In a web site advice column written by a veterinarian, he claimed that if a blacksmith trims or shoes a horse incorrectly so that the horse becomes lame within a couple of weeks of work, the horse will make the connection that the blacksmith was the cause of the lameness and will hate the blacksmith and refuse to pick up its feet for the blacksmith from then on. I can believe that horses might remember if the blacksmith hurt the horse at the time of the trimming, and it will associate that blacksmith, or maybe even foot work in general, with pain. It is then likely to resist future foot work. But if the lameness develops some time after the blacksmith leaves, even if this happens again and again for years, I doubt that a horse would make the connection of the foot work and the lameness. Please comment from a behaviorist’s perspective.        via e-mail

It’s probably not possible. There is a lot yet to learn about the complexities of horse cognition, but associative learning involving delayed consequences–even beyond a couple of minutes delay–is likely way beyond a horse’s ability.

Think how hard it would be to train a horse, even with positive reinforcement, to make the association between something that happens today and something that comes on gradually even a day later. In a punishment paradigm, delay is even more problematic than in a reinforcement paradigm. In fact, that’s why most behaviorists recommend against punitive methods. Unless the timing is immediate, the horse just seems confused by the aversive experience or makes unintended associations with intervening events.

I could also imagine that if the horse becomes lame after foot work, he might be noncompliant with foot work at the next visit because of the actual pain at the time.

There is one example of efficient animal learning in which the adverse consequences are believed to be delayed. It is the “bait avoidance” learning phenomenon. When animals (most of this work has been done with laboratory rodents) become sick on a novel flavored food, they avoid ingesting foods with that flavor. Presumably there is a delay between tasting the food and getting sick. But the animal seems to learn quickly to stay away from that new flavor