The Cognitive Horse

Cognitive learning is a natural (inner) ability of horses, which is acknowledged, preserved and developed with great attention in the zooanthropologic approach towards the horse-human relationship. Cognitive activities are a need for a healthy way of living for horses, just like social activities are.

The cognitive/zooanthropological approach to horse learning and training includes:

• considering the horse as sentient being;
• considering horse behaviour as a result of specific mental representations;
• considering horse learning topics as dialogical sharing experiences and not as behaviouristic mechanicistic stimulus/respons events;
• considering horse learning as a building process of mental maps, linked to improved environmental richness and social context experiences;
• considering with much attention and respect the social aspects of the horse’s nature;
• working on social learning aspect as first and principal element about equine social cognition;
• considering with maximum attention the internal cognitive resources of the horse;
• considering and preserving the inner motivation and spontaneous behaviour of the horse.

The cognitive/zooanthropologic approach is part of a cultural development and evolution, leaving behind the following assumptions on which until now conventional training methods are based:

• horse performance, focused on the performance range that the horse can or cannot do;
• behaviourism and operant conditioning with the one-way trasmission of instructions towards the horse;
• the horse as only one to adapt in the horse-human relationship;
• considering behaviour as result of automatism, resulting from S-R chain reactions;
• working on stimuli standardization and with that on poor learning experiences for the horse;
• excluding the abilities of the horse to build (latent) learning experience himself.

If you have any questions, please contact us: thelearninghorse@gmail.com