The old English proverb "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" has been used since the 16th century to describe the difficulty of getting someone to act in their own self-interest.
Now research by equine scientists shows that the use of this phrase has been inadvertently disparaging horses for centuries, writes the Guardian.
According to a study by Nottingham Trent University, which analyzed the animals' reactions to a reward-based game, horses have the ability to think and plan in perspective and are much more intelligent than scientists previously thought.
The horses have cleverly adapted their approach to the game in order to get the most treats - while putting in the least amount of effort.
"Previous research has suggested that horses simply respond to stimuli in the moment, do not look ahead, think about the future or plan their actions - whereas our research shows that they are aware of the consequences and outcomes of their actions," said lead researcher Louise Evans.
The three-stage game involved 20 horses, which were initially rewarded with a treat just for touching a card with their nose. Then, in the second stage, the researchers began to turn on the "stop light". The horses only got a snack if they touched the card while the stop light was off.
At first they ignored the light and continued to indiscriminately touch the card whether the light was on or not.
But when, in the third stage, the researchers introduced a penalty for touching the card while the stoplight was on - a 10-second interruption during which the horses could not participate in the game at all - the team found that the errors of all participants suddenly and significantly decreased. The horses began to correctly touch the card only at the appropriate moment to receive a treat.
"That timeout was enough to get the performance we wanted right away," says Evans. "That was enough for the horses to say, 'OK, let's just play by the rules.'
The immediate change in their strategies shows that horses have a higher level of cognitive thinking than previously thought possible. This suggests that rather than failing to understand the principles of the game, the horses understood the rules all along but shrewdly did not think it necessary to pay much attention to them in the second stage.
"When there was an outage that something was wrong, they stepped in and started paying attention," Evans said. According to the researchers, this behavior requires the horse to think about the future and is very goal-directed: horses are required to focus on what they want to achieve.
Evans hopes the groundbreaking study, to be published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, will help improve the welfare of horses. it was believed until now, their well-being will improve. | BGNES
