is your horse a dopamine junkie

[paddy555]

below in italics is taken from a post on my FB feed that came from Kellly Marks Intelligent horsemanship. (I am not a member)

one of my horse's behaviour has got worse over time. He is 19. He never liked stabling, got more anxious, weaved and was just becoming unpleasant and his behaviours were addictive. Not difficult or anything I couldn't easily deal with simply "not nice"

he got cold induced laminitis and to prevent any damage to his feet I have stabled him 24/7. (and obviously other things) I expected him to be totally neurotic. .
He started on pergoquin (cushings drug) and is currently up to a half dose.
He is now delightful, only a bit of weaving when I measure out the feeds, otherwise lovely. Lies down at night. He was cuddling up to someone yesterday. A couple of weeks ago he would have bitten them. We had both remarked on his change in behaviour before I read Kelly's post so not influenced by it.

He has always been a total pig to get into the vein. Sedating for dental treatment meant the very athletic vet, along with a twitch, and the horse dancing around the stable. Even the quietest female vet couldn't do any better.
In the past few days I have started to clicker train for injections (as I need blood for EMS) within a day I am now digging a matchstick end into his neck harshly and he is standing still and giving in. (OK it is only a start but hopeful)

I don't think we have discussed this subject before and I had never considered it.










Is Your Horse a Dopamine Junkie?
Did you know your horse’s habits—like crib biting, door kicking, or even treat snatching—could be linked to dopamine in their brain? Horses can form habits, addictions, and behaviours just like humans, and now’s your chance to uncover why.
In our fascinating recorded webinar "Exploring the Equine Brain", Dr Andrew Hemmings dives into:

How dopamine drives habits like crib biting and weaving

Why horses develop addictive behaviours and habits

What blinking can tell you about temperament and learning

Emotional control in horses and how it affects their actions

and more....

FREE for IH Members or just £10 for non-members.

 

[Exasperated]

below in italics is taken from a post on my FB feed that came from Kellly Marks Intelligent horsemanship. (I am not a member)

one of my horse's behaviour has got worse over time. He is 19. He never liked stabling, got more anxious, weaved and was just becoming unpleasant and his behaviours were addictive. Not difficult or anything I couldn't easily deal with simply "not nice"

he got cold induced laminitis and to prevent any damage to his feet I have stabled him 24/7. (and obviously other things) I expected him to be totally neurotic. .
He started on pergoquin (cushings drug) and is currently up to a half dose.
He is now delightful, only a bit of weaving when I measure out the feeds, otherwise lovely. Lies down at night. He was cuddling up to someone yesterday. A couple of weeks ago he would have bitten them. We had both remarked on his change in behaviour before I read Kelly's post so not influenced by it.

He has always been a total pig to get into the vein. Sedating for dental treatment meant the very athletic vet, along with a twitch, and the horse dancing around the stable. Even the quietest female vet couldn't do any better.
In the past few days I have started to clicker train for injections (as I need blood for EMS) within a day I am now digging a matchstick end into his neck harshly and he is standing still and giving in. (OK it is only a start but hopeful)

I don't think we have discussed this subject before and I had never considered it.










Is Your Horse a Dopamine Junkie?
Did you know your horse’s habits—like crib biting, door kicking, or even treat snatching—could be linked to dopamine in their brain? Horses can form habits, addictions, and behaviours just like humans, and now’s your chance to uncover why.
In our fascinating recorded webinar "Exploring the Equine Brain", Dr Andrew Hemmings dives into:

How dopamine drives habits like crib biting and weaving

Why horses develop addictive behaviours and habits

What blinking can tell you about temperament and learning

Emotional control in horses and how it affects their actions

and more....

FREE for IH Members or just £10 for non-members.

Can’t comment on the Andrew Hemmings presentation, but Pergolide (Cushings meds) certainly impacts temperament and attitude, well-known for it.
Every cloud....nice you’ve got at least a little perk to help with all this!

 

[Caol Ila]

Current horses, no, thankfully.

My old horse who could fencewalk like some people smoke crack? Probably. Very hard thing to manage.

I'd certaintly be interested in learning theories of how and why they develop habits/addictions like this -- the best theories I found when I was looking into it was that it has to do with traumatic weaning (all very Freudian, right), and maybe a genetic component as well.

It was definitely like an addiction. Once something triggered her and she kicked off, she would not stop for anything until you caught her. My idiot yard owners (different yard than where I'm at now) used to think she was doing it to get attention and get brought in early, so if me/her sharer/another friend were unable to get to the yard around the time she was likely to start pacing, then the YOs would leave her as the last horse to be brought in, to prove a point. . When that happened, the horse would be completely dripping in sweat, from head to toe. To say I was very p1ssed off by this was an understatement. It wasn't entirely controllable with bringing in time, not at all, but it helped.

She was diagnosed with PPID at age 26, when she lost lots of condition. She'd been tested for it a few years before, but all came back negative, and the fencewalking was something she'd done for a very long time. Not always, at every yard, but to avoid it, you needed the magic yard and the magic management, which I wasn't always able to find. She wasn't great on the Prascend. I had lots of issues with the Veil and her going off feed, not ideal when you need them to put weight on.

 

[santas_spotty_pony]

One is - if he isn’t in first he will fence walk and wind himself up and then be a right handful to bring in. I wish I could do something other than bringing him in first to stop that switch in his brain. Sometimes he does it when he just sees me if he thinks it’s time to come in at the moment - makes winter turnout very stressful.

 

[tatty_v]

Yes, one of ours definitely is. Over the years he’s demonstrated various obsessive behaviours. He varies what those are (just to keep things fresh!) but they’ve included obsessive eating, drinking, itching, licking, chewing etc. Up until the itching they generally all involved doing something with his mouth, but the itching is a new one! After 4 years and plenty of vet investigations I’m starting to conclude it’s just part of his personality. Frustrating, but we manage him as best we can!

 

[Identityincrisis]

Thanks for the pointer, I’ll check this out. I have an Arab who weaves so it will be interesting to see if I can learn something about it.

 

[Mrs G]

One is - if he isn’t in first he will fence walk and wind himself up and then be a right handful to bring in. I wish I could do something other than bringing him in first to stop that switch in his brain. Sometimes he does it when he just sees me if he thinks it’s time to come in at the moment - makes winter turnout very stressful.

This with jingly jangly bl00dy Christmas bells on - my lad is def a dopamine junkie - he cribs (on just about anything - once he's worked out he can crib on a surface/something - that's it - it beomes a habit) and also fence walks incessantly in winter. He also has to come in first or will start galloping around until he's foaming with sweat. He starts creating as soon as he sees me coming and I have to watch him doing sliding stops and/or falling over as I get to him! Then once he's wound up he can be dangerous to handle. It means I find every winter incredibly stressful - I worry that he'll give himself ulcers or hurt himself (and at 17yrs old and in the circumstances we're in - a serious injury would likely be terminal). He's the main focus in my life now - but it feels like I just cant keep him content no matter what I try.

 

[smolmaus]

I have been aware of the standard stress stereotypies and dopamine release for a while. I am one of those very boring annoying people that looks at every cute "attention seeking" or "he's just a weirdo" behaviour and has to bite my tongue.

Getting a taste of my own medicine now though. Working with an equine behaviourist with my own horse regularly now* and I have several behaviours I put down to "seeking" and being keen to train which YOU GUESSED IT, also stress. It's always bloody stress. In my case the R+ training, because I am obviously a novice, has created a dopamine loop for seeking behaviour. Which isn't a huge issue, she is polite about it and is just offering things to see what you want. But it seems that's led to a stress reaction where pony can't relax and switch off and that is possibly contributing to her being more reactive generally. So typically stress leads to repetitive behaviours which release dopamine to self-soothe, but I have supplied dopamine in the form of R+ training and now pony has generated stress from there not always being training happening! When the idea of using R+ clicker training in the first place was to keep training low stress! It's all very interesting, and easily corrected (which is happening very quickly which is nice), but I don't think I would have made that reversed connection myself.

I will ask if she knows Dr Hemmings at our next lesson maybe.

*Just out of interest and for fun! Horse has no behavioural issues or standard stereotypic behaviours! No fun allowed!

 

[paddy555]

Can’t comment on the Andrew Hemmings presentation, but Pergolide (Cushings meds) certainly impacts temperament and attitude, well-known for it.
Every cloud....nice you’ve got at least a little perk to help with all this!

I shall try and listen to this tonight and see if his research is simply based on PPID horses or if he has given dopamine to ordinary horses.

Pergolide does impact on temperament. I have see it many times with both my own and others. However the impact was not that quick a couple of weeks rather than a couple of days and in my experience it affect things as the horse improved in areas such a lethargy and as the horse become more active he became more like his younger self, happy and jolly to ride, more fun, possibly playing at spooking, rather than stress areas such as weaving. .


In my own horse he has not suffered lethargy and on todays walks in hand is walking just as fast (which for him is very fast) as pre pills. It's just that he is nicer and a lot calmer. If we can keep the nice little perk of being stress free I shall be beyond happy.

ETA this is on half a pill at day. (he is around 600kg so dose should really be around 1.25 pills a day for PPID)
ATM half won't be doing much for the PPID it is just to avoid the veil getting him onto a full dose.

 

[Caol Ila]

I have been aware of the standard stress stereotypies and dopamine release for a while. I am one of those very boring annoying people that looks at every cute "attention seeking" or "he's just a weirdo" behaviour and has to bite my tongue.

Getting a taste of my own medicine now though. Working with an equine behaviourist with my own horse regularly now* and I have several behaviours I put down to "seeking" and being keen to train which YOU GUESSED IT, also stress. It's always bloody stress. In my case the R+ training, because I am obviously a novice, has created a dopamine loop for seeking behaviour. Which isn't a huge issue, she is polite about it and is just offering things to see what you want. But it seems that's led to a stress reaction where pony can't relax and switch off and that is possibly contributing to her being more reactive generally. So typically stress leads to repetitive behaviours which release dopamine to self-soothe, but I have supplied dopamine in the form of R+ training and now pony has generated stress from there not always being training happening! When the idea of using R+ clicker training in the first place was to keep training low stress! It's all very interesting, and easily corrected (which is happening very quickly which is nice), but I don't think I would have made that reversed connection myself.

I will ask if she knows Dr Hemmings at our next lesson maybe.

*Just out of interest and for fun! Horse has no behavioural issues or standard stereotypic behaviours! No fun allowed!

Very interesting post.

I tried a bit of +R with old horse, for no reason other than it seemed 'nicer,' (I was like 20, and +R people make a good case for that), but she got wildly stressy and wound up, and I decided it wasn't worth the hassle when good old fashioned pressure/release was working just fine. For all her turnout-related neuroses, she was a gem to handle and ride for all her life.

I've done a little bit of +R with Fin, but I'm not in love with it because gets buzzed by treats, but then uses them to ignore the thing you're trying to get him to be okay with, not really processing whatever that is. Like "I'm drinking just to ignore my problems." I believe behaviourists call this overshadowing.

I do more of it with Hermosa because it kind of works. She doesn't go off on a mad dopamine high, and she doesn't overshadow. So I roughly 60% pressure/release and %40 +R with her, whereas Fin is more like 80% pressure/release/negotiation and 20% +R, and Gypsum was 99% pressure/release and 1% +R, but we know she was a hardcore dopamine addict. If she was human, she would have had an alcohol or drug problem, no doubt. In and out of rehab, all her life.

Your post is interesting because it reads like it created a dopamine addict out of a horse who wasn't (unlike Gypsum). I think +R can be so, so useful for some horses, in some situations, but I don't think it's the answer to all horse training because of how their brains work, and most people don't have the skills and timing to do +R perfectly, whereas it's easier to muddle through pressure/release because that's how horses kind of work. Horse A will move towards Horse B in an energetic way, and Horse B either pushes back with more energy, or moves his feet away.

 

[smolmaus]

Your post is interesting because it reads like it created a dopamine addict out of a horse who wasn't (unlike Gypsum). I think +R can be so, so useful for some horses, in some situations, but I don't think it's the answer to all horse training because of how their brains work, and most people don't have the skills and timing to do +R perfectly, whereas it's easier to muddle through pressure/release because that's how horses kind of work. Horse A will move towards Horse B in an energetic way, and Horse B either pushes back with more energy, or moves his feet away.

Well, I don't personally like the click-baity language of "dopamine addict" but kinda. I created an expectation. It was a skill issue on my end but as I said, easily corrected with a proper "start" and "end" signal. It's been 2 weeks of hit-and-miss sessions, maybe 3 where I actually test it and the understanding is there now. I won't say it's solved any problems with her general level of reactivity yet but there are suggestions it might have. This might have just been a good week! But that's overriding almost 3 years of ingrained behaviour, so if it takes a bit longer to settle in I will be fine with it lol

The overshadowing was the primary symptom of our issue too, which I naturally put down to the treats just being over stimulating but I think it is really the "knowing what to do" that she is looking for when she is stressed which makes more sense for a horse really. The solution our last session was to teach something new, so she was having to actually think, not just react with a known behaviour, and use a different part of her brain. That was literally 10 mins of work though so I can't really speak to that fully yet. When I asked for the behaviour learned in the stress-time last night though it was right there, easy as pie, so the brain was definitely working and retaining.

I also use pressure/release with Sadie too but conversely I don't really like it as she shuts down to it very easily, so the balance is different. Some things are just always going to be easier to teach with pressure, but I can back it up with a reward too. I am not getting into 100% purity. It might be easy for you to "muddle through" with pressure/ release, (I don't think you muddle at all, you obviously listen to your horses and think a lot about how they are processing and learning) but you see a lot of fallout in the general population from pressure, when people don't have the timing or the skills to release consistently, or escalate pressure too quickly or in a way that isn't clear. Horses also use R+ within their own communication too, maybe not as directly as delivering a treat, but granting access to space and resources (which can be food, water, shelter etc) could be thought of as R+, or allowing mutual grooming is obviously R+. I watched a seminar from the behaviourist I am working with that talked briefly about mares and foals. A foal learning to nurse has to problem solve finding the teat, positioning themselves correctly, then has to learn being polite about asking to nurse and the reinforcement is milk. It's all so INTERESTING. When you have to overcome the inter-species communication barrier we obviously have to be a bit more direct and clear about which quadrant of op-con we are using in a given scenario, but I don't think anybody or anything only communicates in one way.

Can you tell I am having the best time with these lessons? Also, I always like hearing about Finn especially and comparing him to Sadie. They have both had weird lives in their younger years, in opposite kinds of ways. Simple, easy horses would be boring hey?

 

[Caol Ila]

I admit, I am lazy and not overly invested in any one method. When clicker training/+R was feeling like more hassle than I could be bothered with for a particular horse, I found a training method that was a bit more low effort and seemed to communicate to the horse whatever I was wanting to communicate.

With Fin, the overshadowing was just making me feel like I was running in circles, whereas he was exceptional at pressure/release, plus telling him he is a good boy verbally and with scratches.

It sounds like there are ways to do +R without creating a dopamine loop, but I think you'd need to be more serious about it than I was.

Hermosa and I understand one another because she is also lazy. Getting worked about treats demands effort. She loves getting right answers, but dislikes anything resembling hard work. Just shuts down if she can't answer the question relatively quickly (regardless of your training method...that includes +R). So I use a combination of +R and pressure/release -- whatever is convenient at the time -- to communicate the A grades on the paper. Once she understands a thing, she's really good at it, but the result has to come easy. So I have to ask for bits of the thing, so she can always get As, then eventually it comes together. In her case, it doesn't really matter whether I am rewarding with a release/praise/treat; she just needs to feel like she got the right answer after not too many tries.

 

[palo1]

Sigh. The dopamine addict label is very much current clickbait and as simplified as it is, is not really helpful I don't think. It seems to have 'arrived' as a theory as a result of ADHD related thinking but tbh I suspect it's relevance, in the way it's presented vis a vis horses is not useful: has anyone offered any real research about motivation and reward cycles/neuroscience in horses?

Has this theory of dopamine 'addiction/seeking' been in any way peer reviewed? I'd be interested to read if it has. If there is a link to human studies I would be so wary tbh as, well, primates such as us have really rather different brain wiring to horses, particularly in relation to stress, cortisol, dopamine and adrenaline. Equine behavior is different for many reasons. It might be a useful general idea for some people to consider stress in their horses but, for me, it feels like a cheap and cynical hook. We have other theoretical tools that are better suited I think. Of course, I'm happy to be proved wrong re: research and validity in horses. The Friday Grinch in me is muttering 'snake oil'!

 

[Exasperated]

I shall try and listen to this tonight and see if his research is simply based on PPID horses or if he has given dopamine to ordinary horses.

Pergolide does impact on temperament. I have see it many times with both my own and others. However the impact was not that quick a couple of weeks rather than a couple of days and in my experience it affect things as the horse improved in areas such a lethargy and as the horse become more active he became more like his younger self, happy and jolly to ride, more fun, possibly playing at spooking, rather than stress areas such as weaving. .


In my own horse he has not suffered lethargy and on todays walks in hand is walking just as fast (which for him is very fast) as pre pills. It's just that he is nicer and a lot calmer. If we can keep the nice little perk of being stress free I shall be beyond happy.

ETA this is on half a pill at day. (he is around 600kg so dose should really be around 1.25 pills a day for PPID)
ATM half won't be doing much for the PPID it is just to avoid the veil getting him onto a full dose.

How’s he getting on?
It could be the drug, if you’d gone straight onto full dose you might well have seen instant ‘Pergolide veil’, happened to one of ours, affected very fast.
With that mare, finally settled for dosage a fraction what vet initially recommended, and apparently that’s not uncommon.
At least yours sounds a much happier horse than he was, so that’s nice!

 

[paddy555]

How’s he getting on?
It could be the drug, if you’d gone straight onto full dose you might well have seen instant ‘Pergolide veil’, happened to one of ours, affected very fast.
With that mare, finally settled for dosage a fraction what vet initially recommended, and apparently that’s not uncommon.
At least yours sounds a much happier horse than he was, so that’s nice!

behaviour wise is still maintaining his new happiness. Absolutely no idea why. Only change is the pergoquin and today he has gone up to 3/4. Absolutely no side effects eg veil with a half.

foot wise he is going for walks in boots and I am just praying that when we get back on he is going to stop because it is becoming a struggle to slow him down in hand. It is great to see him moving so well.

Sigh. The dopamine addict label is very much current clickbait and as simplified as it is, is not really helpful I don't think. It seems to have 'arrived' as a theory as a result of ADHD related thinking but tbh I suspect it's relevance, in the way it's presented vis a vis horses is not useful: has anyone offered any real research about motivation and reward cycles/neuroscience in horses?

Has this theory of dopamine 'addiction/seeking' been in any way peer reviewed? I'd be interested to read if it has. If there is a link to human studies I would be so wary tbh as, well, primates such as us have really rather different brain wiring to horses, particularly in relation to stress, cortisol, dopamine and adrenaline. Equine behavior is different for many reasons. It might be a useful general idea for some people to consider stress in their horses but, for me, it feels like a cheap and cynical hook. We have other theoretical tools that are better suited I think. Of course, I'm happy to be proved wrong re: research and validity in horses. The Friday Grinch in me is muttering 'snake oil'!

no idea if it is click bait. I hadn't heard of it before, reading about it just happened to tie in with my horse who was diagnosed with PPID and started on pergolide with rather strange and unexpected (although very welcome) behaviour changes and no other explanation.

In the video I watched (above) there is no mention of humans at all. It simply deals with the horse brain from a scientific aspect. The research was Aberystwyth Uni.

My horse was stressed without a doubt and there was nothing in his management that changed that whatever I tried.
Half a pink pill changed it in such a short time.
I am not suggesting it is magic just pondering why this has happened

I have had several on pergolide over the years. All have demonstrated "normal" PPID type behaviour when going onto the drug ie the veil or over excited. (well I have avoided the veil but they would have) before gradually coming back to normal.
None of them however were stressed beforehand

 

[palo1]

I've read the original paper now and it IS interesting in lots of ways but I'm still left feeling cynical about how the the simplification of ideas has allowed for a degree of commoditisation in terms of horse training. I'm not sure it is any news that early life stress can lead to stereotypical behaviours, or make them more likely or that largely reward based training can be stressful for horses. I guess if this particular way of explaining helps some horse owners, so be it...

 

[stangs]

I don't know. I haven't read the original paper yet but I really dislike the term 'dopamine addict'.

I think it's unfair to call a PPID horse a 'dopamine addict' when PPID causes low dopamine levels, so all the horse is doing is coping with that and trying to get back to normalcy.

Yes, one of ours definitely is. Over the years he’s demonstrated various obsessive behaviours. He varies what those are (just to keep things fresh!) but they’ve included obsessive eating, drinking, itching, licking, chewing etc. Up until the itching they generally all involved doing something with his mouth, but the itching is a new one! After 4 years and plenty of vet investigations I’m starting to conclude it’s just part of his personality. Frustrating, but we manage him as best we can!

Horses who show orally-fixated behaviours like this have usually had a traumatic weaning. So again it seems unfair to me to call a horse who's showing a trauma response a 'dopamine addict'.

In the same way, I can see how people labelling their horse a 'dopamine addict' would encourage them to assume that R+ will never suit their horse, when in reality there's so much you can do reduce frustration (working them at liberty with access to another food source, lower value reinforcement, focusing on stationary behaviours, using predictable reinforcement, etc).

 

[Exasperated]

behaviour wise is still maintaining his new happiness. Absolutely no idea why. Only change is the pergoquin and today he has gone up to 3/4. Absolutely no side effects eg veil with a half.

foot wise he is going for walks in boots and I am just praying that when we get back on he is going to stop because it is becoming a struggle to slow him down in hand. It is great to see him moving so well.

no idea if it is click bait. I hadn't heard of it before, reading about it just happened to tie in with my horse who was diagnosed with PPID and started on pergolide with rather strange and unexpected (although very welcome) behaviour changes and no other explanation.

In the video I watched (above) there is no mention of humans at all. It simply deals with the horse brain from a scientific aspect. The research was Aberystwyth Uni.

My horse was stressed without a doubt and there was nothing in his management that changed that whatever I tried.
Half a pink pill changed it in such a short time.
I am not suggesting it is magic just pondering why this has happened

I have had several on pergolide over the years. All have demonstrated "normal" PPID type behaviour when going onto the drug ie the veil or over excited. (well I have avoided the veil but they would have) before gradually coming back to normal.
None of them however were stressed beforehand

That’s lovely for you both, whyever it is.
I suppose you could stop / start the drug and monitor, but it doesn’t really matter why, best not look a gift horse in the mouth!

 

[Caol Ila]

Yeah, I dunno, I think if you've ever had to deal with a horse who had a real hardcore stereotypey, any theory that gives you, well, anything, looks good, because there's otherwise not a Goddamn thing you can do other than threaten to shoot horse/yourself/drink a lot/swear you’re never buying another horse.

I used to say that if my horse was human, she'd be a crack addict or a raging alcoholic or someone with serious OCD, because it was so clear.. she'd get into these feedback loops, where she'd feel a bit of stress at...something (If I knew all the triggers, we'd all know much more about horses than we do, and I would be very rich), then would start fencewalking, and obviously she was getting some kind of hit from some neurotransmitter from that, but also more stress, so needed more hits from the neurotransmitter, and around and around (literally) she went.

I did once ask my vet if we could put her on SSRIs. He laughed at me.