"Are You a Rider or a Parasite?"

Here is a thought-provoking article from Peace Horse  Learning Center. I offer it here because it's good and because of late my job deprives me of time better spent writing entries on my horse blog.

Are You a Rider or a Parasite?

My barefoot trimmers and I often talk about the number of horsemen amongst horse owners. We agreed that it's about one in a hundred. I think the number of riders to parasites is comparable.

Poor Grammar, Tragic Lesson

"Boy, 3, Killed by Horse: Spilled Feed Spooks Horse and Kills Boy Unintentionally"

Grammatically, this headline's a mess, but in a way the misattribution--"feed spooks . . .  and kills"--is almost correct. Obviously, the grain was without intention, but tumbling grain triggered the event. Grain's inert, innocent, and both horse and boy were also innocent. They were simply acting naturally. The problem was with adults allowing a toddler to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm sure they realized this the second the grain spilled, but it was too late then.

As flight animals, frightened horses react first and think later.  Knowing this, experienced horsemen spend a great deal of time desensitizing horses so that they'll stand calmly and even ignore movements and actions that would normally send them running. However, even desensitized horses can spook and small children are even more unpredictable than horses.

As I gathered from another version of this story, when the grain spilled, the small boy helpfully dove in to pick it up. When the adults ordered him to stop, the boy threw his hands in the air, startling the already agitated horse into firing the lethal kick. Sometimes, trust, innocence, and enthusiasm end in tragedy.

Being too trusting of both horses and small children afflicts even horse professionals. A few years ago, a couple of professional trainers were grooming a horse in cross ties when their son toddled up behind the horse. Another potential horseman died that day.

A similar confluence of careless trust led to the death of this little boy. Horses and small children both require experienced care and handling, and horses and small children together require the utmost care and handling.

Racing: To Be or Not to Be

The racing industry continues to trouble me. Little about it strikes me as good, and yet I fear the entire Thoroughbred breed will vanish if racing is outlawed, and that would be a loss for mankind. The elegance and speed of the Thoroughbred serves as a heritage and a reservoir, a DNA trust if you will.  

Unfortunately, racing provides us with too many examples of cruelty, greed, and duplicity. Balancing that, at least partially, are stories of good trainers and responsible owners. Here is a story showing both sides of racing:

"Horse Returned, but Entry Clerk out of a Job

Real Estate in Boulder County, Colorado

This place just came on the market. I do not know if the fracking well across the street from this facility had anything to do with it being listed for sale. It's a nice place. 

Paragon Equestrian Centre

Second by a Beak

Trivia for the day:  Sometimes photos lie.

"Seagull Photo Finish: Bird Caught on Camera at Brighton Racecourse"

Operant Conditioning

One of my student/friends is now part of the elite Vet Start program at Colorado State University. She reported that defining  the elements of operant conditioning flummoxed most of her fellow students in her freshman course on basic psychology. The names for the four simple concepts lack intuitive connections for most people since Skinner used "positive" and "negative" in a mathematical sense--added to, subtracted from--not to mean good and bad as most people use the words. Consequently, most of the students in the class failed to identify what happens in the two types of reinforcement and the two types of punishment.

The blog Equinox Horse provides a delightfully clear set of definitions:

Positive reinforcement:

• A pleasant stimulus is added to the animal's environment when a behavior occurs, resulting in an increased chance of the animal repeating the behavior.

Negative reinforcement:

• An unpleasant stimulus is removed from the animal's environment when a behavior occurs, resulting in an increased chance of the animal repeating the behavior.

Positive punishment:

• An unpleasant stimulus is added to the animal's environment when a behavior occurs, resulting in a decreased chance of the animal repeating the behavior.

Negative punishment:

• A pleasant stimulus is removed from the animal's environment when a behavior occurs, resulting in a decreased chance of the animal repeating the behavior.

Not Exactly Surprising News

The economy affects horses. Big surprise, right?

"USDA Census Finds Less Value in U.S. Horses"