Truth be known, horses are not stupid, ignorant or neurotic.

They are responding to external stimuli based on the way they see, which is very different than the way humans see. Look at the world through a horse’s eyes and you would react the same way a horse does.

First and foremost, a horse sees two different images, one from each eye, at the same time. Each eye works independently and sends images to separate sides of the brain. Picture yourself in the passenger seat of a car traveling down the road at the speed of a trot. One eye sees the left side of the road passing by and the other eye sees objects on the right side. Both of these pictures are somehow in the horse’s brain at the same time…(visualizing this could make you car sick).

Simply put, horses see things that we cannot. A horse uses his natural instincts, specifically vision, hearing and smell, to protect himself and YOU, for that matter.

Once we understand how a horse sees, we’ll understand the horse’s viewpoint.

Go to http://www.e-questrians.com/ for a free PDF on "Spooking and the Equine Eye" and learn more about monocular and color vision of the horse.


Saturday, October 23, 2010

When your horse spooks . . . .

When your horse spooks, react in a calm manner. First, try to understand what he is seeing when he spooks. And second, think twice before punishing the horse, as punishing will usually accentuate the problem. Your horse's instinctive mind deduces that the scary object is the cause of his rider's punishment. He will correlate that the object brings punishment, further magnifying his refusal to go anywhere near the object which by this time has become The Enemy. And guess what, the horse's memory is second only to elephant's. Allow your horse to see the object with both eyes and at different angles and from different distances.
 
 
Posted by sanka at 11:41 AM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)