09/17/2025
A super interesting read!
DO HORSES NOTICE HOW WE TREAT EACH OTHER?
What if horses are paying attention not just to what we ask of them, but to how we treat each other? A recent study suggests they do — and that what they observe could change how they behave.
Researchers from Germany and Scotland tested whether horses, after watching people interacting, would change their feeding choices.
Study details:
• The experiment involved 17 horses, ranging from 4 to 28 years old, across 5 private yards
• Horses observed a human demonstration: a person taking carrot pieces from one bucket while another human gave clear approval (body language + voice), and doing the same from another bucket but receiving disapproval
• After watching this six times, horses were allowed to choose between the buckets — though previously they had no preference and had eaten from both.
What the researchers found:
• 12 out of 17 horses changed their preference after observing the human-to-human approval interaction. They were more likely to pick from the bucket associated with approval
• Horses kept in social housing (open stabling or paddocks with others) showed this adaptation more strongly than those in more isolated housing.
Why it matters:
• Horses aren’t just responding to their direct training—they notice how we interact with others and use those cues, even if the humans involved aren’t interacting with them. What humans do matters.
Take-home messages:
• Pay attention to how people behave around your horse—not just how they behave with the horse. The horse is learning from what people do
• Horses kept socially do better at these sorts of observational tasks. Isolation doesn’t just affect their mood — it seems to limit what they can learn
• When training or managing horses, think about the environment: who’s around, what behaviour the horse is witnessing, and how interactions outside of training may still contribute to the horse’s learning experiences.
Do you think your horse picks up on how you interact with others — not just with them?
Study: Krueger et al (2025). Learning from eavesdropping on human-human encounters changes feeding location choice in horses (Equus Caballus).
