The East Flemish horse trainer Mieke Lannoo has taught her horse Happy to understand 12 signs from the SMOG (Speaking with Gesture Support) sign language system. SMOG is composed of simplified signs taken from Flemish Sign Language. After around 2 months of training, Happy is now able to carry out a series of instructions and respond to signals from her using the gestures.
The horse was already well-trained and obeyed a host of verbal orders, but during the past few months Happy has been learning a second language, SMOG.
“Next to, stop, back...” were words that he already knew. I just had to attach a sign to them. For him, it was as if he suddenly had to learn a new language”, Mieke Lannoo told the prerss agency Belga.
Ms Lannoo says that other horses too can learn to understand sign language. However, a good relationship with the animal is of the essence. “I believe that understanding how a horse thinks always comes first. Only once that foundation has been laid in place can a system like this be applied.”
Using SMOG can be useful when interacting with people with language issues, when traditional verbal communication is difficult and visual support plays an important role. SMOG stands for Spreken Met Ondersteuning van Gebaren (Speaking with the Support of Signs). It is used by people on the autism spectrum or that are living with intellectual disabilities or early-stage dementia.
The initiative to train a horse to respond to orders given using SMOG comes from the Flanders Horse Expo in Ghent. SMOG & Co is the Expo’s chosen charity this year. At a demonstration given by Happy and Ms Lannoo earlier this month, Ms Lannoo told journalists that “We show how to communicate with horses and how to communicate with people and we bring the two together.”
Those behind the initiative hope to promote the use of SMOG in fields such as healthcare and hippotherapy.