CDJ withdrawn from paris

Cats do it too, albeit to a lesser degree than dogs. It's why dogs look like their owners and cats end up sounding like theirs.
There's at least three different pathways to domestication though and horses are on a completely different one to cats and dogs
 
FieldOrnaments said:
Cats do it too, albeit to a lesser degree than dogs. It's why dogs look like their owners and cats end up sounding like theirs.
There's at least three different pathways to domestication though and horses are on a completely different one to cats and dogs
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This reminds of a fact I heard (and please correct me if I am wrong) that cats only really meow to communicate with humans, not other cats!
 
Barklands said:
This reminds of a fact I heard (and please correct me if I am wrong) that cats only really meow to communicate with humans, not other cats!
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Yes exactly!!! They have different 'voices' for different people and different needs as well whereas a lot of the dog stuff I'm Dun mentioned is micro facial expressions that cats can't do
 
bonny said:
How would we know ?
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Well, from my own experience, when my cats meow it's when they are looking at me, there are no other cats around, and they want something.

Aside from warning growls, I've never heard any of my (numerous over the years) cats meow at another cat.

So I'd say we 'know'.
 
Barklands said:
I believe because they have been observed as not making meow sounds to other cats. They of course make other sounds such as chirping and hissing to other cats but apparently meowing is mainly just for us humans
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I’m not believing that ….neither are the very noisy cats hanging around my back garden !
 
Like a horse's nicker is a communication developed for between mare and foal. Of course they can and do use it for other purposes; human fingers didn't evolve opposable thumbs for the sake of smart phone usage but we can apply them to that just fine.
 
bonny said:
I’m no expert !
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They do make an assortment of sounds - generally the meow (which actually sounds like the word meow) is the sometimes pathetic-sounding one that is usually (always?) for humans. The noisy ones hanging round your garden may well be having disagreements and warning each other off, perhaps?

(In fact most of the audible communication I've heard between cats is defensive/negative.)
 
Smaller brains doesn’t always mean stupider, it just means they have different structures and/or lack certain structures we have. Smaller brains are also associated with a higher neurone density, so different bits of the brain communicate better with each other, otherwise known as greater intelligence. So don’t knock a small brain!

Their brains are relatively small compared to their body size, and they are smaller than human brains, but they’re not actually that small.

Realistically, the horse brain is too under-researched to make many assumptions. So we honestly can’t say what they do/don’t feel with any real certainty, because we don’t actually know, we also don’t understand brain processes generally that much, so we’re really just working with what we see. I think horses are capable of complex emotions, and I think they do understand pride, and feel certain emotions to different degrees, depending on the individual.

We do know that they don’t have a proper prefrontal cortex, so they don’t have dedicated impulse control and forward planning in the same way we do, but I strongly suspect horses can piggyback off other bits of their brain for some (limited) level of planning and impulse control (a bit like how humans who are missing a bit of brain can).

The comparison I think of when working with Erin is that most humans would much rather sit in front of the telly with a pizza and a glass of wine than go to work, but they have to go to work, and it’s generally not too bad, so they don’t mind that much, and the human gets to eat pizza in front of the telly after work anyway (if they want to). If the human is very poorly, they won’t go into work until they’re better. It’s the same with horses, they’d prefer to be stood in their field munching grass with a buddy, but they sometimes work, and it’s not really that bad (or at least, it shouldn’t be), then back to their field and their buddy. Again, if the idiot has tweaked a leg by being an idiot, they don’t work until they’re comfortably able to.

ETA: I just realised I posted this with 0 context, I also can’t find the quote, but it was something to do with horse brain sizes before the cat tangent (not that I don’t love a cat-related tangent 😄).
 

There have been a couple of 'counting horses', Clever Hans being another one. The most impressive part for me isn't a horse being taught to do sums, but the fact that it is getting the answers by reading the room.

Other sources are available, I just happen to like Qxir's videos 😁
 
FieldOrnaments said:
They don't have pride in their work....their brains just don't work like that. Horse brains are tiny.

Though yes you can breed horses that are 'cowy', horses with naturally uphill paces or that naturally collect (iberians) or even horses that naturally do that obscene four beat hobble canter encouraged in Western pleasure, so when a horse is asked to do that by a human, they find it easier.
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ETA: I just realised I posted this with 0 context, I also can’t find the quote, but it was something to do with horse brain sizes before the cat tangent (not that I don’t love a cat-related tangent 😄).
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Is that what you are looking for
 
Interested to know if anyone went to the BD Principles of Dressage at Hartpury over the weekend and whether the training/ horsemanship focus has changed. I couldn’t go, and it doesn’t look like they've recorded it so you can pay and watch like they have done in the past.
 
Yes I went. There were a lot of comments about correct way of going, relaxation etc. Becky Moody was the coach and she was brilliant. My feeling was that the horses were less stressed than I've seen them in the past, and were given a good long time to walk around and get used to the arena before much was asked of them. I did see one rider tugging at her horse's mouth. She was careful to do it with the hand away from the commentators, but that meant it was in full view of the spectators. There was one horse who had the biggest fat crest I've ever seen. Somebody asked about his musculature on his bum, which I'd thought was odd too. It was apparently fat, not muscles! Somebody behind me said she'd bet he had EMS, which was my thought too. But he was 19 and still able to perform the movements well.

No difficult questions were asked about recent FEI judging or welfare decisions, at least in the big sessions or the smaller ones I was in.
 
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Thanks for the debrief Cowpony, much appreciated. I understand there was a lot more variety in type of horses/ riders this year (unlike the old convention which used to have Pro’s with their upcoming youngsters ridden in high level competition frames !!)
 
I'm not sure I'd totally agree with that. The first time I went there were pros with their very good horses on the first day, and then "ordinary" riders and horses the second day. This time most of the riders were the same on both days (one fantastic 11 year-old!) and although the youngster rode ponies on the first day they were clearly trained to a good level. There was one coloured cobby type but even that wasn't exactly your grass roots level.
 
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