Tag: horse behaviour

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The Cook Book

The Cookbook Approach to Horse Training

There are many who would really like to know all the answers, to be able to work through a book to train the perfect equine. There are many who try to provide this service, they produce glossy ads and videos showing how you can have a rapport with your horse. Some even give you a step by step program to obtain the perfect partnership.

What is wrong with the Cookbook approach?

Well for a start each horse is different, as is each owner/rider. No horse has ever read the book so has no idea what people want him to do, he is just busy being a horse.
Any book or program can only provide a framework – the trainer needs enough knowledge to know how to adapt and improvise.

If we have a cookbook what happens if you don’t have all the ingredients for a recipe? It probably all goes wrong unless you have enough knowledge to be able to adapt a recipe or make one up from scratch.

The same can happen in horse training if all you do is watch a few videos or read a few books without a true understanding of the subject.

What knowledge does an owner need to be able to be the trainer of their horse?

They need to know how horses learn – so an understanding of operant and classical conditioning.
Some physiology and an understanding of biomechanics will help to keep the horse healthy and sound.
An understanding of equine body language and emotions is also needed.
Certain programs can teach you the basics of horse care – the BHS Horse Owners Certificate looks at the care of the horse physical needs.

Studying the learning theory and emotional side of things may be a bit more tricky. There are however excellent behaviourists around who can help and several good online resources.

However pick a course or person who is not attached to an organisation that uses only pressure/release types of training. This may have a place in training but it should not be the only way to motivate a horse. Avoid those who use escalating pressure to teach behaviours to horses. Horses are very good at learning to avoid the pressure but it can be detrimental to their emotional state.

Some organisation teach equine psychology but have an emphasis on their own brand of training, so they justify the use of aversive stimuli and ignore positive reinforcement. Some never mention that what they use is negative reinforcement so many are under the illusion of it being positive reinforcement.

We do have to be careful as any training done badly will cause problems – this goes for both negative reinforcement programs and clicker training programs. There is much more to reward based training than a clicker and some food.
To learn safely and effectively try to find someone who can come out to you or who can do some video lessons and give good feedback.

All the time I learned to ride and train via both the BHS and natural horsemanship it was never explained that I was using negative reinforcement. Natural horsemanship did teach how to apply the aversive stimulus (pressure) and that is was the release of that aversive that reinforced the behaviour. However it was never called aversive or negative reinforcement.

Most people aren’t stupid and can understand the basics of learning theory if they are given the facts. Only then can they decide what motivation to use. The horse can be motivated by learning to avoid the application of pressure (-R) or he can learn to seek something he wants (+R).

Chasing, driving, applying more pressure can lead to a horse who suppresses his natural flight response. It can even lead to complete learned helplessness. This can be seen in traditional and natural horsemanship training, the dead to the leg riding school horses, the totally bombproof horses, natural horsemanship trained ones who don’t do anything unless told (because they fear the correction).

We need a balance – a safe horse but one with character, one who feels safe to express an opinion – even when it isn’t one we agree with. How many people mount horses who don’t willing stand at the mounting block – I know I have in the past got on my horse and before I was fully onboard she would walk off.
We can of course teach this with negative reinforcement  – making the wrong thing uncomfortable and the right thing easy. However do we really have a willing horse if he only performs a behaviour to avoid the consequences of not doing so?

We can equally cause conflict if using +R if the horse is still afraid but wants the food. This is why we need to learn more than the basics, learn about different rates and types of reinforcement, learn to fade out targets and clickers for established behaviours. Learn what conflict looks like and how to recognise fear and frustration and how to avoid triggering flight responses. Learn what to do if things don’t go to plan, learn to read all the very subtle signs our horses give us.

What ever we can teach using negative reinforcement can equally be taught using positive reinforcement – the difference is how the horse feels about the process. We do need knowledge and imagination and lots of patience.

Dominance, leadership, respect are often spoken about but have little place in our relationships with horses.
Trust, partnership and providing all our horses needs is far better in my opinion.

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The 5 Freedoms

How often do we hear people say they use aversive stimuli (pressure/release) because horses use it between themselves? Well yes they do but it is a threat behaviour – they give fair warning too – ears back, a slight shift in weight before a kick. Horses know these signals and can get out of the way. We don’t have ears that move or tails that swish but we can use our larger brains to find a way to communicate that doesn’t involve threats and escalating pressure. It isn’t easy which is why many don’t even try or go back to using aversive stimuli even when they have learned how the horse perceives these aversives.

If we use negative reinforcement and most of us do in some form then we need to be mindful of the fact and make sure we release effectively.
Personally I don’t like to hit my horse with the clip on the end of the rope – which is advocated by some genres of horsemanship, but I do ride traditionally trained horses and so use conventional aids – negative reinforcement, leg on – leg off etc.
It is the understanding of how classical and operant conditioning works that is useful for us, to enable us to choose wisely and ethically.

What I learned at the recent Thinking Horsemans weekend was that we have a duty of care and only we can decide what we are happy to do with our horses, but it is important to be able to read the horses body language – and their emotional state before any training can begin and assess it as we progress.

It was interesting that one speaker suggested that round penning was punishment based – yes horses send other horses away but that is as a punishment, so why do we then think it good to send horses away on a circle so they can be persuaded to follow us?

I love that most reward based training starts with the horse at liberty – giving the horse a choice. I missed the second day but there was a talk about autonomy – with a scale where reinforcement and punishment was at one end of the scale and autonomy at the other end. If a horse is on line it has no choice but to stay (unless like Benny they learn to use their size to leave). Leaving tells us a lot about our relationship.

The 5 Freedoms of welfare can be used to assess whether our training is ethical.

1. Freedom from hunger and thirst. Don’t train when the animal is hungry or thirsty, they will not concentrate and may mug you if you are using positive reinforcement with food rewards.

2. Freedom from discomfort. Check that the horse has all their needs met – environmental (is it a safe area to train in) as well as physical e.g back, teeth,feet and tack are comfortable.

3. Freedom from pain – don’t add aversive stimuli if this will cause pain to the animal – e.g hitting the horse with a whip or line to insist on a behaviour. Don’t use positive punishment unless in an absolute emergency where the horse is inadequately trained.

4. Freedom to behave normally, don’t insist on a horse looking straight ahead if there are distractions – it is normal behaviour to orient towards any possible scary stimulus in the environment.

5. Freedom from fear and distress, are you sure your training doesn’t cause a fear response? Sending a horse out in a round pen uses the fear response and is punishment. Using aversive stimuli to drive the horse forward initiates the flight response, e.g traditional lunging, and natural horsemanship circling.

I am sure you can all think of other examples.

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Tolerance

Tolerance
1.
“a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, differ from one’s own.” online dictionary definition.

Whilst my understanding of how animals learn gets deeper I find it really difficult to be tolerant with some aspects of horse training.

People who don’t understand the reasons for how a horse learns have some excuse for using techniques that may cause the horse distress. However there are people who understand operant and classical conditioning but still deliberately train horses using aversive stimuli.

Some say horses can’t be trained any other way – but why is that? All other animals on the planet can be trained using appetitives rather than aversive stimuli.

Take trailer loading – I hear people say make the outside of the trailer more uncomfortable than the inside. Why not turn it round and make the inside of the trailer more appetitive than the outside?

We can alter how the horse feels about anything using systematic desensitisation and counter conditioning.

This is not to say we must all be “fluffy bunny huggers” and let the horse do exactly what he wants without due regard for our and his safety.

We can train safety using positive reinforcement just as well, if not better, than if we use negative reinforcement.

Given a choice what would your horse choose – the relief from something he doesn’t like or a reward of something he likes.

It is the horse who decides what is aversive and what is appetitive.

Anytime you train and trigger a flight response (fear response) then you have used an aversive stimulus. I hear people say we don’t train with fear but how do you get a horse to do something he finds innately frightening, if you don’t use positive reinforcement? You add a more aversive stimulus than the stimulus of the frightening thing. How can that be good for the horses emotional wellbeing?

If you know please tell me!

The next module in Jo Hughes’ course is on affective neuroscience – how animals express emotions.

I am also going to a lecture by Jaak Panksepp in April – really looking forward to learning more.

Jack Panksepp has done a lot to help people understand emotions, and many have come to accept animals as sentient beings.

P.S I still use some negative reinforcement, as I ride other peoples horses, but it does not feel right to me to tap a horse with a whip or to use spurs.
Conventional aids can be taught using postive reinforcement.
The world is changing, as we know more about how animals feel and learn.