Aleksandra Górecka-Bruzda

Institute of Genetics and Animal Biotechnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences | IGHZ · Department of Animal Behavior

In captivity, intact male horses, due to their sexual drive, are usually socially isolated from other horses. This lifestyle strongly contrasts with that experienced by horses living in free-roaming, feral, or semi-feral conditions, where adult stallions have several roles in their social group, with successful reproduction being their primary driv...

Under natural conditions, foals stop nursing from their dam at approximately-9 months old, but their bond persists until 1.5–2.5 years of age. In contrast, in horse breeding, foals are generally artificially weaned and totally separated from their dam at 5–7 months. However, it is not known whether the bond between the dam and her foal is maintaine...

The authors wish to make the following correction to this paper [...]

The effect of the sex of horses in personality studies seems an underestimated aspect, specifically for the social dependence personality trait. A simple two-choice test could be a promising tool to address the strength of social dependence in riding horses. The present study aimed, at exploring the effect of sex on social dependence, hypothesising...

Equine reproductive behavior is affected by many factors, some remaining poorly understood. This study tested the hypothesis that a period of captivity during the juvenile period and human-controlled reproduction may potentially be involved in the disruption of the development of incestuous mating avoidance behavior in sanctuary-reintroduced male K...

Ridden horses have been reported to be fearful of cows. We tested whether cows could provoke behavioural and cardiac fear responses in horses, and whether these responses differ in magnitude to those shown to other potential dangers. Twenty horses were exposed to cow, a mobile object or no object. The time spent at different distances from the stim...

We tested the hypothesis that social defensive responses to the vocalisation of a predator still exist in horses. The recordings of a grey wolf, an Arabian leopard and a golden jackal were played to 20 Konik polski and Arabian mares. Durations of grazing, standing still, standing alert and the number of steps in walk and trot/canter were measured....

To prevent abuse and to assure the welfare of domestic horses, attempts to assess welfare in a standardized way have been made. Welfare-assessment tools often refer to the physical and social environments of feral domestic horses as examples of welfare-friendly conditions for horses. However, free-roaming horses are often exposed to conditions or s...

Non-invasive tracking the on-shore occurrence of the atypically pigmented animals and determination of land residency duration of leucistic seals would help us find out more about the rotation of the migrating population. During seven austral summer seasons (2011–2018), by counting the animals every 10 days at the Cape Lions Rump shore, King George...

Infanticide, related to a stallion's aggression toward a foal sired by another stallion, and feticide related to a new stallion's aggression and/or pheromonal influence (the Bruce effect) inducing loss of a fetus sired by another stallion, a female's counteraction to infanticide, have been proposed for domestic horses (Equus caballus) in human-mana...

Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a suggested criterion of reproductive mate choice in many species. MHC-dissimilarity was suggested to play role in male selection by female horses (mares) in experimental settings. In our project, we asked whether under natural conditions mares choose breeding stallions guided by a certain MHC-type, either...

Although goats exhibit no visible symptoms of discomfort in the subclinical stage of small ruminant lentivirus (SRLV) infection, we examined their welfare at the behavioral and physiological level. Twelve SRLV-seropositive (SRLV) and eight SRLV-seronegative (control) goats in their first, second, and more than second lactation were observed for pai...

Humans have developed strong emotional connections with horses throughout the centuries, and horses continue to occupy a special place among other livestock animals. For this reason, horses are reared industrially for slaughter only in some countries. Horse meat is characterized by a high content of protein of high biological value and low levels o...

Wild animals are supposed to apply the strategies assuring the highest welfare possible. Preliminary observations of male of Antarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella) during moulting period suggested their preferences for particular environmental conditions for resting on coastal beaches of Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) No. 151, King...

The aim of the study was to assess whether adult stallions differentiate their olfactory and marking behaviour towards the excreta of their potential male rivals and mares. Four Konik polski stallions were individually exposed simultaneously to their own and each others' faeces as well as faeces of mares in oestrus vs. dioestrus. Five series of 30m...

The study objective was to determine if there was a relationship between behavioural and physiological stress measures in sport horses and their performance. Nineteen horses competed in show jumping events (6 housed at the centre and 13 transported), while 5 horses at home training served as controls. The competition horses were assigned to “light”...

In the present study, we hypothesise that persistent avoidance of human would confirm de-domestication process in semi-feral horses. Fifty-three Konik polski horses (stable-born: SB, N1 = 27 and forest-born: FB, N2 = 26), additionally handled for 5 or 15 days after weaning, were evaluated. Human (stationary, approaching and touching the foals when...

Husbandry procedures are necessary for different purposes in horse breeding. The aim of the present study was to assess the aversiveness and effects on the horse-human relationship of a range of common husbandry procedures, in pre-weaned non-habituated Konik polski foals. Our measures included commonly and previously validated behavioural and physi...

The aim of the study was to assess the cognitive abilities of horses in recognizing humans by sight and smell. Two experiments were performed. In the first experiment, the behaviour of horses exposed to a visual stimulus (photographs of familiar and unfamiliar people) was observed. The second experiment examined their behaviour evoked by an olfacto...

Traditional agricultural measures are still necessary for maintenance of endangered endogenous species of plants and animals in ecologically valuable habitats. Poland is one of the countries of the highest biodiversity of agricultural lands in Europe, however, the intensification of agriculture and farming resulted with regular decrease of valuable...

Yawning is rare in herbivores which therefore may be an interesting group to disentangle the potential function(s) of yawning behaviour. Horses provide the opportunity to compare not only animals living in different conditions but also wild versus domestic species. Here, we tested three hypotheses by observing both domestic and Przewalski horses li...

Equine behaviour is crucial for all kinds of equestrian activities, and therefore behavioural traits are considered as selection criteria in horse breeding programs in many countries. Since neither a desired profile of equine personality for particular riding disciplines nor detailed preferences of different groups of equestrians have been clearly...

It may be assumed that the satisfaction from horse riding ultimately results in positive feelings for the mount and stimulates motivation for supplying high standards of welfare to the horse. The aim of the present study was to assess the usefulness of a simple behavioural test enabling the differentiation of horses in terms of their potential to b...

Perception of the environment by farm animals is fundamental for expression of behaviour and of their adaptation to different environmental conditions. From a breeding-environmental perspective, perception becomes increasingly important when a production system negatively impacts on animals such that their normal expression of behaviour is compromi...

Perception of the environment by farm animals is fundamental for expression of behaviour and of their adaptation to different environmental conditions. From a breeding-environmental perspective, perception becomes increasingly important when a production system negatively impacts on animals such that their normal expression of behaviour is compromi...

Blood plasma profiles of equine sex steroids are useful in diagnose and for different scientific purposes. The aim of this study was to monitor oestradiol, testosterone and androstenedione blood plasma profiles in foals of age between 6 and 18 months, in order to establish the reference levels for male and female of young Konik Polski horses. The e...

Blood plasma profiles of equine sex steroids are useful in diagnose and for different scientific purposes. The aim of this study was to monitor oestradiol, testosterone and androstenedione blood plasma profiles in foals of age between 6 and 18 months, in order to establish the reference levels for male and female of young Konik Polski horses. The e...

The aim of this preliminary study was to assess whether adult stallions differentiate their olfactory and marking behavior towards the excreta of potential rivals depending on their age, libido, hormonal status and the season of the year. Five Konik stallions were individually exposed to their own and each others’ feces in a round pen during eight...

Behavioural problems and shyness are prevalent horse-related causes of accidents in equitation. The aim of the present study was to examine whether tests developed to measure the intensity of reaction to social separation and to novelty and suddenness can predict how riders perceive their safety when handling and riding a horse. Thirteen leisure ho...

As visual attention is an intrinsic part of social relationships, and because relationships are built on a succession of interactions, their establishment involves learning and attention. The emotional, rewarding or punishing, content can modulate selective attention. In horses, the use of positive/negative reinforcement during training determines...

Some recent publications claim that the effectiveness of police canine drug detection is uncertain and likely minimal, and that the deterrent effect of dogs on drug users is low. It is also claimed that more scientific evidence is needed to demonstrate to what extent dogs actually detect drugs. The aim of this research was to assess experimentally,...

The objective of this study was to investigate whether natural stockmanship training can be effective in the elimination of avoidance reactions by generating submissive behaviour in dairy cattle. The training session was divided into two procedures: natural stockmanship training focused on getting a submissive response to human approach; natural ha...

The present study investigated the influence of temperament on long-term recall and extinction of 2 instrumental tasks in 26 horses. In the first task (backward task), horses learned to walk backward, using commands given by an experimenter, in order to obtain a food reward. In the second task (active avoidance task), horses had to cross an obstacl...

Among equestrians the "natural" training methods of horses are gaining widespread popularity due to their spectacular efficiency. Underlying philosophy of trainers - founders of different 'natural horsemanship training' (NHT) schools, along with other not well documented statements includes argumentation of solely welfare- and human-friendly effect...

Police dogs handlers' and trainers' opinions on Labrador retrievers (n=87) and German shepherds (n=96) trained for drugs vs. explosives detection have been compared. As most important traits in both specialties the responders indicated: (1) willingness to sniff objects, (2) concentration (focusing) ability, (3) acuity of smell and (4) willingness t...

Scent identification lineups using dogs are a potentially valuable forensic tool, but have been dismissed by some critics because of cases where a false identification was shown to have occurred. It is not known, however, why dogs appear to make more false indications to the odors of some persons than of others. In this study, human genders were co...

The aim of this study was to assess the progress in operant conditioning of dogs during 3 training phases up to a level where the dogs performed a minimum of 40 correct indications without false alerts and hesitations in at least 100 trials in each phase, and to compare the training results with the working phase. Breath samples from 57, 45, and 11...

The aims of the present study were as follows: (1) to identify the particular characteristics of a horse that are important to riders, and (2) to examine which of these properties are significant for different categories of riders. The participants (197; 78.7% females) were surveyed using the Ideal Horse Questionnaire (IHQ), which contains items th...

The aim of the present paper was to examine in field conditions the feasibility of the experimentally developed behavioural tests for assessment of two temperamental traits of cold blood horses: fearfulness and reactivity to humans. The predictive, convergent and discriminant validity of the tests was evaluated. Fifty-three Polish Cold Blood Horses...

Sport horse studbooks frequently use performance tests to identify, evaluate and approve stallions for future breeding programmes. The aim of this study was to analyse behaviour-related traits of Polish Warmblood stallions participating in studbook 100-day performance tests. Both relatedness and differences of traits and their contribution to overa...

Prompted by these studies and by recent evidence showing that the domestic dog (Canis familiaris) has complex cog-nitive skills in interacting with humans, we: i) discuss the possibility that this species may have developed the capacity to empathize with humans at a level beyond emotional contagion; ii) briefly refer to the available evidence suppo...

Determinants of yawning are still uncertain. As yawning seems to be triggered by stress and emotional contexts, we investigated specific correlates of yawning and stereotypic behaviours in horses. Study 1 investigated correlations in time between yawning and stereotypic behaviour in stereotypic horses from the same facility; study 2, involving ridi...

How do we bond to one another? While in some species, like humans, physical contact plays a role in the process of attachment, it has been suggested that tactile contact's value may greatly differ according to the species considered. Nevertheless, grooming is often considered as a pleasurable experience for domestic animals, even though scientific...

Training of dogs to distinguish individual human scent has no well-established scientific basis. The aim of the study was to evaluate the progress made over three consecutive training phases and to compare the training results with those of the working phase. Six naive German Shepherd dogs (4 males and 2 females) were trained to match one target hu...

Present study was aimed at testing the possible breed differences in behaviour-related traits evaluated in performance tests of stallions. The results as regards the traits labelled "character", "temperament", "trainability" and "rideability" were examined. The results of 326 three-years old stallions submitted to the 100-days training at two train...

Twenty males were used from generation 8 of rabbits divergently selected for high (line H, n=10) vs. low (line L, n=10) locomotor activity in the open-field (OF-test). At the age of 98 days, blood samples were withdrawn from the ear vein and the rabbits were killed. Immediately, liver, kidney and the left femoral muscle samples were excised. In lys...

Original Papers Qualitative and quantitative changes in dogs' information-seeking behaviours during the subsequent phases of operant conditioning training using a scent lineup, were investigated. Particular interest was paid to behaviours which may have an impact on errors committed by dogs at work in a scent lineup and thus on the reliability of t...

The relationship between facial hair whorl position and reactivity, as assessed by behavioural measures (handling score=HS; startle reaction to a suddenly appearing novel object=SR; latency to touch a novel object=LNO) and heart rate measures (mean HR; increase in heart rate=IHR) were studied using 55 Konik horses reared either under conventional s...

The natural protective behaviour displayed by Konik Polski horses against flies was investigated. The factors considered were age (adults versus foals), management system (forest reserve versus pasture), weather conditions and type of horse activity. Twenty-five Konik Polski adults and 18 foals were observed between 0800 and 2000h during two summer...

The intensity with which the horse reacts to novelty is crucial for safety of both horse and human. The aim of the study was to examine: (1) whether horses' fear reactions to a startling novel object diminish with successive test days and (2) whether the active human handling leads to the decrease of the fear-related responses of the horse. Eight a...

There are studies on the relationship between the position and shape of hair whorls on bovine forehead and phenotypic traits. According to anecdotal beliefs by horse users and handlers, temperamental traits may be related to the position of hair whorls in horses. No previous research on the mechanisms of inheritance of hair whorls has been performe...

Weak or equivocal expression of oestrous behaviour, related to different level of mares’ reactivity, may cause problems in oestrus detection and thus influence the reproductive efficiency. The aim of the study was to test whether a breed characterised by low pregnancy rate and high emotional reactivity (Thoroughbreds) differs in oestrous behaviour...

Thirty foals and young Konik horses born in 3 consecutive years and reared up to weaning either in a forest reserve (R) or conventional stable (S) were compared with respect to behavioural reactions and heart rate (HR) during handling manipulations. The foals were randomly allocated within sex and rearing group to one of two handling treatments. In...