Two young Nokota mares. Image: Wikipedia.

A team of researchers at Norwegian University of Life Sciences has found that horses are capable of reading symbols on a sign and using them to convey a desire—whether they want a blanket put on them or not. The researchers have written a paper describing their efforts with the horses and have had it published in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science.

Scientists and horse-people have known for many years that horses are reasonably intelligent—they can be trained to do a wide assortment of tasks and have been known to communicate with humans through various means, such as stomping feet, biting or knocking holes in stall walls. But now it appears they also have an ability to recognize symbols and to ascribe different meanings to them.

Suspecting that horses might be smarter than believed the researchers created three signs for the horses to look at—one was pure white, one had a black horizontal bar on a white background and the third had a black vertical bar on a white background. The researches then spent two weeks training riding horses to read the signs and then to use them to indicate to their human companions whether they wanted a blanket to be placed on their back, to have an existing blanket removed, or for things to remain the same.

The researchers report that after just 11 days the majority of the horses had caught on and were actively using the signs to report their desire—at the two-week period all of the horses were onboard and were actively using the signs to express their wishes. The researchers also report that the choices made by the horses were not random—they would choose to have a blanket put on when it got cold, for example and ask to have one removed on warm days when they were sweating.

The researchers also report that the horses appeared excited at being able to communicate with their trainers in such a novel way, engaging eagerly in the training and responding sometimes before being asked. They note that their study showed that the horses were not only able to read the symbols but were able to understand the connection between them and real world consequences—a form of higher learning.

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