Janne Winther Christensen

• Professor (Associate) at Aarhus University

The welfare of sports horses is debated both within and outside the horse community. One welfare concern is the frequent occurrence of oral lesions. Lesions may be caused by inappropriate training and ill-fitting equipment. Increased knowledge of behavioural signs of pain, discomfort and frustration (often jointly labelled 'conflict behaviour') in...

Previous studies of human-dog interventions vary in terms of type of interaction, which is rarely quantified, leading to contradictory findings and limited comparability. To uncover the influence of different types of interactions, the present study investigated if it was possible to detect differences in immediate physiological measurements of hea...

Across the globe, the welfare of sport horses is of growing concern, prompting the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) to state that at all times the welfare of the horse must be paramount. Expressions of discomfort or pain are nevertheless frequently overlooked or misunderstood, and warrant the development of objective welfare assessment met...

National legislation requires shelter access for horses kept outside during winter, whereas there are no requirements for shelter access to provide shade and a refuge from biting insects during summer. This study investigated use of artificial shelters by 10 horse groups continuously for eight summer weeks (2019: 5 groups, 2020: 5 groups, n = 42, 3...

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Pasture access is key to horse welfare, but during summer biting insects can cause discomfort and lead to health issues related to transmission of diseases and allergies. To measure the level of discomfort and whether access to shelters or other indoor areas may help prevent biting insect nuisance, we studied 39 horses: n = 21 with free indoor acce...

Research on learning in domestic animals is often based on food-rewarded tasks. It is still unclear however, how much intrinsic factors such as food motivation and fearfulness influence performance in food-rewarded operant tasks. This study aimed to investigate the association between learning ability in different tests, food motivation and fearful...

Objective To compare the immediate response of nursing home residents to dog visits with or without an activity, and the impact of cognitive ability. Methods In a randomly controlled trial, 174 nursing home residents were allocated to 12 bi-weekly 10-minute visits: either ordinary dog visits (D, n = 57, 49 analysed), dog visits with an activity (D...

Riders need core stability to follow and guide the horse’s movements and avoid giving unintended or conflicting signals. This study evaluated the rider’s performance of exercises on a gymnastic ball with on-horse performance and indicators of stress in the horse. Twenty experienced riders were scored performing three exercises on a gymnastic ball a...

Simple Summary Horse riders need to be stable and well-balanced in order to give clear instructions to the horse. Riders use various types of off-horse gymnastic training in an attempt to improve riding performance but little information is available to support or refute their value for improving performance on the horse. This study evaluated and s...

Simple Summary Optimising horse–human relationships can promote positive experiences and advance the welfare and safety of both dyad members. Attachment and bonding are key components in such relationships, and horses are good candidate subjects for studying bonding processes due to their social nature, artificial selection for trainability and the...

The mechanisms underlying individual variation in learning are key to understanding the development of cognitive abilities. In humans and primates, curiosity has been suggested as an important intrinsic factor that enhances learning, whereas in domesticated species research has primarily identified factors with a negative effect on cognitive abilit...

Many breeding organisations include a subjective scoring of rideability by a professional rider into their evaluation of sports horses, but the consistency and reliability of the scoring system is debateable. The aim of this study was to investigate (i) whether professional riders agree in their scoring of rideability, and (ii) whether rideability...

Understanding the development and consistency of behavioural responses across life stages is of both fundamental and applied interest. In horses, fearfulness is particularly important because fear reactions are a major cause of human-horse accidents, and because fear is a negative emotional state with negative consequences for animal welfare and pe...

Animals can acquire new behavior through both individual and social learning. Several studies have investigated horses’ ability to utilize inter-species (human demonstrator) social learning with conflicting results. In this study, we repeat a previous study, which found that horses had the ability to learn from observing humans performing an instru...

Simple Summary The influence of rider weight on horse welfare, health and performance is often debated. We measured the effects of increasing the weight of the regular rider by 15% and 25% on horse behavior, gait symmetry and physiological responses in a standard dressage test. Cortisol levels increased in response to exercise, but we found no effe...

Early life events can shape the development of individual behavior and stress sensitivity. This study explored whether the temperament of the mother modulates curiosity, fear, and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA)-axis hormones in different lines of mink. We designed a study with all combinations of cross-mating between males and females from li...

Abstract: There are several mechanisms through which the behaviour of animals can be altered from observing others. These mechanisms are fundamentally different in terms of cognitive complexity, and range from simple hard-wired processes (social facilitation) to social enhancement of individual learning (local/stimulus enhancement) to genuine learn...

Little is known about the effect of shelter design on sheltering behavior in out-wintered cattle. In this pilot study, we explored the effects of two different shelter designs (rectangular: 50 m² vs. hexagonal 53 m² with three separate compartments) on shelter use by cattle. Two shelters of each type were included in the study, and shelter use by 6...

Transmission of fear and attenuation of fear within groups of farm animals remain relatively unexplored, despite the importance for human and animal safety. This paper reports the results of two separate experiments, aiming to explore social transmission of habituation in horses at group level. In Experiment 1, the effect of a same-age demonstrator...

As group-living animals, horses are often assumed capable of acquiring new behaviour through social learning. Solid evidence of true social learning in horses is however lacking. Research on the topic includes a variety of studies, some of which may over-estimate the mental abilities of horses. Assuming such abilities in their absence can have detr...

Prima facie, the acquisition of novel behaviors in animals through observation of conspecifics seems straightforward. There are, however, various mechanisms through which the behavior of animals can be altered from observing others. These mechanisms range from simple hard-wired contagious processes to genuine learning by observation, which differ f...

Little is known about the effect of shelter design on sheltering behavior in horses. This study investigates shelter use by Icelandic horses kept outdoors 24 hours a day during the winter in Denmark and whether shelter use and levels of fecal cortisol metabolites (FCMs) are affected by (1) the number of entrances (1 vs. 2) and (2) a partition insid...

Food motivation may influence an animal’s performance in food-rewarded learning tasks. Nevertheless, food is often used as a positive reinforcer in learning tasks to investigate cognitive abilities of farm animals, and to test effects of various treatments, such as environmental enrichment, on animal cognition. However, any treatment that affects f...

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate shelter use by beef cattle in relation to space allowance per individual and weather conditions. Nine groups of Angus cattle (n = 35 in total, 3–6/group) were kept on paddocks with a squared shelter (5 × 10 m) with an open long side. In a 3 × 3 crossover design, three experimental treatments were tes...

The main objective of this explorative study was to describe the relationship between competition scores and salivary cortisol concentrations in young horses during dressage and showjumping competitions. The study also investigated whether the diurnal rhythm of salivary cortisol concentrations was affected by competition over consecutive days compa...

Dominance hierarchies in horses primarily influence priority access to limited resources of any kind, resulting in predictable contest outcomes that potentially minimize aggressive encounters and associated risk of injury. Levels of aggression in group-kept horses under domestic conditions have been reported to be higher than in their feral counter...

In terms of exercise, testosterone is important for the growth and maintenance of skeletal muscle mass. Sampling saliva could be a non-invasive alternative to blood sampling for the quantification of testosterone levels in horses. The objective of this study was to compare testosterone concentrations in saliva and serum (sampled simultaneously) fro...

There is increasing interest in keeping horses in groups, but progress is hampered by a lack of knowledge about which horses can and should be kept together. Therefore, our objective was to investigate the effect of group composition on the occurrence of injuries among horses, the ease of removing horses from groups and horses’ reactivity to a fear...

Previous studies suggest that contact with dogs can positively affect the wellbeing of elderly people in nursing homes, but there is a lack of research investigating the causal pathways of these effects. One such path- way may relate to the behavioral responses of the elderly when interacting with a dog. The present study compared the immediate beh...

Fear reactions in horses are a major cause of horse-human accidents, and identification of effective pathways for reduction in fearfulness can help decreasing the frequency of accidents. For a young mammal, the mother is one of the most salient aspects of its environment, and she can have a strong influence on her offspring's behaviour. This study...

So, how can the study and use of odors in applied ethology and animal welfare science be advanced? First, all studies should bear in mind the potential impact of odors. The invisible influence of odors, undetected by the human experimenter may explain unexpected results. Second, if odors are to be used to improve the way we manage animals, then the...

Background: Previous studies have suggested that visiting dogs can have positive effects on elderly people in nursing homes. We wanted to study the effects of biweekly dog visits on sleep patterns and the psychiatric well-being of elderly people. Methods: A total of 100 residents (median age: 85.5 years; [79; 90]) from four nursing homes were ra...

Artiklen giver et etologisk perspektiv på terapidyr, introducererde bagvedliggende teorier og giver information om brugen afterapidyr i Danmark.Dyreassisteret terapi er en målrettet intervention, hvor dyreter en fast integreret del.Den teoretiske baggrund baseres på 1) unikke egenskaberved selve dyret eller 2) dyrets funktion som interaktiv partner...

Keeping horses in groups is widely recommended but limited information is available about how this is implemented in practice. The aim of this survey was to describe how horses are kept in the Nordic countries in relation to sex, age, breed, and equestrian discipline and to assess owners' attitudes toward keeping horses in groups. Horse owners in D...

Keeping horses in groups is widely recommended but limited information is available about how this is implemented in practice. The aim of this survey was to describe how horses are kept in the Nordic countries in relation to sex, age, breed, and equestrian discipline and to assess owners’ attitudes toward keeping horses in groups. Horse owners in D...

Habituated horses have been found to have a calming effect on conspecifics in fear-eliciting situations. In practice, experienced horses are often used as companions when young horses are introduced to potentially frightening situations, like loading onto a trailer. However, studies of social transmission of habituation in horses are scarce. This s...

Most horses are trained by negative reinforcement. Currently, however, no standardised test for evaluating horses’ negative reinforcement learning ability is available. The aim of this study was to develop an objective test to investigate negative reinforcement learning in horses. Twenty-four Icelandic horses (3 years old) were included in this stu...

Social animals should have plenty of opportunities to learn from conspecifics, but most studies have failed to document social learning in horses. This study investigates whether young Icelandic horses can learn a spatial detour task through observation of a trained demonstrator horse of either the same age (Experiments 1 and 2, n = 22) or older (E...

Reasons for performing the studyInclusion of objective temperament tests at practical horse breeding evaluations is of increased interest. It has been debated whether such tests may involve human handling, since there may be considerable differences in horses' handling experience. Objectives To investigate the effect of a short-term standardised ha...

Social animals should have plenty of opportunities to learn from conspecifics, but most studies have failed to document social learning in horses. This study investigated the ability of young Icelandic horses (n=46, 2-3 years old) to learn a spatial detour task by observing a trained, familiar and dominant demonstrator of either the same age (Exper...

Habituated horses have been found to have a calming effect on conspecifics, and this study investigated whether a habituated demonstrator influenced the willingness of young Icelandic horses (2-3 years old) to cross a novel surface. All horses were initially trained to go through a 4-m opening in a fence to obtain food. In Experiment 1 (n=22), a wh...

The effects of hyperflexion on the welfare of dressage horses have been debated. This study aimed to investigate acute stress responses of dressage horses ridden in three different Head-and-Neck-positions (HNPs). Fifteen dressage horses were ridden by their usual rider in a standardised 10-min dressage program in either the competition frame (CF),...

Only little is known about behaviour and stress responses in horses with gastric ulceration, despite the high prevalence of this condition. Our objectives in the present study was to (i) describe the severity of gastric ulceration in horses, housed under relatively standardised conditions, and (ii) to investigate whether horses with severe glandula...

The ability of horses to learn and remember new tasks is fundamentally important for their use by humans. Fearfulness may, however, interfere with learning, because stimuli in the environment can overshadow signals from the rider or handler. In addition, prolonged high levels of stress hormones can affect neurons within the hippocampus; a brain reg...

Reasons for performing the study: The ability of horses to habituate to novel objects influences safety in the horse–human relationship. However, the effectiveness of different habituation techniques has not been investigated in detail. Objectives: 1) To investigate whether horses show increased stress responses when negatively reinforced to approa...

The ability of horses to learn through social observation may ease the implementation of new management systems, because the use of automatic feeders etc. by naive horses could be facilitated by observation of experienced horses. However, previous studies found no documentation for observational learning abilities in horses. This study aimed to inv...

Domestic horses are faced with social challenges throughout their lives due to limitations in social contact, space restrictions and frequent changes in social companionship. This is in contrast to natural conditions where horses live in relatively stable harem bands. Currently, little is known about how repeated regrouping affect horse behaviour a...

The intensity with which a horse responds to separation from its group and subsequently to being alone is relevant for both horse and handler safety. Identification of training methods that may reduce responses to separation would be useful in practice. To investigate whether the initial presence of a familiar companion horse modifies responses to...

During riding, horses are frequently exposed to pressure from the rider, e.g. through the bit and reins, but few studies have investigated at which point rein tension becomes uncomfortable for the horse. To investigate how much rein tension young inexperienced horses are willing to accept in order to obtain a food reward; whether the tension accept...

The ability of horses to habituate to frightening stimuli greatly increases safety in the horse–human relationship. A recent experiment suggested, however, that habituation to frightening visual stimuli is relatively stimulus-specific in horses and that shape and colour are important factors for object generalisation (Christensen et al., 2008). In...

Group housing of horses is not widely applied in practice despite the welfare advantages of keeping animals socially rather than individually. In particular, concerns have been raised about the possible increased risk of injury and how to introduce a new horse into an established group.This study investigated two hypotheses: (1) pre-exposure of you...

Habituation to frightening stimuli plays an important role in horse training. To investigate the extent to which horses generalise between different visual objects, 2-year-old stallions were habituated to feeding from a container placed inside a test arena and assigned as TEST (n=12) or REFERENCE horses (n=12). In Experiment 1, TEST horses were hab...

Horses frequently react nervously when passing animal production farms and other places with distinctive smells, leading riders to believe that horses are innately frightened by certain odours. In three experiments, we investigated how horses respond to (1) urine from wolves and lions, (2) blood from slaughtered conspecifics and fur-derived wolf od...

In fear-eliciting situations, horses tend to show flight reactions that can be dangerous for both horse and man. Finding appropriate methods for reducing fearfulness in horses has important practical implications. To investigate whether the presence of a calm companion horse influences fear reactions in naive subject horses. The presence of a habit...

Tryptophan supplements are marketed worldwide as calmatives for fearful or excitable horses, although there are no scientific publications that support the efficiency of tryptophan on horses. Here, we investigate whether a commercial feed additive with tryptophan reduces the reactions of horses in standardised fear and handling tests. In two differ...

Responses of horses in frightening situations are important for both equine and human safety. Considerable scientific interest has been shown in development of reactivity tests, but little effort has been dedicated to the development of appropriate training methods for reducing fearfulness. To investigate which of 3 different training methods (habi...

Responses of horses towards fear-eliciting stimuli can have important consequences for both human and horse safety. This experiment was designed to investigate behavioural and heart rate (HR) responses of horses to novel visual, auditory and olfactory stimuli. Twenty-four 2-year-old, previously unhandled, stallions were habituated to receive a food...

Commercially reared ostrich chicks are typically kept in barren, indoor environments. This experiment investigated the effects of environmental enrichment on the pecking behaviour, exploration, food consumption and novelty responses of ostrich chicks aged 10 to 21 days. Four groups of 20 randomly selected ostrich chicks were housed in heated huts a...

The present experiment investigated the effects of a calcium deficient diet on the use of outdoor areas, foraging activity and production parameters in two strains of slow-growing broilers (i657 and a Labresse cross). The birds were housed as day-old in an indoor system of 2×8 groups of each 111 birds (11.8 birds/m2). After 6 weeks, the groups were...

The study aimed to (i) describe the response of farmed mink towards familiar and novel food, and (ii) assess the suitability of using novel food in order to measure fear responses in mink. A total of 48 farm mink from two behaviourally selected genetic lines were caged individually with one standardised daily feeding. The experimental feedings were...

The aim of this study was to investigate social behaviour in differently reared stallions in their respective environments; one group of stallions was reared under typical domestic conditions whereas the other group was reared and lives under natural conditions. The domestic group consisted of 19, 2-year-old stallions (Equus caballus), which were a...

Domestic horses (Equus caballus) are typically kept in individual housing systems, in which they are deprived of physical contact. In order to study the effects of social restrictions on behaviour in young horses, nineteen 2-year-old stallions were housed either singly (n=7), or in groups of three (n=12) for 9 months. Subsequently, the stallions we...

Fear is generally considered to be an undesirable emotional state that may reduce welfare, growth and reproductive performance in animals. Fear in horses is additionally problematic, because fear reactions can cause serious injury to both horse and human. Horses are primarily used for sports and leisure for a large number of children and young wome...