Liane Preshaw Horse Behaviour and Training

31/01/2022

After many years of hard work, I am very proud to have been accepted for pre-certification as a Clinical Animal Behaviourist 🤩

*New Pre-cert announcement*
Please join us in congratulating Liane Preshaw on achieving her Pre-cert! 🥳

“I am so pleased to have been accepted for pre-certification as a Clinical Animal Behaviourist. It has taken many years of hard work to meet the academic criteria required to become a Clinical Animal Behaviourist and I am grateful to everyone who has helped me along the way. I feel that my Post-Graduate Diploma in Clinical Animal Behaviour, MPhil in assessing horse welfare, and BSc and MSc in Equine Science have provided me with a good knowledge base from which to progress. I am already an ABTC Accredited Animal Behaviourist and plan to continue learning and developing my clinical skills as I work towards becoming an ABTC Clinical Animal Behaviourist. Having worked at The Horse Trust for nearly 15 years, I am passionate about improving the psychological health of our equine companions, and helping horse owners and caregivers have happier and safer relationships with their horses.”

30/12/2021

I am very pleased to announce that I am now an IAABC Certified Horse Behaviour Consultant and ABTC registered Accredited Animal Behaviourist!!

The ABTC is the UK's regulatory body for animal trainers and behaviourists. When choosing someone to help you with your horse's behaviour problems it is important that you pick someone whose knowledge and skills have been independently verified. Picking an ABTC registered behaviourist enables you to do just that.

01/01/2021

Happy New Year! I hope you and your horses have a happy, healthy and fun 2021 🥳

25/12/2020

Happy Christmas to you and your horses ❤️

20/10/2020

Please can you complete this survey and help us increase our understanding of equine emotions?

Do horses have emotions? Are they the same as human emotions? Are their emotions important for understanding their behaviour or how to train them? Would you like to help us find out more about what horsey people know about emotions in horses?

There is an increasing interest in understanding the sorts of emotions that animals experience, particularly because this tells us something about their welfare. However, it’s not clear if we all agree on what emotions animals experience or how they express them, whether positive ones such as feeling happy, or negative ones like feeling sad.

The Horse Trust which is funding this project and a team of researchers are interested in understanding people’s views on what kinds of emotions horses might experience and what signs people use to identify or interpret horse emotions. We have developed a short, anonymous survey to find out more about what horsey people know and believe about horse emotions. The information you provide in this survey could help improve our understanding of how horse emotions affect the human‐horse relationship, which may lead to better welfare outcomes for horses. If you are over 18 years of age and would like to participate in this study by completing this short survey, please click on the link.

There is an increasing interest in understanding the sorts of emotions that horses experience, particularly because this tells us something about their welfare. However, it's not clear if we all agree on what emotions horses experience or how they express them, whether positive ones such as feeling....

18/10/2020

The value of equine companionship

Lucas and Ranger demonstrated how much they value each other’s company while Ranger was on box rest because of a foot abscess. He has been in the field shelter as I don’t have stables, but this meant that Lucas could either choose to go in the pen next to the shelter or graze in an adjacent paddock (where he and Ranger could see each other at all times).

Despite having access to the grassy paddock, Lucas chose to spend most of his time in the pen next to Ranger. They have been able to eat together, rest together, roll together (this is a social behaviour for these two!), and even groom each other and play over the partition.

We don’t often give horses the ability to choose what they would prefer to do (and yes, I appreciate that Ranger would prefer not to be on box rest). However, giving them choice tells us a lot about what is important to them.

Horses are prey animals that would naturally live in herds, which provide both safety and companionship. Domestic horses often live in isolation or have little control over their social interactions.

Providing them with opportunities to engage in social behaviours can make them feel safe and allow them to experience positive emotional states, which is good for their mental well-being.

11/10/2020

Making box rest as horse friendly as possible

On Friday morning Ranger developed an abscess in his toe and my vet advised to box rest him until the abscess had drained and the farrier could put a shoe on to cover the hole.

Sometimes box rest is unavoidable and our job is to make it as low stress as possible. Horses on box rest are often ill or injured so may be experiencing pain/discomfort. They generally have their freedom to move around restricted, are separated from their companions, and have a change in diet/routine etc. Horses can often cope with experiencing some of these stressors but when they experience them all at the same time it can push them beyond their ability to cope and lead to them performing challenging and sometimes dangerous behaviour when on box rest.

To avoid this, I tried to make Ranger’s experience of box rest as low stress as possible. I put him in the field shelter as I don’t have stables, but this had the advantage of giving him a bit more space as it is equivalent to the size of two normal stables. He had a bedded down area and a feeding area containing multiple hay nets and hay, haylage, chaff and fibre pencils spread around the floor. This provided him with opportunities to express some normal foraging behaviour.

Lucas also had access to the pen in front of the shelter. What’s interesting is that although he had the option to graze in an adjacent paddock (where he and Ranger could see each other at all times) or be with Ranger, he chose to spend a lot of his time eating/standing next to Ranger or grooming him over the partition. I think this really helped both of them as they didn’t have to undergo the stress of social isolation.

Ranger needed to have his poultice changed every day so I tried to make this experience as positive as possible. I broke the poultice process down into smaller steps and then gave him a handful of fibre pencils as a reward for standing calmly for each step.

The result was that Ranger was calm in the stable and really good to have his poultice changed each day.

Every box rest situation and set-up is different. How can you make yours more horse friendly?

04/10/2020

Choice

What would your horse choose to do in this wet, windy weather? It is easy for us to think that our horses would rather be stabled (I know I’d rather be inside than getting soaked to the skin while poo picking!) but when we stable them for long periods (e.g. 8+ hours) we remove their choice.

I don’t have perfect facilities by any stretch but my horses can choose to graze, stand under the oak trees or stand in the field shelter. It’s quite interesting seeing what they choose to do. In the very heavy rain they tend to go and stand in the field shelter and eat hay but the moment the rain starts to get a bit lighter they usually go out to graze or stand under the oak trees. They don’t tend to spend long periods stood in the shelter without going out.

Many yards make it compulsory to stable in certain weather conditions or at certain times of the day/year. Under more natural conditions horses will spend 16-20 hours a day grazing and will roam over quite large distances. By stabling them for long periods we limit their ability to choose to move around, which can can negatively impact on their behaviour and psychological health in the short and long term.

How can you give your horse more choice?

23/07/2020

Importance of training horses to voluntarily cooperate with injections

After a period of farting and fly bucking around the field with Ranger last week I noticed that Lucas had a deep cut about an inch above his left hock. After examining him the vet advised he would need to stitch the wound, and he ended up having two intravenous injections in order to sedate him and give him a dose of antibiotics.

Thankfully the prior training I have done with him meant that he voluntarily stood still for both. Needle training can help to minimise any anxiety the horse feels about the injection process and reduce the risk of injury to you/the horse/the vet. It can also influence how the horse perceives veterinary visits in the future so that he doesn't start to become anxious the moment the vet's car pulls up because he's expecting something bad to happen.

You never know what's around the corner so if your horse gets anxious about injections, don't wait until they need one to deal with it. It's never too late to start preparing them!

09/07/2020

Teaching a horse to stand calmly at the mounting block

Lucas has just turned 4 and I am in the process of backing him. I want to help him become confident, curious about his environment, and to see new things as a positive experience rather than something to be wary of. One of the first things I did was show him the mounting block at a distance where he was aware of it but not concerned about it. I gradually brought it closer and let him explore it at liberty so that he could investigate it from every angle and realise it's not scary. Throughout the process I paired exposure to the mounting block with tasty haylage to help him associate it with a positive emotional response. This sounds really obvious but often the first time a horse sees a mounting block is when we're trying to line them up next to it and expecting them to stand perfectly still while we lean over them/jump on. This was only the first step in teaching him to stand calmly at the mounting block but it's often one that's overlooked.

08/07/2020

My youngster, Lucas, turned four on Monday and his first owner sent me a lovely video of him as a foal today ❤️