Why does my horse nudge me?

If youve spent any time with horses youve probably been nudged possibly quite hard! Sometimes its obvious why but a lot of the time there seems to be little or no reason. This can be a confusing frustrating or even painful behaviour so we asked equine vet Avice to investigate
Table of contents
What do we mean by nudging?Why do they do this?They want us to do something for themClever Hans the counting horseThey may be in painThey might be frustrated What can we do about it?Providing alternative resources for horses Experience shapes horses behaviour Punishment based training is no longer thought to be effective in these situations

What do we mean by nudging?
For the purposes of this article we refer to nudging as the behaviour where horses will use their nose and head to push us. This can range from gentle nuzzling to a forceful push. Or in other words a mild playful behaviour which can escalate to something that can be extremely dangerous. Horses will investigate objects by nudging but we will not cover this here.
Why do they do this?
There are a number of possibilities depending on the situation.
They want us to do something for them
The most common reasons for nudging to be directed towards humans are usually to gain attention or seek a benefit. This could be anything from an itch that needs to be scratched to a desire to search our pocket for food.
Clever Hans the counting horse
Possibly the most famous example of a horses ability to interpret and respond to subtle cues from humans was Clever Hans the counting horse. The public believed that Hans was able to do basic arithmetic or even general knowledge questions while in reality he was following cues from his owner. Interestingly mares have been shown to be better at interpreting body language in humans to ascertain if they are attentive or not. This possibly stems from the fact that older mares tend to be the members responsible for promoting social adhesion in their herd. This innate ability to read visual cues starts at an early age as it may be inherited or learned early in life.
As already mentioned horses tend to use tactile gestures such as nudging to get a response from us. Convincing evidence exists to show that horses can modify their mode of communication based on the attentiveness of their human and will increase their behaviours based on the response