October 8, 2011

The sky was blue, the air was cool and Cowboy and I enjoyed being outside. Something I've noticed is how nervous he gets coming in and out of the green barn. I've tried to work with him a lot around the doors and inside. He's warming up a little bit. He was terrified of this pile of pads, but with lots of the friendly game and driving game he warmed up to them.

I did some research and I think Cowboy gets nervous at the doors to the green barn because of his sight. Horses see very differently than people do. Their light/dark adaptation takes a lot longer than it does for humans, and their depth perception is weaker than ours is. I have no doubt that the doorways to the green barn are super scary since they probably look like a great big deep dark abyss. This understanding has helped me as I've worked with him.

Some facts I found:

Light/Dark Adaption in Horses

It takes a horse’s eye much longer than humans to adjust from light to dark and vice versa. This occurs because their pupils must change shape from narrow and horizontal, which they are in bright light, to oval or a rounded rectangle, which they are in dim light. When leading horses in or out of dim barns from or to brightly lit outdoors, be sure to pause giving the horse time to adjust. Although it takes horses longer to adjust their eyes, their adjustment level is far better than humans, allowing them to see better in both low light and bright light.

Depth Perception in Horses

Horses, since they do not have binocular vision, have very poor depth perception. When the horse is able to freely move its head it can compensate for the lack of perception. However horses being ridden are rarely given the freedom to move their heads, and because of this horses are generally unable to judge distances well. Training a horse to jump obstacles can also teach it how to “know” distances but horses will always have to rely at least partially on humans to judge where to take off from and allow them to see objects by giving them the time and the chance to look at things.

What Cowboy looks like when he gives nervous:

It's not a high quality picture because it was hard to take a picture and help him manage his nervousness.

His head is high, his eyes are wide (and you'll see the whites of his eyes), the rest of his body will be tense. He gets startled really easily and will jump.