WATER
a
experience
multisensory
Naturally, horses love to play with water.
Everyone has seen domestic horses standing in the rain,
and getting wet, pawing at the surface of a body of water,
rolling in puddles, or even swimming. Nevertheless,
one of the simplest, and most common situations that
can present difficulties is to give a horse a shower with
a hose. Being showered can be a pleasant situation for
the horse, especially in hot weather, or after working
out. As it is true for anything in horsemanship, even a
simple task can become dangerous, and create behavioral
problems, if we do not consider how the horse
perceives a situation.
IIn terms of sensory perception, the horse can feel the water
TRAINING & Showing
positive, because it has served their purpose at the time.
Unfortunately, when the horse does something out of fear,
he has been pushed beyond his confidence, and this
needs to be seriously considered in the relationship between
man and horse.
Going back to water…normally, during the operation
of showering a horse, the water comes out of a hose, a
source of water that may not be familiar for the horse. The
water stream is directed at the horse, with the intention to
wash his coat, and the horse is hand-held with halter and
rope, or tied. The situation can be dangerous, if the horse
has no ability to move, the surrounding area is slippery, and
he finds the experience too intense for him. In such situation
it is important to minimize the risks, making sure that the
horse cooperates with us, without resistance. Horses learn
from every experience, and a bad initial one can create
problems that will persist.
The pictures in this article were taken during one of our
clinics, hosted by Bruno Dorigo at Nidodelfalcone, in Italy.
We tackled the topic of showering a horse. The work was
done in an arena by the participants, and with horses not
contained. All of the horses had the opportunity to avoid
the water, but instead they chose to take the shower.
Every sensory perception that the horse experiences when
struck by water from a hose can instinctively lead him to
distance from it. This is even more likely to happen if the
horse has never seen a water hose.
Going in detail about the sensory perception:
- The sight of the jet of water directed to his body drives a
horse to escape from the stream.
- The sound of the stream of water stimulates the horse to
moving in a position where he can see what produces the
sound that attracted his attention.
- The jet impact produces a pressure that can push the
horse to move away from it.
- Taste, and smell are not generally the senses a horse uses
in the first approach to something unknown, because they
try to stay far from it. When the horse chooses to use taste
and smell voluntarily, he will stand still, and approach to
touch the water with his muzzle, and even try to drink it.
with sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, just like we do.
The water can provide different sensory information depending
upon the forms in which it is presented. Examples
of how the water can be experienced by a horse are the
rain, a simple puddle, a moving body of water, the ocean,
a lake or, more commonly, the trough that we give to the
horse in the space where we house him. The form of water
that a domestic horse “knows” best is often the container
where he drinks, or the rain, both situations where the horse
can have the chance, and enough time to experience the
water by himself, with freedom of movement, and choice
in his actions.
Experience enables individuals to make memories on
which to build the choices for future behavior, and it is essential
in the relationship between man and horse. Along
with the memory of the common experience, we must
keep in consideration the experience that the horse can
have, and that’s unknown to us, along with the component
of the emotions that always accompany individuals, and
color situations. To act as leaders, individuals should have
the ability to set an example to follow for others, at the time
of the behavioral choice. In horsemanship, it is allowing the
horse to cognitively learn directly through his senses about
a situation, instead of always being under the influence of
conditioning. Forcing the horse to do a certain action by
using fear can achieve a quick result that some consider
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