Scentwork for Horses

Rachaël Draaisma

• Editore: CRC Press
• Anno: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000286601
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Scienze biologiche
• Categoria: Zoologia

Scentwork for Horses is the first practical guide on how to implement scentwork into the lives of domesticated horses, enhancing behaviour, welfare, and the human-animal bond. Scentwork is a new discipline in the field for horse and handler, and expert author Rachaël Draaisma arms the reader with a palette of information to enable them to put this technique into action. As well as theoretical background information on the nose of the horse and biomechanics, Draaisma discusses how scentwork improves horses' learning abilities, development, socialisation, and their bond with the handler. Readers will learn how to have their horses explore their environment, participate in scentwork games and follow a footstep track to find a missing person or food bag.

Easily accessible for anybody working with horses at any level, scentwork can be done in small areas as well as in larger spaces on various surfaces. Whether veterinarian, behaviourist, trainer, animal-assisted therapist, equine physiotherapist, osteopath, or interested horse owner, this book promises to bring both you and the horse enormous benefits, strengthening the human-animal bond.

Rachaël Draaisma has always lived with and had a passion for dogs and horses. In 2002, she decided to make it her profession. Achieving several diplomas, she started to work full time as a trainer and behavioural consultant, first with dogs, later with horses. Her best-selling book Language Signs and Calming Signals of Horses, published by CRC Press in 2017, has been translated into several languages. Another pillar of Draaisma's working life with horses revolves around equine mental stimulation and scentwork, and she has developed an extensive method to undertake scent tracking with horses, a new tool in enriching the human-equine relationship. Draaisma travels throughout Europe and the globe to provide workshops and lectures on calming signals of horses, equine mental stimulation, and scentwork.

You can purchase scent bags to aid your scentwork practice at the author's personal website: www.scentworkforhorses.com or www.calmingsignalsofhorses.com

Part 1: Exploration

1 Introducing exploration

Scents, sounds, tastes: Living in an environment designed by people for people is different for every horse. It is like a game of chance, in which everything depends on the turn of a card or a roll of the dice. He cannot choose where or how he will live. That depends on many factors, such as his heritage, suitability to various sports, height, physical appearance, character, or the wallet size of the person who buys him. Wherever the horse ends up, his day-to-day life depends greatly on his owner – that person’s choices with regard to where the horse is housed, how much time he gets to spend at pasture, whether there are other horses at pasture with him and which ones, as well as his owner’s ambitions and goals, choice of work intensity (how often, how much), and whether he has to travel or not. The point is clear: each individual horse’s life is like a puzzle that can be laid in uncountable different ways. The same is true of the stimuli with which he is confronted every day. There can be many or few, always the same ones or always different ones. There can be days with many stimuli, interspersed with days that contain few. These can be cars or mopeds driving by, leaving a gasoline scent; tractors coming up from behind while riding in the country; the mailman delivering a package; the scent of cows released in a neighbouring field; the sound of a child crying; an air conditioner that is always buzzing in the background; an escaped dog running around the pasture; planes flying overhead; back pain due to an awkward step at pasture that is unnoticed by his rider or handler; and being touched by one person or by many. To the horse, living in a human world means living in a world filled with stimuli people maintain and ignore, including some that cannot be or are not changed.

The degree to which the horse can handle the stimuli in his living environment and how he does this determines his wellbeing to a large degree. It influences his physical and mental health, his emotions and behaviour, the degree to which he can fulfil his task, and how well he learns and remembers. It has an effect on the relationships he builds and maintains with people. If a horse cannot or largely cannot handle the stimuli in his environment, the chances are good that he will end up in a negative spiral. And if something goes wrong, it is usually the horse who pays the price.

That is why, in this book, I am focused primarily on the mental development of the horse. What does it take to train him in such a way that he can handle stimuli from our human world so that he feels comfortable around them, forms positive associations and feelings, and feels good mentally and physically?

1.1 The comfort map

When you want to create a programme for your horse and his mental development, you cannot escape having to establish a baseline, seeing which stimuli your horse encounters in his life. That way, you also have a good calibration point that you can use for comparisons in the future.

STEP 1: CHOOSING A PERIOD OF TIME OR CATEGORY YOU ARE GOING TO CHART

This can be a day, an evening, a time when there are no other horses and your horse is alone, the day before and after a competition, at pasture, in the grooming area, in his stall, etc. The more time periods and categories you pick, the better you will be able to chart the stimuli your horse deals within his life. Stimuli can include sounds he hears; scents he smells; or stimuli he sees, tastes, or feels, either from his environment or from inside himself. It is clear that we cannot identify all these stimuli; unfortunately, our senses are not as acute as a horse’s. It is also hard for us to know what stimuli your horse is feeling on the inside. These can be things such as hunger, thirst, or pain before a mare goes into heat, which can translate into irritability when being touched.

STEP 2: LISTING YOUR HORSE’S BODY FEATURES AND BEHAVIOURS WITH REGARD TO THESE STIMULI

You can categorize these body features and behaviours into different colour zones; I use green, yellow, orange, and red. Green is the colour of relaxation; the horse has no problem handling the stimulus/stimuli/situation. Red, on the other hand, symbolises the other end of the spectrum in which the horse wants to flee from the stimulus/stimuli/situation or chase it away. Yellow and orange are the stages in between.

In the Appendix, I give descriptions of horses’ body features and signals in the different colour zones. There are also two communication ladders and an empty note-taking page you can use. That way, you have some tools to help you establish your horse’s zones.

Here is a comfort map for my horse, Vosje. On this map, I have written some stimuli he encounters when he is at pasture (Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1

SEPARATION ANXIETY HAS ITS OWN COMFORT MAP

When I am dealing with a horse who has separation anxiety, I create an alternative comfort map. I print out an areal picture of the location (Google Maps) where the horse is housed, and I colour-code the areas according to what the horse can handle when, for instance, he is taken away from the other horses (Figs. 1.2, 1.3).

Fig. 1.2 Patricia, Esther’s horse, is at pasture (the area with the three crosses) with other horses. When Esther comes to collect her from pasture, Patricia has trouble with this. We chart how far Patricia can be removed from the other horses. The primary stimulus we are focused on now is the distance between Patricia and the other horses. Other stimuli can be added to this, and you can chart them, too.

Fig. 1.3 By looking at Patricia’s body features and behaviours, we charted these zones. We will use this information during our exercises. She also serves as a good point of comparison. Patricia’s case is described in more detail in Chapter 4.

Fig. 1.4 This 4-year-old horse is housed at a large training stable. People are constantly moving back and forth, some leading other horses or pushing wheelbarrows. This horse’s posture indicates shutting down. You would hope and expect a 4-year-old horse to be peering around as if he were watching TV. This horse stood like this for half an hour until a rider came to finish saddling him. In case of a longer shutting down, like here, you can also be dealing with fatigue, pain, or depression. It would also be a good reason to take a good look at this horse’s life and see what could be improved.

It can also be interesting to create comfort maps for yourself and see which stimuli go in your own green, yellow, orange, and red circle to see which zones overlap with your horse’s and which do not. That way, you can use the information in your shared lives and work. If you are riding in the country with your horse and he is in his green zone, but you are in your yellow or orange zone, you can give the horse a bit more space and lean on him a little and vice versa. There will be more about this in section 9.4.

SHUTTING THINGS OUT IS NOT THE SAME AS BEING COMFORTABLE

Pay extra close attention to the horse who obeys, acquiesces to the handler or rider’s wishes, and calmly undergoes stimuli or situations. Of course, it could be that he is really able to handle these stimuli. That would be great. Sometimes, however, it happens that a horse shuts himself down for shorter or longer periods, without us humans noticing it. The moments or longer periods during which he shuts down are characterised by stillness and passivity of motion, a horizontal to mid-low or low head-neck position, and an inward gaze, possibly with half-closed eyes. There is little facial expression, in this case, and a stillness in the face (you will not see any wrinkles either). These moments of shutting down can occur within a calm movement pattern, but also within a more energetic one.

People often tell me they find it hard to recognize this shutting down. My answer: It is hard! A horse can present the same picture when he is dozing or in pain. A good tool to use here might be the questions: ‘Is this horse watching TV or not? And should that not make more sense right now?’

I like the watching TV analogy because it lets you feel and experience for yourself which elements you are looking for in your observations. When you are watching TV yourself, you are relaxed. Your gaze is turned outward, but your head and neck stay in their relaxed posture. This is different from shutting down, in which case you turn inward, as well as from a state of tension, in which your gaze is turned even more outward, but now it is no longer relaxed but t...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• About the author
• Credits
• Introduction
• Part 1: Exploration
• Part 2: Scent tracking for horses
• A1 – Organising stimuli into zones: Four zones and two ladders
• A2 – Zone worksheet
• A3 – The haystack exercise
• A4 – Checklist 1
• A5 – Checklist 2
• Bibliography
• Index