College of Pet Animal Studies

Equine Studies Level Three

This course will be of interest to those wishing to increase their knowledge of the horse.

Module One Genetics and Diversity:

What role the genes play in creating what a horse will look like. Family equade: the horses wild relatives, Asses and Zebras, their breeds, differences, how they live, survive and their behaviour. Modern horse diversity: how the breeds of today relate to the first four primitive types. The origin and behaviour of Cold blood and hot blood horses, the origin and behaviour of ponies.

Module Two: How a horse learns:

The experiments of Pavlov, learning through conditioning, habituation, perceptual learning, positive and negative reinforcement. What the horse sees: how the horse perceives its surroundings, focus, distance and depth perception, its blind spots. The difference between its sight and a predator's sight, behaviour that results from the way the horse sees. Being misunderstood by the rider, spooking, how they perceive going through water, over ditches and jumps. Hidden senses: Pheromones, and the hormones, and how they play a very important part in shaping a horses behaviour, and sexual urge.

Module Three: Emotional behaviour:

Anxiety, stress, aggression, fear, fear induced aggression, separation anxiety, boredom, frustration, ill health, hyper active, sexual emotions. How behaviour is the affected by these emotions. The defence system: flight zones and personal space, fight or flight, how a horse would be attacked in the wild, the targets attacked. Biting, kicking, rearing, leg strikes, charging, how this all relates to behaviour and training problems. Domestic herd behaviour: how a domestic herd differs from a wild herd. Herd size, pecking order, socialisation, instinctive behaviour, sleeping, eating, playing, buddying up, the role of a gelding, mare and foal. Introducing a new horse. Territories, how they recognise and mark them, the horses homing sense how it always knows where home is.

Module Four: Communicataion by sound:

How the vocal system works, why they need to be vocal. Vocal sounds and what each means. Signal communication: a dictionary of what each movement is saying, the ears, the nose, the tail, the neck, the head and the legs. Discreet communication through pooping peeing and pheromones. The complete language of the horse: what the horse is saying when we put all the signals vocals, body posture together. Foal language, stallion language, mare language. Fighting language, friendship language.

Module Five: Humans and Horses

How they perceive us, the predator/prey aspect. The importance of trust between horse and owner. Respecting a horse's space, why they spook, rear buck, bite or kick when we do certain things. Adaptation to our environment: How the horse has had to adapt to our world. The behaviour differences of city and country horses. Training: how they view us training them, being asked to do things that are against their instinct and nature, reading and misreading our signals, how they learn through us, aversion or avoidance, positive and negative reinforcement, learning when training is over. Behaviour that is inadvertently taught (suspicious behaviour). Natural Training: communicating in the language of the horse. Gaining trust and respect, respecting each other's space, the art of horse whispering and why it works without the need for oppressive training. How horses have adapted into our environment, being contained, transported and trained. How they have retained most of their ancestral instincts.

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Telephone: 01746 764332