Training can be done in many different ways. It is very common that athletes nowadays change their training every so often. It is very easy, for us humans, to think that there are many different ways to train and have a variety of approaches. However, can that be said the same for animals? Particularly horses?
A recent study has shown that there are 2 types of horse training and it results in different results from the different groups that were conducted in the experiment. Each group had 6 randomly chosen ponies. Group A was help in a small field and was trained in a small enclosure; the horse was free to do whatever it wanted until it showed interested in training and then the trainer would start paying attention to its behavior. If the horse started to follow the trainer, he would start to interpret physical contact. When the trainer saw that the horse was open to being saddled he would start with that, but, keeping in mind that if the horse wanted to leave it was free to do so and the whole process would have to start again. Group B used horses isolated from one another and kept in a stable. The trainer would use a halter if the horse wasn’t cooperated and was saddled without giving it the time to the new stimuli it was being introduced. The results conducted in this study show that even though Group A took more time to be trained, it was more open to unfamiliar people saddling it compared to Group B. Group A horses showed to approach people more easily and calmly.
This all comes down to how a person or an animal is approached. As seen in the study if the horse is being approached with violence it will not be comfortable around other environmental stimuli. The same thing happens when a new athlete is being introduced to a new training program. If the new training is very different to the old one and it requires the athlete to use new muscles that haven’t been used before in a very fast transition that doesn’t allow the new muscles to accumulate to the new changes, it will result in serious injuries where the athlete might never be able to use those muscles again.
Posted by Olga Egkorova
That's cool. Horses are very smart creatures. For a follow-up study, what about trying to switch between study method A and study method B with the same horse? How would the horse adjust to the change in training? Could you calm an aggressive horse with such a change in training? (Method B -> A). What about using more than a dozen horses? Why did the study use horses at all? Does that allow for some sort of translation of the results to humans? If not, what would?
ReplyDeleteThis to me seems like one of those well of course studies, where the outcome is entirely expected. When you treat someone more gently and with care, that person or animal is more open and willing to do things that are asked of them. These kinds of similar behaviors displayed by different species is really interesting and I would bet that you would see similar results in other domesticated animals.
ReplyDelete-Matt Murdoch
I agree that it is very interesting to see the similar behaviors displayed by more than one species. It would be also very interesting to have a similar experiment done with a completely different species that has very little or none resemblance in character or life style to a horse. This experiment would show if different stimuli do indeed matter on all species or only some of them.
Delete-Olga Egkorova
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ReplyDeleteI think this is really interesting. I previously knew very little about different training techniques for different animals, especially horses. I think this type of information is also incredibly important, not only due to the success it promotes in training, but also because it usually improves conditions for the animal. This result makes sense, especially as it is applied to humans because people tend to perform better when they are comfortable. I am curious if you think this would apply to other animals as well? For example, do you think dogs would respond to the different treatments similarly?
ReplyDeletePosted by Alexandra McGuire
I think that this could be applied to some animals, but not all. I think that they have to have a more of a developed brain to comprehend all the differences in training and being able to respond in certain ways that we need them to. Dogs are definitely one of the animals that these methods would apply to. They are emotionally capable to respond in many different ways and it can be seen in everyday life, where if you assault a dog it would either attack you or run away; whereas if you show it love it will snuggle and protect you.
Delete-Olga Egkorova
Fascinating comparison that you made about an athlete's inability to adapt to new training programs. Although the training that athletes perform is physical, and the training that the horses received was cognitive, there is a clear correlation between success rates and gradual acclimation. Do you think there would have been similar results if the researchers had the horses acclimate to an environment, rather than a behavior? For example, being moved to a new stable vs being groomed and saddled.
ReplyDeletePosted by "Hayley Fecko"
It is a really useful study for the people working on animal training. Trainers need to know how to avoid being attacked by angry animals. I read one article that talks about a camel killed its owner. The owner forced the camel to stay under a very high temperature for a long time. And the camel became extremely aggressive. When the owner came to the camel, it attacked its owner and killed him.
ReplyDeletePosted by "Muchen Liu"
One thing I may have found interesting was if both horses were trained in isolation, separated from one another. I think this would have been a cool study from a psychological point of view: Did isolation have an effect on whether or not a horse could adapt to certain training regimes? On the other hand, I wonder if you trained horses in competition with one another this would be a hindrance or some kind of motivation for them to adapt and train faster.
ReplyDelete-Lauren Hiller