Lauren Fraser Equine Behaviourist

31/05/2026

HOW THE INTERNET IS CHANGING AND WHAT THAT MEANS FOR HORSE OWNERS

For fear of sounding like a Boomer (sorry, Boomers, I'm Gen X), back in the day, around when this pic was taken, how I advertised my business was very different. I paid for magazine ads. I handed out pamphlets at vet clinics. I had booths at equine trade shows. I gave workshops, public demos, and presentations.

Things have shifted since then. Up until recently, in addition to word of mouth, I relied heavily on having a great website and SEO (search engine optimization) plus a smattering of social media posts, to help people find me online.

But the online world is evolving (devolving?) rapidly, and I'm honestly not sure how horse owners will be able to find good information and help anymore. I don't know about you, but my social media feeds are now full of AI generated slop, including that of business pages directed at unsuspecting horse owners.

Perhaps even more concerning, it seems that the days of Googling for help with your horse's behaviour problem are numbered. See, Google started off as a 'conduit' between a person searching, and the information that they sought. For example, if you searched 'horse behaviour help in my area' you would be shown relevant websites that might fit the bill. From there, a person could do their due diligence, and vet any prospective trainer. But the search engine giant recently changed how the search bar works. Instead of being the conduit between searcher and information, Google has now positioned itself as THE information source. If you type a search into the search bar, Google directly answers the question, heavily prioritizing its own AI summaries versus sending a searcher to traditional, organic websites. It's worth noting too that these AI generated summaries are a result of having scraped the content of websites, like mine, in order to try and provide the searcher with an answer that doesn't have them leave Google at all.

Small business owners like me are among those paying the price for this, for sure. I'm already watching this play out on my own site, with traffic from searches having dropped sharply since the change. But this doesn't just affect me or this industry. It affects any business or service provider whose customers used to find them through an online search. And it affects you too.

These AI summaries are stitched together from a range of unvetted sources, with no one checking whether the advice is harmful or helpful. When such slop is confidently presented as a solution, an owner may indeed go out and try addressing their horse's issue in ways that not only fail to resolve the problem, but which can make matters worse, or even get the owner, or horse, badly injured.

While things change in the horse world, they also stay very much the same. Ten or twenty years ago, I cautioned people to be wary of the promise of 'fast fixes' for behaviour problems, and trainers with no qualifications or relevant experience. Horse owners still need to contend with that, but also with this new AI-driven threat to their relationship with their horses.

So, what can you do if you need help with your horse? My advice from years past is still pretty relevant: seek out qualified, experienced professionals, and be wary of advice given freely online by a person, or a thing, that doesn't have all the needed information about you and your horse in order to offer you truly good advice.

I don't know what the online future holds for me as a small business owner. But if you need my help or would like to stay connected with me, don't rely on an algorithm to bring us together, come straight to the source: sign up for my newsletter or bookmark my site.

PS - There's a workaround in the comments, if you want to see actual, relevant websites in your searchers.

15/05/2026

Girthiness is a common issue in the horse world. So much so, there used to be a product designed specifically to ‘correct’ the behaviour: it allowed the user to spray a bitter tasting spray in the horse’s mouth when they went to bite. 👀

But the primary cause of this behaviour is pain or discomfort. My latest article for My New Horse talks about this problem, and how to best address it.

Learn the most common reasons horses react to girthing and get essential do’s and don’ts for safely and effectively managing a girthy horse.

14/05/2026

ARE YOU HIRING A HORIZONTAL BROWSER OR A VERTICAL LEARNER TO HELP YOUR HORSE?

When your horse has a behaviour problem, it's natural to go online to seek help. At the risk of sounding like I have typed this from my rocking chair…when I started working with horses, social media was in its infancy, and it wasn't where professionals like me advertised. But times have changed. Online searches and social media are where people turn now when they need help.

This is both a blessing, and a curse for horse owners. The blessing is, that qualified professionals who offer remote consultations can promote their services to a wider audience. The curse is, to find that professional, owners need to wade through an enormous amount of content, much of which is increasingly AI-generated 'slop', shown to them by an algorithm they don't control.

To complicate matters, research has shown that how we use and consume digital media has caused profound changes in our brains. For example, our ability to remember things and understand what we read declines with intense digital media usage. We have also become 'horizontal browsers' of content, consuming wide, fast, and shallow levels of information, which doesn't lead to a solid understanding on a given topic.

But this doesn't just impact horse owners who are looking for help. It also greatly affects the professionals pitching their services. Content creators have also become horizontal browsers, and even with a shallow depth of understanding about horse behaviour and problems they can easily create posts or videos that make it appear they have a 'vertical learning' level of deep understanding about the subject. Pair that with a beautifully shot video, a persuasive AI-generated script, and a large number of followers, and it's easy for a horse owner to believe this might be the person best suited to help them and their horse.

I feel for horse owners today. It is becoming more difficult to wade through online content, and find posts that genuinely reflect the knowledge and background of the person posting. As a professional, when I see a post that seems to explain a complex topic neatly, or promises fast, or permanent results, I know to dig a little deeper. It often reveals that the person themselves has a horizontal browser level of knowledge on a topic, and that they likely used AI to generate their content.

As a horse owner, this means you need to employ a 'vertical learning' level of background research before hiring a professional or buying an online course to address your horse's problem. Any professional you hire should have direct experience working with horses with behaviour problems, ideally with your horse's problem as well, and should do so using low-stress methods. They should have an evidence-based education about horse behaviour and the causes of behaviour problems. They should be able to explain common causes of problems (e.g. pain, fear, stress, confusion, frustration, unmet needs, genetics, prior learning), and how they will determine which one, or more, are at the root of your individual horse's issue. They should show a strong interest in your horse's medical history, daily management, and what has been tried so far to address the issue. They should also be willing to collaborate with your veterinarian, and other qualified professionals to help your horse.

I would strongly recommend avoiding anyone who offers a fast timeline, or guaranteed results, or has a lack of experience and education. Another red flag would be working in one professional capacity, but posting as an expert on a topic relevant to another field. You likely wouldn't take advice about your car's brakes from a reiki master, and the same goes for when your horse has a behaviour problem. Finally, watch videos of them working with horses, and look for signs of fear, anxiety, and stress. Triggering these things is not recommended by truly qualified equine behaviour professionals, for many reasons I have discussed here before.

When your horse has a behaviour problem, it's crucial for you both that you get the right help. This means finding a qualified professional to address the issue. Look for someone with a vertical learning level of depth in horse behaviour problems, to help you both avoid being sold behaviour snake oil in today's increasingly shady online marketplace.

PS – The negative impacts on our brains from intense digital media consumption are reversible! One quick fix that can build into a sustainable habit is turning off our phones when with our horses. If doing this for a few hours feels impossible to start, start smaller. A recent paper discussing digital media usage noted that 95% of people aged 16 to 24 years old own a smartphone, and on average they check it every 12 minutes. So, why not start with 13 minutes? Just like with our horses, breaking new skills down into small achievable steps, is the best way to learn. If they could, your horse would likely thank you for this new, attentional shift too.

04/05/2026

SHOULD YOU PUNISH AN AGGRESSIVE HORSE?

From pinning ears or snaking their head as threats, to acts that makes physical contact, such as biting, striking, or kicking, aggressive behaviours aren't something any horse person wants to see. Besides the obvious risk of injury, when a horse behaves aggressively it also causes people to experience feelings of fear, embarrassment, or maybe even anger.

Advice from friends, social media, or a coach or trainer is usually of the 'fight fire with fire' variety: show them who is boss; get after them; make them move their feet; don't let them disrespect you! In the moment, these sorts of actions can even feel like the right response, not just because it might temporarily stop the horse and keep us safe. Logically, we might also think, 'Well, this is how a horse would respond to aggression from another, too. What's the harm?' While human safety is critical in these moments, we are not horses, and horses know this. When a herd mate responds in kind with aggression, it carries a same-species level of communication we humans will never, ever be able to achieve. While we absolutely can build meaningful relationships with horses, we don't share the millions of years of evolutionary adaptation that shaped their bodies, brains, instincts, and social language. Without that shared framework (and as predators interacting with a prey species), we shouldn't be surprised that aggressive behaviour we intend as communication likely lands very differently than we had hoped.

Aggressive behaviour is defined as forceful behaviour meant to control the actions of another. Responding to a horse's behaviour with our own aggression (e.g., correcting or punishing the horse) can indeed sometimes make the horse temporarily stop, which is one of the reasons why it is so quickly recommended. But this approach can and often does backfire. While in some situations the aggressive behaviour might be shut down, the underlying reason why the horse is behaving like this isn't being addressed. Additionally, this approach often just makes aggression worse. For example, the horse who nipped only when being girthed, now lunges and bites when someone tries to catch them in their stall. The horse who kicked out on the lunge line when asked to canter, comes in off the circle and attacks the trainer. The horse who lifted their leg in a low-level threat towards the farrier now can't even have her hind legs handled at all. Suppressing aggression through punishment can even create horses who give no warning at all, and go from 0-100 in terms of aggressive responses.

Pain, fear, confusion, unmet needs, prior learning, and frustration are some of the reasons why horses may behave aggressively. If horses feel that other options, like fleeing, aren't available to them and they can’t otherwise end a situation that causes them pain, fear, or stress, they may then behave aggressively. Resolving aggression effectively therefore deserves a three-pronged approach: address any existing pain, stress, and the horse's underlying emotional state; build the owner's skill at reading their horse's behaviour, so they can better spot early signs of fear, anxiety, and stress, and respond appropriately; if needed, teach the horse how to behave differently in that same situation. As a pleasant side effect, this is also a powerful way to build a strong and healthy relationship with your horse.

This approach isn't a quick fix, and when implemented correctly it shouldn't make for entertaining social media views. That's because, done well, it doesn't trigger feelings of stress or fear in the horse, so the horse doesn't have big reactions, behave dangerously, or try to escape the training session. But it absolutely can work. When we take the time to get to the bottom of why a horse is behaving aggressively, and address all the underlying causes, horses don’t need to 'shout' in order to be heard.

27/04/2026

WHY RESTRAINT MAKES NEEDLE-SHY HORSES WORSE

If you've been around horses for more than a minute, you've probably seen a horse who is afraid of injections. When the veterinarian approaches with a syringe in hand, the horse, who is otherwise perfectly manageable, explodes. They throw their head high, barge over the handler, or maybe even rear or strike. So, someone grabs a stud chain, another person suggests backing them into a corner, or maybe a twitch comes out. With more restraint, the veterinary team might get 'lucky', and the injection might get done this time. But it is highly likely that the next time that horse needs an injection, they will behave much worse.

While using more restraint is a common approach to working with the needle-shy horse, no matter how well-intentioned, it can make a horse's needle-shyness more entrenched with every single experience. This is because all animals are hardwired to remember stressful experiences. Horses can remember even a single negative experience for a very long time. It's what kept their ancestors alive for millennia.

Restraining a horse that is trying to escape makes perfect sense from the human perspective, but it communicates something very different to the horse. The horse concludes that they are indeed trapped and the situation is dangerous. The brain and body respond accordingly. Their adrenaline continues to surge, their heart rate climbs, and blood is diverted away from the organs to their muscles to aid in fleeing or fighting this threat. The horse is now in a state of full 'fight or flight' response. Additionally, the emotions triggered by being in this state get filed away in their memory, attached to everything else present in that moment besides the needle: the veterinarian, the location in the barn, the rustling of the syringe wrapper, the feeling of the jugular groove being pressed, and so on.

While extra restraint may be required in emergency situations where receiving a medication can make the difference between life and death, its use shouldn't be common practice when giving horses injections. Additionally, for horses who have developed strong fears of injections, the use of restraint to achieve an injection goal almost always makes things worse.

Serious fears about injections can be overcome in horses, using proven techniques such as systematic desensitization and counterconditioning. These powerful behaviour-change techniques re-teach the horse's nervous system that injections are not a threat. It doesn't do this by just suppressing behaviours caused by fear. But rather, when it's done well, it genuinely rewires the horse's brain and how it tells the horse to respond to injections. Where injections used to predict feeling fear and pain for your horse, they can now predict feeling calm and receiving pleasurable consequences for wanted behaviour, such as treats.

This process involves:

• Starting well 'below threshold': working at a level where the horse can stay calm and learn
• Building in tiny increments: progressing only when relaxation is genuine
• Using positive associations: pairing needle-related stimuli with things the horse genuinely values, like feelings of safety or treats
• Giving the horse agency: allowing the horse to communicate how they feel, rather than shutting them down, building trust rather than eroding it

This approach isn't a quick fix, and when implemented correctly it shouldn't make for entertaining social media views. That's because, done well, it doesn't trigger feelings of stress or fear in the horse. The horse doesn't have big reactions, behave dangerously, or try to escape the training session. But it is reliable. Horses who go through a proper desensitization program for needle-shyness don't just begrudgingly tolerate injections; they can become genuinely untroubled by them.

If your horse struggles with injections, the good news is that with the right approach, the issue can often be overcome.

20/04/2026

FOOD AGGRESSION IN HORSES

While pinning ears, threatening to bite, or swinging the hindquarters towards other horses (or even people) may be common at feeding time or around food, it's not normal, healthy horse behaviour.

Horses haven't evolved to routinely fight to gain access to food or retain control of it, and when it happens, it's a symptom worth investigating. There can be several causes for this behaviour, and if you see your horse behaving aggressively around food, it's worth getting to the 'why'.

In the latest article for My New Horse, I break down why horses show food aggression and what you can do to address it.

Read the full article in the comments 👇, and if this sounds like your horse, my online behaviour consultation services may be able to help.

04/04/2026

When training horses to perform new, wanted behaviours - even something simple like calm, polite, grazing in hand - if we cleverly factor in ‘distractions’ as part of our training, we can help them be even better at that skill. Distractions should gradually start to be added in AFTER the horse can easily perform the behaviour in quiet, calm environments first. If they can’t? Then they will likely struggle to perform that behaviour well if distractions enter the picture. This can be a frequent cause of ‘bad’ behaviour in horses, when really it’s just a lack of appropriate training that included distractions. Thanks to pony Pete for the comedy today.

30/03/2026

IS YOUR HORSE HERD BOUND? IT MIGHT NOT BE WHY YOU THINK

When horses behave in ways that people call herd bound, they are not behaving like this because they are poorly trained or badly behaved. They are not doing it because they disrespect the person, and they are not testing anyone's leadership. They are behaving this way because they are genuinely stressed or frightened, and their brain is doing exactly what millions of years of evolution shaped it to do: trigger them to try and reunite with others, by whatever means necessary

In this post, I break down what separation distress in horses actually is, why the most common training advice often makes things worse, and what a behaviour-informed approach to tackle the problem looks like instead.

I hope it helps. Link in the comments.

27/03/2026

Horses need to lie down flat to fully sleep. When they can’t or won’t, for various reasons, they can quickly become sleep deprived. Sometimes the only way that owners know this is happening is when they see wounds like this. Getting to the bottom of why a horse won’t lay down is critical, so that changes can be made to help the horse feel comfortable enough to lie down and sleep.

20/05/2025

OUR MORAL & PROFESSIONAL OBLIGATION TO NOT WORSEN HORSE BEHAVIOUR

I’m frequently the ‘last resort’ for horses with behaviour problems. When I see a new client, they’ve often been to several other equine professionals, including trainers, without success.

In most cases, the horse’s behaviour has also worsened after these interventions. The horse who pulled their leg away from the farrier now rears and can’t be touched. The horse anxious about loading now rips the lead out of the owner’s hands and runs away when led towards the trailer. The horse who bolted on the lunge line now comes off the circle and attacks the handler. The horse who wouldn’t stand still at the mounting block now explodes and bucks hard.

The reason these problems worsened is that techniques were used to try and suppress the behaviour: the horse who pulled their leg away from the farrier was aggressively backed up every time they did so; the horse anxious about loading was hit with a whip every time they balked; the horse who bolted on the lunge had a chain put over their nose, and they were je**ed when they bolted; the horse who wouldn’t stand still was worked hard when they fidgeted and allowed to ‘rest’ next to the mounting block while the person tried to mount again. The horses all learned that trying to escape the source of things that caused them fear or pain wasn’t effective, so they had to try harder. They reared. They ripped the leadrope out of hands. They attacked, or exploded.

In every instance, this worsened behaviour made it more dangerous for others who followed to handle the horse – whether that was the horse’s owner, or the next professional hired to try and address the problem. This is because suppressed behaviour isn’t changed behaviour. You can make an unwanted behaviour appear to ‘stop’ by making the consequences for performing the behaviour much worse for the horse. But, you won’t have addressed why the behaviour was happening. You won’t have eased pain, or removed fear. In the same way you can make a beach ball temporarily ‘disappear’ by pushing it forcefully underwater, if you don’t address the reason why the horse's behaviour is happening, it will once again pop up – but with more intensity.

Our industry (horse training) is unregulated, which I have mixed feelings about. But one of the clear downsides of a lack of regulation is that anyone can hang out their shingle, without knowing about things like the effect of behaviour suppression, making it more dangerous for the next professional. The actions we take as trainers don’t just impact the horse in front of us, they also impact people. If we know that we can make horses safer for others to handle in the future, by choosing appropriate training techniques, don’t we morally have this obligation?

It’s certainly food for thought.