Horses and eye contact

[right_horse_at_the_right_time]

Nothing earth shattering, just a curiosity. I’ve heard various beliefs about horses and eye contact - it’s BAD, it’s GOOD, it’s A THREAT, etc.

A friend has a new horse. Brand new, less than a few weeks with her. He’s VERY sweet with a lot of personality and curiosity. My horse is the same way, tons of personality, lots of facial expression in his eyes, ears, mouth, etc.

My friend had dismounted and had a water bottle in one hand. She was standing beside and to the front of him, but looking over at us and talking. She was kind of facing him but looking at us. She took a drink from the water bottle and he watched her every move, ears pricked forward. Watched the bottle go from her side to her mouth, then watched her drink, then followed the bottle back down.

He then looked at her face, then back at the bottle, repeatedly, a few times. He had almost a “what about me?” inquisitive look on his face. “Can I have some?” He tried to get her attention.

My horse does this all the time. He watches my every move usually. Not stalking like, but just curious. He will do the same thing as her horse where he will look at something, then look at me, look me right in the eyes, then back at the thing. The thing can be scary, like a malfunctioning fan, or something he wants, like a carrot. He has different levels of insistence in his expression.

If he really wants something, like the carrot on the table, and I haven’t responded to the attempts to get my attention, he will raise his front leg, as if to paw, but he won’t actually paw or stomp, just lightly put it down and maybe a tiny scrape along the mat. If I even say his name he puts it down and stops. He doesn’t paw, and he isn’t rewarded for this behavior. But I think he is trying to communicate what he wants.

I make eye contact all the time with him, and he doesn’t avoid it. He makes eye contact with me, too, and a couple of times, I SWEAR, he has given me “that look,” when I’ve done something not smart.

I’d love to think it is a bond we have…but I’m thinking it is also just that type of horse.

My friend’s horse was CLEARLY trying to communicate with her, and he barely knows her. She’s ridden him about 3 times and hasn’t spent tons of time with him yet.

I’ve read the different theories on eye contact, and I’m not sure what I believe. I do think it varies horse to horse, but would love other opinions.

[netg]

I agree that it depends on the horse, just like with dogs. Some are being dominant, some just kind of stare, and some communicate more than others.

And some keep bowing at you in hopes you’ll give them another treat… :lol:

[right_horse_at_the_right_time]

[QUOTE=netg;7850508]
I agree that it depends on the horse, just like with dogs. Some are being dominant, some just kind of stare, and some communicate more than others.

And some keep bowing at you in hopes you’ll give them another treat… :lol:[/QUOTE]

lol yes!! That was really funny. He was desperate. Almost as funny as his beet pulp photo.

We do have some expressive horses who know what they want. Who is being trained here? Some horsie bulletin board out there, my horse is posting that he’s trained me to fetch mints but that I don’t always seem to get it, and what can he do to help me :lol:.

[californianinkansas]

[QUOTE=right horse at the right time;7850522]

[QUOTE=netg;7850508]I agree that it depends on the horse, just like with dogs. Some are being dominant, some just kind of stare, and some communicate more than others.

And some keep bowing at you in hopes you’ll give them another treat… :lol:[/QUOTE]

lol yes!! That was really funny. He was desperate. Almost as funny as his beet pulp photo.

We do have some expressive horses who know what they want. Who is being trained here? Some horsie bulletin board out there, my horse is posting that he’s trained me to fetch mints but that I don’t always seem to get it, and what can he do to help me :lol:.[/QUOTE]

This is so true!:lol:

[right_horse_at_the_right_time]

[QUOTE=californianinkansas;7850533]

[QUOTE=right horse at the right time;7850522][QUOTE=netg;7850508]I agree that it depends on the horse, just like with dogs. Some are being dominant, some just kind of stare, and some communicate more than others.

And some keep bowing at you in hopes you’ll give them another treat… :lol:[/QUOTE]

lol yes!! That was really funny. He was desperate. Almost as funny as his beet pulp photo.

We do have some expressive horses who know what they want. Who is being trained here? Some horsie bulletin board out there, my horse is posting that he’s trained me to fetch mints but that I don’t always seem to get it, and what can he do to help me :lol:.[/QUOTE]

This is so true!:lol:[/QUOTE]

I wish that were the extent of what he wishes he could teach me. In all seriousness, there seems to be a line where communication and “in charge” intersect. I have to be careful to err on the side of in charge (which I don’t do)…

so when he asks for something, and I give it to him, am I then making him the boss of me? the leader?

It’s quite the conundrum :). I want to meet his needs while still being the leader I need to be.

[HungarianHippo]

Have to say I’ve never heard about eye contact itself being bad/good/threat. Is the concern that a horse making direct eye contact is asserting itself in the hierarchy?
I see it as part of the whole suite of communication, and I’d put 95% emphasis on the other signs-- posture, tension, ears, use of personal space, etc. before worrying about eye contact. My mare is super people-oriented and makes direct eye contact with me all day long-- watches me while I work around the barnyard, looks at me whenever I’m near her head (whuffling into my face), even stands at the fenceline looking into the house. So I don’t see the direct eye contact as meaningful except to indicate she’s people-oriented. And when we were out on an adventure not too long ago (an 8mi walk away from the farm) that she was not sure of, her tension was crazy high, but the visual connection was even stronger-- she just had her eyes and ear glued to me the whole time to gain reassurance.
I consider it completely benign, absent any other signals of testing dominance.

[Hippolyta]

My mare does this when she is begging to be let out of the paddock & out for Grazing Hour. Looks right at me, walks over to gate, then looks pointedly at gate, back at me, back at gate…back at me…noses gate chain…etc.

The first time she did it I almost died laughing. It was in plain English, so why didn’t I just respond???

[clanter]

I bought a filly because she was looking at me. We had looked at a few hundred head seeking a mount for our kids. We were not looking for young horse but a proven aged horse however every time I walked by this one long yearling’s stall she was at the door watching.

We left the farm, and I turned around went back and bought her. We kept her until she died at 27.

[copper1]

When working with a new horse, I try to avoid direct eye contact until I get to know them better since a direct stare at most animals is a threat or a dominant/belligerent behavior. I will use the stare if I need to get the horse’s attention though! I also do not use eye contact when I go out to catch someone, especially a hard to catch horse. Once we know each other well, I find eye contact or lack thereof doesn’t make much difference.

[fburton]

I think “eye contact” is important only inasmuch as it is accompanied by other body language signs that the horses pick up on. I doubt they are naturally wired to use eye gaze direction information, though they may be able to learn to recognize it.

Eye contact needs both parties to know that the other is looking directly at their eye(s). Can we or other horses tell where a horse is looking in the absence of ear position cues? Horses are aware of things happening along a band in their visual field, because they have a visual streak on the retina. So they are less reliant on a retinal ‘area centralis’. They don’t need to scan the horizon for potential predators when they are grazing; they take a large swathe in simultaneously. So it is harder for us, and presumably other horses, to know where gaze is directed when the ears are not pointed in a particular direction. For that reason, I am much less sure that horses use or pick up on eye contact compared to other animals like dogs, or humans. I would need to see convincing evidence.

Yes, they may react in specific ways when we stare at them - and specifically their eye(s) - but that could simply be due to our relatively rigid/tense posture and movements.

[fburton]

Just thought of an easy experiment folks could try…

Get 2-4 people to stand next to each other and to one side of a horse (a typical orientation for driving a horse away in a roundpen) to look the horse in the eye. Do this in as relaxed and non-pressuring way as possible. Have them indicate unobtrusively to another observer when they think they have ‘established eye contact’ with the horse. (Recording the head and eye position of the horse might be a good idea, and maybe also covering the ears to remove that additional information about where attention is directed.)

If the people report eye contact at different times, this would support the assumption that eye contact (as we understand it) is being made. If more than one persons reports eye contact at the same time, then maybe the perception is false, or something strange (multiple eye contact) is going on.

[SnicklefritzG]

[QUOTE=clanter;7851217]
I bought a filly because she was looking at me. We had looked at a few hundred head seeking a mount for our kids. We were not looking for young horse but a proven aged horse however every time I walked by this one long yearling’s stall she was at the door watching.

We left the farm, and I turned around went back and bought her. We kept her until she died at 27.[/QUOTE]

awesome.

[mscapen]

A lot of stories with my mare an eye contact:

• My mare ( the princess clown or the clown princess ) lives at a barn that is about to close ( we are only 2 boarders) but have an indoor hall wich we use every night mainly on our own. There are 2 sets of lights to light up and shut as we go in and out. One in the corridor leading to the arena the other in the arena. So last week we walk out of the arena after work I do the light then we walk the little corridor I walk into the barn ( my mare is a step back ) my mare stops by the entrance I look at her and ask " are you not coming in?" She looks at my face and looks at the light swich. I turn off the light she walks in.
  ( I can be absent minded and luckily my mare is there to remind me of things like that )
• Another anecdote from a while back as I am walking her back to her stall the lead rope slips from her neck to the ground I tell her " watch out do not step on the rope" she looks at the rope and walks spreading her leg on either side of the rope. LoL
• Since I have had her ( I bought her as a 10 year old) she has had the habit of looking away on the right when I remove the halter to put on the bridle ( I guess someone has thought her this as she does with no fail every time) until about a year ago I would battle with her and pull her back. Now I turn my back to her and when she is ready she will bring her head back and touch me on the shoulder. It takes less than a minute for her to do this. Then we slip the bridle without an issue in fact of all the horses I have know I expect that if she had hands she would put it on herself.
  She is a tb and loves to work

[fburton]

Is this horse in this picture looking at the photographer or somewhere else?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Grey_horse_eye.jpg

I don’t think it’s nearly as obvious or clear as it would be with a human eye.

What about this one?

http://s1126.photobucket.com/user/cowgirl2die4/media/DSC06224.jpg.html

[Night_Flight]

I’d say that both of those horses are looking at something in the distance rather than at the photographer. The eye tends to be softer when the horse isn’t focusing on something straight ahead, I find.

I think that most horses learn not to fear direct eye contact pretty early on in their interactions with humans, and many are able to connect looking at something and then back at a person as a way of communicating.

[Foxtrot_s]

Not necessarily with all horses, but in general, I would not look a horse in the eye if I was loading him into a trailer.

If I look at the front of the horse, or in the eye, while lunging, he stops, if I look at the hocks he goes forward.

[fburton]

An interesting test would be to wear shades, do exactly the same thing (i.e. look the horse in the eye), and see if the horse responds differently.

[Hulk]

I had a farrier out once and we went through the barn doing trims. I pulled out the next horse in line who just happened to be a young stud. The farrier became all panic stricken, and started yelling at me, “don’t look at him, don’t look at him.”
It startled me because I thought what the heck is going on. Like is there something I don’t know, like I just knocked down a wasp nest or something.

So I looked around and couldn’t figure out what the deal was, and looked at the colt to see if he had something wrong I missed. The farrier started again yelling at me not to look at him. Totally confused I asked why. He said "well he is a stud and when you look at them it makes them rank and act up. It turns them nasty and then I have to be underneath them.

So I just said he is a perfect gentleman and has the same manners as the rest of my herd, but if you wish not to trim him that’s ok. Well he did it but was shaking the whole time. I didn’t know why because the colt dozed off a bit while being done. After that I never had him out again, which was just weird because he was highly recommended.

Besides this event I have never been told not to look at a horse again. I chalked it up to the guy was a total weirdo. He also made a bunch of comments on how women shouldn’t handle stallions. And I should have my husband there. Women should be in the kitchen crap.

[Ajierene]

I don’t think ‘eye contact’ in prey animals is the same as predator animals. Predators have their eyes at the front of their head. This gives them better depth perception and ability to see directly infront of them, while loosing some range of vision.

Prey animals have eyes on the side of their head. This gives them a much broader range of vision, while loosing some depth perception and not being able to see infront of them.

So, if you are on the side of a horse, his one eye is looking at you, but his other eye is looking elsewhere. It is not the same focused eye contact as a dog. Even if you are standing infront of him enough that he may see you with both eyes, he is not in the habit of focusing on something as intently as a dog would.

A dog will focus on the prey and get what one might call tunnel vision. A horse will always be looking around a bit - never know where that wily predator is. So eye contact does not communicate the same to dogs as it does to horses.

My filly was drying off after a ride yesterday and she had her head out of the stall almost the entire time. Ears pricked, looking at me - but she was just intent on what was going on and what her person was doing. Eye contact or not, she had the same focus. If I have a treat in my hand, she will have the same focus on my movements whether or not there is eye contact. Horses will focus more on just movements, dogs will take eye contact into much closer consideration.

There is actually an interesting study that showed dogs understand human nonverbals much better than any other animal - cats, chimpanzees and I believe birds - were tested against dogs. Dogs understand you pointing at something to get it, understand different arm motions and body postures. Chimpanzees pretty much did not understand at all and cats only rarely understood.

[BEARCAT]

Very interesting topic indeed.
I’ve had the privilege to work with a great Liberty trainer and one of the very first lessons is teaching the horse NOT to look at you with both eyes. The reasoning is that later, you will be asking the horse for either one eye or the other so as to control them from a distance. I watch her work many horses, and that is a tough concept for them. Some are pretty adamant they want to look with both eyes and get bothered by not being able to. I think it also teaches them a great deal of self control, and to listen to the trainer for instructions.
Here is a short video of my horse learning the basics (this wasn’t his first session so he was already no longer trying to turn his head, but you do have to manage it for a while.)
http://youtu.be/qTl9X2H8Ioc