| Records |
| Author |
Krueger, K.; Trager, L.; Farmer, K.; Byrne, R. |
| Title |
Tool Use in Horses |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2022 |
Publication |
Animals |
Abbreviated Journal  |
Animals |
| Volume |
12 |
Issue |
15 |
Pages |
1876 |
| Keywords |
crowdsourcing; horse; innovation; mule; management; tool use |
| Abstract |
Tool use has not yet been confirmed in horses, mules or donkeys. As this subject is difficult to research with conventional methods, we used a crowdsourcing approach to gather data. We contacted equid owners and carers and asked them to report and video examples of �unusual� behaviour via a dedicated website. We also searched YouTube and Facebook for videos of equids showing tool use. From 635 reports, including 1014 behaviours, we found 20 cases of tool use, 13 of which were unambiguous in that it was clear that the behaviour was not trained, caused by reduced welfare, incidental or accidental. We then assessed (a) the effect of management conditions on tool use and (b) whether the animals used tools alone, or socially, involving other equids or humans. We found that management restrictions were associated with corresponding tool use in 12 of the 13 cases (p = 0.01), e.g., equids using sticks to scrape hay within reach when feed was restricted. Furthermore, 8 of the 13 cases involved other equids or humans, such as horses using brushes to groom others. The most frequent tool use was for foraging, with seven examples, tool use for social purposes was seen in four cases, and there was just one case of tool use for escape. There was just one case of tool use for comfort, and in this instance, there were no management restrictions. Equids therefore can develop tool use, especially when management conditions are restricted, but it is a rare occurrence. |
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Animals |
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12 |
Series Issue |
15 |
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| ISSN |
2076-2615 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
6695 |
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| Author |
Krueger, K.; Heinze, J. |
| Title |
Horse sense: social status of horses (Equus caballus) affects their likelihood of copying other horses` behavior |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2008 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
11 |
Issue |
3 |
Pages |
431-439 |
| Keywords |
copying, horse, social cognition, sociality |
| Abstract |
Animals that live in stable social groups need to gather information on their own relative position in the group`s social hierarchy, either by directly threatening or challenging others, or in a less costly manner, by observing interactions among others. Such indirect inference of dominance relationships has previously been reported from primates, rats, and birds and fish. Here, we show that domestic horses, Equus caballus, are similarly capable of social cognition. Taking advantage of a specific “following behavior” that horses show towards humans in a riding arena, we investigated whether bystander horses adjust their response to an experimenter according to the observed interaction and their own dominance relationship with the horse whose reaction to the experimenter they had observed before. Horses copied the following behavior towards an experimenter after watching a dominant horse following, but did not follow after observing a subordinate horse or a horse from another social group doing so. The following behavior which horses show towards an experimenter therefore appears to be affected by the demonstrator`s behavior and social status relative to the observer. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
4324 |
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Farmer, K.; Krueger, K.; Byrne, R. |
| Title |
Visual laterality in the domestic horse (Equus caballus) interacting with humans |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2010 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
13 |
Issue |
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Pages |
229-238 |
| Keywords |
Horse – Laterality – Eye preference – Emotion – Vision |
| Abstract |
Most horses have a side on which they are easier to handle and a direction they favour when working on a circle, and recent studies have suggested a correlation between emotion and visual laterality when horses observe inanimate objects. As such lateralisation could provide important clues regarding the horse’s cognitive processes, we investigated whether horses also show laterality in association with people. We gave horses the choice of entering a chute to left or right, with and without the passive, non-interactive presence of a person unknown to them. The left eye was preferred for scanning under both conditions, but significantly more so when a person was present. Traditionally, riders handle horses only from the left, so we repeated the experiment with horses specifically trained on both sides. Again, there was a consistent preference for left eye scanning in the presence of a person, whether known to the horses or not. We also examined horses interacting with a person, using both traditionally and bilaterally trained horses. Both groups showed left eye preference for viewing the person, regardless of training and test procedure. For those horses tested under both passive and interactive conditions, the left eye was preferred significantly more during interaction. We suggest that most horses prefer to use their left eye for assessment and evaluation, and that there is an emotional aspect to the choice which may be positive or negative, depending on the circumstances. We believe these results have important practical implications and that emotional laterality should be taken into account in training methods. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
4953 |
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| Author |
Krueger, K.; Flauger, B.; Farmer, K.; Maros, K. |
| Title |
Horses (Equus caballus) use human local enhancement cues and adjust to human attention |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2011 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
14 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
187-201 |
| Keywords |
Human–horse interaction – Horse – Attention-reading – Position – Familiarity |
| Abstract |
This study evaluates the horse (Equus caballus) use of human local enhancement cues and reaction to human attention when making feeding decisions. The superior performance of dogs in observing human states of attention suggests this ability evolved with domestication. However, some species show an improved ability to read human cues through socialization and training. We observed 60 horses approach a bucket with feed in a three-way object-choice task when confronted with (a) an unfamiliar or (b) a familiar person in 4 different situations: (1) squatting behind the bucket, facing the horse (2) standing behind the bucket, facing the horse (3) standing behind the bucket in a back-turned position, gazing away from the horse and (4) standing a few meters from the bucket in a distant, back-turned position, again gazing away from the horse. Additionally, postures 1 and 2 were tested both with the person looking permanently at the horse and with the person alternating their gaze between the horse and the bucket. When the person remained behind the correct bucket, it was chosen significantly above chance. However, when the test person was turned and distant from the buckets, the horses’ performance deteriorated. In the turned person situations, the horses approached a familiar person and walked towards their focus of attention significantly more often than with an unfamiliar person. Additionally, in the squatting and standing person situations, some horses approached the person before approaching the correct bucket. This happened more with a familiar person. We therefore conclude that horses can use humans as a local enhancement cue independently of their body posture or gaze consistency when the persons remain close to the food source and that horses seem to orientate on the attention of familiar more than of unfamiliar persons. We suggest that socialization and training improve the ability of horses to read human cues. |
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Springer Berlin / Heidelberg |
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1435-9448 |
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no |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
5178 |
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| Author |
Krueger, K.; Flauger, B. |
| Title |
Olfactory recognition of individual competitors by means of faeces in horse (Equus caballus) |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2011 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
14 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
245-257 |
| Keywords |
Biomedical and Life Sciences |
| Abstract |
Living in complex social systems requires perceptual and cognitive capacities for the recognition of group membership and individual competitors. Olfaction is one means by which this can be achieved. Many animals can identify individual proteins in urine, skin secretions, or saliva by scent. Additionally, marking behaviour in several mammals and especially in horses indicates the importance of sniffing conspecifics’ faeces for olfactory recognition. To test this hypothesis, we conducted two separate experiments: Experiment 1 addressed the question of whether horses can recognise the group membership of other horses by sniffing their faeces. The horses were presented with four faecal samples: (1) their own, (2) those of other members of their own group, (3) those of unfamiliar mares, and (4) those of unfamiliar geldings. Experiment two was designed to assess whether horses can identify the group member from whom a faecal sample came. Here, we presented two groups of horses with faecal samples from their group mates in random distribution. As controls, soil heaps and sheep faecal samples were used. In experiment one, horses distinguished their own from their conspecifics’ faeces, but did not differentiate between familiarity and sex. In experiment two, the horses from both groups paid most attention to the faeces of the horses from which they received the highest amount of aggressive behaviours. We therefore suggest that horses of both sexes can distinguish individual competitors among their group mates by the smell of their faeces. |
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Springer Berlin / Heidelberg |
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1435-9448 |
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Approved |
no |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
5284 |
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Krueger, K.; Farmer, K.; Heinze, J. |
| Title |
The effects of age, rank and neophobia on social learning in horses |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2014 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
17 |
Issue |
3 |
Pages |
645-655 |
| Keywords |
Horse; Social learning; Sociality; Ecology; Social relationships |
| Abstract |
Social learning is said to meet the demands of complex environments in which individuals compete over resources and co-operate to share resources. Horses (Equus caballus) were thought to lack social learning skills because they feed on homogenously distributed resources with few reasons for conflict. However, the horse’s social environment is complex, which raises the possibility that its capacity for social transfer of feeding behaviour has been underestimated. We conducted a social learning experiment using 30 socially kept horses of different ages. Five horses, one from each group, were chosen as demonstrators, and the remaining 25 horses were designated observers. Observers from each group were allowed to watch their group demonstrator opening a feeding apparatus. We found that young, low ranking, and more exploratory horses learned by observing older members of their own group, and the older the horse, the more slowly it appeared to learn. Social learning may be an adaptive specialisation to the social environment. Older animals may avoid the potential costs of acquiring complex and potentially disadvantageous feeding behaviours from younger group members. We argue that horses show social learning in the context of their social ecology, and that research procedures must take such contexts into account. Misconceptions about the horse’s sociality may have hampered earlier studies. |
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Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
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English |
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1435-9448 |
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no |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
Serial |
5737 |
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Schuetz, A.; Farmer, K.; Krueger, K. |
| Title |
Social learning across species: horses (Equus caballus) learn from humans by observation |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2017 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
20 |
Issue |
3 |
Pages |
567-573 |
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This study examines whether horses can learn by observing humans, given that they identify individual humans and orientate on the focus of human attention. We tested 24 horses aged between 3 and 12. Twelve horses were tested on whether they would learn to open a feeding apparatus by observing a familiar person. The other 12 were controls and received exactly the same experimental procedure, but without a demonstration of how to operate the apparatus. More horses from the group with demonstration (8/12) reached the learning criterion of opening the feeder twenty times consecutively than horses from the control group (2/12), and younger horses seemed to reach the criterion more quickly. Horses not reaching the learning criteria approached the human experimenters more often than those that did. The results demonstrate that horses learn socially across species, in this case from humans. |
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1435-9456 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ Schuetz2016 |
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6028 |
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Bernauer, K.; Kollross, H.; Schuetz, A.; Farmer, K.; Krueger, K. |
| Title |
How do horses (Equus caballus) learn from observing human action? |
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Journal Article |
| Year |
2020 |
Publication |
Animal Cognition |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Cogn. |
| Volume |
23 |
Issue |
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Pages |
1-9 |
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A previous study demonstrated that horses can learn socially from observing humans, but could not draw any conclusions about the social learning mechanisms. Here we develop this by showing horses four different human action sequences as demonstrations of how to press a button to open a feed box. We tested 68 horses aged between 3 and 12 years. 63 horses passed the habituation phase and were assigned either to the group Hand Demo (N = 13) for which a kneeling person used a hand to press the button, Head Demo (N = 13) for which a kneeling person used the head, Mixed Demo (N = 12) for which a squatting person used both head and hand, Foot Demo (N = 12) in which a standing person used a foot, or No Demo (N = 13) in which horses did not receive a demonstration. 44 horses reached the learning criterion of opening the feeder twenty times consecutively, 40 of these were 75% of the Demo group horses and four horses were 31% of the No Demo group horses. Horses not reaching the learning criterion approached the human experimenters more often than those who did. Significantly more horses used their head to press the button no matter which demonstration they received. However, in the Foot Demo group four horses consistently preferred to use a hoof and two switched between hoof and head use. After the Mixed Demo the horses' actions were more diverse. The results indicate that only a few horses copy behaviours when learning socially from humans. A few may learn through observational conditioning, as some appeared to adapt to demonstrated actions in the course of reaching the learning criterion. Most horses learn socially through enhancement, using humans to learn where, and which aspect of a mechanism has to be manipulated, and by applying individual trial and error learning to reach their goal. |
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1435-9456 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ Bernauer2019 |
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6590 |
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Schneider, G.; Krueger, K. |
| Title |
Third-party interventions keep social partners from exchanging affiliative interactions with others |
Type |
Journal Article |
| Year |
2012 |
Publication |
Animal Behaviour |
Abbreviated Journal |
Anim. Behav. |
| Volume |
83 |
Issue |
2 |
Pages |
377-387 |
| Keywords |
Equus caballus; horse; rank; social bond; social network; third-party intervention |
| Abstract |
Third-party interventions are defined as the interruption of dyadic interactions by third animals through direct physical contact, interposing or threats. Previous studies focused on the analysis of interventions against agonistic encounters. However, there have been no evaluations of interventions against affiliative behaviours, particularly in relation to the intervening animal�s social relationships and its social and spatial position. Horses, Equus caballus, are an interesting model species, as interventions against affiliative interactions occur more frequently than against agonistic interactions. In this study, 64 feral horses displayed 67 interventions in affiliative interactions and eight interventions in agonistic interactions within the observation period. We analysed the interventions in affiliative encounters, and found that it was mainly higher-ranking females that intervened in the affiliative interactions of group mates in the stable horse harems. The intervening animals took an active part in affiliative and agonistic encounters within the group, but did not occupy particular social roles or spatial positions. They intervened in affiliative interactions in which group mates with which they had social bonds interacted with other members of the group. They targeted the nonbonded animal and approached the one with which they were socially bonded. We suggest some species use third-party interventions in affiliative interactions to prevent competition for preferred social interaction partners from escalating into more costly agonistic encounters. |
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0003-3472 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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5492 |
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Krueger, K. |
| Title |
Social Ecology of Horses |
Type |
Book Chapter |
| Year |
2008 |
Publication |
Ecology of Social Evolution |
Abbreviated Journal |
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Issue |
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Pages |
195-206 |
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| Abstract |
Horses (Equidae ) are believed to clearly demonstrate the links between ecology and social organization. Their social cognitive abilities enable them to succeed in many different environments, including those provided for them by humans, or the ones domestic horses encounter when escaping from their human care takers. Living in groups takes different shapes in equids. Their aggregation and group cohesion can be explained by Hamilton“s selfish herd theory. However, when an individual joins and to which group it joins appears to be an active individual decision depending on predation pressure, intra group harassment and resource availability. The latest research concerning the social knowledge horses display in eavesdropping experiments affirms the need for an extension of simple herd concepts in horses for a cognitive component. Horses obviously realize the social composition of their group and determine their own position in it. The horses exceedingly flexible social behavior demands for explanations about the cognitive mechanisms, which allow them to make individual decisions. ”Ecology conditions like those that favour the evolution of open behavioural programs sometimes also favour the evolution of the beginnings of consciousness, by favouring conscious choice. Or in other words, consciousness originates with the choice that are left open by open behavioural programs." Popper (1977) |
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Springer Verlag |
Place of Publication |
Heidelberg |
Editor |
j. Korb and J. Heinze |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4387 |
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