DR. ROBERT MILLER Seminar - Salinas CA
by Dan Peterson
In response to numerous (1) request(s) to share Dr. Robert Miller's "Ten Characteristics of the Home" from his seminar at Hartnell College, Salinas, CA on May 15th. I'm going to share this. My wife, Katy, had to work that day so I took notes to share with her and finally got some time to type up my notes so here goes.
Dr. Miller started the seminar by saying that understanding these 10 characteristics of the horse goes a long way toward understanding how to get along with horses.
1. This is a flight species - the only domestic species that is a flight species. You can look at an animal and easily tell their primary defense: The horse evolved on fiat grassy plains - 1st instinct when frightened is to run a prescribed distance ( the "flight distance") which is slightly further than a lion can run. Our instincts are so different this is often hard for us to understand when this happens.
2. This is the most perceptive of all domestic animals. Taste, smell, hearing are all far superior to ours. Tactile sense all over the body is as sensitive as our fingertips. He cited studies that show a horse can feel when you are in the saddle and move your eyes in a new direction. Eyesight is radically different from ours - horses have to look through the top of the eyeball to focus close, bottom of the eyeball to focus far (they dont focus with an elastic lens like us) That's why a horse Iooks like they are trying to stand on their heads or tilt their heads way over to look at something on the ground. Horses don't have color vision but do have superior night vision. They see movement we can't detect - that's why they are so nervous on windy days - they get overloaded with sensory input. We have superior depth perception, horses have no depth perception down Iow and in close-jumps, water - they are seeing through the part of the eye that focuses far.
3. Fastest learner of all domestic animals and their minds are mature at birth. They test and learn things by threes. He showed a video of a hard to catch horse in a corral - it ran away 3 times to the right and 3 times to the left and then acted like it was out of options. You have to "generalize behavior" with a horse. Things they learn at home they basically have to relearn away from home - 3 times.
4. Best memory of any domestic animal and most wild. Miller's experience is that only the elephant has a better memory.
5. Fastest reaction time of any domestic animal. If a horse wants to get you, no human is fast enough to react away. A cutting horse sees a cow move and gets there first due to reaction times superior to the cow.
6. The most easily desensitized of any domestic animal - but each sense has to be desensitized. He used an example of a day-old foal scared of tumbleweeds and charging all over, is desensitized to them in a day - until one touched him for the first time.
7. Horses posses an instinctive body language. High head indicates flight or thoughts of flight (attitude necessary for long range vision).
Each species indicates submission by assuming the position of most vulnerability - Miller thinks most vulnerable time for a horse is when drinking (talked about lions at waterhole in Africa) and so their submission position is lowered head with mouth moving. Horses can sleep standing up with their eyes open, that's why it's important to speak when approaching a horse that seems to be ignoring your approach.
8. Second only to flight, dominant hierarchy in horses is determined by control of movement. No other domestic animal is this way. Disallow movement to control- take away primal behavior (flight) and you can control - he mentioned hobbles and the ever popular burying the horse in wheat videos. Control is also asserted by causing movement.
9. Easiest of all domestic animals to dominate. Because they are herd animals they need company and need to be able to get along. "Surrogate Bonding" horses will bond with humans to substitute for bonding with a herd. Mentioned race horses that have a "stall cat" they travel with to keep them company - surrogate bonding. Physical strength is a non factor in dominance - just control the movement. One leg hobble is an example of flight control to establish dominance. Video of horses fighting - they go for the front leg of the other horse (biting] and defend their own legs.
One leg hobble plays right on that instinctive behavior.
10. The horse is a "precocial" species meaning all senses and abilities are fully functional at birth (humans and dogs are "autricial - if anyone corrects my spelling, fine, but I will probably never type those words again in my life). Each species of animal has a Critical Learning Time (CLT) puppies CLT is 6 to 14 weeks, horse CLT is first few days of life - this is the optimum time for them to learn.
