In my work as a psychiatrist, specialising in mothers and babies, I spend a lot of time helping people develop their capacity for empathy. Empathy is defined as the understanding and entering into the feelings of another. It is the ability to understand what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes. That is not the same as to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. It is necessary to think about what it is like to be the other person (baby, father, or horse) going through the experience you are observing or participating in with them. Empathy is not just something that you are born with, it is a quality that can be developed.

I believe that riders and trainers of horses will benefit by developing their capacity for empathy. Of course, horses will also benefit from this. People do have an automatic tendency to put themselves, with their own capacities and experience, into the picture to try to understand another being. We are all guilty of anthropomorphising our horse. This is a big word that means we imagine animals to have the characteristics of human beings. We attribute complex feelings such as pride and guilt to horses in the absence of any evidence that they have the brain capacity to experience these things. We believe at times that our horse deliberately does things to annoy us, assuming that he has the intellectual capacity to anticipate what a human being will feel. If, for instance, he won’t go on the float we think, ‘He is deliberately trying to make me upset and late’. This assumes that he knows that we will be ‘late’ (a concept he can’t possibly understand), or that we will feel angry if he doesn’t go on the float. No, he doesn’t refuse to go on the float to annoy us. His reason won’t be about the effect on us, it will be about his own experience, for example, that the last time he went on the float it was hot and uncomfortable, or it was hard for him to balance with the float going so fast, or some other reason based on the float and its effect on him. Whereas we often believe that we can read the horse’s mind, we must be mindful that the horse most definitely cannot read our mind.

So, to develop empathy we must understand the true nature of the horse. By this I don’t mean the anthropomorphised, romantic view of the noble horse, rather the real animal, the domestic horse. Science can teach us some things about the domestic horse, although there is a lot that we don’t know. When thinking about your horse’s experience in any specific situation there are at least three broad categories to consider:

Firstly, the physical characteristics of the horse, in particular his brain capacity: what his brain is capable of processing as well as his actual sensory experience, or what he hears, sees, smells, etc., and how he learns. Here his position in the food chain is relevant and his nature as a flight animal preyed on by the carnivores.

Secondly, the individual characteristics of the horse: for example, his temperament, his own tendency to be timid or bold, whether he likes to run away, whether he is curious, whether he is sociable, whether he tends to be dominant or submissive.

Thirdly, his past experience: for example, whether in the past he has learned that the float is no big deal, as opposed to having had a big fright, whether he has already learned that people are a good source of food and scratches or that they are scary. Or whether he has learned to give in to pressure, or perhaps learned that fighting pressure profits him (he can get away).

1. THE PHYSICAL CAPACITY AND NATURE OF THE HORSE

1 a. THE BRAIN OF THE HORSE differs from our own in some very important ways. Our brains are bigger all over, and more complex. Humans are unique among the animals in having great big bulging frontal lobes. This is where all our most sophisticated functions are located. Our feelings and emotions, our morality, our reasoning capacity, our capacity for empathy are processed in our frontal lobes. The horse on the other hand has tiny, rudimentary frontal lobes that look sawn off directly behind the motor cortex (the furthest back part of the frontal lobes that controls movement).

The horse’s brain, relative to ours, has a much larger proportion of the brain in primitive parts of the brain comprising the brain stem, which is not amenable to voluntary control. Consequently the horse will react automatically much more than we do. Another huge difference is that the horse’s brain has, compared to us, a very rudimentary corpus callosum. This is a big band of white matter (the brain’s wiring) that conducts messages from one side of the brain (hemisphere) to the other. This is how our right hand knows what the left hand is doing, literally. Without this crucial piece of wiring deep in the brain, the horse isn’t able to generalise experience on one side to the other. For example, he sees a scary flapping flag on his left side as he goes past, and spooks, and then decides it is OK when he gets closer. We do a circle and he sees another scary flag on the right side and acts as if he has never seen it before, because actually that side of his brain hasn’t seen it before. We may read his mind anthropomorphically and think he is having a lend of us and be annoyed with him, but that is unfair and ignorant of us. We need to have empathy for his real limitations and make sure we show him the frightening thing from both sides. If we just punish his disobedience we are likely to encourage him to believe that the ‘second’ flag is scary because he got hit when he saw it!

Another really important implication of this is that if we teach, for instance, a flying change left to right, he won’t automatically understand what we want when we ask for the change right to left, and we need to teach this separately as in his experience it is a totally different movement. And the same holds true of anything we teach, shoulder in, leading, mounting, etc.

1 b. LEARNING happens in three broad ways. Operant conditioning uses consequences to modify a behaviour. Pressure release training is an example. Pressure is applied and when the horse does the thing we want the pressure is released. It is the release of pressure (the reward in some people’s minds) that does the training, not the pressure. Punishment is a very ineffective training strategy. Always reward the good behaviour (the behaviour that you want) if you want to change behaviour. This is true whether you are training horse, elephants, children or even husbands!

Classical conditioning is learning by association. An association is made between two stimuli. The learned behaviour follows the stimulus. The famous pioneering psychologist Pavlov trained dogs that a bell would be followed by food, so the bell was associated with the food.

Habituation is the third method and sadly this is how most horses end up learning things. They simply get used to what is wanted. Someone strong shoves them on the float, and eventually they understand, someone drags them around and eventually they learn to lead. This is very slow and difficult training, but habituation has its place, for instance we habituate the horse to the saddle and girth by gradually introducing it until he just gets used to it.

Importantly, horses do not generally learn by observing, or by reasoning, as we can do. However, a young horse will have more confidence if he follows an older horse.

1 c. SENSORY EXPERIENCE is critical to the horse. His vision is excellent for light and shade, he sees better in the twilight than we do, and sees fine movement this way, but he can’t see all colours as well as we do. He sees blue poorly. His hearing is very sensitive. His sense of touch around his mouth and lips is very sensitive. If we want him to accept a soft but positive contact with the bit we must at all times ensure we don’t hurt him with the bit and make him afraid.

1 d. HE IS A PREY ANIMAL. Most people are familiar with this idea now through the work of Monty Roberts, Pat Parelli and the other horse whisperers. Some of this knowledge is extremely salient to keep in mind when training horses. He will look up and run away when he is frightened. If you can keep his legs still you can minimise his fear, similarly if you train him to keep his head low you can help him stay calmer. The notion of giving your horse leadership in your little herd is also a useful idea.

A horse learns best when relaxed, because when he is aroused he only wants to run away and won’t pay attention. On the other hand, a dog being a hunter learns well when he is excited. His brain is wired up so that he is well equipped to perform complex tasks when he is excited. Not so your horse. If your horse is excited, try to calm him before you teach him the next task. That might mean waiting a moment while the adrenaline surge that he just experienced when you reprimanded him passes and then asking again. You will quickly escalate a problem if you do not respect the role of adrenaline in his non-cooperation. This is even more important on hot, easily aroused horses such as Arabs, Thoroughbreds and especially ex-racehorses than in colder warmbloods or quarter horses.

Of course, eventually he must learn to do as he is asked even when he is excited, but try to repeat the basic lessons many times so that his response is automatic before you try it out when he is stressed. And endeavour to keep him calm when teaching new information. This is one reason why punishing a horse is a very ineffective way to train a horse. You punish him, he has pain and instantly becomes aroused and just wants to run away, and can’t learn. I believe that an understanding of the physiology of stress (anxiety) is really helpful for horse trainers.

1 e. HE IS AN ATHLETE. We need to gradually condition his body to become strong where we need him to be strong and supple also, not expect him just to be able to do things. This is how human athletes train and so should we train our equine athletes.

2. THE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HORSE

The individual characteristics of the horse that you are training include his temperament, his conformation and any injury, etc., that he is carrying. In relating empathically to your horse, ask yourself questions such as:

Is he naturally sociable, or independent?

Is he naturally bold and curious, or is he timid? Is he naturally dominant, or is he a follower? Does he have the ability to do what is asked of him?

Could he be experiencing pain which stops him from cooperating?

And importantly, how does this inform the task you are asking of him. For example, a naturally timid horse will probably find it very hard to become a reliable eventer or polo pony, whereas timidity may help a showjumper be careful, when he has learned to be confident about the different types of fences.

3. CONSIDER HIS PAST EXPERIENCE

Is he familiar with what is being asked of him? Has he been frightened by something like this before? How can you build up his confidence? Of course, an older, experienced horse will have learned much that a younger horse will find stressful and the experience will generalise so that he accepts new things more readily. However, if his past experience has been bad he may become more timid, or even have symptoms that I liken to Post Traumatic Stress symptoms, e.g. hyper arousal, startling, sweating, rapid heart rate or breathing and other signs of anxiety when re-exposed to a previous trauma. A horse who has had a floating accident may sweat profusely when you try to load him. This is a sign of stress and needs to be handled differently from the stubborn but calm horse who has learned that he is able to refuse to cooperate.

It is really important that a young horse is gradually exposed to new situations to allow him to build up his confidence. The idea of building blocks or stepping stones applies. If he hasn’t been out before it is important to allow him plenty of time to become accustomed to a strange place, and to plan a season that starts with quiet outings before he has to cope with the atmosphere of a big show. Arrive early and perhaps show him the rings before the show starts. You will know that he is relaxing when he starts to eat. An experienced horse may come off the float, eat his hay immediately, and be relaxed when asked to go straight into the ring at a strange place. Of course when retraining ex-racehorses the past experience is really important.

In conclusion, it is interesting isn’t it, that a soft fuzzy sounding article such as empathy has led us straight to real knowledge and science. This article presents only a superficial and incomplete review of the science which could aid in the development of empathy anatomy, psychology, etc., and the reader is encouraged to further explore the topic. How can you apply this knowledge? When you strike a problem with your horse consider what his experience is at that time, and think about how this informs you how to remedy the situation. Is he afraid? Does he understand what you are asking of him? Do you need to shape his behaviour by rewarding approximations of what you want first. One of the characteristics of a true horseman is an open mind and a genuine willingness to consider and evaluate new ideas. None of us have the Holy Grail, because there is not really a best or only way to achieve the things we want to with our horses.