Spooked by Kathleen Choe

SPOOKED

by Kathleen Choe

I always know when the month of October has arrived in my Texas neighborhood, as my early morning walks with my rescue dog, Emma, become a challenging feat of navigating past giant skeletons with glowing red eyes, howling vampire statues, inflatables featuring black cats randomly popping out of pumpkins, and ghostly figures swinging from tree branches overhead.  Whatever trauma Emma experienced before coming to live with us is clearly triggered by this eerie transformation of once familiar territory. 

The earliest origins of Halloween appear to have roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and dress as animals and monsters to ward off ghosts, which were believed to return from the dead with the intent to kidnap them. In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as All Saints’ Day, and the evening before became known as All Hallows Eve.  In England and Ireland during All Saints’ Day, the poor would visit the houses of the wealthy to receive pastries known as “soul cakes” in exchange for promising to pray for the souls of the homeowner’s dead relatives.  In time, the practice was taken up by children, who went from door to door asking for gifts such as food or money – an early form of trick or treating.[i] Other activities, such as carving pumpkins into jack o’ lanterns, have joined the myriad ways people currently celebrate this holiday, including scaring my dog with macabre yard decorations and flocking to the haunted houses that pop up in vacant warehouses and buildings throughout the city to pay to experience the apparent thrill of being frightened on purpose.

No other animal appears to deliberately seek out environments designed to scare them.  Humans seem to be alone in this interesting trait of pursuing fear-inducing experiences. What drives people to watch horror films and visit haunted houses?  According to Dr. Christopher Dwyer, there are several reasons “why we willingly put ourselves through fear and suspense, as well as why we take such pleasure from it.”[ii]  He suggests that, in controlled settings like a haunted house, our conscious brain knows we are actually safe and not in real danger, so we experience a rush of euphoria from the adrenaline and other endorphins released when a figure dressed as the grim reaper descends on us from the ceiling or a ghost ambushes us around a dark corner. Furthermore, when we experience these potentially frightening situations as a group, we share the bonding neurochemical dopamine, that heightens our sense of connection with each other as we huddle together for protection and find strength in numbers as we make our way through the maze of unpredictable horrors that await.  We have the pleasure of conquering our fears and surviving the unknown while satisfying our curiosity about “the dark side” of life. We know the fear inducing experience is contained and will end in a reasonable amount of time.

Horses do not have this advantage when they find themselves in unfamiliar and frightening situations.  They do not have control over choosing to expose themselves to dangers or the luxury of knowing these are contained and time limited.  As prey animals primarily given to flight when startled, horses will often seek to put distance between themselves and the trigger that surprised them.  According to trainer Lucia Ryan, spooking is a natural equine behavior that has its roots in the horse’s instinctual drive for survival. “The horse’s instinct is to react first and assess the situation later, which often results in a spook.”[iii]  The horse may bolt or spin to avoid a perceived threat, or freeze if it determines it cannot escape in time.  If the horse feels trapped and unable to flee, he may buck, rear, or kick out. Factors such as breed disposition, natural temperament, age and previous experiences may all influence a particular horse’s tendency to be reactive to triggering stimuli such as loud noises or unfamiliar objects.

Horses may struggle to distinguish a real threat, such a predator, from something startling but ultimately harmless, like a plastic bag blowing through the arena.  A group of researchers at the University of Florida are running an experiment with several groups of young horses to try to better understand what influences these startle responses, hoping that identifying specific genetic markers for reactivity could be a first step towards breeding horses for calmer temperament types that are less prone to this reflex. The horses were fitted with wireless heart-rate monitors and set loose in a round pen.  At set intervals, an umbrella was opened quickly within their line of sight, and their behavior and changes in heart rate were recorded and analyzed throughout and after the initial startle reaction.

Two distinct groups emerged from the data.  The first group was startled by the umbrella opening, had a spike in heart rate, and maintained an aroused state while continuing to focus on avoiding the umbrella.  The second group also initially spooked with an elevated heart rate when the umbrella was deployed, but then quickly calmed down and ignored the umbrella rather than continuing to focus on it with fear based avoidance behaviors. The research team wants to take this information and develop a follow up study using blood and hair samples collected from each horse for further analysis to differentiate the genetic components that comprise the fear responses of each of the horses.

"Understanding each horse's genetic makeup will help you understand the type of animal you need," said Brooks. "If we learn early on what this animal's natural tendencies are most likely to be, we can make educated decisions on training and future careers to give the horse the best shot to grow into their potential, rather than becoming a problem or danger." [iv]

A study in the United Kingdom examined how adept people were at recognizing signs of fear and pain in horses, and found that while some were able to identify very overt behaviors like rearing and running away as fear responses, more subtle signs like muscle tension, hesitating, looking away, and wide eyes were either missed or misinterpreted as disobedience rather than anxiety.[v]  It is vitally important that we learn to “hear” what our equine partners are communicating to us through their body language and behaviors so that we don’t miss the signs that they are in distress.  Unlike their human counterparts, horses do not enjoy being scared, even at Halloween!

[i] https://www.history.com/articles/halloween-timeline

[ii] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thoughts-thinking/201810/5-reasons-we-enjoy-being-scared

[iii] https://madbarn.com/spookiness-in-horses/#ref2

[iv] https://phys.org/news/2023-05-spooky-horses.html#google_vignette

[v] Rogers S, Bell C. Perceptions of Fear and Anxiety in Horses as Reported in Interviews with Equine Behaviourists. Animals (Basel). 2022 Oct 23;12(21):2904. doi: 10.3390/ani12212904. PMID: 36359029; PMCID: PMC9658478.