How reliable is temperament assessment in the domestic horse (Equus caballus)?

Seaman, Shirley; Davidson, H.P.B.; Waran, Natalie

doi:10.1016/s0168-1591(02)00095-3

Cited by 139 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…In recent years, there has been an effort to try to validate keeper or caretaker assessments of personality (Carlstead, Mellen, et al, 1999;Momozawa et al, 2003;Wielebnowski, 1999). In most studies, human evaluations of animal personality are reliably correlated with at least some behavioral characteristics of animals (but see Seaman, Davidson, & Waran, 2002).…”

Section: Powell and Svokementioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Environmental Enrichment May Provide a Tool for Rapid Assessment of Animal Personality: A Case Study With Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Powell

Svoke

2008

Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science

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Section: Powell and Svokementioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Environmental Enrichment May Provide a Tool for Rapid Assessment of Animal Personality: A Case Study With Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Powell

Svoke

2008

Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science

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“…To measure the reliability and validity of these tests, researchers have performed repetitive tests using the same horses [23,25], subjected the same horses to different behavioral tests [8,10,22,26], and in some cases measured differences when subjects were or were not tranquilized [10]. In this study, we examined the associations between results obtained from behavioral tests and anxiety scores assessed by caretakers to determine which parameters were most closely associated with equine anxiety trait.…”

Section: Importance Of Examining Validitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Equine Anxiety-Related Parameters Using an Isolation Test in Combination with a Questionnaire Survey

Momozawa

Terada

Sato

et al. 2007

The Journal of Veterinary Medical Science

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ABSTRACT. The aim of the study was to determine parameters reflecting equine anxiety trait by comparing results obtained in a behavior test and an anxiety score assessed by familiar caretakers in response to a questionnaire. In the behavior test, horses were individually led into a novel room by their caretakers and loosely tethered to decrease excessive movement using the common cross-tying technique with two leads and breakable plastic cords. The horses initially remained with their caretaker for 2 min; the caretaker then left and the subject animal was left alone for 2 min. The latency to break the plastic cords, heart rate, the number of steps and pawings were recorded. When the horses were left alone, most parameters changed significantly and some showed sexual differences. A correlation analysis revealed that anxiety score assessed by caretakers showed a negative correlation with the latency to break the plastic cord and a positive correlation with heart rate only when horses were isolated. These two were suggested feasible parameters for assessing the anxiety trait of unfamiliar horses. Both the behavioral results and the anxiety scores also indicated that females were more anxious than males. Our results suggest that it would be a useful strategy for assessing other temperament traits as well to combine behavior tests with a questionnaire survey.

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“…There are reports that an aggressive human posture and direct visual contact may provoke more intense fear reactions in horses (Miller 1995). However, these reports were not confirmed by the results of Seaman (2002), who found no relation between direct eye contact and horse behavior. We did not find studies that assessed the equine reaction to the forced approach of humans at different speeds and trajectories (straight or zigzag).…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 89%

“…However, it is controversial if animals may respond the same way to familiar or unfamiliar humans in different behavioral tests (Tanida et al 1995;Hemsworth et al 1994;Simpson 2002;Henry et al 2005). Besides, the influence of factors such as the experience of the evaluator with equine handling and human body posture during behavioral assessments still raises questions (McKinley and Sambrook 2000;Chamove et al 2002;Seaman et al 2002). The present study aims to assess the capability of foals in discriminating between familiar and unfamiliar humans and between humans with or without handling experience.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gently handled foals generalize responses to humans

Schmidek¹,

Oliveira²,

Trindade³

et al. 2018

JABB

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Equines perform tasks along humans, and there are evidences and controversies that they are able to discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar humans. This study assessed whether foals can discriminate between humans in terms of familiarity and human experience in equine handling. Daily, in the first two weeks of life, 30 foals went through a short section of gentle handling. After about four months, a human forced approach test was carried out by 4 evaluators varying in the familiarity aspect and experience with equine handling. Data was submitted to the McNemar test (P<0.05). In 66.7% of the assessments, the foals accepted the human approach, and among the positive cases, 60.0% were characterized by seeking contact with the evaluators. Among the foals that accepted the human approach, 97.5% also accepted tactile stimulation. No differences were found regarding the familiarity of the evaluators (P>0.05) or their experience in equine handling (P>0.05). The individual variation was evident, which indicates that we must work with personalized training techniques, in which the behavior of each individual is the main factor to be considered. Our results show that the adoption of good handling practices with foals favored their relationship with humans, and it is possible to assume that such practices can improve animal welfare, as well as the safety of the humans that will have contact with them in the future.

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How reliable is temperament assessment in the domestic horse (Equus caballus)?

Cited by 139 publications

References 47 publications

Novel Environmental Enrichment May Provide a Tool for Rapid Assessment of Animal Personality: A Case Study With Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Novel Environmental Enrichment May Provide a Tool for Rapid Assessment of Animal Personality: A Case Study With Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca)

Assessing Equine Anxiety-Related Parameters Using an Isolation Test in Combination with a Questionnaire Survey

Gently handled foals generalize responses to humans

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