March 2023 – Whispering Horse

Desensitisation, the good and the bad (don’t get them mixed up)

There seems to be a lot of confusion about Desensitization.

People are either thinking it’s great to try to desensitize their horse, de-spook or bomb-proof their horse.

OR there are people saying NOT to use Desensitization because it’s cruel and mean and it floods the horse.

The problem is that the same word is being used in two very different ways, so it becomes very confusing.

If you were to google Desensitisation for horses, you will see many images of horses being subjected to tarps, flags, big balls, streamers, hoses, water obstacles, balloons, pool noodles and even rather large blow up dinosaurs.

What you’ll also find is lots of advice about how to do it and it’s all simply descriptions of Negative Reinforcement (pressure and release) training or worse, Flooding. The advice usually states that you apply the scary thing and keep doing it, even if the horse reacts, moves, fights or tries to escape and only remove/release when the horse stops.

What this teaches the horse is that the scary thing is going to be touching, flapping, put on top of them or underneath them and they can try to escape and fight it, but it will only go away when they stop, when they stop behaving, then they will experience the release, but really it’s just relief. What then happens is that the horse learns that their behaviour is pointless and they have no control over the scary thing or being able to escape from it, except to stop responding. This is what can potentially lead to Learned Helplessness.

Alternatively, there is Desensitization that is done Systematically and in conjunction with Counter Conditioning. This means we are desensitizing their response to a thing and at the same time, changing (Countering) their emotional response to the thing by pairing it with something they like and for horses, this is usually done with food. We condition them to go from scared or simply neutral, to liking the thing and it being a predictor of food. Done poorly this can also work backwards, where the food can come to predict the arrival of the scary thing. It has to be done correctly in order to change the response and how the horse feels about the thing.

I’m not going to go into a full explanation, but instead post a number of excellent links.

But I want to highlight that not all Desensitization is bad and that there are currently two ways of doing it out there in the horse world. One is effective, kind and humane and makes the horse feel good. The other is a way to shut down and suppress a horse’s response, without changing how they feel. In fact it often creates worse feelings and reactive horses or alternatively shut down “bombproof” horses.

***** Avoid getting the two mixed up *****

An excellent summary on Desensitisation and Counter Conditioning from the ASPCA:-

https://web.archive.org/web/20130806170005/http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/virtual-pet-behaviorist/dog-behavior/desensitization-and-counterconditioning

An overview of multiple resources from Eileen Anderson:-

Desensitization/Counterconditioning Resources

My favourite blog from Eileen of a specific example of how to plan and implement a DS/CC program:-

Successful Desensitization and Counterconditioning

Another great description from Zazie Todd PhD, at Companion Animal Psychology:-

https://www.companionanimalpsychology.com/2018/07/what-is-desensitization-and-counter.html?fbclid=IwAR0K_kdnTHFCGotXXMHxS73MebhjGW-7Yh1XHxA9jVSm4I4vbzlzmUMN1SY

Here’s a short sample of re-introducing Mercedes to her old bridle. I had to break the bridle down into the most basic set up and even then, I had to take it very slowly. I did a horrible “before” to show how averse she was to the bridle and therefore it slowed down the DS/CC process as well.

You can watch the video here:-

Finally, a short video of one step out of many many steps of some DS/CC training with one of my donkeys. When you watch it, you’ll see why I rarely take video of this type of training. It’s basically like watching paint dry and that’s how it is supposed to look. There should be no exciting reactions or jumping or running around and most definitely no equines on line or in round pens either. Don’t be fooled into thinking he’s ok with the clippers either, I’m simply keeping his exposure so low, that he’s happy to stand and munch and is even mildly curious. That’s what we want to see!!

Video link of Seymour and the clippers:-

Building Trust

I had a big breakthrough with Paddy, my mini donkey today, but I need to say “we” because it actually revolved around my partner David.

I’d like to define “trust” first though. For Paddy and myself, it means I’m someone that brings him nice things, gives good butt scratches when he asks, doesn’t scare him and helps him feel safe. I’m also predictable and consistent and look for his ‘voice’ in his behaviour and try to offer choices wherever possible. Especially when we play our little games with food (Positive Reinforcement training), I build his ‘voice’ into the training. I wait for him to communicate with me, tell me he’s ready, tell me he’s ok or even more than ok. I’ve worked diligently on developing his belief that I’m a good, and importantly for him, a safe person to be around. I’ve made myself trustworthy.

That was very evident today during our training, when I worked on introducing David to my donkeys in a training scenario. They’re all a bit wary of him and Paddy is flat out scared of him, so I need to change that. I need David’s help for upcoming vet visits and it’s good for all the donkeys to learn to trust other people, not just me and this is especially true for Paddy.

All the other donkeys are pretty cool with David if he has food. Seymour, who used to be the most fearful donkey, was very happy to interact and train with David. He even marched up to David and gave his Start Button (a head nod) as a kind of greeting and demand in one, it was pretty awesome! David then did some leading with Seymour and it all went beautifully, I was so pleased (with them both!).

Next was Paddy and he was very scared of David in his space. Padd was moving away, avoiding him, circling in a very wide berth and did a liquid poo, so there’s no way he’d go anywhere near him, even for food. But did I need to use Negative Reinforcement, approach and retreat or CAT? Definitely not.

I started by asking Paddy to station on his mat, where we do most of our training. I then asked David to stand a long distance away, roughly 5-6 metres and every time Paddy looked up at me and tilted his head inquiringly, to tell me he was ready (his Start Button), I dropped food in his bowl. That’s it, I’m focusing on Counter Conditioning, no behaviour required from Paddy, apart from his Start Button and I was carefully reading his body language every step.

Next session, David started in the same place, but when Paddy looked around at me expectantly, David took a step towards him and I and then I dropped food in his bowl. Now we are switching to systematic Desensitisation and Counter Conditioning. We did that slowly step by step, til David was standing at my shoulder and I was standing at Paddy’s shoulder. It was interesting to note that if David got too far in front of me, Paddy would back up and put me between us. I’m his safe person, of course.

Next session, David was able to take his place at my shoulder after a few steps and we did a few reps of him just standing there. Paddy would give me his Start Button, his ‘I’m ready’ look and I would drop food in his bowl. Then I suggested that when Paddy gave me that look, could David reach out his arm a little towards Paddy with a closed fist, and when Paddy looked at it, I marked that behaviour and dropped food in his bowl. Now we’ve switched to Positive Reinforcement! We did that a few more times with David raising his arm a little higher each time and offering his fist and trying not to bend over, as Paddy finds that super scary. Then the next time, Paddy carefully stretched his neck and reached his nose forward and tried to sniff David’s hand from a distance! I marked/clicked that behaviour and dropped food in his bowl! I suggested David put some food in his fist and next time, offer his fist and if Paddy is close enough, flip it and open it to reveal the food.

One of the early behaviours I taught Paddy was that if I backed away and he followed, I offered my closed fist with food in it and if he nudged it with his muzzle, his behaviour caused the fist to open and he could eat the food. One of the most powerful things I’ve learnt about training fearful animals is that teaching them their behaviour matters, that they have control over consequences, is a very powerful thing. It’s what opens the floodgates of behaviour and the light bulb goes off for the animal. They realise that we know how to communicate with them in a way they understand AND we give them a measure of control. Something they may never have experienced before. For Paddy, it’s always a game we play whenever he’s unsure and any time I back away from him, that’s his cue to follow me and there’ll be food in my fist, if he gives it a little nudge.

When I saw Paddy reach forward to sniff David’s hand, I saw curiosity replace fear. He was wondering if he could make the food appear as a consequence of his own behaviour, even with this strange scary man! It was exciting!

After Paddy gave his Start Button, David reached his arm forward, fist with food inside, closed, and we watched, holding our breath. Paddy reached forward and did his adorable little sideways muzzle nudge of his fist and David flipped his hand and omg there was food and Paddy ate it!

We were so happy, we smiled at each other and I said to David, you’ve done it, you’ve cracked the code with Paddy! Hooray!

Then of course I said, do it again, wait for his Start Button and David offered his fist and he did it again.

We got excited and I suggested backing away a few steps and then doing it again and Paddy followed us – he knew this game!

We were ecstatic. We backed up a few more times and finished on that high note.

To sum up, with really fearful animals, there’s no need to scare them or make them feel unsafe to get behaviour and then remove the scary stimulus to reinforce that behaviour (R-/CAT). Just because they’re scared of us, doesn’t mean we need to use that fear or deliberately scare them to get some kind of behaviour to reinforce. They know the difference between being scared and being able to create distance or run away and having control that way, and someone deliberately invading their space and repeatedly scaring them. We can instead take the time the animal needs, meet their basic needs, provide the safety of a herd or at least a companion, give them space to move around and then thin slice the Desensitisation steps and be generous with the Counter Conditioning (food).

I didn’t get any photos or videos, there was so much focus on Paddy and ensuring he was comfortable.

But I’ve got this brief video of Paddy doing his cute little nose bump of my fist for some hay. He was terrified of me at the start and wouldn’t even eat anything else besides hay or eat if I was nearby, or out of a bucket or my hand when he first came. So I had a lot of training to do just to be able to deliver the food in an expeditious and contiguous manner.

Click on the link to watch Paddy doing his little nose bump:-

Both Operant (Skinner) AND Classical (Pavlov) are “on our shoulders”

Positive Reinforcement is one of the processes known as Operant Conditioning. It’s a way we learn by operating or behaving in our environment in a way that we try to gain things we like. When we do that and are successful, we enjoy that or it benefits us in some way and therefore it reinforces/strengthens our future behaviour, we are more likely to do it again.

Classical Conditioning, you might know it as Pavlovian or Respondent Conditioning, (also known as Associative Learning which is more self explanatory), is another type of learning that is related to unconscious or reflexive type behaviours (salivating, blinking, sweating) and happens at the same time as Operant Conditioning. Some types of reflexive behaviours are innate ie. we are born with them and are known as unconditional and some types are a learnt response to a stimulus (but still reflexive) and are called conditional responses. How the conditional responses are learnt is via the pairing of two stimuli.

One of the first conditional responses we teach is when we pair food with the sound of the click or whatever marker you use. Click – food, click – food, click – food, means the click becomes a conditional stimulus when paired with an unconditional stimulus, food. Remember, conditional is learnt, unconditional is innate or reflexive. The sound of the click will trigger salivation.

To prevent my post becoming a novel, I encourage you to read more about Classical Conditioning. I find it is little known or understood in how it relates to our R+ training. This is a good description:-

https://www.verywellmind.com/classical-conditioning-2794859

Once this association has been made between the sound of the click and food, the Operant component kicks in, whereby the animal is listening for the click because they’ve learnt it predicts food is coming. Once they consciously make the connection that something they do, the way they “operate”, ie. some kind of behaviour, will cause the click to happen and food to arrive, then we can click to mark a specific behaviour and reinforce it with the food.

Just as buckets become Conditional Stimuli, so do lots of other things when they’re paired with food, which is what happens when we train with Positive Reinforcement. The sound of our clicker or marker sound becomes conditional, but we become conditioned too! Also our food pouches, the jangle your clicker makes on your wrist, the mat your horse stations on every time you train, or the cone or target stick they target each time does too. Anything can be conditioned!

What also happens is that there is an Operant component as well. When we repeatedly train with Positive Reinforcement, we build a reinforcement history on behaviours, places, things, ourselves!

It’s like a wonderful double whammy of goodness!

But this also means if you withhold food or even stop food altogether, you weaken and eventually break the association between the stimulus and the response, the Classical part, because the pairing is not maintained. With the Operant component as well, the behaviour goes into Extinction when it is no longer reinforced.

In a practical sense in our R+ training, I tend to see a lot of things in pictures, colours and diagrams. I can see scales being weighed up by my animals, which is illustrated in their behaviour and their enthusiasm or not, to do behaviours. I can see glowing red dots in places that have a strong reinforcement history and have been conditioned to be associated with things of value to the animal – food!. They remember and so do I.

I’ve trained in places that had no obvious mat or cone and yet they remember and will go back to that spot.

Just like we teach a horse “manners” around food and feed in a certain place away from us, they remember and will keep their mouth at that spot in the future and not in our food pouch.

Just like my clicking more than once at a certain place in my arena or point in the reverse round pen, guarantees my horse will slow or stop at that point, there’s another glowing red dot of reinforcement history and Classical Conditioning pairing happening there.

This can also work the other way around. Have some trot poles on the ground and your horse pointedly ignores them like they’re invisible or worse, walks around them and avoids them. Then you’re looking at “bad Pavlov” where there is an unhappy association made with the poles and they are operantly avoiding an aversive stimulus.

So next time your horse does something strange, think about Operant and Classical, about the pairing of stimuli and the Positive (or Negative) Reinforcement history of a behaviour.

Finally, emotion is something that also becomes paired/associated with persons, places, things and behaviours. There’s always a feeling when they see the bucket, hear the click or stand on the mat or nose target the cone. Same goes for when they see the whip, the bit or the round pen.

The reason I started thinking about this was because my partner David was doing some training with Seymour. They were doing some lovely leading and I just had to film it. But unfortunately David doesn’t know about red dots, reinforcement history and Pavlov and he walked up to the mat and stepped over the bucket and Seymour stopped dead in his tracks. The R+ history that I’ve built with Seymour around walking up and stationing on that mat, in front of that bucket, is ridiculously huge. I’ve done that on purpose, to make it Seymour’s happy place for things like hoof care, eye care, trimming, vet visits, x-rays etc. Lots of things that Seymour felt uncomfortable about, can be made that little bit better because of all the pairings with food and the R+ training history.

I filmed a brief moment of leading before Seymour parked himself beautifully. If you’re super observant, you’ll notice he’s not actually on the mat, but he’s on the ‘red dot’ because I moved the mat sideways to let the grass grow.

You can watch Seymour’s video here:-