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218 Journal of Veterinary Behavior, Vol 5, No 4, July/August 2010
PREDICTABILITY IN AN UNPREDICTABLE ENVIRONMENT:TRAINING THE POLICE HORSE USING LEARNING THEORYRebecca Thomas*Western Australia Police Mounted Section, 2 SwanbankRoad, Maylands, Western Australia 6051*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Across the world many police agencies are either scalingback their mounted sections or disbanding them all together.This is due, in part, to the problem associated with traininghorses to remain obedient in such diverse and unpredictableenvironments. However, the benefits of mounted officers areundeniable. It is estimated that one mounted officer is equalto 8 officers on foot. Police horses facilitate effective policingand can improve the safety of police officers working involatile environments by enabling the rapid and safe disper-sal of crowds, quick removal of violent offenders within acrowd thus quickly re-establishing peace and safety to lawabiding members of the community.The challenge lies in the delivery of training in the mosteffective, time efficient and ethical way possible. This isdesirable not just for police officers but for police horses too.Three and a half years ago the WA Police Mounted Sectionwas struggling to remain relevant. The changing nature ofmounted police work meant that the focus of the sectionmoved from ceremonial and public relations duties tofrontline operational policing. In order to survive, thesection needed to adopt management and training thatfacilitated the change in role.My research and experience in horse training and coaching(particularly eventing) led me to the work of a number ofAustralian horse trainers and I realised that adopting theprinciples of learning theory would be the best way ofdelivering training in the most effective, ethical and thus,sustainable way possible.The implementation of learning theory has not beenentirely straight forward. It was met with some resistanceby some of the staff (but only those with previous expe-rience in traditional equestrian training practices). How-ever, it has proved to be highly successful and this incombination with an improved selection process for bothhorses and riders, has made the WA Police MountedSection very relevant and very effective.The police environment is a unique one for horse trainers.In modern society the horse has few military roles left.Therefore, the adoption of learning theory to this field isalso unique. The environment that the horse and rider workin is far more unpredictable than in any other equestrianpursuits. Another challenging aspect of training within theMounted Section is that the pairing of horses and riders isnot always permanent but subject to change due to thenature of staffing within a large organisation. Each of thehorses must be able to be ridden safely and effectively by anumber of different riders and remain obedient in a largevariety of environments, in rapid changes in pressure and
timeframes consisting of day and night time, urban andbush.One of the most interesting and possibly unexpected benefitsof this process has been the improvement in morale amongststaff. Learning theory has provided a common language andway of explaining the daily challenges encountered intraining. This has empowered the staff and given them asense of ownership over the training process. But ultimately,and most importantly, the biggest benefit has been to the mostimportant members of staff – the horses!
Key words: police horse; learning theory; predictability
EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF EXERCISE ONPOST-INHIBITORY REBOUND AND UNWANTED BEHAVIORIN STABLED HORSESRaf Freire1,*, Petra Buckley1, Jonathan J. Cooper2
1School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, Charles SturtUniversity, Australia2Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lincoln,United Kingdom*Corresponding author: [email protected]
Our objectives were to examine post-inhibitory increase inlocomotor behavior (termed rebound) in horses following fourexercise regimes and to determine if regular exercise reducedthe occurrence of unwanted behavior (such as rearing, backingand head tossing) compared to un-exercised, control treat-ments. Three replicates using 8 horses were conducted witheach horse presented with one of four exercise regimes:walker, treadmill, turn-out and riding, and a correspondingcontrol presented sequentially in a balanced order. Unwantedbehavior was tested by routine handling by an experiencedhandler, and the rebound effect was tested by releasing thehorses into a large (80 x 80 m) arena for a period of 15 minutesat the end of the exercise and control treatments. Locomotoractivities made up a large part of behavior in the large arenabut all exercise regimes were sufficient to reduce the amountof walking (ANOVA: F 5 7.6; d.f. 5 1,8, P , 0.05), trotting(ANOVA: F 5 19.9, d.f. 51,8, P , 0.01) and cantering(ANOVA: F 5 45.8, d.f. 51,8, P , 0.001) compared tocontrol treatments. Turn-out reduced bucking (Wilcoxontest: N 5 24, Z 5 4.0, P , 0.01) and rolling (Wilcoxon test:N 5 24, Z 5 2.2, P , 0.05) during rebound tests. Exerciseregimes reduced unwanted behavior and the number of com-mands given by the handler during weighing (Wilcoxon test:Z 5 2.4 and Z 5 2.2 respectively, N 5 24, both P , 0.05)but had no effect on these behaviors during loading onto a float.We conclude that providing stabled horses with one hour perday of exercise on a walker, treadmill, turn-out or by beingridden are all effective at allowing expression of locomotoractivities in stabled horses and are likely to provide positiveeffects on horse welfare, training ability and handler safety.
Key words: misbehavior; equine welfare; rebound behavior;safety
