SEEKING OWNERS OF EQUINE ESCAPE ARTISTS
who worked with behaviorist Paul McGreevy, PhD, MRCVS, on the study. “Activation of the nervous tissues, including the brain, is associated with increased blood supply, and so, in essence, the eye gives off heat when the nervous system is challenged.”
After each trial, the bridles were removed, and filming continued as measurements were taken.
Analysis of the data showed that heart rates and eye temperatures increased during the NAUN trials, when the nosebands were the tightest. These findings, Fenner says, indicate that the horses were stressed while wearing the tightened nosebands.
Analysis of the videos showed similar trends. Horses licked and swallowed significantly less during the HCAUN and NAUN trials and performed these behaviors, which are associated with relaxation, more frequently after the nosebands were removed.
In addition, the horses undergoing the two tightest noseband treatments chewed significantly less during the treatment period and significantly more during the recovery period. Fenner says that this indicates that there is a “post-inhibitory rebound effect,” during which horses attempt to A group of researchers in Europe would like to know more and, if possible, see him in action. The equine behavior team at the Nuertingen-Geislingen University in Germany, along with researchers at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, are asking owners of equine escape artists to fill out a questionnaire and submit a video if possible. The information will be used in an ongoing study of “innovative behavior” and problem solving in horses with the goal of determining how these abilities relate to intelligence. Go to http://innovative-behaviour.org/en and click on the “questionnaires” tab to learn how to participate. Is your horse an equine Houdini who easily opens latches and gates? lower their stress by indulging in behaviors that were prevented by the crank noseband.
“The deprivation of these behaviors is especially important to the horses as illustrated by accompanying stress response,” says Fenner. “The combination of this accompanying stress response and the rapid boom in the rate of these behaviors after the 10 minutes of deprivation (the so-called post-inhibitory rebound) are especially important to animal welfare scientists. The stress response is clearly linked to the inhibition of these oral behaviors, but we cannot unpick whether it comes from the pressure [of the noseband] or the deprivation or both.”
These findings, says Fenner, raise questions about a practice commonly seen at horse shows. “On ethical grounds,” the paper concludes, “the use of relentless pressure to eliminate oral behaviors in pursuit of a competitive advantage may be difficult to justify.”
Reference: “The effect of noseband tightening on horses’ behavior, eye temperature and cardiac responses,” PLOS One, May 2016