02/02/2026
Very exciting to see this work on “separation anxiety” in horses now published 🥳🥳 A huge thank you to Claire, Daniel and all involved, it was a real honour and career milestone to be invited to participate on the expert panel. Looking forward to seeing what comes next from this important step forward in our understanding of this area of horse behaviour🐴
“In conclusion, this research highlights the importance of considering the contexts in the manifestation of separation anxiety in horses as it could arise in various situations. Indeed, we have identified eight different contexts of potential importance characterising when separation anxiety in horses may occur. These contexts range from stimuli that may act as predictors during ‘preparation’ for departure through the act of separation to the event involving ‘loss of contact’ and they are not only restricted to group-housed horses. Moreover, we identified multiple signs associated with separation anxiety, which may reflect components of emotion, such as changes in behavioural tendency and arousal ranging from an increase in arousal and tendencies like locomotor activity, hypervigilance, etc. to depressive responses like ‘apathy’ or ‘Total / Partial inhibition of maintenance behaviours’. Future work should be placed within the context of the eight contexts of separation anxiety identified in this paper, which are not mutually exclusive, to ensure unwarranted generalisations are not made in terms of clinical assessment or management.”
