Could my horse be depressed?

HORSES are resilient, social animals that are eager to please, but they’re also intelligent and emotionally complex, and experience depression just as humans do. Of course, they aren’t able to use words to tell us how they’re feeling, so careful reading of their behaviour is vital to identify whether they’re depressed.

Depression is an illness that means the individual has sadness about everything in their life.

Anhedonia is defined as the inability to enjoy things that used to be enjoyable and to no longer obtain pleasure from normally pleasurable activities. This perhaps best describes how a horse with depression is feeling. Each horse is an individual with its own personality and preferences, so what may be signs of depression in one animal could merely be normal behaviour for another.

SIGNS

THERE are some common signs of depression that horse owners should keep an