Giving your horse treats
With the holidays freshly over it is common to have received or purchased some special treats to include our animals in our celebrations. As such, it’s a good time to discuss the subject of treating our equines. I may step on a few toes in the process but please at least hear me out. Treating horses is a sensitive point for many riders and horse owners, mostly because it hits on an emotional level. Before I give my opinion and solution, let’s review what treats mean to each, the human and the horse separately.
Humans Are Predators by Nature
As predators, we are instinctively geared to see food as a special occasion. People eat mostly in meals, only two, or maybe three times per day and we feel hunger between meals. If someone walks by and gives us a candy bar we feel appreciated and cared for, it’s special. We tend to translate this to our animals. When we give treats to our animals, we feel like we are offering a special gift to the horse. We feel this on an emotional level and we envision the horse having an emotional response which is gratifying. You may have heard it said “food is love”, and many of us treat our animals this way.
Another reason people like to give treats is that it works so well with dogs. I haven’t done the research, but I think it’s safe to say that most horse owners have also had a dog or two in their lives. It’s easy to think of a horse as a large dog, but they are not. Like us, dogs are predators and geared towards occasional meals, making treats hold a similar importance to them as to us. However, even for dogs training must eventually move away from constant treats to become reliable.
Horses Are Prey Animals
Horses are prey animals and herbivores. Their digestive system is supposed to have a constant flow of forage material (grass and hay). For added nutrition to support the unnatural demands we place on them, we do feed most domestic horses grain once or twice per day in meals but that is not what horses naturally do. It could also be argued that these unnatural meals actually create anxieties around food that horses would naturally not experience. So you can layer that idea in with the rest of this information as you will.
Horses who have free choice hay/grass as nature intended do not feel significant hunger because they are munching almost constantly. They do get excited about feed time because it is a focal point of the day and again, anxiety may actually play a role in what we read as excitement. In many cases it might be the only exciting thing that happened for them that day. By contrast, predators get excited for food because of actual feelings of hunger.
Because they view food differently, the giving of treats is more of a social interaction. So, let’s look at horse social interactions regarding food. If a bucket of grain were put in the middle of the field with your horse herd, you would observe a lot of activity surrounding it immediately. Note: I do not recommend actually doing this at home because the activity can get violent and you don’t need injured horses. But that aside, you would see the closest horses rush in to get a couple mouthfuls. But as soon as the more dominant horses approach the lower-level horses will scatter quickly or risk getting driven off by the boss horse(s).
When we have a treat on our person and our horse notices and begins nosing and pushing at us for the food we laugh and give it to him. Even though the interaction was not (yet) dramatic, the horse believes he has driven us off the special food. We had it, he wanted it, he pushed and prodded, we gave up the treat. Over time the prodding from the horse usually becomes more assertive as the horse comes to expect the treat, not just hope for it. Eventually assertion becomes a demand and demands can become aggressive.
The Outcome
Horses who are treated like house pets rather than the livestock animals that they are can become dangerous. Dangerous horses often end up in bad circumstances, and sadly it’s often times not even their fault.
For example, I have seen lesson programs that have to use grazing muzzles during grooming to prevent students being bitten and I have seen kids bitten. The horse had been a barn favorite (before this undesirable behavior took hold) and was fed treats several times per day by students with no rules surrounding the treats. Sadly, the kid being bitten is never the one with the treats, it’s the kid after the one with the treats.
Even if your intention is to use treats for training, there are drawbacks. Namely that your horse will only respond when the treat is present. You may get away with not having the treat once or twice, but eventually your horse will learn to check if you actually have the food and begin evading you if you are bluffing. Basically, if you catch your horse with treats, you will only ever catch him with treats. Out of treats? – no horse today.
Anecdotally…
When someone calls me asking for help with their unruly horses, it almost always turns out they are big treaters. If a horse learns that he can dominate the food, it’s only a single step away from dominating their person as well. This is especially true of ponies. If you’ve ever handled ponies you know, it doesn’t take much encouragement to make them turn into pushy land sharks. Especially in relation to how that behavior impacts the small children often handling them.
I have seen too many horses literally ruined by freely treating and would encourage anyone to err on the side of caution. At the very least implement some simple rules to avoid permanent – yes PERMANENT behavior problems from developing. If you do not have the knowledge to keep your horse in check to begin with, you will likely not have the knowledge to attempt fixing the behavior problems that arise from spoiling your horse.
Exceptions
Confusing matters, you will see some professional horse trainers, who use treats extensively. Usually it is trainers who are dealing with trick training and liberty work. It’s important to note that they are professionals and even they have to actively un-train the pushiness that comes with treats. Most casual riders and owners are not putting the time and effort into purposefully un-training these behaviors.
My Solution at Home
I have my horses at home now and also have a young daughter who does enjoy giving treats. It is very difficult to tell your young child that he/she absolutely cannot give the horses treats. So for this stage of her life I do allow some treating on occasion – with a couple of stipulations.
Rule #1 – Treats go in buckets, not generally from our hand. We feed horses in buckets all the time, so this does not change their normal perception of the rules. This also keeps small fingers out of the way of getting bitten by accident.
Rule #2 – If we do occasionally feed a treat from our hand, the horse doesn’t get it if he is looking for it in any way. It should be so rare that the horse doesn’t even know to anticipate a treat. To give you an idea of what that means, for our five horses I may use one small bag of treats in a year.
Pretty simple rules really. My daughter is now six years old and we have had our horses at home with us for two years. She has been able to follow these rules easily and we have zero food aggression issues directed at people in my barn.
A Better Way
What we as humans are looking for when we give our animals treats is affection, cooperation and undivided attention. Affection and cooperation are positive social aspect of our relationship. Horses commonly show both with each other when they feel secure in their herd and herd leadership. Becoming part of your horse’s herd requires significant time spent with them. Building cooperation from your horse requires time spent showing him that you are his provider, protector and will make safe decisions for him. And finally undivided attention is build by time spent acting as their herd leader and doing disciplined activities.
One block builds on top of the other. There is no short cut for building all of that into your relationship. Treats won’t get you there faster or easier. Your horse wants/needs both structured and unstructured social interaction with you. That’s it. While treats can occasionally be fit in, treats should never define your social interactions your horse. Your horse is not that cheaply won.
Respect your horse enough not to take undue liberties.
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