Monique Meijer schreef op woensdag 17 maart 2010, 13:06:
> Ik heb inmiddels drie keer "serieus" met Lily gewerkt: GEEN
> schrikreactie, maar "wat leuk we gaan iets doen, jij vraagt me iets en ik
> probeer er achter te komen wat je van me wilt".
Leuk om te lezen!
> Rechtsom is een ander verhaal. Bij de
> eerste poging begreep ze prima wat ik wilde, kon er echter niet aan
> voldoen: hoofd omhoog en over de schouder naar binnen vallen, ze zette
> zichzelf gewoon vast. Eerst gewoon rechtdoor en hoofd laag, dat lukte
> binnen een paar stappen toen de spanning weg was. Boven de schouder
> voorzichtig aangeraakt en ja hoor, hoofd weer omhoog, ditmaal ook nog met
> een angstig gesnuif. Arm meisje, wat hebben ze met je gedaan....
Over linkeroog / rechteroog las ik recent een interessant verhaal.
bron:
http://horsesforlife.com/"Left Eye Preference - the Curious Imbalance of the Horse’s Mind. When a horse refuses to lunge, it’s usually the case that it won’t lunge to the right. When it spooks, it’s more likely to jump to the right and we all know about that scary plastic bag that is completely harmless when you ride past it in one direction, but it turns into a lion when you’re going the other way. Now researchers are starting to get to the bottom of the horse’s lop-sided view of the world.
We go to great lengths to achieve bodily balance and straightness in our horses, but most handling practices are decidedly one sided. We usually lead from the left, tack up from the left, and mount and dismount on the left, and rarely stop to consider why we do this, whether it’s a good idea, or, indeed, whose idea it was in the first place.
Recent research has shown that horses are actually hard wired to prefer having people on the left. The study, a combined project by the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, The University of Regensburg in Germany and the Harmony Centre in Austria, compared conventionally trained horses (handled mainly from the left) with horses deliberately trained and handled on both sides. The researchers found that the horses of both groups preferred to put a human in their left eye.
This could be why horses usually seem more settled when we are on the left, and also why some problems, for example when the horse turns in to face the person or tries to turn around while lunging, occur far more frequently on the right rein, when the person is on the right side of the horse. When people say “my horse won’t lunge” it is usually the case that it won’t lunge to the right – something that is even noted in the manuals of Alois Podhajsky, the celebrated director of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna.
Professor Richard Byrne of St. Andrews University, who supervised the study, says “We discovered that they prefer to 'keep an eye on' anything that might be of concern or of interest--and it's usually the same eye, for most individuals the left eye. This is the first time that this sort of preferential use of one eye has been found in a mammal, and suggests that horses are in some way aware - probably quite unconsciously - of which side of the brain does the best job in this important matter of evaluation and assessment. The effect may have gone unnoticed in the past because of the longstanding tradition of 'working' a horse from its left side, which automatically allows most horses to keep their left eye on the person; it has been thought that this resulted from a need for cavalry to keep their sword-side inwards when mounting. Our results suggest that this convention did not arise from human history, at all, but rather from horse biology.”
To find out more about this tendency, the researchers tested horses under two conditions, one with a human standing passively, not attempting any interaction with the horse, and one with a human actively communicating with the horse in a round pen.
In both situations, both groups of horses chose overwhelmingly to put the person on the left, with the preference being even stronger when the person was a stranger to the horse. In the passive situation the preference was more marked in the conventionally trained horses, and in the interactive situation both groups showed a similarly strong preference for having the person on the left.
This means the tendency horses have to put us on the left is not simply a matter of habit and training, as we have perhaps been told, but is actually the horse’s own, natural preference.
Putting these findings together with three other studies that examined reactions to inanimate objects, a possible explanation starts to emerge. The first found that the more emotional a horse is, the more likely it is to use its left eye to view a novel, and potentially frightening, object. In the second, most horses show a stronger startle reaction to a frightening object (such as an umbrella opening suddenly) when it is presented on the left. The third showed that, under normal circumstances, horses prefer to use the left eye to view objects with a positive or negative association, and the right eye for neutral objects.
Kate Farmer, who led the study on interaction with humans, says all this evidence together suggests that the horse’s left eye could be the “rapid reaction” eye. The horse tries to put anything it is unsure of or afraid of on the left so it can react as quickly as possible should the object or creature turn out to be hostile. However, it may also prefer to have another horse or human on the left, where it can react quickly to the signal of a trusted companion in the event of danger. She says this could be part of the horse’s flight mechanism, which helps coordinate a group of horses under attack from predators, and that it also has some important implications for riders.
Farmer, who is also a horse trainer, says “We need to distinguish between the negative association behaviour, when the horse keeps us on the left and becomes unsettled or refuses to accept it if we are on the right, and the positive association behaviour when the horse may choose to put us on the left, but shows no anxiety or stress if we work on the right. This can be an important indicator of the horse’s state of mind. If the horse insists on us being on the left, it can be a sign that it sees us as a threat, and working patiently towards overcoming this fear until it accepts us on both sides can make for a safer and more harmonious relationship.” She goes on “Our study also revealed a few horses in which the whole trend is reversed, and they prefer us on the right. They need especially careful and sympathetic handling. It could be a serious mistake to regard one-sided behaviour as “naughty” and to punish it, but equally, it should not be ignored. The horse is sending us an important message.”
Dr. Konstanze Krüger of Regensburg University, who co-authored the study, says “I found the study most important as it indicates that lateralised behaviour of the horses towards humans is not just misbehaviour but hard wired. The old riding instructors knew that it takes a lot of patience and training to help the horse overcome lateral responses, and this study demonstrates why we must not lose sight of this in modern training.”
Original paper : Farmer K, Krueger K, Byrne R (2009) Visual laterality in the domestic horse (Equus caballus) interacting with humans. Anim Cogn . doi: 10.1007/s10071-009-0260-x"
bron:
http://horsesforlife.com/
Warboel
