Yes, Ed's here and can confirm it for you...
"Yeah, I snort a lot since that sexy young filly moved in next stall"
Posted on 08/09/2018 11:50:47 AM PDT by ETL
Snorts — non-vocal signals produced by the air expiration through the nostrils — are associated with more positive contexts and states in horses, according to a new study published online in the journal PLoS ONE.
Assessing positive emotions is important for improving animal welfare, but it has been challenging to identify reliable indicators.
Physiological markers often give contradictory results, and many behavioral signals are ambiguous.
Anecdotal reports have indicated that horses frequently produce snorts in positive situations.
Following up on this evidence, Université de Rennes researcher Mathilde Stomp and co-authors evaluated snort production by horses that lived either in restricted or naturalistic conditions.
“We observed 48 horses living in two ‘extreme’ conditions: restricted conditions (riding school horses that spent much of their time in individual stalls) and naturalistic conditions (stable groups in pasture),” they explained.
“The immediate place (e.g. stall/pasture) and the behavioral/postural (behavior performed/ears positions) contexts of snort production were observed.”
“We additionally performed an evaluation of the welfare state, using validated behavioral (e.g. stereotypies) and postural (e.g. overall ears positions) welfare indicators.”
Snort production was significantly associated with positive situations and with a positive internal state, as indicated by ears positioned forward or sideways.
For example, riding school horses produced twice as many snorts in pasture than when they were in stalls.
“Our results lead us to believe that acoustic signals constitute a potential marker of positive emotions, suggesting a new breakthrough in research evaluation of positive emotional states in horses,” the scientists said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sci-news.com ...
Yes, Ed's here and can confirm it for you...
"Yeah, I snort a lot since that sexy young filly moved in next stall"
I was told that when greeting a horse for the first time, a person should always snort at the horse. Thought it was an old wives tale or something to make me look stupid.
Now, maybe not.
Anyone who believes this crap has never been in front of a stallion that strongly desires you to be somewhere else.
What do horses snort???? Hayseeds???
I hear tell that obama snorts to make him happy
Humans snort to get happy.
Just the horse’s way of saying hello.
When you learn to speak horse, this is one of the basic parts of the vocabulary.
Trigger was a stoner!!! YeeeHaaaa!!!
Siamese elephants do similar except they *snork*
It’s how they release tension and anxiety. Horses are prey animal and as such they are always prepared to run. It’s also a sign that they are ready to learn their horse training. They fight and pull back and when they figure out that your in control they will snort and shake off their nerves.
Some of the basics of Pat Parelli natural horsemanship
Not a terribly scientific study. Horses snort for a number of reasons not associated with happiness.
How about when you play “Mister Ed” backwards?
As a rule, horses always tended to like me.
Dogs ‘snort’ to show agreement...............
And....just before they charge you.
Can’t believe we actually watched this...And then there was Francis the Talking Mule....wow....deep into the memory vault.
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