Choice & Control in Clicker Training

I’ve heard interesting statements over the years from those who are against training with Positive Reinforcement (R+). That means training without pressure, coercion or force.

What I find interesting is that detractors of R+ training claim it is manipulative, coercive, transactional, controls the animal and their mind and that there’s no choice. They think my animals have to do it for the cookie or else! R+ training is quite the opposite actually, if done well.

A behaviour trained with R+ and put on cue is not an ultimatum. In the hands of a good trainer, it is anything but.

Giving a R+ trained cue and then most importantly, HOW they respond, also gives us lots of information and feedback from the animal, it’s their way of conversing with us and it creates a dialogue.

A cue for a R+ trained behaviour is not a command, it’s not a “do it or else” and it’s not an ultimatum without choice. A cue is a polite ask, whilst understanding that it is based on the positive reinforcement history behind it. A cue in R+ training *ideally* has a choice built in. This is because it has been trained so that they have learnt that they can do this behaviour we have cued, for the nice food, or they can do that other behaviour over there for the nice food or they may not do the behaviour at all for whatever reason and they still get food! That’s where we try to build actual choice into behaviours with no negative consequences.

There is so much depth and nuance to the training and sometimes it makes me sad that people are so dismissive of something that is so complex and nuanced and also organic. It’s also extremely empowering and pleasurable for the animal being trained and it develops a communication between species that no other training can replicate.

What I also like is that you don’t have to be an expert ethologist or read body language to train with R+ and know what your animal is telling you in a training session. All behaviour ie., responses that have been observed in an R+ training context, have been analysed and have had a name given to them that we can discuss. It’s not new or magical to observe an animal’s behaviour and identify how they are responding and interpreting our behaviour and our cues in R+ training. Latency is a good example of this, which is where we observe how fast or slow an equine responds to a cue.

There is a famous quote attributed to Viktor Frankl which I have since learnt, was a quote describing some of his work, but not actually directly quoted by him.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

What I like about this quote is that I relate it to choice in R+ training.

The stimulus is the cue for the behaviour. The correct name for a cue is Discriminative Stimulus (SD). I imagine the space is how the animal *chooses* to respond to the SD/cue at that moment in time. Their response, HOW they respond, how fast or slow or at all, gives us information about how they felt and their choice.

This is the opposite of pressure trained cues, worse, the command or demand is the way that the behaviour is elicited as well. There’s not much choice in that – discomfort or what, more discomfort, pressure coercion?

But when we train a behaviour with R+ and put it on cue, if we’ve trained it in a way that the environment was meeting the animal’s needs, provided alternative sources of reinforcement, be it positive and possibly negative as well, where they want to create distance or leave and if we watched and listened to their behaviour and body language and responded appropriately, then we’ve set the stage as well as we are able. The most important thing in my mind is responding to their behaviour and body language, because that’s where the communication starts and where we can tell them that we are listening, we are responding and we are offering them alternatives and choices.

The other important thing in providing choice in training is to approach the R+ training with an “errorless mindset”. The animal is never wrong, what did we do? When we avoid withholding positive reinforcement (food) for “incorrect responses” and look at all behaviour as communication and that we want to encourage and even reinforce that communication, then we not only open the doors of communication, we tell our animal they have choices.

In practical terms, if I’ve trained a behaviour and I know it’s on a reliable cue and my equine does not do the behaviour when cued, or is slow to do it, or offers a different behaviour or doesn’t do it at all, then that’s their choice in that moment, in response to the stimulus. What I do is give them food anyway and then either cue a super easy behaviour, click and feed and end the session, or end the session straight away (possible Negative Reinforcement or Negative Punishment) but also leaving a generous amount of end of session food. Or I might cue the behaviour one more time, in case they just didn’t hear, see or recognise it. But I’ll only cue it one more time. Any more than that and it can turn into pressure or a command or a nag, and that’s not fun. I’ve already done a post on this, focused on discussing errorless learning.

Then it’s up to me to figure out why the animal didn’t perform the cued behaviour. What was happening for them between the stimulus and their response? I often find there is something urgent and important happening for them that overrides the cue, something like pain or fear. This is another thing that detractors like to say, that we try to click away fear or we train away pain. But good R+ training means we don’t. High latency, lack of alacrity in performing behaviours, or performing other behaviours or even calming signals, are all signs there is a problem and we don’t keep giving the cue and ignoring what the animal is saying to us. This is where choice comes in.

What happens when the animal has choices in training is that we give them a level of control, IF we listen to them and their behaviour. They can make us change *our* behaviour. Choosing to respond in a certain way is controlling their environment, if there is enough choice in their environment and they have learnt they actually do have choice via good R+ training.

I’ve heard interesting statements over the years from those who are against training with Positive Reinforcement (R+). That means training without pressure, coercion or force.

What I find interesting is that detractors of R+ training claim it is manipulative, coercive, transactional, controls the animal and their mind and that there’s no choice. They think my animals have to do it for the cookie or else! R+ training is quite the opposite actually, if done well.

A behaviour trained with R+ and put on cue is not an ultimatum. In the hands of a good trainer, it is anything but.

Giving a R+ trained cue and then most importantly, HOW they respond, also gives us lots of information and feedback from the animal, it’s their way of conversing with us and it creates a dialogue.

A cue for a R+ trained behaviour is not a command, it’s not a “do it or else” and it’s not an ultimatum without choice. A cue is a polite ask, whilst understanding that it is based on the positive reinforcement history behind it. A cue in R+ training *ideally* has a choice built in. This is because it has been trained so that they have learnt that they can do this behaviour we have cued, for the nice food, or they can do that other behaviour over there for the nice food or they may not do the behaviour at all for whatever reason and they still get food! That’s where we try to build actual choice into behaviours with no negative consequences.

There is so much depth and nuance to the training and sometimes it makes me sad that people are so dismissive of something that is so complex and nuanced and also organic. It’s also extremely empowering and pleasurable for the animal being trained and it develops a communication between species that no other training can replicate.

What I also like is that you don’t have to be an expert ethologist or read body language to train with R+ and know what your animal is telling you in a training session. All behaviour ie., responses that have been observed in an R+ training context, have been analysed and have had a name given to them that we can discuss. It’s not new or magical to observe an animal’s behaviour and identify how they are responding and interpreting our behaviour and our cues in R+ training. Latency is a good example of this, which is where we observe how fast or slow an equine responds to a cue.

There is a famous quote attributed to Viktor Frankl which I have since learnt, was a quote describing some of his work, but not actually directly quoted by him.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

What I like about this quote is that I relate it to choice in R+ training.

The stimulus is the cue for the behaviour. The correct name for a cue is Discriminative Stimulus (SD). I imagine the space is how the animal *chooses* to respond to the SD/cue at that moment in time. Their response, HOW they respond, how fast or slow or at all, gives us information about how they felt and their choice.

This is the opposite of pressure trained cues, worse, the command or demand is the way that the behaviour is elicited as well. There’s not much choice in that – discomfort or what, more discomfort, pressure coercion?

But when we train a behaviour with R+ and put it on cue, if we’ve trained it in a way that the environment was meeting the animal’s needs, provided alternative sources of reinforcement, be it positive and possibly negative as well, where they want to create distance or leave and if we watched and listened to their behaviour and body language and responded appropriately, then we’ve set the stage as well as we are able. The most important thing in my mind is responding to their behaviour and body language, because that’s where the communication starts and where we can tell them that we are listening, we are responding and we are offering them alternatives and choices.

The other important thing in providing choice in training is to approach the R+ training with an “errorless mindset”. The animal is never wrong, what did we do? When we avoid withholding positive reinforcement (food) for “incorrect responses” and look at all behaviour as communication and that we want to encourage and even reinforce that communication, then we not only open the doors of communication, we tell our animal they have choices.

In practical terms, if I’ve trained a behaviour and I know it’s on a reliable cue and my equine does not do the behaviour when cued, or is slow to do it, or offers a different behaviour or doesn’t do it at all, then that’s their choice in that moment, in response to the stimulus. What I do is give them food anyway and then either cue a super easy behaviour, click and feed and end the session, or end the session straight away (possible Negative Reinforcement or Negative Punishment) but also leaving a generous amount of end of session food. Or I might cue the behaviour one more time, in case they just didn’t hear, see or recognise it. But I’ll only cue it one more time. Any more than that and it can turn into pressure or a command or a nag, and that’s not fun. I’ve already done a post on this, focused on discussing errorless learning.

Then it’s up to me to figure out why the animal didn’t perform the cued behaviour. What was happening for them between the stimulus and their response? I often find there is something urgent and important happening for them that overrides the cue, something like pain or fear. This is another thing that detractors like to say, that we try to click away fear or we train away pain. But good R+ training means we don’t. High latency, lack of alacrity in performing behaviours, or performing other behaviours or even calming signals, are all signs there is a problem and we don’t keep giving the cue and ignoring what the animal is saying to us. This is where choice comes in.

What happens when the animal has choices in training is that we give them a level of control, IF we listen to them and their behaviour. They can make us change *our* behaviour. Choosing to respond in a certain way is controlling their environment, if there is enough choice in their environment and they have learnt they actually do have choice via good R+ training.