Throughout history, humans have coexisted with animals, fulfilling various roles in human life including providing food, clothing, and assistance in research and labor. The study of human-animal relationships has been a subject of interest for centuries; however, studies have predominantly focused on pets, livestock, and zoo animals, leaving a lack of attention to the relationships between humans and working animals despite their significant time spent in proximity to humans.

With this thesis I aimed to address this gap by exploring overlooked factors that influence the relationship between working animals and their handlers. Specifically, I delved into the impact of familiarity, relationship duration, the number of handlers and past owners, handler experience, and animals' own experiences as well as the effects of different living environments on the human-animal relationship. To achieve these research goals, I conducted experiments with three species of large ungulates used for transportation purposes: timber working Asian elephants, leisure horses, and sledge reindeer. Ungulates are the biggest representative of the working animals and a focus on these three populations, having different history with humans and living in different contexts, allowed the investigation of various aspects of the human-working animal relationship. The experiments focused on exposure to novelty in the presence of human handlers and communication tasks between animal and handler. The goal was to reproduce situations that are commonly encountered and crucial in a human-animal working context.

The findings revealed that longer and more familiar relationships between handlers and animals led to reduced reluctance towards novelty in Asian elephants and horses. However, reindeer appeared to be less sensitive to handler familiarity. These differences could be attributed to the amount of time the different species in our populations spend with their familiar caretakers. These results suggest that the development of a positive human-animal relationship may require a significant amount of time, influenced by multiple factors, including the animal’s previous interactions and experiences with humans, as well as the cumulative impact of repeated interactions shaping the animal's daily life. Age and training experience played important roles in all three species, with younger individuals showing more exploratory behaviours and older individuals demonstrating increased success in communication. This finding suggests that as animals mature and receive more training, they become more adept at understanding and responding to human communicative cues. The social and physical environment strongly influenced horses' success at following human cues, with larger groups and larger fields leading to higher success rates. An appropriate living environment can enhance animals' cognitive development and performance in communicative tasks with humans.

Altogether, the five chapters of this thesis offer a fresh and comprehensive perspective on the study of the human- working animal relationship, specifically from the vantage point of working animals. These findings hold valuable implications for practices and training techniques concerning draft working animals, empowering handlers to customise their approaches based on the distinct characteristics and sensitivities of each species. It is imperative to acknowledge and address the specific needs of working animals and to establish suitable living conditions that cater to their physical, social, and cognitive requirements. The creation of environments that foster cognitive growth, cultivate positive relationships between animals and handlers, and provide opportunities for learning and exploration can significantly enhance the well-being and effectiveness of working animals.