18/10/2026
On a research farm in Norway, 23 horses learned to walk up to a white board and touch one of three symbols with their noses.
The question behind the study was a practical one, because owners routinely decide when a horse should wear a blanket based on their own sense of the weather, and nobody had ever asked the horse. The researchers designed a board with three symbols, one meaning put my blanket on, another meaning take it off, and a third meaning leave things as they are.
Training was short and gentle, with 10 to 15 minutes a day and small pieces of carrot as rewards. On average the horses reached the free-choice stage around the eleventh day, and every one of the 23 had mastered the task within 14 days.
Then the researchers tested them in different weather, and the horses' choices were plainly connected to the conditions rather than random. On cold, wet and windy days they were far more likely to ask for a blanket, while on pleasant days they generally preferred to go without one. A later study using the same board found the same pattern, with very few horses asking for a blanket once the temperature climbed above about 10°C.
The researchers described the board as a simple way for a horse to report on its own comfort, and in cold, driving rain the report from almost every horse was the same request for the blanket.
