| Myth Buster: Seeing through Different Eyes |
Train the young foal from the left side when you first start leading
him and he soon becomes accustomed to you leading him from that
side. But try to lead him from the right side later in life and
it is like he has never learned how to lead. The horse becomes nervous
and upset. Some horses startle and jump around nervously; other
horses seem determined to get you back on the left side where they seem
to think that you belong.
July 2007 • VOLUME 23 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Myth Buster. Train the young foal from the left side when you first start leading him and he soon becomes accustomed to you leading him from that side. But try to lead him from the right side later in life and it is like he has never learned how to lead. The horse becomes nervous and upset. Some horses startle and jump around nervously; other horses seem determined to get you back on the left side where they seem to think that you belong. Train the young saddle horse to be mounted from the left side and then one day try to go mount from the right side and you will find much of the same reaction from the horse. The horse startles, sidesteps, and steps away nervously as you try to rise in the stirrup.
These are experiences that almost every horseman can relate to. Horses
react very differently when we train and work with them on one side and
then try to do the same activity on the other side.
Time and time again as we go through our training with our horses we find instances when we have trained something from one side that simply does not transfer over to the other side of the horse. This kind of experience by many different horsemen with many different horses has made horsemen question and to try to understand why this happens. One of the ideas put forth is that what horses see on one side is not automatically transferred through their brain to be referenced on the other side. For example, when the horse sees you leading from the left side, he gets used to seeing you leading from the left. Then when you transfer to the right and he has to look at you from his right eye it means something completely different to him. It is because of these experiences that many horsemen suggest that you should train each activity from both sides of the horse.
Many trail riders have also noticed that the horse will see a scrap of
paper going away from home and not even seem to notice, but one the way
back, the same piece of paper turns into a raging monster that their
horse insists he must run away from. Many riders have been caught
unaware when their horses seemingly with no reason spook at exactly the
same object that they didn't spook at earlier. More than one
rider has been left shaking their head in wonder when it has happened
to them, more than one wondering at the intelligence of the animal that
they are riding. And perhaps sometimes they get to share
vocabulary with the horse that is, shall we say, more colourful than
usual.
So why does this really happen with horses? Why is it that horses will spook when you change sides in an activity that you have done many times before on the other side? Is it true that horses cannot recognize something out of one eye when they are accustomed to having seen it from the other eye? The ability to see something out of one eye and then recognize it in the other eye is called inter-ocular transfer. Is this something that horses are missing?
It was to address this question that the Equine Research Foundation
created a series of tests. In one test they used multiple
two-choice discrimination tests in which horses were trained to respond
to one stimulus and not another while blindfolded over one eye.
Once the discrimination was learned, the blindfold was switched to the
other eye.
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