The horse is an animal that often becomes humanized. Despite domestication, the horse still has a need to interact with other horses, be able to move for the most of the day, and being able to graze. If these needs cannot be fulfilled, the horse can be negatively affected and develop abnormal behaviours. An example of abnormal behaviours is weaving; the horse performs a swinging motion in the front area of the body during a long time. This literature review aims to investigate how different stabling forms (box/stall) affect the incidence of weaving, and also how this behaviour can be prevented or limited.

The purpose of this degree project is to investigate how horse keepers reasons about horse keeping and how the horse keeping looks like today. It is interesting to compare modern horse keeping with ancien recommendations and how the horses were kept then to understand how much in the horse keeping today that is based on traditions instead of research and science. The degree project was based on data from interviews of 52 horse keepers in five different municipalities. All interviews have been based from the same questionaire about how there horses are kept today, what they think about different housing systems, how they think horses will be housed in the future and what problems they think are the biggest in horse keeping today. The results shows that single boxes indoors are the most frequently used housing system today.

SUMMARYThe Swedish laws of animal welfare emphasize the social needs of the horse but nothing is said about how to fulfill this. Though there are few studies done in this subject it can be difficult to understand if the needs are fulfilled. The purpose of this study was to learn more about the horse?s social needs in box stable and to increase other people?s knowledge and understanding of the horse behavior to increase the welfare of the stabled horse. The questions where: How does the horse choose to place itself depending on what horse is next to it? How many attempts does the horse do to take contact and nose contact with the horse next to it? How does the box design affect the horse behavior?22Eight horses were videotaped during 24 nights.

The purpose of this paper is to find out which characteristics the female and male characters have in five selected horse books in children's literature. I have analyzed five horse books by Professor Maria Nikolajeva?s gender roles schedule. I have chosen to do a qualitative text analysis and the questions I chose to ask for the books are: Which characteristics does the girls and the boys have in the selected horse books according to Nikolajeva?s gender chart? What is the relationship between the main characters and the horse/horses according to the theories of Backman? What does the typical horse book look like today? What I come to conclusion in my paper is that all the horse books I analyzed have female main characters, and the girls in these books about horses take a lot of space and demonstrate themselves strong.

The purpose of this essay was to try to understand the relationship between the horse and man during the last part of the Iron Age and trough out the Medieval Age. To be able to get a result I investigated the horse's tending, work within agriculture, riding, warfare, breeding, to stable horses, oxen, sports and hunting, eating of the horse and age at slaughter and more. The results showed that the horse's position changed from the later part of the Iron Age throughout the Medieval Ages and in different ways for, respectively, the elite as for the peasant culture..

The purpose of this study was to gather knowledge about the functioning of the rein tension meter and test it for future studies of match and mismatch between rider and horse. We looked specifically into the possibilities to use a rein-tension meter to determine the quality of cooperation between horse and rider. We examined whether a rider shows a specific tension pattern and also if certain patterns could be recognised for a specific horse. During the study, a manual with pictures and text was written to support the practical use of the meter. The manual describes in a simple way the first steps in the installation and use of the meter.

The most common reason for a horse owner to seek veterinary care for their horse is related to the musculoskeletal system. Assessment of the horse's movement pattern is essential in the equine veterinary work. How uniformly veterinarians evaluate the lame horse may have both diagnostic and prognostic significance, such as follow up examination by the same or different veterinarian. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether there are between-veterinarian differences in assessing lameness in the same horse. In total 12 veterinarians evaluated 80 video sequences of 4 horses with induced lameness and made an evaluation of the affected limb as well as the degree of lameness.

Background:It is estimated that one in ten children witness domestic violence. It is of importance that children grow up in a safe environment. When they grow up with domestic violence they can lose very important skills which can be hard to gain back. Children respond to domestic violence in different ways depending on their age. Aim: The aim of this study was to enlighten children's experiences of domestic violence in their home.

The genetic relationship between three Swedish horse breeds was investigated using microsatellite data from 144 loci in 30 horses. The North Swedish Trotter is believed to have been crossed with the Standardbred in the 1950?s to produce a faster trotter. If true, the North Swedish Trotter should be more alike the Standardbred than what the North Swedish Draught Horse is, from which they originate. This was investigated using F-statistics and Nei?s distance in GENEPOP and GENETIX and cluster assignment in STRUCTURE.

Equestrianism is a big sport in Sweden with many practitioners. It is a dangerous sport and it is important for the rider to be aware of the risks, to study equine ethology and know how to handle the horse, to avoid accidents. Today most people have their first contact with a horse through a horseback riding school. Ölmstad rid- och körsällskap is a riding school that provides their pupils with a different kind of lessons. The lessons are 90 minutes long and contain both riding and horse-knowledge education.

In the beginning of 2009 The County Administrative Boards assumed the responsibility of animal welfare, a task previously performed by the individual municipalities. This transfer was made with the aim of achieving more efficient and equivalent animal welfare controls across the country. Previous studies among animal owners have shown a somewhat negative image of animal welfare controls. This study focuses on investigating the experiences of the horse keepers in the County of Halland concerning animal welfare. The study is based on a questionnaire which was sent to 423 horse keepers in Halland, of which 130 were returned with information that laid the foundation of this study.

The aim of this work was to investigate possible risk factors for colic in horses, and to describe what horse owners can do to prevent this condition. The gastrointestinal system of the horse is constructed for continuous high fibre consumption for a period up to eighteen hours a day. Under those conditions, the continuous flow of digesta stimulates gut motility so that the intestines move constantly. When the diet is changed rapidly and the horse is being fed high rations of concentrates each day, the risk of getting colic is higher compared to when consuming less concentrates and giving the horse a stable diet. Lack or absence of access to water and restricted allowance to move freely every day increases the risk of colic. Changed management practices and decreased activity contributes to increased risks, as well as other critical risk factors such as breed, season and age combined with rapidly changed management. More knowledge and education is required of the horse owners about feed requirements in the horse, management routines and rapidly changed activity..

Background: Domestic violence is a globally widespread problem. One in three women will at some point during their lifetime suffer from domestic violence. These women, who come from all groups of society, often seek contact with health care and therefore the nurse plays a vital role in caring for these women.Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurses? experiences of caring for women subjected to domestic violence.Method: Literature review based on twelve original articles.Result: The result is presented in four main themes: Lack of knowledge and education, The nurse?s approach and attitude in the encounter with women who suffered domestic violence, The nurse?s emotional challenges in the encounter with women who suffered domestic violence and The nurse?s experience of identification of domestic violence victims.Discussion: Education is important on several levels for the nurse's work with domestic violence victims. Education is required in order to efficiently identify the women, manage emotional impact and to respond to women in a professional manner..

One way of signalling commands to the horse during riding is through applying tension on the reins to create bit pressure in the horse?s mouth (Terada et al., 2006; Clayton et al., 2011). The skilfulness of the rider in using the hands when applying bit pressure has consequences both for the horse?s performance and welfare (Manfredi et al., 2010). At the trot there are large vertical deviations of the horse?s body which the rider must adjust and adapt to (Terada et al., 2006) and an unsteady hand due to inability to follow the horse?s movement can be a source of discomfort and conflict behaviour in the horse (Heleski et al., 2009).

We choose to revise the need of dental care in horses. How important is the dental care for our horse´s use and for their health? The objective of this work was to see if there is a difference between Swedish veterinaries and educated horse dentists opinion concerning horse dental care. As horse owners, we have experienced that there is a conflict between the opinions of these two occupational groups. Some veterinarians say that there is a tendency to use to much treatments or instruments in horses mouths, while some horse dentists says that there is not enough treatments done in horses´ mouths.