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 of reasons not to use them, such as using a signal indicating a lack of opportunity for reinforcement potentially being a Time Out or NRM (No Reward Marker) Punisher. Who wants to punish the behaviour you’ve just spent a whole session reinforcing?
Similarly, jackpots lie in the realm of gambling vernacular. It’s a very large and surprising windfall. In order for a jackpot to have any impact on behaviour, it needs to be contingent and delivered contiguously. This means it needs to be delivered dependent on a certain behaviour being performed and delivered in the very moment it was performed. So why would we deliver a jackpot at the end of a training session? If we do it every time, we become predictable, the animal expects it and they can potentially end up looking forward to the end of the session (where they get a windfall of reinforcers) more than the actual session!
I had an interesting and surprising conversation with Ken Ramirez about end of session signals many years ago. It had been drilled into me that we must use them! But Ken was of the opinion that they were not that important and potentially punishing. When we finished sessions with his goats, donkeys and alpacas, we sometimes dumped food and exited quickly with the goats (they are fast), or switched to scratches with the donkeys, or with the alpacas, they were still ambivalent about people and food and our departure appeared neither here nor there. Although we always left a parting gift to keep them busy and distracted when we left their area.
So although a clear cue may not be recommended, leaving some food, a puzzle, a distraction, is still a good idea. We don’t want an animal chasing us to the gate and pawing or or getting frustrated as we walk away with food.
Sometimes a cue may not be what we intend either. For example when I train more than one animal in a row, my verbal end of session cue for one animal, is heard by the next animal in line. For them, it is a start of session cue and I can hear them verbalise their excitement that it’s their turn next!!
I have a cheap doormat I like to use, as a station. It also has little dimples and is great for trapping chaff or pellets. I sprinkle some on it and it becomes a fun and enriching game for the animal to hoover up all the little crumbs. Meanwhile I have departed and they are happy and busy and I haven’t had to tell them the fun is over for now.
Check out my video of Seymour the donkey enjoying every last crumb that I’ve sprinkled on his mat:
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:-
I took on the care of 2 neglected donkeys Dorothy and Seymour, in January 2020. It’s now October, 2020.
They both had a number of serious health issues that needed tending, some have been resolved in the short term and some are long term projects. They both seem to have learnt not to trust people and Seymour in particular appears very frightened by people. They were difficult to catch, halter, lead etc and particularly difficult to trim; Seymour had not been trimmed in a very long time.
When I first got them, my approach was influenced by what I’ve learnt from amazing trainers/mentors like Ken Ramirez and Susan Friedman, from what I’ve read and studied and my understanding of the science of behaviour change.
I started out my relationship with them by being someone quietly predictable, consistent and that brought good things like nice grass hay. If they were scared and stood back that was fine, they still got nice hay, if they got a fright and ran away because of something I did by accident, that’s ok, they still got nice hay. Just for fun, I also paired my arrival every time, with a jolly shout out “hello!”. It didn’t take long for them to walk up when I arrived, then trot up and eventually be waiting at the gate for my arrival. When they started jostling each other to be the closest and I had trouble getting in the gate, then I knew real change was happening. That’s also when I went into Protected Contact for both our safety.
This is simply Classical Conditioning at work. There would have been an Operant component as well, as indicated by their change in behaviour, ie. they acted on their environment. But I focused on what I was doing and allowed them to just do what they felt most comfortable doing. I paired myself with things the donkeys liked, with no strings attached whatsoever (contingency). It doesn’t matter what they did, they didn’t have to do anything and even if they were scared and ran away, it didn’t matter. I did the same thing every day, often twice a day and my patience and consistency paid off with them learning to trust that I am reliable and to eventually learn to trust me.
They are both very different donkeys. My heart aches sometimes when I look at Seymour and understand what a super sensitive soul he is. But he is doing great! I am always focusing on our relationship, by being aware of Classical Conditioning and what I am pairing myself with and the emotional response that goes along with that. His training process is very much about a few steps forward and a step back now and again.
Seymour is making great progress with his hoof lifting training. He has started reliably lifting his right hoof and I’m shaping towards doing some rasping of it as well. Best of all, he lifts it so gently and as light as a feather – you can see the air between my hand and his hoof.
I took some hand held video, so you can see up close that I’m barely touching him, I’m waiting for his start button, cueing the hoof, not pulling or squeezing – he wouldn’t tolerate that at all and would kick out.
To think big burly farriers couldn’t rope him and get to his hooves and I’ve taught him to do it himself! AND most important of all, he feels emotionally safe and comfortable. I’m building the positive reinforcement history and the relationship and what is helping us make progress is ensuring I listen to him.
It was trimming day and Seymour finally got his back hoof trimmed for the first time! (This is a donkey who came to me very frightened, head shy and hadn’t been trimmed in years!). For non donkey folk – donkeys are very good at kicking and can even kick sideways and forwards!
All my patience, clicker training, desensitisation and counter conditioning to pretty much everything – being touched, bending over his feet, voluntarily offering to lift his hoof, having strange scary people touch him and ask him to lift his hoof, like my wonderful trimmer Tanya French. A big thank you to Tanya, I couldn’t have done it without you on Seymour’s team! She listened to me and to Seymour and she trusted that I’d done the training to be safe to bend down and ask Seymour to give her his back hoof (and not kick her head in!) We got it done and I am so thrilled and Seymour is so much more comfortable now, he was very sore on that foot.
His fronts got trimmed too and he just gets better and better every time with them.
It’s been such a long road with him and he is really starting to bloom. He even let me give him a really good scratch and massage all along his back and he relaxed into it and let his head droop all the way down to the ground. That’s probably another first for him, to really let himself enjoy my touch.
I think he’s turned a corner in his trust of people, thanks to Tanya and myself showing him that people can help him feel better. He feels so much better with 3 beautifully trimmed little donkey feet.
Onward to that last tootsie and he’ll be like a brand new donkey!
I had a wonderful time with Seymour tonight. All clicker training was done, dinner was delivered via training and hay nets were hung and there was a lovely warm low lying autumn sun that Seymour was snoozing in, that he was glowing in, his hair was shining like fine expensive silk. Everyone else was busy.
I pulled up a stool to admire him from afar, watch the others and soak up the general ambiance of the last bit of the day and lowering autumnal sun.
But Seymour believes in admiring up close apparently and strolled up to me slowly while I was admiring the others. I felt eyes on me and found Seymour parked right in front of me.
I alternated between admiring the view, (he is pretty handsome) and poking out a finger to see what he thought of it. He let me touch his face, his eyes and even his nose and lips. He even started to play with my fingers and mouthed them with his lips and teeth, that’s a first. He lifted his head and I could literally see his incisors and his tongue and touch them, another first. He must be a mind reader, because the dentist is coming tomorrow!!
I looked away for a while and I was watching Dorothy lying down to give her sore foot a rest, when Seymour stepped forward and was even closer to me. It was nice and companionable and I loved it, because I love him.
I was then engrossed in watching Kaspian and Paddy graze and felt a warmth on my shoulder and realised Seymour had stepped sideways to get closer and was leaning in to me. He then brushed my shoulder with his cheek and neck, another first. I twisted around to see his face and saw a sleepy half closed eye.
I didn’t dare touch him and break the spell and he stood there, leaning lightly against me. It was like a gift, a donkey magic gift! He was showing me he trusted me, that he wanted to be with me and that he felt safe with me. I don’t think there’s a greater gift from an animal that was scared of people and actively disliked people, who would drive them out of his paddock! He wanted to be with me, he chose to be with me and he actively touched and engaged with me. I did nothing and he gave me something, something special.
I admired the sun shining off his fluffy hair that was preparing for the cold weather. It shone like silk and was velvet to my touch. I admired his beautifully trimmed hooves, all neat and tidy, not quite perfect thanks to years of neglect, but a shining example of a lost soul resurrected. I admired his legs and ran my hands down to feel his muscle and bone and the silky hair that had regrown over his previously scab infested legs. I stroked and tickled him in the soft spots between his legs, in his elbow and the soft underbelly, where the hair was so soft and fine and so special, only to be felt by the most trusted of friends.
I looked back into his eyes again, into the depths of those deep brown eyes, into those imperturbable depths, into one of the wisest creatures I have ever met. One of the most communicative and yet secretive and emotional and yet he has the potential to be so distant. But not anymore. Now he is like a magnet to the flame. He wants to connect, to touch, to be with and to breathe together. I let out a lot of deep sighs and let go of a lot of the burdens I was carrying and Seymour was there with me, to witness and to help me release the worry and pressure of the world. Not to carry them of course, but to ease their passing and bear witness.
Seymour helped me instead of me helping him. Yet another gift.
Equines are such sensitive emotional beings. I feel we often underestimate how sensitive they really are, and it can take potent reminders for us to put things in perspective.
My donkeys are travelling through the various stages of transitioning from a life of confusion, fear and pain. They are slowly learning to feel safe, to have a voice and most importantly, to be listened to. They are getting used to a life that is the opposite of what they used to live.
I’ve described before about horses transitioning to R+ and squeezed it into a nutshell. I am experiencing it all over again with my donkeys. Even though I’ve been through it before, I now have more knowledge, empathy and expertise than I did then. I’m learning and evolving all the time, or I hope I am! But it means that I am noticing even more nuance in the learning AND emotional transition my donkeys are experiencing.
Seymour
From being afraid and untrusting and running away, they started running towards me. From flinching and ducking their heads, they target my hand. From turning away from me when I enter their paddock, they are giving me that distinct laser beam stare of animals who like and value their human, including those enormous donkey ears pricked towards me. The most special moment was the day I arrived at their paddock, said my usual high pitched “hello”, they raced up and Dorothy brayed right in my face – it was a joyful and very loud sound!!
But it can be a bumpy ride to the other side.
The first bump that I’m aware of, was when everything was going well; training, scratches, hanging out, cuddles and lots of different food enrichment thanks to me going out foraging for the donkeys. But a strong reminder that my donkeys and I had a long way to go, happened with Seymour. It could very easily seem like nothing, but it was a big deal to Seymour and so it was a big deal to me as well.
I had picked some forage – ornamental ginger that I knew my horses liked and presented it to the donkeys, but they were not very excited about it. Seymour stayed close and kept checking if it was edible and while we were standing together companionably, I noticed a lot of flies biting him on the leg. Biting flies are a big problem with donkeys. I used the bunch of stalks and leaves I was holding to gently brush the flies from his legs. He acted as if I had applied an electric shock and ran away! Silly me thought something natural like some stalks and leaves would be totally fine. What was I thinking?! After that, he was scared and wary of me and did not want to engage and kept his distance from me. His behaviour was even more interesting, as I had been battling very bad fly strike and had been touching, spraying and applying cream to both the donkey’s legs previously. But that treatment had all been done in a structured way with food.
This was a big dent in our relationship. I can’t even call it a withdrawal from our trust account, because quite frankly at this stage, I was working hard to get the whole of humankind out of the red. I suspect that up to that point, my donkeys were still scared of me to an extent and were taking food and training, but their emotional response had not changed yet.
I was very sad to realise I had scared him and broken the very tiny amount of trust I had so carefully built. I realised how truly fragile our relationship was and how much work I had ahead of me.
We continued after this and I feel like I had to re-tread old ground and work hard to make it up to Seymour.
Then just as things were going great, I went away for 4 days. I was co-hosting a multi species animal training workshop and I left my donkeys. My husband took over their feeding and although I know my husband would never intentionally scare my donkeys, just being a man and a stranger may have been enough to scare and unsettle them.
When I arrived home, it seemed like I had been gone weeks or months as far as my donkeys were concerned. They alternated between scared, aggressive, kind of angry/annoyed and super super excited that I was back. The first day when they realised it was me and they heard the rattle of my box clicker and saw the food pouch, they both literally leapt for joy. They ran and ran and bucked and raced to stand at the gate and breathe very heavily in my face.
Dorothy “talking”
But all is not well yet. As the transition from fear to food continues, it brings up old memories and triggers fear and painful memories, which then bubble up. They need to be experienced and processed as no longer a concern, but it can be challenging and scary. They are learning that even though I left, I have returned, and their routine of fun and food continues.
The next step in the transition is to learn they have a voice. Anyone who has been repeatedly shut down, not listened to or forced, needs to learn that their own behaviour can indeed affect outcomes. When I tried to spray a graze on Dorothy’s knee, without permission, without training or preparation and without food, I got kicked. Not a bad kick, but a graze – a warning and a reminder. If I am going to rehab these animals from trauma, I need to actually take their feelings into consideration!
What was I thinking?! I wasn’t and we all make mistakes. I’m lucky that either Dorothy is a bad shot or a really excellent one and she chose to give me a warning and not break my knee cap. I’m always conscious of safety and always do things and stand in places that are the safest for me and have the least fallout for all of us if things go pear shaped. I’m very glad my poor decision contributed to nothing more serious than a grass stain on my pants.
Dorothy gave me a valuable and timely reminder. They are not yet moved over to the bright side. They are still transitioning from the dark side. They still need to learn to trust that humans are reliable and dependable and only mean good things.
The problem is that there is no measure of time on how long this will take. There is a definite process in all of this, but trauma does take as long as it takes to be processed and to be put in the past. It is urgent to get their hooves trimmed, get them off grass, get them exercised, their teeth done and generally be able to look after their everyday needs. But I can only go as fast as their precious and sensitive donkey hearts and minds are able to go, after the many years of life experience they have under their donkey belts.
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.
