How important is eye contact?

How important is eye contact? Eye contact may not be as important a factor in catching horses as previously thought, according to a recent report.  The study, conducted by Sarah Verrill and Dr Sue McDonnell at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, looked at whether horses were caught more easily if the catcher maintained eye contact with them or not. Two separate groups of horses were used in this study. The larger group comprised a herd of seventy-four semi-feral Shetland ponies that lived at the University's New Bolton Center.

Most of the ponies had been born there. Other than a thirty-minute handling session that they received during the first two months of life, the ponies were handled only occasionally.

The remaining horses were of various breeds and ages, and had been trained in disciplines such as racing, showing or pleasure riding, before being donated to the University.  Most of these horses were regularly handled.

The study was conducted with the horses on their normal pasture and with their usual companions. The horses and ponies were divided, at random, into two groups. Horses in the first group were approached with human-to-horse eye contact. In the second group, eye contact was avoided.

All attempts to catch the horses were made by the same person, who was moderately experienced in pleasure horse management, including catching horses at pasture. She had practically no previous contact with the horses involved in the study.

A standard procedure was used to try and catch each horse. The handler approached to about 5m from the horse at a relaxed walk carrying only a lead rope.

At that point, she either made hard eye contact with the subject by focusing directly on the face and eyes of the horse (eye contact group) whilst walking towards the horse's shoulder.  Once the catcher reached the horse's shoulder, she caught the horse by clipping the rope onto the head collar, or in the case of the semi-feral ponies, looping the rope around the neck.

For the non-eye-contact group the approach was similar except that the catcher's eyes were directed towards the horse's body rather than the face.

The procedure was repeated on the semi-feral ponies a month later with the approaches reversed - so that the response of all ponies to being caught with or without eye contact had been assessed.

The time to catch each horse was recorded - typically taking about half a minute. If the horse could not be caught within 3 minutes, the attempt was considered unsuccessful.

Verrill and McDonnell found no significant difference between the two approaches in either the semi-feral ponies or the well-handled horses. Even when the results were analysed separately for semi-feral stallions and mares there was no significant difference in response to eye contact.

"There was clearly no difference in outcome when maintaining or avoiding human-horse eye contact when attempting to catch horses and ponies in an open pasture" they report.

So the results do not support the suggestion that human-horse eye contact is an important influence on interactions between humans and horses.

However, this study involved only one handler and one handling scenario. Further work, with a variety of human handlers, and involving different handling scenarios is required to better understand the role of eye contact in human-horse interactions.

Reference: Equal outcomes with and without human-to-horse eye contact when catching horses and ponies in an open pasture. Sarah Verrill, Sue McDonnell J Equine Vet Sci (2008) 28, 309 - 312.

Reproduced with kind permission of Mark Andrews BVM&S CertEP MRCVS
© Copyright Mark Andrews  - Equine Science Update 2008

Photograph supplied by Voices for Horses

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