Can You Teach a Horse to Whinny on Command?

A reader asked how to get a horse to whinny on command. This is a tough question, and the honest answer starts with dogs and with why horses call in the first place.

Getting a dog to bark on cue is difficult unless the dog already barks a lot for attention. Dogs are vocal animals, and sometimes barking yourself will set the dog off. The same trick has not been successful with dogs here, and unnecessary barking is not a trait worth encouraging.

Dogs are fairly vocal animals, think of wolves, and sometimes if you bark you can get the dog to bark too. I’ve never been successful teaching this trick to a dog and also I don’t like dogs that bark un-necessarily. as for horses, my horses whinny to me every time I come to the fence to feed. Well, some of them do. Out of the five, they all have different personalities. some whinny more than others. Vocalizations by horses usually occur under the following situation: They become separated (like mares and babies) and whinny to keep in touch. Why do they whinny when food is coming?

Off hand I’m not really sure, except that maybe it is like a pavlovian response to food that is coming. As if you’ve been away, and are returning like a horse to them. normally a horse doesn’t whinny at a person, but the food overrides that. they want the food. they want to be “re-united”.

I guess the only possible way would be, at normal feeding time, to use some kind of signal when you approach (like shaking a bucket and saying “whinny” in a certain way) and see if they whinny. The cues here would be 1) you approaching with food and 2) shaking the bucket and saying “whinny”. Eventually cue no. 2 would replace cue no. 1, and finally you’d be able to shake your hand in the air and say “whinny”.

I’ve never heard of anyone teaching this trick. Most of the horse vocalizations you see in the movies and on tv are added on later. Good luck.