Transcript:

[0:04]

[Music] Do animals have emotion? That was a question I asked my class of students many years ago — but not that long ago, maybe six, seven years ago — in an Animal Issues class, discussing what animals feel. And the group of roughly 50 students all laughed as if that was an absurd question. Well, let me tell you a story.

[0:31]

My favorite mare, Tari, had a bestie — her best friend Bella — out in the large pasture where we kept our horses. And it was clear that they were very close socially, always together. One day I had to go get Tari out of the pasture. After I haltered Tari and led her to the gate, Bella followed us the entire way, and I had to kind of shoo Bella off to get Tari out of the gate and close it behind me.

[1:13]

Both started experiencing some nervousness — agitated behavior. Tari was turning, wanting to be back with Bella, and then the farther we got down the lane, Bella was in that distress and Tari in hers. It was clear they were starting to suffer what we consider separation anxiety. Well, I had worked on Tari and brought her back. As we got near the pasture, she neighed her greeting neigh, and Bella came running up to the fence.

[1:52]

As we got closer they were nickering, both excited to see each other. Tari was pulling me a little bit, and I had to hang on a little bit tight. As I got her in and turned her to face me to take off the halter and let her loose, I knew she would be excited, so I got out of the way. The next thing I knew, her and Bella were taking off down the pasture in almost a full gallop, it seemed like. You could just see the excitement of being reunited, hearing their nickers as they got close.

[2:32]

I just watched them for a while to see what they would do. They settled down and stayed close to each other. Tari grazed a little bit, and then they started to groom each other — reestablishing that tight social bond they had. But was that a clear sign of happiness? Can horses be happy? Can they display behaviors that we consider happy? Of course they can.

[3:04]

[Archival audio] Secretariat being led… he is number… the horse is the best thing in the world, isn’t it? He’s always… I’ve always loved them, really, ever since I was a little girl. Everybody’s in line… and they’re off! Secretariat away very well, has good position… The love — I never thought owning a horse could mean so much to me… Secretariat now taking the… the madness… what kind of a horse is that? I’ve never seen a horse like that before… tightening now, he is moving like a tremendous machine…

[3:39]

[Archival audio continues] …their story… mustangs were more involved in the early development of this breed than I thought they were… Secretariat has opened the 22-length lead… he is going to be the Triple Crown winner! Welcome to Mato…

[3:56]

[Music] Horses.

[4:02]

Hello, I’m Dr. Chris Mortensen. I’ve been an equine educator and scientist for over 20 years, and in this episode of “Mato About Horses” we’re going to talk about signs that your horse is happy. What is happiness? What kind of emotions do they express? What does the science say? Can they feel these emotions? How do they express them to you? What are the signs, and what are the owners’ perceptions of their horses being happy? We’re going to cover all that and more today.

[4:37]

And just to open up — do animals feel? I remember that class like it was yesterday. It’s one of those moments in my career where it really stuck with me that, wow, these students — who were a mix of animal scientists, meat scientists, but also horse enthusiasts, pre-veterinary students — you know… do animals have emotions? And this wasn’t 20 years ago when I started my career — this was just recently.

[5:07]

I know we’re very careful in what we call in behavioral science this concept of anthropomorphism — that’s really the attribution of human characteristics to animals, to the behavior of animals. How complex are these emotions? How complex are their thought processes? They’re definitely not in line with human thought and emotion, but through science, through behavioral studies, we now know these animals are much more complex than we thought — not just 100 years ago, but even in the last 10 to 20 years.

[5:50]

Science and studies have shown that animals are much more complex than we give them credit for. And anybody around horses knows — horses do display emotion. They display fear. I mean, dogs do — and I always use our dogs as examples because they live in our homes, we’re around them a lot. Cats… well, cats are just kind of, “They don’t care,” you know? Anybody who owns cats knows — but cats have emotions too, obviously.

[6:15]

The same thing with horses. Horses are very perceptive, and we’re going to talk about that more in depth today. But just fear — fear is the basic emotion you can say most animals have. Some sort of fear, flight or fight response. We talked about it last week in the horse communication podcast. Anything with horse training — that is a basic emotion most animals, or mammals at least, can experience and show. We can see that response.

[6:46]

So then you do the 180 — why couldn’t they be happy? If they can show fear, they should show some sort of happiness or content behaviors. That’s what we’re going to talk about. We’re not putting them on the level of humans, but our understanding of animals today is so much different. We’re even, in our discussions, talking about animals having culture — which some people can’t even imagine.

[7:12]

Quick example — killer whales, one of the most intelligent animals on Earth. Scientists now describe them as having culture, where the grandmothers are teaching the young calves how to hunt — things like wave-washing seals off icebergs, or whales beaching themselves off the coast of South America to catch seals. The grandmothers are teaching the young calves how to do that. And now they’re finding out these whales have different dialects and speech patterns. Science is incredible — and applying that to horses, what we know about them is incredible. And yes, horses can feel joy, can feel happiness.

[8:01]

I’m going to talk about some of the ways we can look at that. A study published just five years ago in *Applied Animal Behaviour Science* — this was a paper done by a bunch of authors out of the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, titled *Assessing Equine Emotional State*. In there they talk about how the study of animal behavior is increasing our knowledge, and we’re still at the early stages of understanding this — especially with horses.

[8:31]

The bottom line of the study is we definitely need more research in this area. We definitely need more equine behavioral research away from just the training aspects, and more in the general day-to-day behaviors, in the context of welfare. That’s a big part of owning animals today — animal welfare. It doesn’t matter where you live on the planet — animal welfare is a concern for everybody, especially when it comes to horses and large animals.

[9:04]

In the study, they talk about horses — or animals in general — having subjective emotional experiences. They characterize it according to valence, which means they are either experiencing a positive or negative emotion, reward or punishment, pleasant or unpleasant. So it’s really kind of black and white — yes-or-no type experience.

[9:33]

Then I think science is trying to find — where are those gray areas? Right? So we know horses can experience fear, we know horses can experience what we would call joy or happiness, and now science is trying to get into those gray areas. Could horses be a little bit agitated but kind of hiding it from you? You wouldn’t know — they’re just kind of like, “Okay, okay, I’ll get through this, okay.” You know, how deep does that rabbit hole go, right? That’s really where science is going with this.

[9:58]

Now, just to kind of — before we get into the happiness — talk about when a horse isn’t happy. We’ll go to the negative experiences with valence, and that’s stress. My PhD research was looking at stress and its effects on reproduction and the health of the animal. And we know stress is bad. Stress is bad for any animal; stress is bad for us — it’s bad for them. So we have ways of evaluating stress in horses.

[10:28]

One of the things we did is look at cortisol levels. Cortisol is the stress hormone that, in the fight-or-flight response or when we’re stressed — either acutely, meaning a short-term stress, or a prolonged chronic stress — is one of the hormones that helps the body prepare for the fight-or-flight response. It increases heart rate, respiration rate, it’s going to drive energy and oxygen to muscles so the animal can get away quickly and have that superhuman — or super-animal — strength that we sometimes see.

[11:09]

So we look at that stress hormone, but that’s just one little marker. Oxytocin’s another hormone now that’s becoming more studied — in stressful situations horses may release some of it, or… you know, what does that mean? So looking at these biomarkers is, in general, what we’re doing. We can identify when an animal is stressed, we can identify when a horse is not happy — that’s clear as day. It’s how do we tell if they are happy? How do we know they’re content with their lives and with what we’re asking them to do — or, during competitions, are they happy or are they stressed? So that’s where the science is really going with this: assessing the equine emotional state.

[11:59]

One of the things that really stuck out with me is the evolution of the social structure of horses. We talked about evolution as one of the very first podcasts in “Mato About Horses,” because you just need to understand how these animals came to be what they are today. But the evolution of social bonds — the herd — has been critical to their survivability.

[12:24]

So in the wild you have a band of mares with a resident stallion, and young horses, young males, and then the foals. And you also rarely have a lone stallion — most of the time stallions are going to form what’s called bachelor herds, because horses are gregarious animals. They want to be around other horses or other animals because it helps them survive. Now, in that evolution of sociality in horses, they have learned to read each other — you know, “Are you stressed or are you happy?”

[12:59]

So this empathetic type of response we see in horses, we see in other animals. There have been studies done in mice — mice, you would think, if you’re just thinking of basic instincts, “Oh, how complex is mouse brain activity compared to, say, a primate like us?” But they had studies where mice were showing fear and other behavioral responses when they saw another mouse experiencing adverse stimuli. If they saw another mouse being fearful, they would become fearful too, as a survival mechanism. Like, “Oh, something’s not good — I better respond to it too or I’m next,” right?

[13:44]

So if I’m being chased — and we had lions on the plains of the Americas thousands of years ago, or even cheetah in the Americas chasing wild horses, or you’re on the plains of Asia and other parts of the world where they live — if the herd’s fearful, running from a predator, I pick up on that really quickly and I’m running too, because I want to survive. So it’s interesting to think about — horses have evolved over millions of years, and they have evolved these complex behaviors that we have to interpret. That’s our job as companions to horses: interpret their behaviors so we can provide them with the best lives possible.

[14:26]

The other interesting aspect of scientific research — and then I’m going to get into some of the fun parts of recognizing why your horse is happy — is that they are developing a qualitative behavioral assessment for horses. This has been going on for the last decade or so. This is behavioral research looking at it from the animal’s perspective. Just to talk about the growth of science and how exciting it’s getting — that we’re able to go in and understand behavior and emotion more in depth from what we historically have considered animals as just running on instinct. We know that’s not true. We know they’re much more complex than we viewed them 100 years ago.

[15:21]

Putting all that together — really, one of the best ways we can evaluate today a horse’s happiness is their behavior and response to stimuli. That’s us, or other horses, or other animals. And it all starts with body language. If you’re trying to identify if your horse is happy or not, you’ve got to be able to learn how to read a horse’s body language.

[15:46]

Now, we covered that in the previous podcast on communication, but just to recap some of that — one of the best pieces of advice you can have as a horse owner is you need to get eyes on your animal, or have somebody — if you’re out of town, or you’re paying for your animal to be stabled — whoever’s managing it, they need to look at that animal every single day. Because if they’re in distress or they have an injury or something like that, you’ve got to be able to read their body language to identify that so they can get veterinary care.

[16:18]

It’s always a great idea to get your eyes on the animal every day if they’re on your property. I always say twice a day — morning and evening — and just look at their body language. Are they relaxed? Are they being social? We know, going a few podcasts back, talking about what horses do each day — 60–65% of the day, if they’re out on a big pasture, they should be foraging. Or if they’re in a large paddock with hay, they should be eating most of the day. If they’re in their stalls — and in a future podcast we’ll talk about extending that feeding time — but most of the day, horses are meant to be eating because of their smaller stomachs and their digestive system, the way it’s set up. That’s what they’re meant to do.

[17:07]

But when you look at them — let’s just say a horse out on pasture in a paddock — are they relaxed? Are they eating? Do they not look depressed or lethargic? As they walk or move, does it look natural and free-flowing? Are they with their other herd mates, or is the horse isolated off in the corner of a pasture while all the other horses are at the other end? They should be together, right? That’s normal behavior. Are they not aggressive — say, Tari and Bella — is Tari being aggressive to Bella all of a sudden? That’s abnormal for her, so that would be an indication something’s not quite right.

[17:58]

So, to see if your animal’s happy, from a distance just look: are they doing natural behaviors, do they look relaxed, are they moving freely, are they with herd mates or their pasture companions? Because remember, it’s tough — it takes a trained eye to identify these “maybe things aren’t quite right” moments, because horses are so good at hiding pain. Again, they don’t want to show a predator, “Hey, I’m weak.” If something’s nagging them, they might not show it. So it always comes back to what’s normal behavior for your horse. You know your animal best — you’re spending the most time with them. What is normal for them? Then, if something’s abnormal, you’ll be able to pick it up, and that’s when you know your horse isn’t happy. But if they’re exhibiting normal behaviors, you assume they’re content, they’re happy, everything’s great — plenty of food, hopefully some sunshine, having a great chat with my friend Bella or whoever. They’re grooming each other, and they’re content and happy in life.

[19:04]

Now, veterinarians have a very excellent trained eye for visual assessment. Whenever I talk about a veterinarian, their ability to detect some sort of infirmity — that’s something they learn in vet school, but then just over time, seeing this over and over, and seeing unwell animals. They see a lot of unwell animals, because that’s their job — their job is to make the animal well. So they’re able to go out and look and say, “Oh, looks fine, looks normal,” or they can come out and look for things like lesions on the skin, or disease — is there snotty noses, are they labored breathing? Little things that sometimes we don’t pick up on — sometimes your veterinarian can pick up on it.

[19:58]

So they’re very well-trained in detecting any sort of abnormality or, you know, things like lameness. One thing that they’re always picking up on is watching the horses walk back and forth. So if you are having any sort of… things don’t seem quite right, it’s always worth a phone call — speak to your veterinarian, maybe they can come out and do a visual assessment.

[20:19]

Now, some other signs in body language that you might want to be looking for to see if your horse is happy: the animal is calm. These are, again, fight-or-flight herbivores, evolved to evade predators — when things aren’t quite right, they’re not going to be calm. So approaching them, they should appear calm and content.

[20:43]

And the big one is the ears — we always can go back to the ears, the barometer of a horse’s mood. Pinned back? Not happy. Relaxed to the side, or telescoping around, or even kind of alert stance as you approach — they’re tuned into you. Those are all signs the horse is fine and there’s nothing negative with that. But if the ears are pinned back, that is definitely negative.

[21:14]

The other thing we talked about, which is so important, is facial expressions. This is where equine behavior is really expanding — looking at the face, facial expressions of horses, and what that means. I introduced this in the last podcast, and I knew I was going to talk about it again here — facial expressions and oxytocin as possible markers of positive emotion in horses. This, again, was a *Nature* paper — one of the fifth most cited journals in the world — *Scientific Reports* in *Nature*. It’s exciting to see a horse paper in there, especially horse behavior.

[22:00]

They looked at facial expressions during gentle grooming versus standard grooming. If you didn’t listen to that podcast, what we were talking about was the horse’s response to a gentle grooming situation versus standard. Standard grooming — you have a set of brushes and a curry comb: stiff brushes, softer bristle brushes, and a curry comb for dirt and grime. The way I learned — always be careful around bony areas, but generally you can brush firmly. Gentle grooming, they were just gently grooming them, and anytime there was avoidance behavior, they moved on to something else. They weren’t aggressive with the grooming.

[22:48]

The horses during standard grooming had some avoidance behavior — they were not happy. They captured these facial expressions of the horse not being happy, and they called it this Grimace Scale, which they now quantify in horses. This was Emanuela Dalla Costa, who’s known for this and first published in 2015, developing the Horse Grimace Scale for pain and pain assessment. So quantifying negative emotion — not just cortisol or some of the more crude biomarkers we look at, but also facial expressions.

[23:33]

Grimacing in horses is a thing: orbital tightening — that’s like their eyes — strain in the chewing muscles, nostril flattening, eyes pinned or back eyes, tension above the eyes — all associated with grimacing. Then we try to look at positive facial expressions — what shows when they’re happy? We’ve got the bad stuff — what about the good stuff?

[24:06]

In this paper, things you can tell if a horse is happy: relaxed ears, lips extended forward and twitching a little bit — you’ve seen this when you scratch a horse and they have that moment of “Oh, that feels so good,” and their lips twitch. Necks relaxed, head posture down, eyes half-closed — those are your happy horses. They look relaxed and content, versus wide-eyed, neck high, alert ears, tension — that’s not a happy horse. Eye softness is what we want to look for — half-closed, relaxed. Wrinkles in the eyes are something they’re trying to quantify: increased wrinkles can mean nervous or worried, no wrinkles means relaxed and content. Whites of the eye? Negative — you don’t want to see them.

[25:21]

The Equine Facial Action Coding System — EquiFACS — is in development. There’s been research published in the last few years out of the UK and US. Behavioral researchers are talking about not just vocalizations, but facial expressions and what they tell us. This system has been developed in other species — it started with humans, then other primates like chimpanzees, orangutans, macaques — then dogs, cats, and now horses.

[26:20]

The horse has a lot of facial muscles that control more than chewing — the ears alone have 21 different muscles. The nostrils, lips, and jaw also play a role. They’re trying to quantify a system where you can look at a horse’s face and say, “Are they happy, or are they sad?” Ears are part of it, lips, nostrils — relaxed, soft, rounded nostrils are good. Flared nostrils? Not happy. Jaws loose, not tense — same as humans, who carry tension in their jaws. Horses carry tension there too. A relaxed horse is a happy horse — that’s a big takeaway in body language and facial expression.

[27:48]

If you’re asking yourself, “Is my horse happy?” — look at their face, look at their body language. That’s going to tell you a lot. Another aspect of a happy horse is their vocalizations. In the horse communication episode, we played some of these. One of the best is the nicker — it’s a greeting, a happy emotional vocalization. Mare and foal, Tari and Bella — best buds nickering — that’s a positive vocalization.

[28:18]

A groan could also be relaxed or happy — like, “Oh, long day… just did a big trail ride… I’m stretching… oh, feels good, got some exercise, got those good endorphins, and now I get to relax.” They groan. They vocalize to express their emotional state — it’s a big part of being a horse. Horses generally aren’t noisy, but they do have subtle sounds: nickers, warning sounds like squeals, or distressful sounds. Neighs can be good too, depending on context. Generally, the nickering and groaning are associated with positivity — positive vocalizations from horses.

[29:16]

Another aspect of a horse being happy is healthy social relationships. Again, I already talked about that — incredibly social species. Just that story of Tari and Bella — it’s very important to them. So things like I talked about — mutual grooming, being by each other, standing by each other, not being aggressive, no aggressive behaviors towards each other, not guarding resources like “Oh, this is mine” — that’s a happy, healthy horse. A happy, healthy horse is going to be friendly and have those tight social bonds.

[29:55]

And that just brings us to management — how do we ensure they’re happy? Well, first of all, always understand horses are incredibly perceptive. I’ve got a couple of studies that are going to talk about that — these are really fun — just here in a minute. But proper management — listen to this podcast, because we’re going to talk a lot about that — understanding them, understanding their story. That’s why we start with their history and go from there.

[30:19]

They need a proper diet — that’s huge. That’s a massive part of management. When you go to equine conferences, the majority of it is on nutrition, because that is such an important aspect of how we manage them today. And our understanding of equine nutrition today is so different than even when I started my career 20 years ago — or 30, 40, 50, 100 years ago. Where we are today in nutrition — it’s incredible what we know. So that’s important. Horses need daily exercise — they need to get out. If they’re stalled, we talked in the behavioral podcast about horses needing hours and hours of outside time and exercise.

[31:09]

So those are all things you can implement. Sociality — these are incredibly social animals. They need companionship, they need to be around you and other horses if they can. There are a lot of studies that have looked at this. One I find really fascinating is when we talk about our behavior with our horses. Whenever I’m teaching students, or anybody that’s never been around horses, you’ve got to be relaxed, you’ve got to be calm. If you’re agitated, if you’re upset, your horse is going to pick up on that quickly — and then they’re going to take on those emotions. Because again, they’re evaluating their environment constantly for threat.

[31:58]

So horses are able to perceive our emotions. And how does that make them feel? Well, one study I’m going to highlight — published in *Animals* just a few years ago — found that horses categorize human emotions based on facial expressions and nonverbal vocalizations.

[32:23]

Just to give you the gist of this study — they put these horses in big box stalls and then they flashed videos, so the horse was two meters plus away from the pictures. They also did nonverbal vocalizations of a human expressing joy or anger. So they looked at the pictures, and then they looked at the vocalizations. And what was really funny is they’d play them together and then they would do mismatched combinations — like a negative, angry face with a joyful vocalization — to see how the horses would react.

[33:05]

So you’d have a picture of an angry person with an angry nonverbal vocalization, a picture of a happy person with a happy vocalization, a happy face with a negative vocalization, and an angry face with a happy vocalization — just to confuse the animals. When the negative human emotions — pictures and vocalizations — were shown, horses had the greatest increase in heart rate and agitated behaviors. When they showed the happy faces and happy vocalizations, the horses were relaxed and content. When they did the mismatched combinations, the horses were confused — it took them a while, but they eventually erred on the side of caution and were a little bit “not happy.”

[34:12]

So, to summarize, the authors found that these results suggest that horses can match visual and vocal cues for the same emotion, and can perceive the emotional valence of human nonverbal vocalizations. Going back to the beginning of this podcast — valence meaning positive or negative. Your horses are perceptive, period. If you’re having a bad day, if you’re angry, if you’re not happy, the horse is going to take on that emotion. They’re going to perceive that.

[34:53]

Anytime you’re with them — and anybody who’s been around horses long enough knows — you do get frustrated. There are moments where you’re just like, “Oh my goodness, why am I in love with these animals so much?” We’ve all experienced it. Walk away, calm down — you never push it with training. I’ve chased horses around pastures, especially as a young student, not understanding why I couldn’t catch that horse and getting so frustrated. I was frustrated — so then the horse was like, “If I go near you, I’ll just run circles around you.” And that’s what they did. Then I learned in my career — you’ve got to be calm and approachable. Now, when I go to catch horses, it’s very rare one will run from me. In general, if you’re calm, your horse is calm. If you’re agitated, your horse will get agitated.

[35:51]

So always take a break. Don’t be hard on yourself — you’re only human. We all get frustrated, we’ve all been there. But take a break, get a cup of tea, coffee, or just some water, and go back calm and collected — and your animal will be calm and collected. That’s what the research is telling us.

[36:17]

Now, to switch all this up and take this podcast home — I found a very fun study: owner perception of horse happiness. Let’s switch it up. We know there are a ton of studies on the emotional well-being of horse owners — being around animals, being around horses enhances our lives, gives us longevity. There are so many benefits of horse ownership and being around these animals all the time.

[36:48]

This study specifically asked: “Do you think your horses are happy?” This was a study out of Canada, Australia, and the UK. It was a survey sent out to a bunch of horse owners, and they got about 350 surveys back. These were horse owners, and they were asked: “Do you think your horses are happy?” 94% of respondents said yes, their horse is happy. Six percent said they weren’t sure or the horse wasn’t happy.

[37:18]

Then they asked: “In your opinion, how happy is your horse in general?” Very happy was just over 41%, somewhat happy was 46%, less than 3% said either somewhat unhappy or very unhappy, and 4% said “I don’t know.” Overall, the majority of horse owners felt their horses were happy.

[37:45]

When they asked: “Describe in a few words how you know your horse is happy,” they did a word cloud analysis of the 30 most frequently mentioned words. The biggest one that stood out was “ear” — obviously these owners were reading the horse’s ear position: relaxed ears, alert ears, telescoping ears — “not pinned” was a big one. “Eyes” seemed to be the second biggest that popped out. Then “willingness,” “body language” (number three), “facial expression,” “soft eyes,” “signs of stress,” “aggressive behavior,” “relaxed muscle,” “positive body language,” “lack of tension” — those were some of the big ones that popped out.

[38:38]

They then asked: “Do you believe your horses are happy when you interact with them?” Close to 92% said yes, less than 3% said no. “Do you believe your horses are happy when you ride them?” — 69% said yes, 17% said no, and 14% didn’t respond, so they were probably unsure: “Do they like me on their back riding them or not?” But most said happy horses are willing to work well.

[39:11]

Then that was the next question: “Do you believe your horses are happy when you work them?” Eighty percent said yes, 10% said no, and a little over 9% had no response. So that shows that horse owners in general think horses are happy when they’re working or exercising. And we know that these animals have been domesticated for this — selected for this willingness to work for 5,000-plus years. It is something they want to do. They want to exercise, they want to work, and they want that relationship with you.

[39:45]

Now, the next couple ones were really fun to read. Again, this word cloud analysis: “If you could change one factor in your horse’s life to increase or improve their happiness, what would it be?” So think about it — what could you do to your horse to make them happier? What’s the one thing in your mind — “Oh, if I did this, it would make them happier.” I would challenge you: if you can make that change, do it. This is what other owners said: paddock turnout, grass, pasture time — those were the big ones. Then, horse or paddock mate, larger paddock. Less popped out in my eyes — that one’s funny. Bigger area, increased turnout, bigger herd, pasture, positive reinforcement. Those are all things horse owners think they can do to increase their horse’s happiness.

[40:49]

Sometimes you can’t do that — financially or logistically you just can’t — but I would challenge you: what’s one thing you can do to make your horse happier? Then do it. Make them happier.

[41:02]

Now, to finish this off: if we could ask the horse, “What’s one change in your life that could increase or improve your happiness?” — what do you think they would say? The biggest word is “horse.” So I’m thinking that means other horses, time — more time with you. We’re busy owning, managing, and riding horses, and if that’s not your nine-to-five job, you have to find time to go spend time with your horse. The other things the horse might ask for: turnout, paddock, larger paddock, pasture, food, grass, interaction, a bigger herd, treats — that’s a big one — paddock mate, less work.

[41:57]

If your horse could say, “Hey, could you please do this for me?” and if you can do it — do it. Think about it — you want them to be happy, right?

[42:02]

But my takeaway from that study, and just from my experience working with horse owners — not just students, but going around the United States or even around the world talking to horse owners — is that they are very sophisticated, very intelligent, willing to learn, and willing to make adjustments that are in the best interest of their horse.

[42:28]

And I just want to say to all of you listening — if you own horses, I know you’re doing the best you can. I just want to say from my experience: I know you’re a great owner. Especially if you’re listening to this podcast — you’re a fantastic owner. Great job. Good job taking care of them, and keep doing what you’re doing. I know you’re trying to improve yourselves and improve the lives of your animals. From the bottom of my heart, from loving these animals as much as I do, and why I do this podcast, and why I’m so passionate about education, is to make the world better for horses and their horse owners. And you’re doing that — so great job.

[43:13]

[Music] All right, that was a fun one. Just thinking about a horse being happy makes me smile — like, I’m grinning ear to ear right now. Hopefully you are too. There is a good article, “How to Tell If Your Horse Is Happy,” on the Mad Barn website — madbarn.com. You can follow up this podcast with that — it’s a great little article about some of the signs we talked about, and a little bit more.

[43:41]

Just a reminder — there are tons of articles on there for any interest. And I know over 90% of you listening haven’t posted a review yet. I’m just asking: if you’ve enjoyed any of these episodes, please subscribe and rate this podcast on your favorite app. It does make a huge difference — it impacts how many horse owners we can reach with this information. And as this podcast gets bigger, it’s going to help us provide more education across different types of platforms — not just YouTube, but some other things in development.

[44:18]

So when you rate and review and give us five stars, it motivates us to keep doing this, but also to branch out and find more modes of education. Because like I said — horse owners are sophisticated, very intelligent, and always looking for information. It just means the world to us. So thank you to those that have given us reviews so far. And if you haven’t, if you don’t mind just taking a minute to do that — and also sharing on social media is huge for a podcast. If you really enjoyed this episode, share it in a Facebook group, an Instagram post, TikTok, or wherever you interact with other horse owners. Word of mouth — that’s how podcasts grow, and it will help us a lot.

[45:04]

Also, follow us on social media — look for Mad Barn on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, the website madbarn.com. Again, that “Learn” tab — tons of resources for you. Any questions, comments, or topics that you want to learn more about, you can always email me: podcast@madbarn.com. Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for another great episode coming your way next week.