Learning vices?

[Bounty]

A bit of a strange post perhaps

I've had my 5yo since she was 2, when we bought her with a 3yo who was an obsessive windsucker. We've also had several cribbers, windsuckers and a weaver spend time here in the last couple of years. My 5yo has never picked up on any of these vices, not even shown the slightest bit of experimentation!
I have a gelding which we bought a year ago, who is a master at opening bolts. When he's in the stable the door has to be clipped shut with either a climbers D-ring thing or a leadrope, but he has also been known to open his door when tied up outside

Even if you just go in the stable long enough to untie his empty haynet he'll be out unless you've clipped the door shut.

Getting to the point now..

My 5yo has never picked up on any of the vices exposed to her, even when she was younger, and I guess, more impressionable. However, lately she's been trying desperately to learn how to open her door.

So, my ponderings are... do horses only pick up on vices that they deem to be useful to them? I.e. opening the door means she can get out, but windsucking serves no purpose to her?
Or am I bestowing her with more intelligence than she's got?!

Answers on a postcard!

 

[horsegirl]

Is opening bolts a vice or just a clever trick?

 

[AmyMay]

[ QUOTE ]
Is opening bolts a vice or just a clever trick?

[/ QUOTE ]
Ditto.

We have one like that. He's tripple bolted in - as is his neighbour. And a few of the others will have a go as well, but have never learnt the trick.

 

[Bounty]

Oh yes, agree that opening bolts is nothing more than a trick rather than a vice, but what I'm saying is that the gelding does it in front of my 5yo and now she's trying to learn how to do it herself, whereas every other horse in the presence of my 5yo that has behaved consistently in a certain way (windsucking for example) has never inspired my 5yo to try and mimic them.

I feel some horse-proof bolts coming on!

 

[hayleygunson]

We have a pony that is the master at un-doing leadropes when she's tied up!!! She keeps a yanking on the knot, so we have to thread the rope through the loop (quick release knot)

 

[zigzag]

We had a pony in the school who would let himself out at night (if you forgot to clip door shut) then procced to let everyone else out and then put himself back in his stable

 

[TarrSteps]

Vices (stereotypies, actually) are stress triggered/relieving mechanisms not strictly speaking habits. The common feeling now is the horse has a predisposition (genetic? environmental?) and then the expression of the behaviour appears under stressful circumstances - confinement, boredom, ill health, feed related discomfort - and provides the horse with some "comfort" probably from endorphin release. (There have been studies shown that giving horses beta blockers stops many of them weaving or cribbing.) So the horse gets positive biological and emotional feedback from the behaviour. Rather like a person chewing his/her fingernails, rythmically tapping etc.

The concensus is that a horse without the predisposition and/or not under sufficient stress (like us not all horses find the same things stressful or deal with it the same way) could be exposed to the behaviour and never pick it up.

I have seen young horses copy a vice once or twice - they learn by example after all - and then never try again. Presumably they don't get the "payback" so they mentally shrug and move on to more interesting pursuits. Maybe it's like smoking, where there seems proof now that people have varying levels of susceptibility to addiction and there are a couple of factors in play.

The door latch thing seems more the equivalent of someone doing a puzzle - it might be more of a "play" behaviour. I've certainly seen horse play with sticks, balls etc. so if they're in a barn with limited options the latch might seem the most fun. I know lots of people would scoff but I wouldn't put it past some horses to figure out that success means freedom - I've seen horses pull board of fences, crawl under barriers, wait for open doors and turned backs so this doesn't seem so far fetched.

 

[Bounty]

Interesting reply Cruiser.
She is quite a playful little lady, and will chuck her rubber feed skip around when she's finished with it, and pick all the brushes out of the grooming box if you leave it in her reach!
I'm pretty sure she does know that opening the door means freedom - she only does it in the mornings rather than the evenings when she's only just come in (the gelding will do it ALL the time!).

The other thing that I was musing is... do you think horses are more likely to mimic behaviours of others horses which they are particularly close to? The gelding and the 5yo are partners in crime when they are turned out together, so do you think this makes her want to follow his example more?

The gelding will happily crawl under/jump over fences, knows exactly when the feed room door isn't shut up properly, and when you say about waiting for turned backs - if I'm on the yard and haven't put the clip on his bolt he'll undo it quietly when he thinks I'm not looking and just stands there looking innocent... the second I turn my back or go around the corner he pushes it open and is gone like a shot, LOL!