Horses are becoming increasingly popular in therapy programmes designed for people with  but now it seems such interactions may be stressful for horses if they don’t have a choice about whether to be touched.
When the horses can choose to walk away, however, they appear significantly less anxious – and they often stay away from people’s hands altogether, says at the University of Guelph in Canada. “The choice to interact, or not, does seem to be important for these horses,” she says.
Studies show that horse therapy programmes – called equine-assisted services, or hippotherapy – can help people improve balance and motor skills, reduce anxiety, improve communication and recover from addictions, among other benefits.
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Managers select calm, robust and highly tolerant horses for their therapy programmes. Even so, it is important to understand how the animals feel about their jobs and whether consent matters to them, says Merkies.
She and her colleagues observed the reactions of 10 experienced therapy horses in one-on-one encounters with 49 people. They looked at both “consensual” and “non-consensual” situations, meaning the horses were either tethered or free-roaming.
In the first scenario, the participants were asked to scratch, stroke and pat horses for 4.5 minutes. In the second, each person stood in the middle of a closed pen for 4.5 minutes while the horses were free to move around the area as they pleased. The people were told to touch the horses in the same way as before – but only when the horse moved to within reach.
When they were being touched while tethered, the horses made stress-related mouth movements – like – about twice as often as they did when they were loose, says Merkies. In addition, they appeared restless – shifting their feet, for example – 40 per cent more often, and they swished their tails about 10 per cent more.
The researchers also noted that the untethered horses spent an average of 51 per cent of their time out of the human’s reach.
“These results highlight the importance of choice, as [they] chose to spend less than half of their time in proximity with a human,” says Merkies. She presented the group’s research at the conference of the , held earlier this month in Cambridge, New Zealand.
It is easy for people to miss signs of stress in horses, says Merkies. But they are nonetheless valid, as horses – which are prey animals – tend to employ particularly subtle body language to avoid drawing attention to themselves.
“Ultimately, the findings can be reflected in the guidelines of therapy horse organisations to minimise human risk of injury and ensure a good life for horses,” says team member , also at the University of Guelph.
