HOW A HORSE USES SIGNS

In the preceding two chapters I have tried to show how the horse uses his voice to convey a meaning. But it must be obvious to anyone who has observed horses that a horse also uses signs in various ways: to convey an intention, to draw attention to an object, as a warning, and sometimes to express an opinion. He will tend to look to the left if he is going to turn to the left and he will look to the right if he wants to turn to the right –that is the way he tells you which way he is going to go. He will raise his head and prick his ears and look intently at an object to draw your attention to it. He will put his ears back and raise his hind leg to warn you that if you come any nearer he will kick. If you give him something to eat which he does not like, he will take a mouthful and spit it out again, thus telling you what he thinks of it.

The use of sign language is of course not just confined to horses. All animals, including human beings, use signs as an integral part of their communication with other members of the species. We get the meaning of a con­versation as much from the expression on the face and the use of the hands as we do from the tone of voice. The words 'I hate you and I am going to make you suffer,' used in one context are threatening and aggressive, but used by a man who is kissing and caressing a woman they mean a different thing altogether. I have already described how Cork Beg, when he uses the welcome tone, can mean 'welcome', 'good, here is breakfast' or 'come here' depending on whether he,is nibbling my wife's coat, pushing his food basin around, or calling his girlfriend in the field. Equally, if a mare puts her ears back, squeals and raises her foot to kick, she is saying 'if you do not go away I will lack your teeth in'. But if on the other hand she squeals, kicks and raises her tail when a stallion is around, she is horseing and it means a different thing altogether. We call this her girl­ish giggle. So you can see that with the addition of a different sign, the same vocal note can mean two totally different messages: in fact two diametrically opposite messages, 'go away' and 'come and make love.'

The sign language is in fact much more easily under­stood than the vocal parts of the message, and it has always been a mystery to me why, with the exception of Meech and Ewbank in their work on pigs at Liverpool University, and one or two others, the modern researcher has not con­centrated more on the sign language in work on animal communication. With horses at least, signs are of a much more regular pattern than sounds, and the intention of the horse is easily interpreted from the signs he uses. Added to this is the fact that sign language is similar in all breeds, ages and sexes of horses, though there are one or two ex­ceptions, such as sexual sounds, and those limited to use by a foal calling T am only small.' The foal says this last when he is approaching a bigger horse that he is not sure about, by putting his head down as if he is going to suckle a mare, opening his mouth slightly, curving his lips back and making sucking motions with his tongue. He does this be­cause he knows a bigger horse will then realise he is a foal and not kick or bite him. This is a sign common to very nearly all foals, though you get it also in some yearlings, and I have seen it done once by a four-year-old gelding. Sign language is almost universal among human beings too, and is the same irrespective of what race a man belongs to.

It is of course almost impossible to give a defiaite mean­ing to any movement taken in isolation. For example, if a horse waves a hind leg, he may mean 'I am going to kick,' or he may mean 'my foot hurts.' The vigour of the move­ment, the situation in which it is made, and the sounds made before and after all go to indicate meaning. Anyone who knows the horse well will be able to interpret the meaning of the signs very easily indeed.

There are between seventy and eighty different signs used by a horse. These depend on the age of the horse, and whether it is a stallion, mare or gelding. All these signs are used as part of the forty-seven basic messages and fifty-four sub-messages, and are usually used in conjunction with sounds, though there are certain cases when the mess­age is conveyed solely by signs, especially when the horse uses only his head and ears. When a horse is conveying a message by sign he uses his muzzle, nose, mouth, eyes, ears, the whole head and neck, his skin, his tail, his legs and his feet. The legs and feet can be used either singly or as a pair: that is, the front legs may be used singly or as a pair, and so may the hind legs. A horse in the wild will normally use his hind legs only as a defensive weapon, and his front legs and teeth as an offensive weapon, though it is very little consolation to someone lying in hospital with a broken leg to know that the horse was only defending himself.

The unusual thing about sign language is that you some­times come across very odd signs indeed, often acquired by the horse from other animals. I have already mentioned our eleven-two Welsh pony who had not been much in contact with other horses most of the year, and had been running with a herd of cattle, so when a mare made water, he would put his nose under it and sniff at it in exactly the same way a bull would sniff that of a cow. This is the only time I had come across this habit in a horse, and I have no doubt that he had acquired it from the cattle he had been running with.

Another pony we had cocked his leg like an immature dog, and when I traced this back, I found that the sheep­dog on the farm he came from used to sleep in his stable. He and the pony were very great friends, and the pony had acquired the habit of cocking his leg by imitation of the dog. But funnily enough he could do it only over a spot where a mare had made water and not where a gelding had done so.

In the horse's sign language the head and neck are of, course the most used parts of the body. They may be used as a whole to convey a message, or the various part may be used separately. The muzzle and the lips are used mainly to indicate affection– to caress and reassure a foal or another horse, and in love play –•• though they may also be used to investigate something and to draw attention to a special object. When a horse nuzzles you or when he nuzzles another horse, he is using his nose to show affection for you. When a foal is frightened it will run to its mother and she will nuzzle the foal to reassure it. In effect one horse nuzzling another is using its nose as an extension of the welcome sign, but when a mare nuzzles her foal to reassure it, she is saying, 'all right, mummy's here.'

Most people, when they are bitten by a horse, know only that it hurts and that they do not like it. But in actual fact there are four completely different sorts of bites from a horse. In love play, the mouth, teeth and lips are used a great deal and all four different types of bite may be used. A stallion will approach a mare and nip her. The mare will then swing her head round and snap at the horse, and the way she uses her head and neck is an indication of how she is receiving the stallion's attention. She may just swing her head round and nip him affectionately, or she may swing her head and snap at him, telling him to go away. She may even punch him with her teeth, or bring her head round and fasten her teeth in his skin, really biting him in rejec­tion. If his intentions are received in any sort of en­couraging manner, the stallion will nip and caress the mare's flanks and loins with his lips, and very often he will grip the mare's neck with his teeth, without actually biting her. Thus in a single sequence the stallion has nipped the mare as a token of affection and gripped her in his teeth to indicate his passion. The mare in return has either nipped the stallion with affection, snapped at him or punched him with her teeth, or in an extreme case really caught hold of him in anger.

Each of these four gestures means something completely different. When the mare nipped him, she said 'darling stop it' and when she snapped at him, she said 'go away and leave me alone.' Then she either punched him with her teeth or really bit him. The punch with the teeth is more commonly seen. The teeth and head are brought forward in a lunging or swinging movement and the teeth hit the other horse. They are not closed and it is a blow not a bite, though it is often confused with the bite, which is a similar movement of the head and neck, though the teeth in this case are closed on the opponent. If they are promptly opened again, this is a snap. But the horse may hold on, closing his teeth with all his power, though this is very rarely seen, and is used normally only in the wild by two stallions fighting. The punch on the other hand is often seen, most commonly as a warning, though if the warning is not heeded, the horse will go on to snap or bite. It is generally wise to heed the warning, for if a horse really catches hold of you, you will be hurt. If he catches hold of your arm, he will probably break it. If he catches hold of your shoulder, he will pick you up and shake you, (though this is most uncommon, and you must only hope that it never happens to you).

Unlike the eyes of a human being, which speak a language of their own, the eyes of a horse change ex­pression very little. They are used only to indicate what the horse is looking at. But the ears on the other hand, which are scarcely used in the sign language of humans, have an infinite variety of meanings to express. They are used not only separately, but also with other parts of the body, to convey an intention, to draw attention to an object or an incident, and above all to convey the mood of the horse. Most people know that when a horse lays his ears flat back as far as they will go, he is hostile, and he is warning you to keep away. When the ears are halfway between the upright and back position, it usually means that he is relaxed and doing nothing, and not worried about anything. But if the ears are set in this position, and not just lying there anyhow, it means that he is looking at you behind him, and possibly listening to what you are saying to him. When I am riding and handling a horse I talk to him a great deal of the time, and the horse keeps his ears half-back, just listen­ing to the tone of my voice. I always say that he is listening for my words of wisdom, but in actual fact he is only listen­ing to the tone of my voice. A horse also points his ears sideways, to one side or the other to draw attention to an object. He will look at an object and appear to be listening to it at the same time, probably listening to hear if the object is making a hostile sound, at die same time as he is looking for a hostile movement. When a horse has his ears three-quarters pricked it means T am awake and alert, let's go,' and when the ears are fully pricked it means that the horse is drawing attention to or looking at an object. But when the ears are stiffly pointing sideways it is a sure indi­cation that the horse is going to have a go at you. Like the ears laid back, this position means that the horse is hostile. But whereas when the ears are flat back the rest of the body may be half or three-quarters relaxed, when the ears are pointing sideways every muscle of the body will be taut as well. He may be going to buck, kick or rear or have a go at you with his teeth. The ears can be used as a guide to the horse's mood in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand.

We did have a horse some years ago, a registered Welsh Cob, who was just plain mentally unbalanced. No matter what he was going to do, he always had his ears sweetly pricked as if he were a kind and gentle horse. But this horse was the worst horse I have ever handled. I have seen him buck, rear, roll, throw himself over backwards, spin round bucking, spin round rearing, try to knock you off against a tree, try to crush you against a wall, kick, and strike out with his front feet. Yet he would do all of these things as if he were going as sweetly and kindly as a baby. Three or four people had tried to break him, two of them very cruelly and the third had made him completely hostile to human beings. Though after having him for about three months I could do anything with him, he was still danger­ous to any other human being. Horses will very often buck for pleasure and they will enjoy doing so, particularly when their owners themselves enjoy their horses bucking, and in this casethe horse will very often buck with his ears pricked. But here the buck is joie de vivre and there is no intent to get you off. Old Cork Beg used to buck with my wife until he got her laughing, as I have already described.

The head and neck when used together to make a sign are used to draw attention to an object, or to convey an intention of going in a certain direction. When the neck and teeth are used either to bite or punch, they are used to make a threat against another horse. The legs, teeth and tail of course are generally used to convey a warning of hostile intent; but it must always be remembered that the raising of the foot can mean 'my foot hurts', as well as 'I am , going to kick you.' The difference between a warning and a definite threat is usually conveyed by the vigour of the movement, but this varies from horse to horse, as does the degree of violence of language among human beings. One horse may lift his leg and wave it and mean absolutely nothing, the second horse doing exactly the same thing may be making a very real and definite threat, and you may get a third horse which will raise his foot only a couple of inches from the ground as a warning. If you do not pay attention the next thing you know is that you will be pick­ing your teeth out of the gutter. The vigour of the move­ment in the horse or the strength of the language in the human being are an individual thing and you must know the individual before you can gauge the strength of the message.

The skin of the horse also speaks. It is usually used to convey a response; for example, if you touch a sore part of the body and the horse twitches his skin and flinches, he is saying 'that hurts.' On occasion horses will twitch their skin spontaneously to tell you that that part of the body is sore. The muscles will indicate the mood of the horse, whether they are taut or relaxed. According to which muscles are being tightened or relaxed, they will also convey to you exactly which part of the horse is going to react next. For example, if the back muscles are tightened it shows you the horse is going to buck. And the tail is used to convey hostile intent; or to indicate sexual response (in a mare). Or if it is held up and out it simply shows that the horse is alert and awake – in effect the horse will use its tail to say 'let's go'. The tail tends to be used in conjunc­tion with the head and neck – if the head is raised, the tail will be, if the neck is relaxed the tail will rest into the buttocks.

It must also be remembered that all these signs can be, and very often are, used with the vocal part of a message. This may only be a sharp intake of the breath or a blowing through the nostrils, or it may be a squeal of rage. Unlike the vocal range of the messages, the number of signs varies very little from horse to horse, but combined with the voice and e.s.p. the number of messages conveyed by signs varies considerably.

One of the most emotional moments of my life happened whilst I was in the Army. I had just come back from over­seas, and when I came home the first thing I did was to go out and see the horses. They were all grazing at the far end of a ten-acre field, which was about six hundred yards long. I stood at the gate and shouted'come on my darlings'. They all looked up and came flat-out up the field, led by Fear­less. She was galloping as fast as she could with her head stuck out and her ears flat back and her mouth open. Even after eight years she was still liable to have a piece out of you or to clout you with her front feet, and since I had gone too far down the field to make a run for it, I stood still. When she got to within ten yards of me she stuck her four feet into the ground and skidded to a stop. Then she took two steps forward and licked me all over from head to foot, and when she had done this for about three minutes the tears were running down my cheeks, so she thought that was enough of a good thing. Just to show me the status was still quo, she caught hold of me with her teeth and lifted me from the ground and shook me slowly backwards and for­wards four or five times, then she put me down, and rubbed me with her nose. I have never been so touched in all my life, the display of affection was somewhat unusual in form, but it was fantastic.

Another example of unorthodox display of affection ' befell a friend of mine. I sold him a very nice quiet gentle mare. He did not know a lot about horses, but he and the mare got on extremely well for a long time, until one day I had a desperate telephone call from him. The mare was in pain and would I go over. Sol went straight out to his place and asked him what was the matter. He said 'Oh she seems all right, until I go into her stall, and as soon as I go in and touch her, she squeals and waves her hind leg and makes water.' Then he took me out and showed me. As soon as I got there I saw what had happened. It was merely that the mare was horseing. She had fallen in love with her new owner as if he were a stallion, and she was showing her affection the only way she knew.

CHAPTER SIX

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 663