Research Paper On Horse's Senses

Words: 1186
Pages: 5

According to the Animal Science Department at The University of Tennessee, the senses are an important part of what makes the horse’s behaviorally distinct. Animals share the five basic senses: vision, audition (hearing), olfaction (smell), gustation (taste) and touch. (INSERT CITATION) The senses are the tools that an animal uses to interact with its environment and succeed in having an affect in our wars. Horses experience several things differently making each of them react in specific ways to the same things. For example, We cannot fully grasp an understanding of the horse senses due to the differences in humans and horses. We can, however, study the behaviors of horses and determine what directly impacts and influences the horse’s senses …show more content…
Horses react to situations differently and this could be because of several different reasons. For example, if a horse were to have a really tough trainer straight from the start they would be more sensitive to movement and touch. If a horse had an easier trainer that used their voice more, the horse would be more sensitive and alert to sounds. Another example would be the environment a horse is in. If a horse is in the wild it would be more alert of their surroundings developing exceedingly good senses due to everything around it. On the other hand, a horse that grew up on a ranch around people would not necessarily have bad senses but maybe not as highly developed because they aren’t constantly on alert for safety …show more content…
“Having the eyes rotated to the side of the head extends total visual field, an advantage for prey animals, but this reduces or eliminates a frontal overlapping binocular visual field” (Saslow 219-20). While the position of their eyes on their head allows them to see a great deal around them it still doesn’t allow them to see directly behind them. This is why as humans; we are not suppose to approach a horse from directly behind them. The positioning of their eyes indicates a wide, almost circular, total field of view,…” (Prince & Roberts 1992). A phrase you might hear often if you're around horsing is “don’t spook the horse.” This phrase means don’t get out of vision of the horse and scare it. While doing so the horse doesn’t know you are there and it frightens