Does Your Horse Suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder?

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Does Your Horse Suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder?
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What does it mean if you enter your horse’s data into the Horse Harmony Test (take it at no-cost at http://www.horseharmonytest.com) and it returns three equal results? The test identifies your horse’s Five-Element type or temperament, so if it returns three results does that mean your horse suffers from multiple personality disorder (MPD)?

Not hardly!

But the test does occasionally return two or three results with the same scores. I realized that the reason for this is that people often see their own horses subjectively, and may not answer the test questions totally accurately. For that reason, I recently updated the horse portion of the Horse Harmony Test to make the test questions more objective.

Even so, from time to time the test will return more than one “answer,” or dominant type/temperament. For instance, that was the case with a mare named Dixie. Dixie’s test results indicated the same score for three different temperaments: Jue Yin, Shao Yang, and Tai Yang. How could Dixie’s owner, Katee, figure out which was the correct answer?

To help Katee type her mare, we did a little detective work using the more detailed information about the types and temperaments available in the “Horse Harmony” book. We did this in three easy steps.

>> Step 1: Use the Reference Table of Types and Temperaments <<
At the beginning of the “Horse Harmony” book is a table that gives an overview of each type, including the motto, typical traits, patterns when out of balance, and personality summary. In the test, Katee had described her mare’s primary problem as being “nervous in almost every situation.” We compared this phrase to the descriptions for Jue Yin, Shao Yang, and Tai Yang in the overview table. Unfortunately, Dixie’s nervous disposition was a possible match for all three types. So we asked Katee whether Dixie was consistently nervous or sometimes nervous and other times calm. Because Katee responded that Dixie was always nervous, we ruled out the Jue Yin temperament, which tends to be mercurial, or inconsistent from day to day.

>> Step 2: Compare Body Types <<
Having ruled out the Jue Yin temperament, we now had to decide whether Dixie was a Tai Yang or Shao Yang temperament. The fact that Dixie had plenty of “go” and not too much “whoa” didn’t help us much, since this is typical of both remaining types. Instead, we turned to Dixie’s body type as a clue. While it’s not every type or temperament has a specific body type, Tai Yang horses do. These horses are often tall and have long, narrow necks. One look at Dixie, a muscular rounded mare with plenty of muscle, showed us she wasn’t a Tai Yang horse. Saddlebreds and Arabian park horses tend to have body types more representative of the Tai Yang horse. Shao Yang horses can come in different shapes and sizes, but since Dixie definitely wasn’t a Tai Yang horse we decided she was probably a Shao Yang.

>> Step 3: Double Check Health Challenges <<
To double check our assessment of Dixie as a Shao Yang horse, we scanned the list of health challenges for both types. The health challenges listed for the Shao Yang temperament very closely matched Dixie’s issues. Specifically, Dixie:

- is sensitive when the cinch is tightened
- has eye drainage from time to time
- occasionally has itchy skin and rubs on the fence

Overall, Dixie is very healthy and happy, so she has hardly any health problems, but these few health indicators show us that Dixie has a Shao Yang rather than a Tai Yang temperament.

<><> A Little Detective Work Goes a Long Way <><>
By using these three resources -- the overview table, the body type, and the health challenges -- we were able to identify Dixie’s temperament. While both Shao Yang and Tai Yang temperaments are similar in their high energy levels, they have to be handled quite differently in training.

Knowing that Dixie is a Shao Yang rather than a Tai Yang temperament tells Katee that she needs to be firm enough to match the mare’s bold spirit. In addition, a little praise goes a long with a Shao Yang horse, who doesn’t need nearly as much praise and support as the more sensitive Tai Yang horse. Finally, Katee needs to be sure Dixie doesn’t get bored with too much schooling and drilling, and seek to teach the mare skills “on the job.”

Hopefully the deeper resources offered in the “Horse Harmony” book will help you identify your horse’s specific type or temperament if the test results are evenly split between two or three different answers. If you want additional clarity, you might also consider the Horse Health Hotline, an online forum where you can post case studies and ask questions about your horse’s health and temperament to your heart’s content. Just pay the inexpensive $30 lifetime membership and ask away! Learn more about the group here:

http://www.holistichorsekeeping.com/hhhgroup