Horses Can Plan and Strategize, New Study Shows (bbc.com) 96
Researchers from Nottingham Trent University found that horses are more intelligent than previously believed, as they quickly adapted to a treat-based game with changing rules, demonstrating strategic behavior when a penalty was introduced. The BBC reports: The study involved 20 horses, who first were rewarded with a treat for touching a piece of card with their nose. In the second stage, a "stop light" was introduced, and the rule was changed so that the reward was only given if they touched the card while the light was off. This did not alter the behaviour of the horses, as they were observed touching the card regardless of the status of the light. That is, until the rules changed for a third time.
In the final stage, researchers introduced a penalty of a 10-second timeout for touching the card while the stop light was on. The team observed a rapid adjustment to the horses' behaviour now there was a cost to getting it wrong, all of them quickly learning to play by the rules to avoid the timeout, researchers said. The researchers believe the fact the horses adapted so quickly indicates they understood the rule of the stop light the entire time, but had no reason to follow the rule when there was no consequence for getting it wrong. The study has been published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science.
In the final stage, researchers introduced a penalty of a 10-second timeout for touching the card while the stop light was on. The team observed a rapid adjustment to the horses' behaviour now there was a cost to getting it wrong, all of them quickly learning to play by the rules to avoid the timeout, researchers said. The researchers believe the fact the horses adapted so quickly indicates they understood the rule of the stop light the entire time, but had no reason to follow the rule when there was no consequence for getting it wrong. The study has been published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science.
Analytical geometry (Score:5, Funny)
Horses can plan, strategize, and do simple math, but they fail at analytical geometry.
You can't put Descartes before the horse.
Re:Analytical geometry (Score:4)
Wow, how long have you been saving THAT one up? ;)
Re:Analytical geometry (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe around 14 years: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskRe... [reddit.com]
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I've found it of use every year or two for some decades now.
And little brother asked his philosophy professor, who was laying out the path of the course on the first day, "What about DeHorse?"
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Horses can plan, strategize, and do simple math, but they fail at analytical geometry.
You can't put Descartes before the horse.
Nobody was counting a post as funny as yours.
Very Clever!
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why else would we have the well-known aphorism that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it think?
It's mostly because we can't understand their language. It turns out they can speak, but their voice is too hoarse.
I'm sorry.
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You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make them think.
I dislike horses (Score:2)
I understand that people love them, perfectly fine and understandable.
But I have seen videos of horses suddenly trying to kill their rider by jumping vertically to land on their own back.
Young women have died that way (hard part of the saddle perforating their belly).
It is the behaviour of seeming perfectly fine but suddenly attacking you/maiming you/killing you that I find abhorrent.
Which is not specific to horses of course, you find it a lot in other grass-eating animals.
Which is why I prefer to deal with
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I do invite people way more knowledgeable than me about horses to chime in.
Having ridden horses in competition, I'll respond. You're an idiot.
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Not an idiot, a person willing to get educated by more knowledgeable persons.
I wish you had explained your point.
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You have the internet FFS do it yourself.
Oh, are you still getting your Slashdot access via chiseled tablets delivered hourly by forest gnomes?
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The gnomes went on strike after the HOA removed all of the red speckely mushrooms from the yard.
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The gnomes went on strike after the HOA removed all of the red speckely mushrooms from the yard.
Oof that's a rough one; we've all been there. That's why the rest of us have been getting on slashdot via... the Internet. Someone should tell avandesande about it.
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Sorry for the late reply, my carrier pigeons haven't been feeling well.
Aukward!
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You're taking a rare behavior in horses and ignoring equivalent rare behaviors in predatory animals.
One of my mother's dogs was fine (would growl occasionally, nothing more than that) until he suddenly decided to kill a different one of her dogs, for example.
Ever seen a horse do this? [usatoday.com] Dogs kill 25000 people per year [wikipedia.org], making them the deadliest animal to humans after mosquitoes, other humans, and snakes. Horses by contrast kill about 20 people per year [cnet.com]. Now, many more people are around dogs than horses, bu
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You seem to have missed the part of your source which says
You may still be right, but the argument is unsupported.
Re:I dislike horses (Score:4, Informative)
You seem to have forgotten that in order to transmit rabies the dog has to attack you.
The fact that due to their small size they're not usually very effective at killing has nothing to do with the herbivore vs. carnivore topic.
Even without rabies, dogs attack people. A lot.
Cats do too, BTW. Arguably much more prone to attacking people than dogs. It just usually does even less damage.
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If you think cats attack a lot, you should play with a kitten.
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Or maybe watch two kittens, or cats that like each other, play.
My cats - both just over a year old now - attack me all the time. The boy cat thinks it's funny to jump up and grab my hand and pull it down. He does this without claws out, and to be fair, it IS pretty hilarious a lot of the time. Sometimes he misses or gets off kilter and scrambles to recover and the price is a few little scratches on my arm, hand, stomach, or leg. The girl isn't as playful, but sometimes if I'm petting her she'll go for a nib
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In order to transmit rabies the dog probably has to bite you. If a rabid horse bites you, it may well transmit rabies. So do dogs cause more rabies deaths than horses because dogs are more likely to have rabies or because dogs are more likely to bite people? Your source doesn't say. I repeat: you may be right, but citing sources which don't say what you think they say is not a good way of making an argument.
(Anecdotally, I've been bitten by one horse and zero dogs despite having had much more interaction wi
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The dogs we are talking about are dogs of the owners.
They are vaccinated, and even if not the likelihood they have rabies is close to zero. From where would a dog living together with its "family" get it.
A rabies dog is easy to identify, so you get the antidote.
Statistics are not all fake, hint:
a) so many people got killed by dogs: means they got killed by dogs
b) so many people got killed by rabies: means - a stupid doctor did not take into account that the person might could have infected by rabies. And: t
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"One of my mother's dogs was fine (would growl occasionally, nothing more than that) until he suddenly decided to kill a different one of her dogs, for example."
Yes, you're right. Some breeds of dogs do have a history of snapping up without warning, which is why one should always listen to the experiences of other owners of a particular breed. I tend to stay clear of those.
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THAT behavior is usually not for "particular breeds" but for particular lines within a breed. Unless, that is, they've been abused. (And even then it's often true.)
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She didn't pick the dog - it was inherited from my father's sister, who died young of breast cancer.
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Personally, I don't care for dogs or horses because I don't hunt and I own a car. The domestication of these animals has served its purpose and it
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I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Growling is one of the base sounds that dogs make, and you do not punish growling. [akc.org] And the fact that you're going to judge a dog you've never met as being "out of control" because it would occasionally growl at another dog is insane. Lastly, it was a rescue from a deceased relative, so you can keep your views to yourself.
I can tell.
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He was euthanized. But FYI, time travel doesn't exist, and growls don't mean "I plan to murder this other dog". Growls are a very common dog vocalization. Which you'd know if you weren't a dog hater.
You obviously try to eliminate sources of stress for a dog that seems stressed by something or somewhat, to the degree that it's possible. What's not normal is for a dog to outright kill another dog.
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You are perfectly right about growling.
In Isaan in my rural village my neighbour has two dogs, and a third one he does not consider his dog is sleeping in front of the gate of his property. A white Labrador mix. He gives him food and water nevertheless, but he is not allowed on the property. That Labrador is a bit mad, he often wants to attack me, but I just laugh at him, then he usually stops. The cousine of my wife lives another few houses further and has two "Thai dog". Thailand has a "standard dog type"
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A dog that "would growl occasionally" is NOT fine. No growling is acceptable for a dog-keeper that knows what she is doing. Growling shows extremely aggressive and territorial behavior that training should have eliminated. The fact that your mom's dog killed one of the other dogs does not surprise me one bit. The dog was pretty much out of control at that point.
Personally, I don't care for dogs or horses because I don't hunt and I own a car. The domestication of these animals has served its purpose and it's OK for us to abandon it. We can still resume the habit if we have to in the future.
You may not care for dogs, but you opened with a line of absolute garbage not even trying to dress itself up as informative. All dogs growl sometimes. We have two of the sweetest in existence right now. They'll walk up to strangers with heads down and tails wagging just hoping to get pet. They cuddle constantly at home. With each other or us. Or the cats. Or any other animal that happens to be around. Yet when it comes time to play, it's all growl and vicious snarling, all of which stops the second a human
Re:I dislike horses (Score:5, Informative)
(Disclaimer, used to own, and work with horses. As a rural youngster, I did farrier work along with my sister. That's trimming hooves, and doing shoeing, for clarity.)
Horses have very terrible vision, and have a very strong, and "Reactionary" fear response to sudden movements in their visual field, especially near their legs, butt, and belly.
This is why there are special rules one should follow when approaching horses, even well behaved and well broke ones.
They can, and will, fuck your shit up if you are not careful and mindful about these facts about them.
Even then, accidents happen when they get spooked, even when you do everything right. (I've been kicked, bucked off, smacked into low-hanging tree limbs, side-stepped out from under, head-butted, bitten, and even drug. Trust me, I am well aware of this.)
This does not mean the horse is "Mean", or "Vicious". It's normal and instinctual behavior.
To me, the results of this study are not at all surprising. Anyone who's actually worked with the things knows that they plot, plan, and understand cause and effect. (It's usually people who have a preconceived worldview about animals being automata rather than intelligent lifeforms, that hold contrary opinions.)
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"This does not mean the horse is "Mean", or "Vicious". It's normal and instinctual behavior."
Yes, indeed. I was only pointing out the unpredictable part of their behavior, which happens less with predators. Those will usually show, according to their species, signs of discontent before taking action.
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Yes, indeed. I was only pointing out the unpredictable part of their behavior, which happens less with predators.
It does not, not even remotely. It's just that we don't keep large predators because we generally value our lives. Very very few people keep pet bears or big cats because one tiny element of unpredictable behavior and you are completely dead. If horses were as unpredictable as cats no one would go anywhere near them for fear of death.
Only the most foolhardy have pet tigers.
Those will usually sho
Re: I dislike horses (Score:2)
It's kind of hilarious. Cats are the largest predators we regularly keep. Anything bigger than a housecat is too dangerous.
(dogs are domesticated, and so aren't predators in the traditional sense)
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True! And then every so often someone decides to do something like breed an American XL Bully and then people get killed by them.
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People generally don't have large predators around them, but will be around much larger horses and cows because they're perceived as being more docile.
Most domestic cats are tiny, and domestic dogs tend to be small to medium size at most. Predators are generally not stupid and will not try to hunt a much larger animal.
Domestic cats will hunt mice and rats, but wouldn't perceive a human as potential prey. A lion on the other hand might consider a human as prey, but usually don't consider full grown elephants
Re: I dislike horses (Score:1)
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If there are unprotected juvenile or injured elephants sure... But lions won't usually try to attack healthy adult elephants, and adult elephants don't generally care about the presence of nearby lions unless they have young to protect.
Re:I dislike horses (Score:5, Informative)
It's NOT unpredictable. Horses telegraph almost everything they are thinking.
You just dont know what you are looking at, to see the tells. They are actually very expressive animals, and even have very telling vocalizations.
What horses are not, is blindly obedient and tractable to human interests.
Ultimately, a horse is going to do what that horse wants to do. A good owner, forges a bond with their animal, and their animal WANTS to go riding, and do things with their rider.
When the human is domineering, and abusive to the animal, to try and force compliance, the horse's natural response to that is to defend itself against its rider. This is ... a practice I have never been able to understand, and probably never will understand. It takes YEARS of rehabilitation to calm a horse that has been so mistreated. Even then, the psych damage never fully goes away, and the horse will almost always have extreme paranoia and fear about people who meet certain characteristics afterward. (Male, Female, Long hair, Short hair, etc...)
I have seen such horses that simply will not tolerate male riders, due to such, for instance. Will literally try to kill said riders, even when the (new) rider is perfectly harmless and kind. Horses remember everything, and are easily traumatized. Same horses have been absolutely stellar animals for female riders. They can tell, and will insist upon, that difference.
Touching more on this, it is very important for owners and riders to understand that the horse *has a mind of its own*, and is *Not* a mindless automaton, like a car, or a 4 wheeler. It is not at all interested in doing things that will hurt it, or where it feels unsafe. The latter there, is especially important. Many people who do not understand a horse's psyche, will think its refusal to step into a 2 inch puddle is unreasonable. Again, realize that the horse's vision is absolute dogshit, horses are not good swimmers, and it has an instinctual aversion to getting into situations where it cant get back out-- like sinkholes, quagmires, and very deep water filled holes. It refuses to walk through the puddle, for important reasons. You just dont care to appreciate them. The solution, is to get off the horse, walk through the puddle, and demonstrate that it is not one of those things. THEN, lead the horse slowly through the puddle. They will be fine with THAT puddle, afterward. May even have a great time splashing and splooshing in that puddle.
If you have a good relationship with your horse, your horse will trust you, and will do all kinds of things for you it otherwise would not. But that trust is fragile, and you must always respect it for the gift it is. Your horse should be your friend, and you should never do or ask anything of your horse, that would endanger it.
It will treat going out for a ride, as a special treat, and a chance to go "play", rather than "Drudgery, oppression, abuse, and work". Sorta like a dog wanting to go for walkies.
Similar is true when they learn their feet feel better after getting good hoof care. I have had the misfortune of correcting some very TERRIBLE hoof conditions on animals I have serviced, (Shoes grown in, improper shoeing done by idiots who turned the nails the wrong direction (THERE IS A REASON FOR THEIR SHAPE, it is so they will bend and curl OUTWARD when you drive them in. If you put the nail the wrong direction, it will CURL IN, and go into the quick, hurting the horse with every step it takes afterward, because they are ignorant savages that think they will save money and know everything when they dont), simply neglected until their coffin bone deforms, et al.) and once they learn that "Hey, I am not in CONTINUAL AGONY now!", they learn that "The guy with the hoof knife and the nippers is REALLY GREAT!" Where previously, they wouldnt let people touch them (because their feet are pure pain and suffering), they afterward will let you do just about anything with them, because they have learned you make pain GO AWA
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That is the kind of informative and detailed answer I was hoping for when writing my comment.
Thank you very much.
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Same horses have been absolutely stellar animals for female riders. They can tell, and will insist upon, that difference.
Without the aid of a biologist?
They are smarter than a Supreme Court justice!
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And, remember. After riding, the proper order of things is:
1) Tend to your horse
2) Tend to your saddle
3) Tend to yourself
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The classic is the trail-worn horse being able to tell how inexperienced it's rider is and drifting over to deeper water during a river crossing so they can roll and get them out of the saddle.
Tell me that's not taking knowledge of the terrain, identifying the rider as a problem, and planning a solution. They're smarter than you think, they just seem dumb because they're big panicky prey animals.
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I'm really enjoying the fact that this topic shows up a day after I found myself in a stupefying argument [slashdot.org] with someone who tried to draw a care/use/maintenance equivalence between a car and a horse, as if a horse were just a mechanical engine with fur rather than its own separate living creature with a wide range of unpredictable behaviors and moods and tendencies.
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Which is why I prefer to deal with predators (dogs, cats, whatever)
Erm...
The main reason you prefer to deal with predators is they are largely speaking small and can't hurt you as badly. If you get a normal sized cat, sometimes it will get over enthusiastic or angry and swat/scratch/bite you and you know it's fine because it's a small animal. Big cats are quite similar behaviorally, but weighing 200kg when they do that you die.
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" If you get a normal sized cat, sometimes it will get over enthusiastic or angry and swat/scratch/bite you"
Having had cats, I was reading pretty well (dilated pupils for example) their level of excitment and knew what I was getting into if I went on with interacting with them. It was sometime part of the game.
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Indeed! You can read them (you can also read horses). Problem is one bad day with a big cat and you're dead. One bad day with a housecat and you have a sore hand.
Re:I dislike horses (Score:5, Interesting)
It is the behaviour of seeming perfectly fine but suddenly attacking you/maiming you/killing you that I find abhorrent.Which is not specific to horses of course, you find it a lot in other grass-eating animals.
I love horsies (and all animals, really) so I don't know about that. But cows will actually sneak up on you (they're not good at it for obvious reasons) and try to do you harm. I bet most people don't know that.
Pigs will attack you; it's quite frightening. Except that the moment they start to get close, they freak out and retreat as violently as they came at you. However, this is entirely understandable. Pigs are very intelligent, and they see their friends being taken away on the truck and not coming back. They know that you don't have their best interest at heart.
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Re:I dislike horses (Score:4, Interesting)
They don't have to understand any of that to know their pen mate is being taken away against his/her will. They can see who is doing it, and they understand the social/power hierarchy or at least you can affect they cannot.
Just like you can walk into a meeting with people you mostly don't know and read the room. You can usually work pretty quickly who favored your inclusion and who opposed, who is interested in hearing what you have to say and who is hostile; even if nobody voices their opinions.
Temple Grandin done a lot of work with animal behavior in husbanded/agricultural contexts specifically. Its really worth considering that although alien to us, many perhaps most of the domestic animals we interact with have quite a lot of awareness.
Which is not say that is any argument we should all become vegans if you ask me. The pig would absolutely eat you, if it could, and I doubt it would 'feel bad about it'. God gave us the garden to tend and four our use. Creation should be treated as a treasured gift. Like any gift though it is ours to use, and that use can include putting it on the dinner plate or making a pair of boots. Our responsibility though is not abuse, we should not waste, and we should ensure we minimize suffering, pain, and fear. Chiken processing is a good example, if the machinery goes wrong Chickens can end up boiled alive, we should take much more care to ensure that never happens.
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Saying pigs don't have a language "of some kind" is probably mistaken unless you use a very restricted definition of language. But they probably don't have a grammar, and without that the things you can say are rather limited.
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"But cows will actually sneak up on you (they're not good at it for obvious reasons) and try to do you harm. I bet most people don't know that."
Good to know. I've read about a shepherd who accidently fell on the ground when crossing a trail with his flock, and then immediately got hit in the back by one of the rams.
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Oh yeah. Most cows are quite docile. Some are vicious sons (well daughters really) of bitches, and they are smart as well, and remarkably fast and agile.
Most people don't realise how sodding dangerous cows can be.
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I too dislike horses - mainly because I find them to be bigger and stronger than me, and yet stupid, clumsy and prone to things I can't predict (kicking, running off, rearing, whatever).
As with all animals, there are spectrums, of course. Some horses seem very friendly and don't seem like they'd knowingly do anything to hurt a human (or another animal). They happily co-exist with other animals and people and play along when you want them to do something for you. On the other end of the spectrum are the craz
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Sounds intelligent to me... a slave rising up against their "master".
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I understand that people love them, perfectly fine and understandable. But I have seen videos of horses suddenly trying to kill their rider by jumping vertically to land on their own back. Young women have died that way (hard part of the saddle perforating their belly). It is the behaviour of seeming perfectly fine but suddenly attacking you/maiming you/killing you that I find abhorrent. Which is not specific to horses of course, you find it a lot in other grass-eating animals. Which is why I prefer to deal with predators (dogs, cats, whatever) With them, it is really apparent what they think of you, and you will be able to act accordingly. Non-predator like horses? Not so much.
I do invite people way more knowledgeable than me about horses to chime in.
It's pretty rare for a horse to just rear backwards and splat somebody. That typically comes from either outside stimulus (a snake in the path freaks them out), or the rider being a fucktard and pulling reigns so hard it makes them confused and thinking they're supposed to pull back hard. Now, it's entirely possible that in the course of humanity there have been perfectly tame, calm horses that have done this spontaneously, but I have to think, having been around more than a few myself, that those are outli
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I don't think Icelandics are aiming as high, I think they just want to replace our housepets. ;)
My experience with non-Icelandics is that most of them act like, "I am a majestic horse, a noble steed - marvel at my fine breeding!", where as Icelandics are like, "I'm a giant dog! Let's play! Let me chew on your mane. Hey, I'm going to go roll around in the grass for a while and dirty up my Tina Turner hair!"
The Stallion that pounded that Boeing engineer (Score:1)
Cyriak knows something (Score:1)
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So there is some truth to the "Horse Destroys the Universe" book.
He also told us that we're DOOMed and will be Going Down [doomwiki.org] and Overboard [doomwiki.org] - less horses, more imps, though...
A horse is a horse of course (Score:3)
Of course anyone can be an horse's ass.
I, for one, welcome our new horse overlords. (Score:2)
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All hail Trigger.
Please don't trigger people.
Happy Trails!
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All hail Trigger.
Amen. Let's eat!
AI could learn this in 1 millisecond (Score:3)
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Not only horses, I am sure (Score:2)
A horse is a horse of course of course / or is it? (Score:2)
did have an olypmic dressage trainer behind them (Score:2)
SECRETARIAT understood racing (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Horses? (Score:3)
...so can spiders, so what?
Do they live to 35 ? (Score:2)
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we've done it many times.
But it sure would be nice to elect the *front* end for a change . . .
Control? (Score:3)
No shit Shelock (Score:3)
Next on the earthshaking revelation agenda: dogs and cats think, have feelings and communicate. So do mice, pigeons and betta fish.
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Shelock -- a deadly deducer who haunts the Cirith Baker Street pass into Moriartydor.
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Exactly