MEASURING DISCOMFORT

By learning a horse’s body language and knowing what signs to pay attention to, you can learn what the underlying causes and conditions are behind horse behaviors. This could be the means to end mild to severe suffering, prolong longevity and promote an overall quality of life for your horse.

Catherine Torcivia, VMD, and Sue McDonnell, Ph.D., Certified AAB, co-created the Equine Discomfort Ethogram that was published In the journal Animals in February 2021. Within the first week of posting, this scientific yet very reader-friendly tool was downloaded over 8,000 times.

The inventory of discomfort-related behaviors observed has been compiled over 35 years of behavior research and clinical consulting services at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine’s equine hospital. It includes evaluations of thousands of hours of video recordings of hospitalized patients and many hundreds of normal healthy horses.

Each of the 73 ethogram behavior entries is named, defined and accompanied by a line drawing illustration with links to online video-recorded examples where one or more horses are exhibiting each behavior.

The objective of the ethogram is to describe behavior to owners and improve understanding, giving clarity to typical natural actions and abnormal behaviors. With this insight, horse owners, along with their veterinarian and equine behaviorist if needed, can address issues in mental and physical health as they maneuver around the necessary changes needed to support and treat their horse.

To download the complete behavior ethogram, visit www.mdpi.com/20762615/11/2/580.

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