The advantage of a miniature horse for assistance

My sister asks "What would be the advantage to having a miniature horse as compared to a dog for assistance". This is a question many people have asked.

If a miniature horse can be successfully trained to perform the same tasks as a dog the biggest advantage will be the longevity of the horse. Horses live an average of 30 years versus the dog who lives an average of 10 years. It is very costly to train an assistance animal and so an animal that lives 3 times as long would cut the costs down considerably. Our clients also become very bonded to their animals and go through considerable grief when their dog passes away so an animal that lives 3 times as long is desirable for this reason as well.

The other big issue is that we deal with a lot of instinctive behavior in a dog that is counterproductive to assistance work. We release a tremendous number of dogs from our program for reactive barking, chasing small animals, and aggression with other dogs. None of these are an issue for horses. While horses do have a stronger natural flight instinct and can spook easily there are many, many horses that are very stable working in environments where one wouldn't think a horse would do well (i.e. Police and carriage horses in big cities deal with a lot of stress). With dogs we still end up releasing a number of them that are skittish as well so its not like they are immune from this trait.

We have had great struggles trying to find dogs for some of our people who are ambulatory and want a dog to help them balance while walking. The dog has to be very large in order to bear some weight and yet has to be extremely calm and not prone to chasing an animal that crosses its path so as to assure it won't pull its handler off their feet. We have found few such dogs. People  have to wait years if they want one because there are so few dogs that meet the requirements for size and temperament. This is why our client who has had 2 service dogs and has been waiting for 3 years with us, started investigating some alternatives.

That said, a horse will not be a practical animal for many people. Dogs are just more portable and curl up into smaller spaces. They are of course also much more common. It will be hard for someone to go anywhere with a horse without constantly being questioned by people. But for those people who think the advantages may outweigh the disadvantages I think it is worth experimenting with. There is a successful guide horse working name Panda. You can view a video of one of her training sessions on YouTube below

What I hear is that she is a superior guide animal to any of the 3 dogs that the handler has had but she isn't quite as practical. I can see where a horse would be a far superior guide animal. Danny naturally is so aware of his footing and takes me around the potholes in the driveway and stops at any surface changes to investigate. Dogs tend to plunder through everything and are also far more distracted by their surroundings, another thing that makes them more difficult to train for any kind of assistance work.

So, those are the reasons for experimenting with a horse. The big question for me is still one of practicality. It is definitely "odd" having a little horse in your house but then again at one time it was odd to have a dog in your house. One thing I know is that its a heck of a lot quieter having horses. One little nicker when I come to the barn in the morning versus a cacophony of barking dogs.

Sue