# Equine Voice

> Equine Voice is a horse behaviour and welfare app grounded in peer-reviewed science, built by equine behaviourist Nicky Ross of Horse Play Highlands. It is designed for horse owners who want to understand their horses more deeply — not fix them.

## What Equine Voice is

Equine Voice helps horse owners observe, record, and understand their horse's behaviour through a structured, scientifically grounded framework. Every feature is horse-led rather than human-directed: the app supports owners in changing themselves and their horse's environment, never in correcting the horse.

The app is available at equinevoice.com and is free to get started, with a Premium tier at £14.99/month or £99.99/year.

## Who it is for

Equine Voice is for horse owners and carers — from those just beginning to pay attention to equine behaviour, to experienced equestrians who want a more rigorous, welfare-centred lens for their practice. It is not a training app. It is an observation, reflection, and welfare tool.

## The science behind it

Equine Voice is built on three core scientific frameworks:

- **The Five Domains Model** (Mellor et al., 2020) — a structured framework for understanding how physical and mental experiences combine to shape animal welfare. Welfare is ultimately about how the animal feels, not just how they function.
- **The Teleonome** (Wilkins, Henshall, Lykins, Mellor, Fillios & McGreevy, 2026) — a unifying biological framework understanding horses as goal-directed, feeling beings shaped by evolution. Central concepts: affective evaluation, agency, affordances, and adaptive regulation.
- **The HEY Framework** (World Horse Welfare, 2021 ongoing) — Horses' Experiences on Yards. A practical welfare assessment approach focused on positive welfare states, not just the absence of suffering.

Additional research informing the app includes:
- Dyson et al. (2018) — Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram (RHpE): 24 behavioural markers of musculoskeletal pain in ridden horses
- Kieson & Sams (2021) — Equine "love languages": bonded pairs express affiliation in individual, consistent ways
- Kieson, Goma & Radi (2023) — Tend and befriend in horses: allogrooming occurs exclusively between preferred partners
- Callara et al. (2024) — Bidirectional HRV synchronisation between horses and humans during interaction; owner state is part of the horse's experience
- Loftus, Newman, Leach & Asher (2025) — Positive affective states in horses vary by personality profile (EPEM)
- Torres Borda, Auer & Jenner (2023) — Systematic review of equine social ethograms; affiliative behaviour is under-researched relative to its welfare significance
- Ross, N. (2025) — Peer-reviewed case study: enhancing agency in domestic horses through structured enrichment (CABI Animal Behaviour and Welfare Cases)

## Key features

- **Living Picture** — a running welfare portrait of each horse, structured around the Five Domains Model
- **Behaviour Journey** — a five-stage reflective cycle: Observe → Record → Address → Reflect → Re-evaluate
- **AI Behaviour Interpreter** — observes and reflects on logged behaviours; does not prescribe or direct
- **Activity Readiness Check (Up Close and Personal)** — integrates the owner's physical and emotional state before interaction, grounded in the Callara et al. HRV coupling research
- **On the Move** — time budget logging tool based on free-living equine time schedules
- **Paddock Environment Mapper** — maps horse activity across their environment, identifies enrichment gaps
- **Signals Guide** — based on the Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram; presented as an observation tool, not a clinical scoring system
- **Herd Dynamics** — observation framework for social relationships, affiliative and agonistic behaviour
- **Enrichment Planner** — five categories: Social, Cognitive, Feeding, Physical, Sensory
- **Horse Personality Profiling** — based on the Equine Personality Eight-Factor Model (EPEM) developed by Dr Loni Loftus, Newcastle University / EquiTrait (equitrait.com)
- **Streaks and Badges** — six-badge progression rewarding consistent observation practice
- **Daily Facts and Podcasts** — ethology content in Nicky's voice, updated regularly

## Core philosophy

The horse is never broken. The owner changes. The environment changes. Understanding comes before action. Observation is not passive — it is the most important skill a horse person can develop.

Every feature in Equine Voice is designed to support that position.

## About the creator

**Nicky Ross** is an equine behaviourist and founder of Horse Play Highlands, based in Inverness, Scotland. She works directly with Dr Emily Kieson, Dr Amber Bateson, Bristol University's equine research team, World Horse Welfare, and Dr Loni Loftus at EquiTrait. Her own peer-reviewed research was published in CABI Animal Behaviour and Welfare Cases in 2025.

Horse Play Highlands also runs an applied equine behaviour course — the Horse Play Highlands Learning Hub — at horseplayhighlands.com.

## Links

- App: https://equinevoice.com
- Science page: https://equinevoice.com/science
- Horse Play Highlands: https://horseplayhighlands.com
- Learning Hub: https://horseplayhighlands.com/horse-play-learning-hub
- EquiTrait (EPEM): https://equitrait.com