To Pat – Or Not to Pat…
by Rai
Recent
study results lead researchers to believe it’s better to scratch a horse in
reward.
To
pat, or not to pat. That is the question we horse people have been asking
ourselves, and it’s also one that a group of British equitation scientists
recently aimed to resolve.
Their
study results lead them to believe that it seems better to scratch, not pat, to
reward a horse, said Emily Hancock, MSc, under the supervision of Sarah
Redgate, PhD, both of Nottingham Trent University in Nottingham, the United
Kingdom. Hancock presented the research at the 2014 International Society for
Equitation Science conference, held Aug. 6-9 in Bredsten, Denmark.
“Wither
scratching could potentially increase horse/human bonding and act as a more
effective reward,” Hancock said, adding that scratching is a natural behavior
among horses, whereas patting is not. Riders and handlers should be encouraged
to scratch rather than pat their horses as a reward.”
The
issue of patting versus scratching had not previously been addressed in
scientific studies, she said. In her study Hancock and her fellow researchers
observed 16 horse/rider combinations in the Grand Prix Special dressage test of
the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Overall, pats dominated any other type of
non-aid contact: Riders issued 350 pats throughout the Grand Prix competition
and only three strokes.
Of
the 16 riders, 15 patted their horses when they finished the test, and 12 of
these patted for at least a full minute. As a result, 34% of the horses
displayed visible behavioral reactions, mainly speeding up their movements when
they received the pats, Hancock said. However, it’s possible that this
acceleration was the result of the rider moving forward in the seat, she
conceded.
The
research group then investigated the effects of patting and wither-scratching
in five riding school horses as well as five rescue horses that had never been
victims of abuse or adverse handling. The riding horses were accustomed to
being handled, patted, scratched, and brushed, but the rescue horses were not.
In
the study handlers patted each horse for 30 seconds four times, with 15-second
breaks between each patting session. They also scratched the horses on the
withers four times for the same intervals. As a control, handlers just stood
quietly next to the horses for the same amount of time. The team recorded heart
rate and behavior for all three parts of the experiment.
The
researchers found that horses moved their ears around more when they were
patted. When they were scratched on the withers, they tended to put their heads
down, Hancock said. Even more remarkable, she said, was the fact that
wither-scratching seemed to prompt behaviors that weren’t seen at all in
patting or during the control phase.
“We
noted a lot of mutual grooming and especially upper lip movement during the
scratching phases, but there was just none of this at all when the horses were
being patted,” Hancock said.
Interestingly,
the riding school horses showed more positive behaviors than the rescue horses
did, perhaps because of their isolated housing situations, Hancock said.
“Obviously when these horses are individually housed, they can’t participate in
this mutual grooming,” she said. “I think they appreciated it more.”
Patting,
by contrast, resulted in “much more movement, more head-shaking, more moving
back and forwards, slightly more raised heads, and more pawing,” Hancock said.
“But we saw no pawing at all during scratching.”
A
4-year-old rescue horse, the youngest in the study, had the most extreme
reaction to patting, raising his head high and taking seven steps back, she
said.
Heart
rate, though, did not vary significantly between the groups. Although previous
research on wither-scratching alone (not compared to patting) has consistently
revealed lowered heart rates during the scratching, Hancock’s study did not
show this, she said. “But their behavior still made it clear that they enjoyed
the scratching,” she said.
Reprinted
with permission.
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