The effects of environment, practices, and gear chosen by the horse owner on horse behavior
Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Horses (Equus caballus), members of the Equidae family, are large ungulates with an evolutionary history stretching back 55 million years. Since their domestication around 2000 B.C, modern horses have been going through changes in their immediate surroundings, as they were led to get accustomed to human-controlled environments. As the equestrian community has recently become increasingly concerned with how different environmental conditions impact horses’ behavior and interactions with humans, I set a goal to investigate that with an online questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of two sections: a background information section and a horse personality assessment. The background information section gathered information about human-chosen environmental factors (herd size, time spent in pasture, number of caretakers and riders, relationship length), frequency of practices (riding, groundwork, spending quality time), and headgear used, alongside with horse intrinsic parameters, such as age, sex and breed. In the personality questionnaire, respondents were presented with 52 different adjectives and asked to rate how well each described their horse. The questionnaire gathered 2028 respondents from France and Finland. The results of this study indicate that there is a clear association between human-made choices and horse behavior. Horse personality traits – human sociability, horse sociability, attentiveness, neuroticism – were associated by human-made choices regarding housing conditions, headgear, the number and lengths of interactions with humans, and the frequency of practices. There were also links between personality traits and horses’ sex, age and breed. Recognizing and understanding the interactions between human actions and horse behavior provide a valuable foundation for initiating conversations on responsible horse ownership and management practices.
Source: UTUPub (University of Turku)
Author: Viitanen, Alisa
Language: English
Subfield: Equine
Field: Veterinary
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7018810617