the years, people have able to pick up on some of the biggest pet peeves of horses. We must add that there may be different behaviors or specific objects that a horse hates who haven’t been discovered yet.

Below we have prepared a list with 10 things that horses dislike that all horses owners should be aware of:

1. Butterflies.

Horses are very huge animals, so it’s very funny that they would be scared of something as tiny as a butterfly. And yet, it happens to quite many horses. The small and sudden flash of color can undoubtedly spook them. Butterflies aren’t the only small animal that can frighten a horse. They can be just as easily frightened by birds, crickets, frogs, and anything else that might appear before them suddenly.

2. Having their neck pressed with anything. Draw reins, nasty hands, doesn’t matter whether or not devices are used. Absolutely no horse is comfortable with its head in this position. The only purpose of something like this is if you want to keep calling your horses’ vet to come for a visit every week since you are making problems for them to strive to fix. It’s not like it has anything to do with actual training, so please don’t do it.

3. Humans who deny to take riding lessons and rather prefer to bump all over their horse like a bag of uncoordinated vegetables. You don’t have to be fit and perfect, nor a magnificent equitation rider, but you can work on your riding enough not to feel like a backpack full of stones bouncing on your horse’s back.

4. Shoes that don’t fit. Please get your horses’ shoes trimmed if you didn’t know until now what good shoeing is and how to identify it. Few things are more damaging to your horse than shoes that are too small or badly set on.

5. Stall confinement 24/7.If you live in a horse-unfriendly area, it’s your job to get to the barn daily and get your horse turned out, not just ridden and worked. Horses who get sufficient turnout are much less likely to offload their humans surprisingly.

6. Humans who can’t read horse language. When your horse’s expression changes out of nowhere, this means something. It is best if you don’t until you figure that thing out. Don’t ignore it and then get mad when your horse unintentionally hurts you. The horse only has surprisingly few ways to let you know when they are not feeling well or irritated. It’s your responsibility to learn to read their ears, eyes and body language so that your horse can interact with you.

7. Children. 

Children make it to the list because they have a tendency of making sudden loud noises and running around. Many horses haven’t been around children enough, so that means that they can view children as potential dangers.

8. Cars Driving Nearby. 

You would be surprised to find out how many people didn’t know that cars can be very frightening for horses. Especially if they spend the majority of their time in an isolated field away from most roads. It is unusual for a horse to see something as large and loud as a vehicle. They should be introduced slowly in order to get them used to the experience.

9. Humans making sudden, unnecessary movements—movements that could be distinguished as aggression on the part of the human (like chasing them with a plastic bag tied to a whip).

10. Humans who don’t have a constant discipline — We cannot simply say it enough how important it is to have the same constant behavior with your horse, it is not your horses’ fault if you have a fight with another human and it results in a temper tantrum of whipping and yanking. Please share this article with your friends on Facebook!

<p>The post Discover 10 Things Horses Dislike And Make Them Unhappy first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>

Furthermore, they are able to interpret human body language and tone of voice, a very helpful skill that allows horses to interact with humans during their everyday life or in different sport disciplines. A study made in 2016 by a group of researchers from the University of Sussex wanted to shed light and answer once and for all the questions that all horse people have had in mind the entire time: Can horses interpret our facial expressions and if so, are they able to remember them?

The study, who was titled “Functionally Relevant Responses to Human Facial Expressions of Emotion in the Domestic Horse (Equus caballus)” and published in Biology Letters of The Royal Society Publishing, used a test group who included 28 horses—21 geldings and five mares, from age of four to 23 years.

In this study, the horses were required to look at two different photos of the same man, who was completely unknown to them. In the first photo, the man had a smiling face (positive emotional expression) while in the second photo, the very same man had an angry-looking face with his brows furrowed (negative emotional expression).  While the horses were looking at the two photos, the researchers measured carefully these three key elements:

1-  The time that horses spend looking at each photo

2- How their heart rate changed while looking at the photos

3- Which eye the horses used to look at the photos

The results in this experiment were as expected, horses can tell the difference between the positive and negative facial expressions of humans. Firstly, they spent more time looking at the photo where the man had an angry-looking face than they did with the photo where the man was smiling.

This is an indicator that shows how the horses thought the angry face required more attention than the smiling one. The second indicator which was their heart rate had a big difference as it was raised significantly while looking at the angry face photo.

This fact shows that the angry photo stressed the horses who understood that it had a negative expression. Heart rate fluctuation in horses it is known that it is caused by stress, so this proves once again their potential ability to sense humans effect. The third and last element showed that most of the horses used their left eye to look at the angry photo and had no preference on which eye to choose when they watched the happy photo. This tendency has also been found previously in other animals, such as dogs.

These animals’ brains are divided into two distinct sides, which are called hemispheres. The right hemisphere controls the left eye and the left hemisphere controls the right eye. Now it makes more sense that when a horse sees something with their left eye, they are using the right side of their brain in order to analyze what they’re seeing. This explains why most of the horses saw the angry photo with their left eye. When it comes to the photo who had a happy face, horses were neutral and didn’t focus on it.

The same team recently got together again and decided to go back to the stable and do the same test and see if it had a lasting impact on how 24 different horses treated the people. A few hours after seeing a photograph of an individual who was laughing or had a sad expression, the horses got to meet the person standing behind the picture. But this time the person wasn’t doing any expression but had a neutral face who showed no emotions. The horses appeared to remember the person and their mood showed in the picture and used different sides of their heads to look at the person.

“What we’ve found is that horses can not only read human facial expressions but they can also remember a person’s previous emotional state when they meet them later that day – and, crucially, that they adapt their behavior accordingly,” says psychologist Karen McComb. This study probably comes as no surprise to those who work with horses daily but it is one important piece in the complex puzzle of the emotional language humans share with animals.

<p>The post Study Shows That Horses Are Able To Read Human Expressions! first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>

They are called the Banker horses, but also they are known as the Spanish Mustangs cause they were brought by Spanish explorers in the US during the 16th century. During the last year, Outer Banks have experienced rapid development and has become a tourist destination, hence a lot of organizations had to something to protect the population of the wild and at the same time a rare group of Mustangs.

These horses can be usually seen in a group of five or six. Due to the development and as a consequence, traffic, the population of these gorgeous horses has decreased from thousands to a few hundred. Between 1985 and 1996, twenty horses were killed by cars between the towns of Duck and Corolla and to prevent other cases like this one, Corolla Wild Horse Fund stepped in to help.

Currently, the largest herd of about 140 occupies about 7,500 acres of narrow land between Highway 12 in Corolla and the Virginia border, which is accessible only by a four-wheel-drive vehicle and has reduced significantly the number of visitors.

<p>The post The Reason Why These Wild Horses Live On The Beach Is Amazing first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>

However, some speculations prove that this might be true for the animals as well.  Some animal researchers believe that herd animals such as horses adopt a seemingly emotionless appearance so that their pain and potential weakness will be less easy for predators to spot, but we also know that these gentle giants feel very deeply.

Having the main focus horses, let’s base what these researchers say on our personal experiences. What is the main feeling that you get when you are close to a horse?  It is believed that the way that horses make you feel says a lot about what they are.

Can you tell by the horse’s eye how it really is? I will share with you my thoughts and I would like you to let me know yours. Whenever I am close to a horse, at least in the majority of the cases, what I get by looking into its eyes are kindness, positivity, joy, and happiness. I hope you have the same experience. Don’t forget to let me know.

<p>The post The Horse’s Soul Revealed Through The Horse’s Eyes first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>

They are very good swimmers and at the same time, they have the cutest faces and amazing infectious energy. One of the most touching friendships was made on the Falkland Islands between a lost little penguin and a herd of a different species.

These animals were not shy at all to be around the penguin, even though it was a very novel encounter for all of them. The penguin was separated from his group of friends and was lost and all alone until this beautiful herd of horses finds him.

It is amazing how they immediately established a rare connection that can be rarely seen. Who would have thought that a penguin and horses would be at the same place together, consider their different living habitats? It is true when they say that the most beautiful bonds are created in circumstances and between someone you would never expect. This is a pure example.

<p>The post Penguin Gets Lost From His Group Of Friends But A Herd Of Horses Is There To Accompany Him first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>

1) Using You As A Chin Rest. If a horse has chosen you for a chin rest, you can tell that you’ve made it. It takes a lot of faith from the horse’s side.

2) Turning Into A Lap-Horse. Have you ever been turned into a ‘chair’ for your adorable baby foal? It happens very frequently because horses (especially foals) seem to like it a lot but still, they won’t do it until you prove that you are a trusted person.

3) Breathing your face. Probably this might be one of the most frequent listed so far. For us humans, it’s downright rude to breathe in someone’s face, but in the horse world, it’s a sign of trust.

4) Tagging along behind you. Horse behaviour expert Franklin Levinson said: “Where you go, she’ll follow, and she trusts you implicitly to keep her safe and take care of her”, which is very true. Once you have gained the horse’s trust or wherever the horse follows you it means that you are very important to this horse. Do you have an established bond with your horse friend? Let us know in the comment section. Do not forget to spread out the article with your horse friends on social media.

<p>The post 4 Unique Ways Horses Can Say ‘I Love You’ To Their Owners first appeared on Horse Spirit.</p>