10/09/2025
It’s common to see a horse lick, chew, or yawn in a training session and hear that it means they’ve “processed” what just happened. The belief comes from a real observation: these behaviours often appear when a horse shifts from a heightened state back toward calm.
The link here is the nervous system. Licking, chewing, and yawning are behaviours connected to the parasympathetic nervous system. Sometimes they appear after the sympathetic nervous system has been activated and then deactivated, as the body returns to recovery and calm. Other times they show up when the horse is already relaxed, as part of maintaining parasympathetic activity. In both cases these behaviours are not proof of learning. They are indicators of state.
When horses are in a calmer, parasympathetic state, learning and memory formation are more likely. That is the connection people noticed. The behaviour is not the learning. The behaviour is a window into the horse’s physiology that supports learning.
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A common scenario in traditional training might look like this:
1. Pressure is applied.
2. The horse tries different options to find relief.
3. The horse finds the behaviour that makes the pressure stop.
4. The moment pressure stops, the horse experiences relief.
5. As the sympathetic response deactivates, parasympathetic activity re-engages and the body returns toward calm.
This is often the moment we see licking, chewing, yawning, or blowing out.
What is really happening in that moment is a combination of two things:
1. “If I do this, the pressure stops.”
2. “Thank goodness the pressure finally stopped.”
Quick summary: In this example, the horse licks and chews at the same time it discovers the behaviour that turns pressure off, so it is easy to misread that as understanding the lesson. The licking and chewing is not about the content of the lesson. It reflects the horse’s learning state. It tells us the nervous system is down-regulating after arousal and that what preceded the release was aversive or stressful enough to require regulation.
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Licking, chewing, and yawning don’t only appear after stress. They can also show up when a horse is already relaxed, quietly resting, dozing, or digesting. In those moments the behaviours are part of maintaining parasympathetic activity, not recovering from stress.
And this is why I always pause and ask: what came before the lick, chew, blow out, shake, or yawn? Was there a stressor the horse is coming down from, or are they already calm and connected? Because that context tells you whether you’re seeing regulation or maintenance, and that difference changes everything about how you interpret what’s happening.
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Why does this matter?
It might seem like splitting hairs. After all, if the horse looks calmer and shows licking and chewing, isn’t that what counts? But the nuance matters because how we interpret behaviour shapes how we train.
When we mistake these behaviours for signs of understanding, we stop looking for what caused them. We might unintentionally celebrate the moment a horse finally found relief instead of asking why they needed relief in the first place.
If we reward ourselves for creating just enough stress to trigger a lick and chew, we risk normalizing a cycle of tension and release. Over time this can make stress an expected part of learning, something the horse must endure to find comfort.
But learning doesn’t require distress. A horse in a regulated, safe, parasympathetic state is not only capable of learning, they’re primed for it. When we see licking and chewing for what it really is, a reflection of the nervous system, we can shift our focus toward the conditions that keep the horse regulated from the start.
When we start viewing behaviour through the lens of physiology, our priorities shift. Because when calm becomes the baseline, learning becomes effortless.
