Classical or Operant When Fear is Involved? When I train equines that have a lot of fear, or are unhandled, feral or traumatised in some way, Iโm always very aware of how powerful Classical Conditioning and Counter Conditioning are and how they can serve me in helping these types of
Equine Therapy – You don’t have to sit on me Most equine assisted therapy programs have a riding component. Did you know they also ride donkeys and mules, not just horses. Did you know that donkeys are even better suited to non ridden therapy than horses, due to their very
Clicker Training – Don’t Rush When you start clicker training, take your time. Donโt be in a rush, enjoy the journey. Thereโs so much to learn AND to enjoy and if you rush, youโll miss that enjoyment and that learning. If you rush, youโll also skip the opportunity to really
Separation Anxiety – (“Buddy Sour”) Separation Anxiety, also known as being “Buddy Sour”, “Barn Sour”, or “Herd Bound”, is not a vice. It’s not something to punish or ignore, or worse, keep them alone to prevent the unwanted behaviour. Doing that makes their worse nightmare become a reality and then
Feed for Position ย I find that when I clicker train a new equine, I focus on feeding *out there* and work on delivering the food with my out-stretched arm, away from my body and my food pouch. This is to prevent a horse trying to sniff, nudge or forage
Self Haltering Your Horse It’s always nice to re-visit simple but important behaviours such as self-haltering. It’s nice training to do if you don’t have much time, the weather’s not great or you’re not feeling great yourself, but would still like to do something with your horse. All Positive Reinforcement
End of Session Signal or “Jackpot” I hear a lot of discussion about using end of session signals and I’ve heard them described as jackpots as well. End of session signals and jackpots are controversial and there is not a lot of science backing up their use. There is lots
“Consent Training” versus Horse Training I love this photo of Mercedes and me. It was the first clicker training session we filmed. I can see Mercedesโ body language, she was not sure what was going on and I was naively confident it would all go well. It was a bright
The Downside to Negative Reinforcement Negative Reinforcement (R-) also known in the horse world as โpressure and releaseโ training does work, no one is denying that. But we have to be honest with ourselves about how it actually works in the context of horse training and put ourselves in our
Don’t Hit Your Brother Imagine a world where we said to children, weโre not going to force your beautiful pony with kicks and crops like those other people!! We are going to train them in a way that you BOTH have fun, by using Positive Reinforcement training, with clicker training,
Synchronicity & Matching Steps When we clicker train, there’s lots of different ways that we can convert what we are doing on the ground, to ridden behaviours. I thought this video was a great example of true liberty work. No whips directing her shoulders or body, no need for extensions
It’s ok, you can comfort your horse FF R+ dog trainers talk a lot about encouraging people to comfort their dog when they’re afraid. Patting and praising them when they’re scared, wont reinforce their fear. Iโm a FF R+ equine trainer and I say the same about horses. If your
Horses Are Herd Animals Horses are such amazing and beautiful creatures! But do we truly understand them and what their needs are? One of the most important requirements that is often misunderstood is that horses are complex social herd animals. They would never choose to live alone, they need company!
Run with Food? OR Stand and Train? One thing that I really love about R+ training is shaping behaviour and putting it on cue and playing around with cues. I’d encourage all of you to develop your shaping skills, allowing the horse to offer behaviour and most importantly, get those
Running around horses when you have food? What is it really? I often see videos and descriptions of happy horses, or playing horses or horses generally having fun. But when I look at the horse’s body language and the context, where they are often in an arena with a human,
Choice & Control in Clicker Training I heard an interesting statement that I want to tease out a little, because Iโve heard variations of this statement many times, particularly from those who are against training with Positive Reinforcement, without pressure or force. Giving a R+ trained cue and then most
How to Approach Fear in Equines from a Human & Ethical Training Perspective Helping a horse who is experiencing fear should never be about making them “face their fear” or “get over it”. What can fear look like? It can look like anything from a horse freezing, refusing to go
Contiguity – What is it? Although people struggle with the terminology of R+ training, Iโm a big fan of using correct terms, not for the sake of it, or to look super brainy, but because it improves our training. Knowing what something is, or what to avoid or the name
Why the Yawn? What horse people tell themselves:- “She’s so relaxed she’s sleepy!” “She loves being lunged/ridden/round penned, because she yawns right after, so I know she’s super relaxed!” “She yawns after I take the bit out and saddle off, so I know she’s had a good time and is
Progression of Equine Fear “The key themes that emerged throughout several of the questions were: that fear and/or anxiety is very poorly recognized by horse caregivers; that the more overt signs of more extreme fear are more likely to be recognised than the more subtle signs; and that fear and/or
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 itโs great to try to desensitize their horse, de-spook or bomb-proof their horse. OR there are people saying NOT to use Desensitization because itโs cruel
Both Operant (Skinner) AND Classical (Pavlov) are “on our shoulders” Positive Reinforcement is one of the processes known as Operant Conditioning. Itโs 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
Clicker Training Mythbusting โThey can just walk away if they want to.โ Who has heard this statement? I have, many times and it always gives me pause. I find with equines, that they donโt usually leave to enjoy their alternative food, which I always recommend having nearby when training. Thereโs
What kind of foods? One of the most popular questions on clicker training groups is – what treats do you use? What ensues is a barrage of helpful advice about things people feed their horses, which range from Cheerios, peppermints and sugar cubes, to grapes, carrot coins and chamomile flowers,
What does a happy horse look like? Some of you may have heard of the 3 Fs or the Five Freedoms, maybe even some of you have heard of the Five Domains, if you’ve followed my page for a while. The problem with the Five Freedoms is that it focuses
Protected Contact The concept of training in Protected Contact (PC) is unique to Positive Reinforcement (R+) Training. PC means training with a barrier between the trainer and the animal and originated in zoos and wildlife parks, where a keeper’s safety was paramount. It’s essential for beginner horses and humans, but
Is your horse a rescue? I’ve been tossing this subject around in my head for quite a while now. It’s a delicate subject, as there’s a fine line between a couple of different factors. One, is trying to avoid blame and shame, because I really donโt find that helpful or
Horse Training, get creative and change something Have you ever made a definitive statement about your horse? โMy horse is not food motivatedโ โMy horse doesnโt like being hosed downโ โI have a spooky/aggressive/dominant/submissive horse” Iโve talked previously about how labelling our animals is not helpful in our training or
The “lick and chew”, there’s no need to (scare your horse). I saw a video today that had me very concerned. Now that Natural Horsemanship/ pressure & release/ Negative Reinforcement trainers understand about the different nervous systems, the Flight/Fight and Rest/Digest states and the accompanying body language, they like to
Do they really liked to be touched? I read a great article a while back about dog owners requesting that people ignore their dog. This can equally apply to our equines. The article went on to say that dogs are sentient beings and they have likes and dislikes and we
Is Negative Reinforcement “bad” and Positive Reinforcement “good”? There is always a lot of discussion that regularly does the rounds on social media surrounding the question, is Positive Reinforcement โgoodโ and Negative Reinforcement โbadโ? First of all, I would ask, for who? The trainer or the horse/animal? You are then
All behaviour is communication This subject is about another big, huge, challenging mind shift we go through when we move across from traditional (aversive/ forceful) adversarial style of horse training, handling and interactions. When we change over to a different, more positive, empathetic and co-operative way of being with and
Generosity I whipped up a quick video and voiceover to try to illustrate a point I’d like to make that is super important! I’ve talked about generosity before and I’d like to talk about the importance of it again. I realise “generosity” is a concept and can be extremely subjective.
What is Shaping in Positive Reinforcement (clicker) training? What is Shaping in Positive Reinforcement (clicker) training? “Shaping consists of taking a very small tendency in the right direction and shifting it, one small step at a time, toward an ultimate goal. The laboratory jargon for the process is “successive approximation”.”
A horse who feels safe, is a safe horse to be around ๐ ๐ฑ๐ธ๐ป๐ผ๐ฎ ๐๐ฑ๐ธ ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ต๐ผ ๐ผ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฎ, ๐ฒ๐ผ ๐ช ๐ผ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฎ ๐ฑ๐ธ๐ป๐ผ๐ฎ ๐ฝ๐ธ ๐ซ๐ฎ ๐ช๐ป๐ธ๐พ๐ท๐ญ I say this a lot. But how do we know when they feel safe and when they don’t? How do we help them to feel safe?
Separation Anxiety? Buddy Sour Herd Bound Destination Addiction What do all these terms mean? Separation Anxiety is one of the most common problems that horse owners face. It is a natural behaviour for horses โ millions of years of evolution have taught them to be very scared if they find
Do you have a horse or donkey that is really “in your face”? Do you have a horse or donkey that is really “in your face”? For example, are they always first to greet, even hunt you down, sniff, nibble, even push on you? But by the same token, they
Click for Action and Feed for Position I think it’s important to show real life training, rather than carefully edited, scripted and captioned training. I also have to live up to my own encouragement to everyone to be brave learners, be prepared to make mistakes and that ‘the animal is
When to Choose between Classical and Operant Conditioning There is one really important message Iโd like every trainer to burn into their brain. If you are dealing with fear, trauma, phobias, worry, reluctance, avoidance, escape, โlack of motivationโ, or any kind of difficulty around your horse training, consider Classical Conditioning,
Set Your Horse Up For Success = Errorless Learning Much like “force free” is part of the philosophy and mindset I embrace as a trainer, Errorless Learning is as well. It’s part of my overall approach to training and is always my AIM, much as force free is my AIM
Helping a Horse Settle in a New Home – the 3-3-3 rule There is a 3.3.3 rule that applies to rescue dogs and I thought that we need something similar for horses. Obviously the ideal would be that horses are not continually changing homes, but the reality is very different.
The Mythology Around “Liberty Training” We can’t โtrain libertyโ, because liberty is a state of being, with choices, control and freedom to express and to leave. Liberty:-The quality or state of being free:– the power to do as one pleases– freedom from physical restraint– freedom from arbitrary or despotic control–
Transitioning Often when we transition horses over to Positive Reinforcement training and attempt to remove as many, if not all aversives from our horse’s lives, we hit a very big bump! We can decide that we have turned into a butterfly and everything will be rainbows and unicorns from now
