Startling, spooking, and shying are normal behaviors for horses. These actions, however, can result in people getting hurt if they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time or don’t know how to handle the situation safely. Here are some do’s and don’ts when faced with a spooky horse.
Understand Why it Happens
All animals are hardwired to display certain behaviors when they’re startled, anxious, or frightened. As discussed in “How Horses Learn,” reflexes are innate, simple responses to things or events that happen in the animal’s environment. If those things or events surprise the animal in any way, startling is a normal, reflexive response. While we cannot “train away” reflexes such as startling, the startle reflex often decreases with repeated exposure. Called habituation, this change to the startle reflex isn’t permanent. In fact, a reflexive response that has habituated to something can quickly become sensitized again, resulting in an increased reflexive response.
Startle responses can be life-threatening. When animals are startled by something or appraise a situation to be dangerous, the sympathetic branch of their nervous system gets triggered. This involuntary triggering is nearly instantaneous. It orchestrates physical and mental changes that prepare the animal to survive what might be a life-or-death situation. This includes causing the animal to behave in fairly predictable and easy-to-remember ways: The animal will freeze, fidget, try to flee, or “fight” to escape the situation. In horses, we often use labels for these types of behaviors, such as spooking or shying. It’s crucial to remember that the urge to do these things is a result of an involuntary emotional response that prompts the horse to try to escape the source of their fear.
Understanding Horses’ Perception and Behavioral Response
In many ways, the horse perceives its environment much differently than we do. For example, horses have difficulty recognizing objects they have seen previously when those objects are rotated and now seen from a different angle. This is why your horse might not spook at a large rock on the trail when leaving the barn, only to spook at it when coming home from the other direction. Horses can also perceive sights, smells, sounds—even vibrations—that we cannot.
A horse’s position in relation to an object often determines how he behaves. For example, something startling behind a horse usually causes him to scoot forward. Something startling in front might cause the horse to stop suddenly, go backward, or even spin away to flee. Things that appear alongside the horse, roughly in front of the shoulder line, often cause them to spin away or go backward, while things behind that line tend to cause forward movement.
It is quite normal for all animals to “bunch up” when frightened. Just picture a group of people in the scary parts of a haunted house. Frightened horses do this as well. With this information in mind, it can be advantageous to pre-emptively train horses to safely be led from both sides so we can put ourselves between the horse and the feared thing (what I call a “human shield” position). In this position, even if the horse does spook, he will likely spook away from the object and not overtop the handler.
Responding to a Spooky Horse Appropriately
How we respond to fear-based behaviors such as spooking is important. Our actions and attitudes here determine not only what happens in that moment but also more broadly in how the horse views us. The horse might view us as more trustworthy if we respond in ways that kindly channel or guide fearful energy.
If you sense your horse becoming fearful of something you are approaching, stop and allow him to gather more information. Pay close attention to his body language at this distance to identify clues that he’s becoming less fearful or more. If he appears less fearful, you can try proceeding forward, while still allowing him to stop and gather more information about the item as needed. With some horses, particularly those that lack trust in people because of past experiences, it can be helpful in such moments to retreat further away once the horse relaxes a little, before once again approaching the object.
Avoid Throwing Fuel on a Fear Fire
When animals are frightened, we should avoid doing anything that makes them more frightened, such as correcting or punishing behaviors. For example, aggressively riding a spooky horse into the scary end of the arena is a common training tactic. However, this practice can greatly worsen fear, damage trust, and make horses spookier.
Take-Home Message
While spooking and shying are normal horse behaviors, we can reduce the frequency and intensity of their occurrences by educating ourselves on two key points:
- Understand why it happens.
- Learn trust-building ways to increase the confidence of a spooky horse.
This two-tiered approach can help us stay safer around our horses while also meeting training goals.
Related Reading: From Body Language to Behavior: How Horses Communicate
Lauren Fraser, MSc, FFCP, has helped people understand horse behavior problems since 2006. With a background working as a horse trainer, an MSc in clinical animal behavior, and more than a decade working as an equine behavior consultant, Lauren’s approach gets to the heart of why horses behave the way they do and addresses issues using low-stress methods. Lauren also guest lectures at universities, presents at conferences, and creates educational programs for horse owners and equine professionals.
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