A lifetime of psych meds is an avenue for people and for some companion animals, but it’s not a good choice for a 1000lb prey animal that requires regular close handling by humans (owner, farrier, vet at the minimum) given the risk of injury to those humans.
4 Likes
I actually prefer the grinder. It’s loud, but it avoids the pushing and pulling. My horse is fine with either, so I can’t tell if she has a preference. 
1 Like
You would prefer that a psychotic 1000-lb prey animal NOT be treated to control its psychosis?!
The alternative is euthanasia, and that may be the more humane option depending on the severity of the psychosis. Again, not just the horse is in the humane equation: this unstable animal needs to be handled, at close proximity, by multiple humans, who are at high risk of injury when exposed to a psychotic animal.
1 Like
Hmmm. I say “It would be nice if there were some trainers who included “medical behaviors” in groundwork training” (bolding mine) and you say “None of the other items you mention require a behaviourist either.” Maybe the reason people don’t understand when I explain the difference between trainers and behaviorists is because they don’t read?
Explaining yet again, trainers train horses to do things, which sometimes involves fixing common behavior problems (like trailer loading). Behaviorists fix serious behavior (mental) problems. Training a horse to stand still on a block is indeed training (not addressing a behavior problem), which is why I said it would be nice if trainers prepared horses for vet visits — and while some normal things trainers teach might translate, how many trainers are training horses to tolerate having a finger stuck up their noses?
I’m beginning to think some people attack just for the sake of attacking, even if it means you have to pretend I said something I didn’t say — in this case, even if you pretend I said the exact opposite of what I actually said. If you really don’t understand, though, then again, I will suggest the technique of asking questions. If, for some reason, when I say “trainers” you think I’m talking about behaviorists, you can always ask — “Are you saying that behaviorists train medical behaviors?”
3 Likes
PS to my other post: I do know a little about how Dr. McDonnell works, and thinking about your experience after I posted before, I realized that there was probably some confusion about submitting a video, too. Rather than 24 hours of video snippets you put together, I think what Dr. McDonnell probably wanted was a video of 24 hours straight of your horse. It’s what she does with hospitalized horses, using a nanny-cam-type set-up, to give her an idea of what they’re doing over the course of a 24-hour period. A video of that sort might help identify the cause of sleep deprivation, although with sleep deprivation, I still think a conversation would be more useful. Anyway, I hope you got the problem resolved. If you’re still reading posts, I’d be interested in getting a follow-up to your story.
No. People are getting their backs up because they feel you have been insulting and arrogant.
This is on average a skilled and experienced group of horse people and if you read the various threads on solving problems with horses you would see that many people already discuss these things in nuanced terms that involve thinking widely about underlying medical issues and about modifying behavior. There’s a general consensus that much unwanted behavior has a basis in pain.
Couple that with the dumbass survey and jumping down everyone’s throats, and you come off sounding like you just discovered the ideas, and maybe horses too. Also ironically that you can’t read the room, meaning that you lack the basic abilities that would allow you to participate in behaviorist work.
You wouldn’t be the first. I have been bemused IRL to meet folks who do and promote R-plus with animals but are prickly and combative and dismissive with humans. They don’t seem to be able to generalize.
As far as psychosis in horses, if you’ve been around horses for very long, you will realize there is very little to no psychosis that’s comparable to human schizophrenia, paranoia, or manic depressive psychosis. That is, significant estrangement from reality that is not attributable to an acute physical issue like brain damage or neurological degeneration.
There are horses that hate and fear human beings, often a learned behavior. But these horses are not psychotic because they function just fine in a herd environment or in the wild. If they had significant impairment with their perception of reality, then they wouldn’t be able to navigate life with other horses either or to find food and water on the range. So we should not assume that a horse that hates and fears humans and is violently dangerous about this is psychotic. He’s not.
So there is no role for antipsychotic drugs for horses. If a horse that hates and fears humans can’t be fixed by compassionate training, then the most humane solution is a free run sanctuary (these exist for mustangs that have failed to adapt to training), the open range (not really an option in most places anymore). Or euthanasia. There is no drug for hating and fearing humans.
Typically horses that really have separated from reality because of brain or neurological damage are a huge danger to themselves and are quickly euthanized. That might be horses that can’t figure out how to walk around a pen or walk in circles or can’t find their food.
20 Likes
I believe that a 24hr stall cam video was what @Libby2563 provided to Dr.McDonnell, not “snippets” that she “put together”.
3 Likes
Horse trainers are very aware of the mental state of horses and you cannot train a horse without knowing that. Yes if you read the 10 commandments from John Chatterton. I think the 3rd one is touching all over, including muzzles, nostrils, ears, sheaths, etc.
He shows how to teach a foal and person to pick up if it needs to be taken to the vet.
Horses are taught to stand with their leg up and being tapped with a hammer before farriers come. Horses are taught to accept something in their mouth before the dentist is called. Trainers do not just teach people how to ride.
A behaviourist in my mind is useless if they are not a trainer. Horses are not like dogs. Horses do not reason. Horses do not have traffic sense. Horses learn from lack of pressure. If the behaviourist does not understand horses like we do, they are useless to us. They need more than just a piece of paper saying they are a behaviourist.
With horse people also a piece of paper does not mean much. You can have all the pieces of paper in the world, however if you can’t handle/ride the horse in front of you, we believe what the horse tells us not the piece of paper/s you hold.
7 Likes
Yes. 100%
But OP, the BIGGEST reason you’re not getting any traction here is the tone and attitude that’s coming through your posts, intentionally or not. Secondly, if you’ve been around horses in a useful capacity for any amount of time you would know that psychosis in horses pretty much doesn’t exist. That evidence of inexperience alone is giving the (generally well educated and experienced) posters on this board pause - add it to the condescending tone and frankly insulting implications and you’ve got this thread.
Everything @Scribbler said is dead on and I won’t repeat.
6 Likes
Thank you! I should add im saying all this as someone who does R plus, consulted with an equine behaviorist who was useful, and enjoys Andrew MacCleans work. So I’m not hostile to or unfamiliar with the concept
3 Likes
Correct, thank you. Even then I felt there was some “curating” involved because I had to give her background info and choose when to keep my horses in the barn for 24 hours (which I never normally do unless someone is on stall rest!).
3 Likes
I never said I wanted to be a behaviorist, so… yet another example of attacking me using something I never said. It’s also irrelevant because (however obnoxious someone might be) being obnoxious doesn’t excuse other people for making up things to use to go on the attack. If people want to attack things I’ve actually said, it’s fine, and I can decide whether or not to defend myself against whatever they disagree with, but attacking something I didn’t say is being argumentative to no purpose, and it’s happened repeatedly here. Ditto for attacking the survey. It’s not mine. I posted it for a friend. So what purpose does it serve to use it to attack me, other than being argumentative to no purpose?
I did not introduce the term “psychosis”, either — you did. You didn’t define it when you introduced it, but it IS a mental disorder, so I continued to use it as an example of something a vet behaviorist would treat. I never defined it as hating and fearing humans — you did. As far as I know, no horse has ever been truly psychotic. However, antipsychotic drugs are used for things other than psychosis, so it’s not true that “there is no role for antipsychotic drugs for horses.” (Acepromazine, for example, is an antipsychotic drug.) Horses do suffer from things like anxiety and depression, and drugs can be useful in treating such problems. These things are what vet behaviorists specialize in — just one example of the difference between a trainer and a behaviorist. Horses do have mental problems, and behaviorists can treat them. It’s not rocket science.
2 Likes
Sorry. When she said “Reflecting on my experience, I think it is difficult to consult a behaviorist remotely because the human has to do such a good job selecting and presenting the information, whether that is their own observations or in video form. I struggled with which 24 hours of video to capture because I didn’t want to introduce any weird variables or deviations from the routine…”, it made me think she was “selecting and presenting” snippets. My bad. As she points out in her response, though, if a horse isn’t normally stabled for 24 hours straight, you’re still presenting a distorted picture you have to “curate”, so asking for 24 hours of video may not be the best approach. If you can’t video a “normal” 24 hours for the horse, I think the conversation becomes even more important. At any rate, nothing is perfect, so well-intentioned people do the best they can.
Horses are prey animals, and are hard wired for reactivity. They can have many moments of startle and spook. If they are in pain or under poor management or can’t remove themselves from stressful situations then they can exhibit anxiety. We can also tranquilize horses short term for various reasons and procedures.
But I don’t think horses get anxiety disorders like people do. They don’t get anxiety disorders in the wild.
Likewise horses do not get depression in the human sense. Depression in a horse is a symptom of a physical pain or illness, or starvation, or a particularly horrible living situation.
So no, we do not use any medication to treat depression per se in horses, and we do not use ongoing medication for anxiety either. You can tranquilize a horse with Ace, but it’s not used ongoing to treat anxiety.
2 Likes
Horses get separation anxiety, which is considered an anxiety disorder. It’s a disorder because not all horses whinny and pace when their neighbors go for a ride, and it can be treated, although most people don’t. “Learned helplessness” (for example) is depression. It is caused by a situation created by humans, but it is a condition, not a symptom. There is a whole list of symptoms that help identify a depressed horse, but depression itself is not a symptom. You don’t always need drugs to treat such problems, but they may help, especially early in the treatment.
We should use ongoing medications for hyperanxious horses that need them, and some vets are doing so, but first, you have to consult a vet behaviorist. You’re right that Ace is not used as an antianxiety drug, but fluphenazine is. Prozac is more common, and there are several others that are being prescribed in various situations (usually for horses that get hyper on stall rest). Until people start going to behaviorists for these problems, though, it will continue to be true that, as a rule, we don’t use meds to treat psychological problems in horses. Too bad for the horses.
1 Like
It would be very simple to “fix” this emotional distress in horses by simply putting them in species appropriate living situations.
When you put an animal in a species-inappropriate living situation that causes emotional distress, then define that as mental illness, and start trying to medicate the behaviour, it’s a losing battle.
Yes, we can tranquilize horses for stall rest because the benefits of healing a serious injury outweigh the emotional distress of having the horse in a species inappropriate living situation. But that doesn’t mean we are medicating mental illness.
I also doubt that a behaviorist is going to be able to change hard wired instinctual behavior that is reacting against an inappropriate living situation. The first thing they are going to want to change is the situation.
7 Likes
I’d be very interested in any studies relating to horses reasoning ability if you have any to reference? This is new information for me.
Otherwise I agree very much that greater knowledge of behavior modification techniques beyond punishment and including negative reinforcement and R+ would be very beneficial in terms of horse welfare and handler safety.
The understanding of the timing and application of those techniques are not always understood or practiced effectively.There are however many horse trainers who are interested and actively consulting with Equine Behavior experts, and there should be more imo.
I’m aware of some very successful upper level trainers who take advantage of and seek out that knowledge.
I think some less successful trainers and their acolytes might find the implication that there may be something more to learn a bit threatening, and others already practice these techniques so instinctively they just call it “feel” and don’t need too much help.
For me when things go wrong an Equine Behavior expert is a valuable resource
1 Like
I read about this study some time ago.
1 Like
