What is a Good Life: The story of trying to do right by our horses

In this episode, Dr. Colleen Brady and Dr. Camie Heleski share their thoughts on what horses really need to make them happy.  We discuss whether we even know if a horse is happy, and how much time does a horse need to feel just okay.  This one gives you a lot to think about.

Interested in learning more about horse emotion: Check out RAiSE: Recognizing Affective States in Horses.

Transcript

Kris Hiney: Welcome to Extension Horses, Tackbox talk series, horse stories with a purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney with Oklahoma State University. And today we're going to be talking about essentially trying to define, even if we can, what really is a good life for horses. So joining me today are 2 experts on what is good for horses. So Dr. Colleen Brady from Purdue University, so welcome back, Colleen.

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Colleen Brady: Hello! Thank you. Happy to be here.

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Kris Hiney: And Dr. Cammie Heleski, from the University of Kentucky, who is very well known for talking about social license to operate around the country. So welcome Cammie.

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Camie Heleski: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

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Kris Hiney: I know we've already done an episode where we talked about social license to operate, which is just generally what society kind of feels about the horse industry, and we've kind of talked about. You know. We might have some challenges there, but we're also really trying to hopefully share with people about trying to provide some good

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Kris Hiney: in the life of a horse. So what would we even think about is making a life good for a horse.

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Camie Heleski: I try to think in terms first, st of making sure there's not a lot of bad stuff going in that horse's life, and you know, when we think of, for example, the framework where we look at 5 Freedoms type of welfare, thinking

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Camie Heleski: and try to make sure the horse isn't hungry.

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Camie Heleski: very often thirsty, very often make sure that if it gets injured we're checking on that quickly, making sure that they can get out of horrible weather. So obviously, we need to avoid bad stuff

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Camie Heleski: before we start thinking about good stuff and.

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Kris Hiney: Most, I would say, isn't that what most horse owners like? They? Okay. I fed my horse. I watered my horse. He's not injured. Check check. He's not skinny. I'm done. I think that's how we kinda thought about it for a long time, right.

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Camie Heleski: I do think that's really true. And

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Camie Heleski: this is where we're trying to move our thinking to more of the 5 domains kind of welfare, thinking like, not just avoid bad stuff.

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Camie Heleski: But let's try to think of what's good stuff we can do. You know, what does that horse need to be not just suffering, but actually having

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Camie Heleski: a good life.

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Camie Heleski: You know it kind of goes through a life not worth living.

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Camie Heleski: and then a life worth living and then a good life.

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Camie Heleski: And if we're truly going to move progressively.

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Camie Heleski: I do think we need to worry about what makes that good life.

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Kris Hiney: So, colleen, I'll jump over to you here a little bit. So what would you put in the definition of what's what makes life worth living for a horse.

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Colleen Brady: Well, I think it's like Camie had mentioned, too. I I think we have a basic expectation, obviously, that you have to meet their physiological needs.

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Colleen Brady: But then you start looking at well, how do you? How do you meet their mental and emotional needs? And that's where we start looking at the 5 domains model

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Colleen Brady: as a more contemporary way to assess welfare than the 5 freedoms, because the 5 freedoms was really focused on

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Colleen Brady: eliminating the bad

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Colleen Brady: where or providing the minimum where the 5 domains looks more at, how can we do better than that? How can we add a layer of positivity or positive interactions.

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Colleen Brady: And that's where we start looking at things like the 3 Fs, right? We've heard of forage friends and

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Colleen Brady: freedom. You know, horses

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Colleen Brady: think about how they evolved, you know, to eat small portions of high forage all day long, you know. So if you can feed your horse in small amounts of forage or on pasture, you know, that's going to help meet some of those mental and emotional needs because they have. They're so driven to graze. They have a tremendous need to be around other horses to have opportunities to interact

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Colleen Brady: with other horses.

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Colleen Brady: That's that's really key to them, having a quality life.

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Kris Hiney: So I'm going to ask maybe some hard questions, and I have lots of hard questions, and I think I'm just going to do them in random order for you guys. So when I think about having a good life.

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Kris Hiney: one question, that kind of probably jumps to a lot of people's mind is, how do you know if the horse is

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Kris Hiney: is happy or not? So, for the example of of freedom, I'm going to give you a common argument right? So well, there's bugs outside. So if I'm a horse and I hate the bugs.

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Kris Hiney: do I want to be in a stall like, how do I know which thing then is. Do I be in the stall away from the bugs, or do I be outside? Where now the bugs bite me? But I have a buddy like.

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Kris Hiney: how do we weigh? What thing is the right thing to do?

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Colleen Brady: Well, I and I think that go ahead.

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Camie Heleski: I definitely do think that is tricky, and a lot of horse husbandry is weighing these things out. So you know my horse, my retired horse

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Camie Heleski: is out 24, 7 has a lot of grazing and friend opportunities.

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Camie Heleski: has a lot of freedom to choose where they want to do those things, but it is now my responsibility to go out there at the very least once per day and put fly spray on them. Make sure if they need a face mask. So it's not irritating their eyes. You know. There's a responsibility to me that might make my life a little more challenging in this really hot stretch of weather. We're having

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Camie Heleski: to do right by the horse. So if I want to let them have that good life.

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Camie Heleski: me just putting them in a stall

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Camie Heleski: with a fly, mister, over top.

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Kris Hiney: In my mind is not what I owe the horse.

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Colleen Brady: And I think a key point. There, too, is choice. So I have a young horse who's still in work.

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Colleen Brady: We compete, and

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Colleen Brady: he, when he's turned out with his friends, he has sheds that they can go into, and the flies aren't as bad in the shed, and that's where he'll be when it he's in over. He goes out overnight and comes in in the morning, and he'll be standing in the shed, and he wears fly boots. This horse hates.

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Colleen Brady: hates, flies, absolutely hates flies.

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Colleen Brady: but if you give them choices they'll help make that decision about what makes them happy too. If they have a choice to be in or out, if they have

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Colleen Brady: a choice to be with other horses or off on their own. So if you can structure your management system to provide the horse some opportunity to make choices. Then you just need to keep in mind the choices they make aren't always necessarily going to be the choices that you would think for the other end of the spectrum in the wintertime.

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Colleen Brady: You know

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Colleen Brady: my horse never stands in the shed in the wintertime it can be snowing sideways and 20 degrees outside, and he's out with his. He's out at the round bale, typically. And he's not that worried about being in in the shelter.

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Kris Hiney: So. And I'm gonna you know, I'm on the side of making life better for horses. But I'm just going to keep throwing kind of some of the other kind of common arguments back at you, because certainly horses, you know, our feral horses or horses, and we know there's many, many management systems for horses. A lot of horses are on

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Kris Hiney: huge acreage, right? So large farms, brood mares out on big acreage. Some of our ranches out West.

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Kris Hiney: They're outside the bugs are there? Nobody's fly spraying them. So what? How do you know? Right so is, does is that bad, then, or is it. It is what it is.

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Camie Heleski: I don't think it's necessarily bad. Again, we're weighing these things out, and a lot of times I'll use our model of the animal welfare, judging contest where we try to think. Okay, here's this situation where these horses have potentially hundreds of acres. But nobody's going to put fly spray on them on a daily basis.

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Camie Heleski: Somebody hopefully is at least checking on them often enough

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Camie Heleski: to determine if they are being severely impacted by the insects

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Camie Heleski: harassing them. And I know we're kind of overly dwelling, perhaps, on this insect.

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Kris Hiney: Good example. I'll make other ones.

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Camie Heleski: It's very timely right now, because it's our 1st well in Kentucky. It's our 1st big big burst of insect harassment so far this summer. And I, you know. Yeah, some people could say, Look, my horse is so sensitized to bug bites that I'm pretty darn sure they would rather be in their stall almost the whole day.

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Camie Heleski: and that's a hard one, unless you're in the brain of every one of those horses

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Camie Heleski: to make a decision. I do think when push comes to shove the most closely we can relate to what their feral horse situation would be.

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Camie Heleski: I'm I'm still going to head toward that direction.

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Kris Hiney: So you said an interesting thing there which is being in the brain of the horse, and I know, Dr. Brady, you and I have worked a lot on trying to improve people's recognition of what we call the affective state or the emotions of horses. But even still they have to be doing something right for you to sort of visualize or be able to interpret it. And we're still relying on

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Kris Hiney: our interpretation of of their emotion. So you said being the brain of the horse, what would we be trying to look at to see the brain, to say they're good.

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Camie Heleski: I'll answer a little bit, and then let colleen chime in. I do think that

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Camie Heleski: especially those of us that have had

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Camie Heleski: it's a really good and wonderful opportunity to be around horses tons.

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Camie Heleski: We develop a good sense of watching their faces, watching their eyes, watching their ears, watching their body language.

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Camie Heleski: you know I I have a really nice opportunity to just sit and watch the horses at our little retirement horse Farm.

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Camie Heleski: and you know, be pretty darn convinced that well, over 90% of the time

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Camie Heleski: they are showing positive expressions in their body language. And so that's a lot of what I'm looking at, and I'm looking at them as many natural behaviors that are part of their ethogram, their daily time budget, as many natural behaviors as they can do. I find that a positive also.

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Colleen Brady: But I think that's a really good point, too, about

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Colleen Brady: knowing your horse and your horses, and they'll communicate to you if we pay attention. And I think there's another thing that when we start having to weigh things, I think it's unrealistic to think that your horse is going to be in a hundred percent

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Colleen Brady: euphoric state. Happy, happy a hundred percent of the time

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Colleen Brady: that sometimes you do have to make

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Colleen Brady: you do have to make decisions and say, yes.

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Colleen Brady: is. My horse's name is Hugo. Hugo does not like bugs.

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Colleen Brady: I'm very convinced that Hugo would be happier with the bugs and his buddies than he would be

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Colleen Brady: without the bugs and without his buddies. And so sometimes you just have to

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Colleen Brady: pathway. And that's where I really think that if there are situations that you can give the horse some autonomy and give the horse some

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Colleen Brady: opportunity to

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Colleen Brady: Have some input if we start taking the rest of his pasture mates out for turnout. He's at the front of his stall, ready to go.

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Colleen Brady: you know, to me that's a signal from him

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Colleen Brady: that he wants to be outside where the bugs are more than he wants to be in his stall, because he's at the front of his stall waiting

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Colleen Brady: to to be taken out, whereas I think if he didn't want to go out.

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Colleen Brady: he probably wouldn't come to the front of a stall quite so quickly. He might be a little more reluctant to walk out, he might be standing at the gate, saying, Bring me in, bring me in, you know, so I think if you pay attention to some of those

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Colleen Brady: ways that they can communicate.

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Colleen Brady: They can help you sort what their choice would would be.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, I have a kind of a long follow up question, then. So I'll kind of say the whole thing, and then let you guys go in. So

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Kris Hiney: so, Cami, you kind of talked about. You've watched them. And most of the time you think that you can kind of see positive expressions. But a lot of times what we're asking people to do is recognize the negative right? Because I think one. I would argue that if we can kind of tamp down the negative, right? So when we know the horse is stressed or irritated, we're moving them closer to positive. But there's also the concept of neutral like.

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Kris Hiney: There's a lot of times that I'm not angry or stressed. And I'm not like right. And that's okay. There's a lot of time that I'm in in neutral, so are we able to tell when a horse is is neutral and positive. I think we've got a good handle. I hope at least, there's a lot of tools we've developed to help them recognize negative. What about that positive neutral category?

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Camie Heleski: And I'm not sure that we always have to move dramatically away from that concept of neutral for a certain percentage of each day. You know, when I think back to some of our lesson horses. When I was teaching at Michigan State.

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Camie Heleski: they were certainly not always experiencing the most positive, affective state.

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Camie Heleski: But what I wanted to do was avoid negative things. I wanted to avoid signs of distress, discomfort, and

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Camie Heleski: you know, the student I'm working with from Brazil some of his work on evaluating

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Camie Heleski: effective state in dressage horses we're going to see, I believe, that

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Camie Heleski: the biggest thing is still going to be avoiding negative and maybe neutral, we should not consider bad.

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Colleen Brady: And I'd actually like to follow up with that, too, because I think.

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Colleen Brady: even if you think about it from a physiological standpoint.

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Colleen Brady: stressors can be both positive or negative. And one of the challenges with a lot of our physiological measures of stress is they don't differentiate between whether the stressor is something that's a positive stressor to the animal or a negative stressor. The physiological increase in cortisol is the same.

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Colleen Brady: And so if you think about, and this is where I think neutral is really, really important. Actually, that that's a time when the when the body is just kind of

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Colleen Brady: chill, just kind of in balance.

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Colleen Brady: no extremes physiologically going either way, and so to be in a constant state of arousal, even if it's

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Colleen Brady: perceived as positive, I think, still creates

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Colleen Brady: stressors and physiological stresses on the horse. So that that's that. Neutrality is actually

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Colleen Brady: a good place to be for most of the time. I don't think we're physiologically

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Colleen Brady: as mammals. I would include humans in that. I don't think we're physiologically suited to be constantly in

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Colleen Brady: a high state of arousal, whether it's positive or negative.

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Kris Hiney: I got so much to say now. So I think you're exactly right. And humans are going to go off on the social media right because they've reset our endorphin brain. And so you need more kicks of good. And I think we've really gotten to a place where people don't know neutral, and that neutral emotional state is is pretty okay. Place to be. We don't always need to be aroused

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Kris Hiney: by everything, which is what we're fed. Quite often I'll get on my social media tangent here.

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Kris Hiney: but I and now I'll bring in dogs, because that's also what I do, right? So

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Kris Hiney: border collie dogs like to be in a state of arousal right, and they can be too much for them, and so trying to bring them back down to where they can function in neutral is is super important. So I don't know that we've to my knowledge, both of you guys read all the literature. Have we spent a lot of time trying to

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Kris Hiney: identify the amount of time they should be in in neutral, in horses, or what neutral really looks like.

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Camie Heleski: I. I don't think we have, you know. And we've talked about it a lot of the different research communities.

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Camie Heleski: It's like, okay, what percentage of time do we need strong indicators for positive effect? You know, how many times can a horse per week have a negative situation and have it be okay.

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Camie Heleski: We have some literature on trailer horse trailer transportation that that tells us what we already know, that young horses, during their 1st few trailering trips

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Camie Heleski: are going to have certain amounts of stress indicators.

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Camie Heleski: But it goes assuming we have good driving skills and good loading skills. It gets a little better and a little better. And you know I would suggest by the time

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Camie Heleski: your young competition horses 5 or 6 they're getting in the trailer, and they're staying neutral during most of that experience of from there to whatever venue you're going to.

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Camie Heleski: yeah. And I'm not even sure in humans, we know what percentage of the day should be neutral.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah. So I I think that was, gonna be my, my next questions. You already got me there is trying to figure out

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Kris Hiney: how much bad is okay. And I don't mean like, let's go torture them for 20 min, and it's good like. But but we want people to recognize negative. And you know the example that I would use is when you go to feed them. They do all of the behaviors right that are frustration related. But even if they have forage all the time. You still come with the sweeties, and they're going to be like, wow!

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Kris Hiney: So there's there's a lot of emotion there right? And a lot of that would be seen traditionally, right? So how do you know? Right, it's definitely arousal, but is it? I'm looking forward to it. So I'm crazy or like I'm frustrated because I don't already have it so now I'm mad like.

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Kris Hiney: and I and I've even read some papers, too, where, like, there's a lot of things that interpret some of these behaviors as negative. When

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Kris Hiney: how do you know.

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Camie Heleski: And I'll just mention something I saw on social media today that I didn't get to read yet. It was a synopsis by Justine Harrison, who is an equine behaviorist, and she was posting about an article that looked into. They're trying to set up a framework for the horses to test. If they were anticipating getting fed, if they were anticipating getting turned out.

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Camie Heleski: I think, anyway, is how they had it set up and trying to categorize some of these, and anticipation behaviors, because sometimes a horse anticipating food or turnout

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Camie Heleski: can look like they're not all that happy. And so it is. It is definitely nuanced.

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Kris Hiney: And that level is probably past, I would say a lot of horse other than you just know. Right? You know, like, okay, it's anticipation, because coming out with the food, or they know it's turnout time. So our brains put in all the context that say, this is what the horse is feeling at that time.

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Colleen Brady: But but I think that's too where we go. Need to go back and think about what our expectations are.

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Colleen Brady: you know, and and holistically looking at

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Colleen Brady: instead of taking. And again, I'm thinking of the horse that

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Colleen Brady: is stalled next door to my horse.

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Colleen Brady: I always, when I give Hugo treats. I always his name's Dibs. I always give dibs a few, and I just throw him in his bin. I don't hand feed

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Colleen Brady: he gets way more excited about it

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Colleen Brady: than Hugo does. Part of it. They're different, right? He's a thoroughbred. My horse is a warm blood. He's just.

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Colleen Brady: He doesn't get to the arousal level on anything as quickly as the thoroughbreds do, which is why he's much more suitable for me than a thoroughbred.

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Colleen Brady: But I'm going to tell you, I mean, is he aroused? Yeah, it yes, he's vocalizes. He's

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Colleen Brady: is he frustrated? If I take too long, probably. But I think in the great scope of things.

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Colleen Brady: If you look at the 5 min that this all occurs over, he's pretty satisfied with with the outcome

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Colleen Brady: as long as he gets his cookies.

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Kris Hiney: So let's let's go back to that hard question.

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Kris Hiney: how much bad is okay? Because

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Kris Hiney: and when I think about lives for horses, right? And so you guys did a lot of like

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Kris Hiney: Cami's horses retired. He gets to do whatever he wants. My horses are pretty much do whatever they want. Hugo gets turned out a lot. There's a lot of horses that aren't in that scenario, right? I mean, let's just be honest competition horses and hardcore show horses, and those are often stalled for various reasons, and often land constraints. Right can also be part of this equation.

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Kris Hiney: Riding them probably creates some amount of bad right? Because if they're learning they might be frustrated. You know there's a whole lot to unpack there. So

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Kris Hiney: how would you evaluate how much

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Kris Hiney: of uncomfortableness again, I'm trying to still stay out of the don't be horrible. Right? So never, never is horrible. Okay, but how much is

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Kris Hiney: discomfort? Stress all of that how much of that

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Kris Hiney: is acceptable? Is there an answer.

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Colleen Brady: So I'm gonna pop in quick on the housing situation.

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Colleen Brady: So I think absolutely there are

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Colleen Brady: constraints for a wide range of reasons about turnout, I mean

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Colleen Brady: for me. That was a high priority when I selected the stable where my horse was going to live.

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Colleen Brady: because I believe it's that important

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Colleen Brady: but he's gray, and we don't compete at a high level of competition, so he doesn't get sun bleached. And you know, I mean, that's a beauty. There's some disadvantages to a gray horse, but the reality is, you know, at least his color is always the same when it's clean.

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Colleen Brady: But there's other ways that we can, even if turnout's not

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Colleen Brady: realistic in a particular situation. I think you can look at other ways to provide opportunities for horses to have some horse horse interaction?

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Colleen Brady: That can help satisfy some of those needs, you know. Can they see each other? Can they smell each other?

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Colleen Brady: can you? You know, having just having something like having bars between stalls instead of solid walls that give them an opportunity to interact with the horse next door. Then, of course some people will argue. Well, then, you have a higher

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Colleen Brady: incidence of passing disease from one to the other.

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Colleen Brady: True, but

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Colleen Brady: if these are competition horses that are also going to lots of horse shows or races or things.

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Colleen Brady: Hopefully, you have an aggressive vaccination program.

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Colleen Brady: That's helping to minimize disease risk. And you have.

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Colleen Brady: you know, isolation or quarantine protocols in place for horses coming in and out from different ways. You know. So you need to kind of weigh.

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Colleen Brady: Weigh some of that, too. But I think

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Colleen Brady: if we think about how, if these horses that are largely confined, there are still ways that we can help meet some of that

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Colleen Brady: social need. They have to interact with other horse. We just might have to think about things a little differently.

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Kris Hiney: And I have seen the stall design has been altering a little bit, and there's now some more stalls. I see them more in Europe, perhaps, than here. We have a lot of barns that are already built, but they allow more of that like interaction up through like their their chest, right, so they can't actually

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Kris Hiney: get their feet next to each other, but actually allowing more physical contact. But that's relatively new, I think, at least for us, and install design.

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Camie Heleski: Yeah, it's it's been some interesting things where they are looking at expanding on the amount of contact. You know, the the Switzerland group has done some really cool research on, even with some of their warm blood breeding stallions to allow them to have more contact with one another. And it's really exciting. And they talk a lot about the protocol of how they teach, how they acclimate the horses to those sorts of opportunities.

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Camie Heleski: I I think they accept that there will be some bite marks and kick marks here and there.

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Camie Heleski: There are a decent number of studies out there that talk about, you know, risk of injury, and one of the riskiest types of setups is where horses are turned out for. Just let's say 1 HA day.

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Camie Heleski: because then they have a lot of built up energy. You get some of that rebound behavior. You know. And if you're really looking to try to create a situation of an injury. Young horses out for just a small amount of time together.

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Camie Heleski: They're they may get a play injury, but I do think there's importance, too, when when you were asking what percent can be bad

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Camie Heleski: where we don't know that automatic number? You know, you've got a 23 hour a day section where they might be in housing, or they might be in turnout, and then.

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Camie Heleski: at the most, the average horse has about an hour of concentrated effort where they're going to be directly interacting with a human. And so sometimes you have horses that are in a great situation for 23 hours a day.

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Camie Heleski: and then the trainer is pretty harsh, and does some pretty nasty things.

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Kris Hiney: And then.

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Camie Heleski: And you have other courses that are treated beautifully with lots of understanding of learning theory during their training session each day.

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Camie Heleski: But then they go back and stand in a solid walled dark

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Camie Heleski: box stall with almost no contact with other horses.

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Camie Heleski: And again I I find it really hard to put exact numbers on those things.

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Camie Heleski: But I think making an ethical argument about this or this. You know, there are certain things that are real, real, bad, and there are certain things that are only a little bad.

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Kris Hiney: So okay, what would be the answer on that one? Which would you? I'm going to make you guys pick? Would you rather be the horse that 23 h in a boring stall, and you're at least treated well for an hour, or would you rather be 23 h? Life is good, but then you get beaten for an hour. Which one are you going to pick.

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Colleen Brady: Okay, thank you for opening that door.

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Colleen Brady: because what we really need to start out isn't

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Colleen Brady: what Kris or Colleen or Cammy would pick is, what would the horse pick?

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Colleen Brady: Because I think this is a place that we get ourselves in trouble. Sometimes we think to ourselves, well, if it was me.

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Colleen Brady: this was what this is what I would choose.

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Colleen Brady: Well, the reality is, we actually have whole parts of our brains. That reason that horses don't even.

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Colleen Brady: They don't even have that part of the brain to go, because I cause I'm sitting here going. Let's see, I could probably put up with it for an hour. If I knew that the other 23 h were gonna be okay, I could suck it up for an hour, you know I mean my goodness, I took how many stats classes did I take? And I survived them all, and they were all miserable.

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Colleen Brady: But

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Colleen Brady: but that's because, as a reasoning human. I can work out in my brain that I just have to suck it up for an hour, and then I then my next 23 h are good. Well, horses

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Colleen Brady: they live in the moment, I mean, I think that's 1 of the beauties, and one of the gifts that they give us is to help us live in the moment.

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Colleen Brady: So I think we need to be really cautious about

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Colleen Brady: saying, this is what I think is best for the horse, because this is what I would choose if I were given.

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Kris Hiney: But how would we ever know? Because I guarantee you, you cannot do research to say I'm gonna torture them for an hour. And like that's not gonna pass through any committee right? Because the people.

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Colleen Brady: Torture them for an hour.

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Kris Hiney: Well, and I'll be honest. The people that do this kind of research probably don't want to torture them. In the 1st place.

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Kris Hiney: Wow!

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Camie Heleski: Right? And yeah, now, from a social license to operate standpoint.

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Camie Heleski: we should, we should not again be trying to think of what amount of bad is okay.

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Camie Heleski: We should more be thinking about what level of positive is achievable while still

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Camie Heleski: enjoying these horse human interactions. I, personally am okay with us competing horses. If it's done in welfare, friendly manners.

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Camie Heleski: It doesn't mean that every single thing is going to be

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Camie Heleski: all you know, sunshine and rainbows, every single second.

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Camie Heleski: You know there's always going to be that time that

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Camie Heleski: the horse needs to have a needle prick to get a vaccine, or the horse needs

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Camie Heleski: sedation to get its teeth done. So it doesn't have a longer term welfare impact. You know those

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Camie Heleski: when people go a little far out there. They don't necessarily want to see any negative thing happen to the horse.

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Camie Heleski: But then you've got the flip side like we were talking a little bit at the very beginning of

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Camie Heleski: an Olympic rider, deciding that, in order to quote save a horse

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Camie Heleski: from having to go to slaughter, they were going to try to use positive punishment, the whip over and over and over and over to try to get them through their stuck spot. That's not going to fly as we try to talk about social license, to operate.

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Colleen Brady: Well. And as I think we learn to, we actually know. And I think this is the challenge that we're facing right now, we actually know. That's not even the way to get the horse through the stuck spot.

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Colleen Brady: that there are much better, more ethical approaches that make a lot more sense to the horse, and are much more effective.

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Colleen Brady: but I think, and sometimes horses are almost their own worst enemy, because of how much they will

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Colleen Brady: tolerate, and then depending on the horse's personality that can even be more so. I mean, I live in a house with 2 dogs of vastly different personalities. One's a golden retriever, who, I think you could cut his leg off, and he would lick your arm and say, I love you.

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Colleen Brady: you know. But the other dog

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Colleen Brady: is a very different personality, and if you aggress to him he will aggress back

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Colleen Brady: and so I think horses tolerate so much that that that

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Colleen Brady: some parts of the culture of how to train and interact with horses

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Colleen Brady: has not been in their best.

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Kris Hiney: Interest, because they have.

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Colleen Brady: Tolerated it for thousands of years.

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Kris Hiney: Well, and I've even heard I recently heard somebody say something. So I'm going to call it a quote, because I'm going to quote them, but they said if they could choose a life they would want to be a show horse, because they would be pampered and primped and look pretty, and I was like, really, because I don't think the show horse probably would pick that life either. Isn't that a lot of people that like if they.

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Kris Hiney: you know they get a bath, and we comb their hair like this is all great and kind of ignore. Some of the other pieces of what's going on there.

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Camie Heleski: There's a bit of.

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Camie Heleski: There's been a big tendency to look for shiny hair coats and kind of the perfect body condition. Score

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Camie Heleski: beautiful feet without chips, fresh shoes on. Yeah, that's been what a lot of us kind of, either on purpose, were taught, or by

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Camie Heleski: just observing and taking it in, and if you know, in the horse's natural behaviors.

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Camie Heleski: very little of that is what would happen in a wild or feral situation.

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Kris Hiney: Maybe I have to do a trigger alert warning on what I'm going to say next. But like I almost felt like this is how you could also justify an abusive relationship. Right? Well, I'm gonna knock you around. But here, here's a pretty thing shiny to to make up for it right. I don't think that's fair. We're like, I'm gonna treat you real bad. But don't worry. You're gonna look shiny.

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Colleen Brady: But it does happen. And we know.

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Colleen Brady: as you know, and depending on culture, human culture.

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Colleen Brady: some cultures do put a tremendous amount of, and there's a lot of research that's done on humans, on how much people judge, based on physical appearance and fairly superficial

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Colleen Brady: things, which is, I think, a lot of what we're talking about here when they're

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Colleen Brady: assessing. But I do. I also think

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Colleen Brady: that we are making progress in this space of people understanding that just because

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Colleen Brady: the horse is shiny and has a shiny hair coat doesn't necessarily mean

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Colleen Brady: they're in a good state, and just by the flip side, just because maybe they're a little dirty also doesn't mean the horse isn't

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Colleen Brady: well cared for, because another welfare issue. And I've always found this kind of interesting as it

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Colleen Brady: ties into this. You know, people tend to be very, very concerned about that horse. That's a couple 100 pounds underweight.

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Colleen Brady: But you know you bring out, and I know there have been a couple papers

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Colleen Brady: published by a nutritionist actually recently about the obesity epidemic in in hand. The paper I'm thinking of right now is with hunter ponies.

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Camie Heleski: Okay.

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Colleen Brady: And the tremendous welfare, implications and health implications with these horses that are actually

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Colleen Brady: quite over conditioned. And they're shiny and they're braided, and they're primped, and

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Colleen Brady: you know. But you know there's

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Colleen Brady: there's welfare issues associated with that. Also that because they physically look shiny, I think people sometimes overlook.

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Colleen Brady: Some of those welfare concerns.

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Kris Hiney: So largely. What we're telling everybody is. There's no easy answers. It's hard.

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Camie Heleski: There should be some easy things

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Camie Heleski: again that we work to avoid, and I wish we were all the way to the place where our biggest concern was to move toward the positive, affective states and positive body indicators.

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Camie Heleski: I still think we have a lot of work to do yet in getting past the highly negative things.

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Camie Heleski: So you know, if I were to start a 4 H. Club tomorrow, I would still spend so much time

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Camie Heleski: trying to teach the youngsters

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Camie Heleski: to avoid those stressful things, those frustrating things, those aggravating things for their horse or their pony.

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Camie Heleski: And you know, hopefully, as they become more advanced. We can work on getting them to more readily recognize the positives, but I try to weigh this out pretty often, and how, you know, I only have a little bit of time to do applied research. So am I more going to worry about trying to teach people to avoid

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Camie Heleski: bad stuff, let's say, with working equids in low income countries?

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Camie Heleski: Or am I going to try really hard

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Camie Heleski: to teach the highest levels of the Show horse world to look more for the positive.

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Kris Hiney: That's a personal choice, I guess.

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Camie Heleski: When I tried everything.

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Kris Hiney: Or it leads you.

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Camie Heleski: When I, when I try to think of, where can I make the most impact? For many years

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Camie Heleski: high level show people didn't really want to hear anything I had to say.

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Camie Heleski: whereas the working equid people were actually sort of listening. Oh, a salt block is really good! Oh, enough. Water is really good.

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Camie Heleski: You know. Maybe we're moving towards a different spot. I hope we are.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah. Well, can I? Would you guys allow me to do a shameless plug at this point in time?

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Kris Hiney: Sure. So colleen and I, as well as Dr. Kathy Anderson and my former graduate student, Amber Wells. We did create a online course. It's super cool, you guys that's called RAiSE recognizing affective states in equine. And we have data both through our pilot study and our follow up larger cohort that we did significantly increase people's ability to recognize negative affect, and this was from people that were

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Kris Hiney: already rated themselves as pretty experienced. But yet we were able to get them, recognizing, perhaps, some of those more subtle things. So if anybody's interested

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Kris Hiney: in the course again, it's super cool and fun. It's not just click through a Powerpoint. It does stuff. It is videos, you get to test yourself that's available at learn extension. okstate, state. So if you just type that in and I'll actually put a link in the show notes. It's a great tool to try to again get getting more people to recognize what we're thinking about. Let's stay away from that negative.

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Colleen Brady: You know, I think I think much as

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Colleen Brady: it would be fun to think about the positive. I really do think that

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Colleen Brady: the reality is, especially if we believe that

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Colleen Brady: that neutral is an okay place to be most of the time.

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Colleen Brady: Then I think, really the key

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Colleen Brady: piece is to address, the negative, the ability to identify the negative and the ability to

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Colleen Brady: pursue alternative ways, to get where you might want to go in a competition or performance or working perspective without going into that negative state and minimizing how much time the horse spends in the negative state. And that's where

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Colleen Brady: the learning theory that Camie meant. I mean, I just think it's so critical that if you're interacting with horses and working with horses that you

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Colleen Brady: study up and learn about how about how horses learn? Because then you can make things make sense to them.

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Colleen Brady: You know, it's and a lot of it. You know, most people. I know a lot of people that I ride with, that I work with.

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Colleen Brady: They use the principles of learning theory, but if you ask them if they did, they'd say, No, this is the way I was taught. But if you listen to what they say and how they coach and the strategies that when they talk about being clear in your communication to the horse.

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Colleen Brady: you know that's 1 of the principles you know about. It all becomes about clarity.

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Colleen Brady: And so I think there are more people out there using those strategies than probably self-identify as that. But there are lots of opportunities independently through reading, through coursework.

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Colleen Brady: To learn. You know, to better understand how horses process and learn information can help us communicate with them in a way that they understand and helps keep them out of a negative state.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah. And if I would throw a plug out there, you know, I think that's great that people maybe get better at it. It can't hurt to get better at understanding learning theory. But I always say, train another species that'll teach you how to train something is if you start to try to apply real learning theory to another species. So grab your cat, grab your dog, start teaching them something. You'll learn a lot.

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Camie Heleski: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: Well, guys, I I think, unfortunately, this group would just keep talking forever. But that's gonna be fair for our listeners. But really appreciate your guys time and thoughts.

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Kris Hiney: And so, yeah, I think overall, we're going to try to avoid a lot of the negative stay out of the really bad, try to promote some good, but recognize we still have some work to do to really, truly understand what percent and how much is what we need.

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Colleen Brady: And be aware of what their basic needs are. Again, back to things like this. Horses need to have social interaction with other horses. Horses need to have

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Colleen Brady: access to forage and something to chew for both their mental health and their physical

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Colleen Brady: and their physical health, you know, and they need to have some opportunity to freely move around.

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Colleen Brady: Not just under saddle, not just directed on a lunge line.

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Kris Hiney: 100%.

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Kris Hiney: Well again, thank you guys for your time. I am going to put a link to our course. If people are interested in the show notes. So you can just click and follow sign up again. We've tested it. So it works, really appreciate everyone's time. And that has been another