We are very excited to let everyone know that the of the series of S.M.A.A.R.T. Horse Company videos has been published on Horse Hero.
A short clip of the video is presented below on our web site. The full video can be found on the Horse Hero Web Site.
Amanda
www.smaarthorses.co.uk
info@smaarthorses.co.uk
Washington, West Sussex
This venue is fantastic private yard with lovely accommodation for visiting horses.
Our first clinic dates at this new venue are 25 and 26 Aug.
There are both with and without horse places. You can attend one or both days of the clinic. We are even adding in some dog training if you would like to book some time with your dog.
Learn ‘The Click That Teaches’ Clicker Training, and more, from
the only UK approved instructor.
For bookings and enquiries contact Amanda@smaarthorses.co.uk
S.M.A.A.R.T. Horse Company
www.smaarthorses.co.uk
www.clickertrainingcollege.com
www.smaarthorses.co.uk/positivehorseagility
A while ago the S.M.A.A.R.T. Horse Company was contacted by Fiona Price at Horse Hero about Clicker Training for the web site.
One of the aims of Horse Hero is to “offer a rare glimpse into the lives of leading professionals, their training methods and their horses.”, and so Horse Hero invited the S.M.A.A.R.T. Horse Company to do some filming.
We could not be more delighted that Clicker Training was going to be featured on the Horse Hero website.
We frantically searched our diaries for dates where we were both in the same country, could get to the same venue and on the same day. That was challenge all in itself but we found some dates that worked.
Details fell in to place and we discussed outlines for videos. As clicker training is so all-encompassing it was hard to narrow it down to just a few select topics…I wanted to share so much.
After some fun discussions with Fiona we not only had dates, we also had a video plan.
I won’t spoilt the surprise and I will keep the topics of each video under wraps ! You will need to watch this space for the links to the Horse Hero web site when the videos are published in the coming weeks.
Day 1 of filming was last week and it proved to be lots of fun. Thanks to a very generous friend, we had a variety of horses to work so you will see everything from big horses to small horses and older to a beautiful yearling who definitely showed his cheeky side.
Filming was a great success, the weather held out (contrary to the forecast) and the horses were immensely patient….even when asked to stand and do nothing, a huge challenge for a clicker trained horse and definitely gave us a few entertaining video outtakes !
That was just the start for us. We have another filming date coming up which will show that Clicker Training can be used for advanced work, including ridden, and we hope it will be a little surprising ! You will need to keep checking back to find out why. And we also have an article appearing soon in the Editorial section of the web site.
We will let you know when the videos are on the web site. I hope you enjoy them.
Amanda
info@smaarthorses.co.uk
www.smaarthorses.co.uk
Karen Pryor, ClickerExpo Nashville 2012
I am just getting my notes from ClickerExpo 2012 organised ready to share with everyone. While doing this I came across a wonderful statement by Karen Pryor in the opening session this year and I wanted to share it, just to whet everyone appetite ready for the notes I share.
Karen talks about when people are learning clicker training. She uses the analogy of learning about new software on your computer.
“It is always hard to learn new software. It would be easy to give up especially if we are not sure where it will take us or what the end result will be. We need to experience the end result to appreciate the benefits.
So often we need to persevere through the process of learning new software so that we can really reap the benefits.
The benefits of Clicker Training are, among other things, teaching our animals to:
Watch out for the new ClickerExpo posts coming out soon !
Amanda
www.smaarthorses.co.uk
info@smaarthorses.co.uk
This is a fantastic article by Kay Laurence about rewards. Although written about dogs all of what she writes is very applicable to horses. Enjoy !
Amanda
S.M.A.A.R.T. Horse Company
By Kay Laurence on 10/01/2011
“Reward your dog”
We’ve heard this many, many times in many formats. It takes a lot of experience to get the best from a reward—where the reward delivers everything the dog needs in order to offer the behavior again and again, with passion.
Often delivery of a reward is not enough; many other factors influence the effect of the reward. Back in “olden times,” class instructors were perpetually yelling “praise your dog.” It seemed to be the hardest challenge for many folk to praise the dog in a way that was actually rewarding for that dog.
We grow up with the illusion that to say “good dog” is sufficient, and that the dog will understand immediately that the task was carried out correctly, even when said through gritted teeth. You really mean “good dog.” Yeah. It sounds simple, but poor delivery can make the reward more trouble than its value, and can have a backlash effect on the training and learning process.
Remember that a reward is only effective if the receiver of the reward finds it rewarding. Run down this reward checklist and make sure that, for the dog you are training this minute, the reward is doing the appropriate job.
You probably know the story of Clever Hans, the horse owned by a math teacher named von Osten who decided to teach his horse to do math in the same way that he did his pupils. After extensive training, Clever Hans appeared able to solve relatively advanced mathematical problems, including multiplication and long division. Clever Hans showcased his abilities around Europe, although von Osten never charged for an exhibition. His owner and trainer sincerely believed that his horse understood what he was being asked, and wanted the world to see it for themselves.
Scientists were so interested that a panel was formed, led by psychologist Carl Stumpf, which verified that no tricks were visibly involved, but passed the issue onto psychologist Oskar Pfungst. After an extensive series of tests, Pfungst found that Clever Hans was unconsciously being cued by his trainer. Hans could only answer questions if in visual range of a human who knew the answer. In other words, Pfungst found that Clever Hans was clever indeed, but in a different way than thought by his owner. The horse used subtle cues from humans (head tilt, eyebrow raise) to know when the correct number was coming, and thus when to stop pawing. (Hans communicated by pawing the ground; his answer to 2 + 2 was to paw the ground 4 times.)
I’m reprising this story, familiar to most of you, because of a great talk given by Dan Estep and Suzanne Hetts of Animal Behavior Associates at the Interdisciplinary Forum on Applied Animal Behavior in Arizona last weekend. The owner of a dog named Sheba had asked for a “scientific investigation” into his dog’s intelligence, and a local TV station asked Dan and Suzanne to look into it.
Amanda
www.smaarthorses.co.uk
info@smaarthorses.co.uk
By Amanda Martin, The S.M.A.A.R.T. Horse Company Ltd
There are two different ways to deal with behavioural problems. One is to de-sensitise and the other is to counter condition. Usually, the hardest part of tackling a behaviour is knowing which one to choose. De-sensitisation is used to change an unwanted behaviour that is still developing, in other words, the horse is still being sensitized; and counter conditioning is used when an unwanted behaviour is learned and is now classically conditioned.
So now we need to understand the difference between sensitisation of behaviours and classically conditioned behaviours, then we can begin to understand the physiological difference (neural connections that are part of the learning) which will then allow us to better understand why one method works better on each problem.
A classically conditioned behaviour ALWAYS happens. The intensity of the reaction is unlikely to change. So if you have a horse that ALWAYS has an issue about trailer loading and the intensity of the reaction to not go on the trailer is as bad as it can get, this is a classically conditioned response.
If the refusal to load is only sometimes, or the reaction is sometimes worse than others, this is still in the sensitisation stage. So the horse is effectively still learning about the cue (trailer) and the consequences (confinement, isolation, going somewhere stressful etc). At this stage, most people will get out the whips and lunge lines etc and try to make the horse load, and in fact this just confirms to the horse that the trailer is bad and bad things happen when this cue (trailer) arrives. So the neural pathways for “trailer = negative emotion” are firmed up a bit more so getting closer and closer to it becoming an automatic (classically conditioned) reaction, i.e. always happens.
Once neural pathways are laid, they don’t go away or change, it is the strength of the pathway that changes depending on how often it is used. So if you think about riding a bike. If you haven’t done it for 20 years, you CAN get back on and ride. You won’t be as good at it as you were 20 years ago but the neural pathways that you strengthened when you learned to ride a bike are still there 20 years later, they are just not a strong as they used to be and you need to practice to get them to work automatically again.
The same recall of habit can happen with classically conditioned negative emotional reactions (Conditioned emotional response or CER) in animals (including humans). For recall of CERs, the process is called spontaneous recovery. It is thought that because negative reactions are usually lifesaving reactions, the wiring with them is so much easier to firm up again that 1 episode of spontaneous recovery can cause a CER to re-emerge (or spontaneously recover) and stay for a long time. With sensitisation, if the horse gets a big enough fright/shock, the learning stage about the negative reactions can be totally by-passed and the reaction can immediately be as bad as it can get and therefore is a CER (classically conditioned response). So it seems these connections in the negative pathway are pretty firm once they are made….which makes perfect sense if you are a flight animal.
The other thing to remember as well is that once a negative emotion about something is learned, that can very easily be generalised to similar objects. So with the trailer example, if it is the small space the horse does not like, you might start to find narrow doorways become an issue. Or the generalization can be to other objects in the environment at the same time as the trailer is present. It might be something like a bucket, the people who are trying to load the horse, the equipment used to get the horse in the trailer….and this can include the feed scoop and the feed itself, etc.
The reason for this is that now two fear neural pathways are being triggered and being strengthened at the same time. What is then believed to happen is that when one fires, it is now so closely linked to the other, that it triggers the other one, so you end up with the spooky horse.
An example of this is, if you have a smell that reminds you of something bad, you don’t have to experience the bad thing to experience the feeling of fear (or whatever the emotion is) to experience/remember that emotion. The smell has been so closely linked neurologically to the original cue that it is enough to trigger your memory of the bad thing and thus the negative emotion that went with it. Firming up of neural pathways is called long term potentiation (learning) and when another pathway is being firmed as a result of another one being triggered, this is associative learning (or long term potentiation).
The S.M.A.A.R.T. Horse Company Ltd
info@smaarthorses.co.uk
www. smaarthorses co.uk
Facebook has so many useful resources available within it. One of those great resources for any clicker trainer is Alexandra Kurlands work. As well as her books and DVDs, her worldwide clinics and more, Alexandra is also now on Facebook and has just started her own Clicker Training Group page called; The Click That Teaches.
You can find Alexandra here on Facebook, find out more about what is going on in the clicker training world on her fan page, and now you can chat with like-minded people on her group page.
The group page is a place to chat, ask clicker training questions, find solutions for training speed bumps, even find like-minded people in your area. It’s a great resource and The S.M.A.A.R.T. Horse Company hope to see you there soon.
As a qualified physiologist I always like to remind myself of how our amazing horses function. My research is more often than not about how their minds are working, how they learn things and so on, so now and then it is nice to go back to my roots and remind myself that the body is quite an amazing thing.
There are few similarities between horses and automobiles, but in a manner of speaking, the horse’s circulatory and respiratory systems constitute its engine. The food a horse consumes is its fuel. The fuel is converted into nutritional energy that powers the muscles. The respiratory system provides oxygen to facilitate metabolism, and the cardiovascular or circulatory system delivers the oxygen and nutrients to tissues as well as carrying off waste products that are produced when the “engine” is running.
We’ll take a close a look at these two systems and the manner in which they function.
The purpose of the respiratory system…….
Amanda
amanda@smaarthorses.co.uk
www.smaarthorses.co.uk
A question I am asked almost daily is “what is clicker training?”. It’s a fairly straight forward question, and as my experience, knowledge and understanding of clicker training and the science that describes it has deepened, my reply has evolved and deepened, and can be readily altered to suit the audience. The core of the answer is the same, but how I describe it has become more refined.
Clicker training can easily be described in terms of learning theory, behavioural science, and more. It can even be described in terms of the relationship it builds with the horse, the results it produces and the motivation it awakens in the horse (and usually handler as well). But it never quite seems to get to the crux of the matter. Which brings me to what I feel may be the more important question….
What tells us that you or I are clicker trainers and someone else is not ? The obvious answer is “we train our animals with clickers!”. However, I sometimes encounter someone who is using a clicker to train their animal, but it would appear that the animal is not having a positive experience, so that definition is not nearly a good enough way of assessing a clicker trainer.
A number of years ago I had a boss at work who was definitely a clicker trainer, but never once held a clicker. He also never trained animals. But for the first time appraisals at work were no longer about pointing out areas for improvement, I was no longer in a blame culture, I was in a positive environment. I had never to my knowledge, until then, encountered anyone who could generate all of that. What was it about him that made him such a great trainer, a great boss, someone I wanted to learn from and spend time with ?
Here are a list of just some of the things that struck me about him as qualities that I admired and learned from:
Time ! Trust ! Observant !
He also instinctively knew how to apply the 10 laws of shaping behaviour (search archives for “10 Laws”). These are many of the qualities that make us clicker trainers, as opposed to being people who train with a clicker in their hand.
I was working for this same boss at the time, I bought Classic and I am no doubt that his influence over me led me to search for a positive way to train my young stallion. As a result I found Alexandra Kurland, The Clicker Center, and in doing so found someone else who had all of these qualities, could create a positive environment to work and learn in and who inspired me.
Clicker training is not so much a training method (though there is a solid structure available to follow if needed), its more a way of being with animals. A way of looking at them, listening to them, respecting them and applying all of the qualities listed above to our interactions with them. That way of being with animals starts to cross over in to how we are with people around us. It becomes a way of life.
Amanda
smaarthorses.co.uk
Below is our list of clinic, lesson and distance education courses for the first part of 2012.
If you would like to book on a clinic, or enquire about a clinic please contact us at info@smaarthorses.co.uk.
If you would like to arrange a clinic in your area please contact Amanda at amanda@info@smaarthorses.co.uk.
Anyone who’s kept up with the latest and greatest about the cognitive, emotional, and moral lives of nonhuman animals (“animals”) knows “surprises” are being uncovered almost daily and that many non-primate animals are showing intellectual and emotional capacities that rival those of the great apes. Some of my recent essays have been real “downers” (see for example and and) but now I can write about some fascinating new results that are far more uplifting, data that caution against our tooting our “we’re so special” horn too loudly or proudly.
Over the past few years we’ve learned much about the moral lives of animals (“wIld justice“; see also and). Detailed studies have shown that mice and chickens display empathy and now we know rats do too. A study published today conducted by Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, Jean Decety, and Peggy Mason working at the University of Chicago has provided the first evidence of empathy-driven behavior in rodents. Appearing in the prestigious journal Science, the results of this landmark study show that untrained laboratory rats will free restrained companions and this helping is triggered by empathy (Ben-Ami Bartal, I., Decety, J., & Mason, P. 2011. Empathy and pro-social behavior in rats. Science 334, 1427-1430). They’ll even free other rats rather than selfishly feast on chocolate. Researcher Peggy Mason notes, “That was very compelling … It said to us that essentially helping their cagemate is on a par with chocolate. He can hog the entire chocolate stash if he wanted to, and he does not. We were shocked.”
A press release from the University of Chicago accompanied by a video reads as follows: “The observation, published today in Science, places the origin of pro-social helping behavior earlier in the evolutionary tree than previously thought. Though empathetic behavior has been observed anecdotally in non-human primates and other wild species, the concept had not previously been observed in rodents in a laboratory setting. … ‘This is the first evidence of helping behavior triggered by empathy in rats,’ said Jean Decety, PhD, Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago. … ‘There are a lot of ideas in the literature showing that empathy is not unique to humans, and it has been well demonstrated in apes, but in rodents it was not very clear. We put together in one series of experiments evidence of helping behavior based on empathy in rodents, and that’s really the first time it’s been seen.’” More discussion can be found here.
It’s also very interesting that the rats were not trained to open the cage door. Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal noted. “These rats are learning because they are motivated by something internal. We’re not showing them how to open the door, they don’t get any previous exposure on opening the door, and it’s hard to open the door. But they keep trying and trying, and it eventually works.”
It’s also important to note that the rats in the cage didn’t have to experience unbearable physical pain for other rats to help them. In the earlier study in mice researchers caused a lot of excruciating pain. As such, this new study on rats sets a wonderful precedent for future research on sentient and empathic animals. It’s also safe to assume that numerous animals display empathy based on what we already know. As Jean Decety concludes in a very important paper on the evolution of empathy, “There is strong evidence that empathy has deep evolutionary, biochemical, and neurological underpinnings. Even the most advanced forms of empathy in humans are built on more basic forms and remain connected to core mechanisms associated with affective communication, social attachment, and parental care.”
There’s also another very important aspect to this study. Much research is showing that human and nonhuman animals are inherently compassionate and empathic (see also) and that it’s really easy to expand our compassion footprint. Thus, the comments of Peggy Mason ring true: ”When we act without empathy we are acting against our biological inheritance … If humans would listen and act on their biological inheritance more often, we’d be better off.”
We can only hope these findings will be used to protect rats and other rodents from being used in horrific invasive research. Although it’s been known for more than five years that mice display empathy this has not been factored into a revision of the Federal Animal Welfare Act in the United States. Rodents and many millions of other animals who comprise more than 99% of the animals used in invasive research can still be greatly harmed or killed “in the name of science.” Indeed, the Animal Welfare Act does not consider them to be “animals” (see also). Only about 1 percent of animals used in research in the United States are protected by legislation and the legislation is sometimes amended in nonsensical ways to accommodate the ”needs” of researchers.
The desperation of science to rob animals of their sentience produces distortions that open the door for egregious and reprehensible abuse. For instance, here is a quote from the federal register: “We are amending the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) regulations to reflect an amendment to the Act’s definition of the term animal. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 amended the definition of animal to specifically exclude birds, rats of the genus Rattus, and mice of the genus Mus, bred for use in research” (Vol. 69, no. 108, 4 June 2004). It may surprise you to learn that birds, rats, and mice are no longer considered animals, but that is the sort of logic that epitomizes federal legislators. Researchers are not allowed to abuse animals, so the definition of animal is simply revised until it refers only to creatures researchers don’t need. Garet Lahvis, a behavioural neuroscientist at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, correctly notes, “We study animals to see what makes us uniquely human, but the findings of empathy in animals often force uncomfortable questions about how humans treat animals.”
Now, what about ravens. Their fascinating story is almost anti-climatic but well-worth telling. Previous research has shown that ravens will punish others who steal food from the group and it’s been suggested that demonstrate moral behavior. Now we know that wild ravens in the Austrian alps use “their beaks and body language to direct another raven’s attention, usually a member of the opposite sex, to a specific object, marking the first time such complex gesturing has been documented in an animal outside of humans and their primate cousins.” They often do this to start a relationship. Thomas Bugnyar, a co-author on this study, wrote at his “Raven Politics” project website, “Understanding the social life of corvids may thus be critical in our attempt to understand primate cognition, since comparison between these groups may offer the unique opportunity to identify which cognitive abilities are common to social living. …” For more on this fascinating study please see this brief summary.
All in all, these discoveries and others demand that we keep an open mind on who other animals are and what they are capable of. As I and others have concluded time and time again, we need “to debunk the myth of human exceptionalism once and for all. It’s a hollow, shallow, and self-serving perspective on who we are. Of course we are exceptional in various arenas as are other animals. Perhaps we should replace the notion of human exceptionalism with species exceptionalism, a move that will force us to appreciate other animals for who they are, not who or what we want them to be. And, what’s really the most important question is what makes individuals unique as there are wide-ranging individual differences within all species, including Home sapiens.”
Stay tuned for more on the fascinating lives of animals and in the meanwhile don’t toot your horn too loudly or proudly. Other animals truly are amazing beings.”
www.smaarthorses.co.uk
info@smaarthorses.co.uk
Habituation is the gradual reduction or waning of a response to a non-harmful stimulus in the environment (e.g. plastic bags) with frequent presentation of the stimulus. Successful habituation is dependent on the following;
An additional characteristic of habituation to an object is ‘spontaneous recovery’. Spontaneous recovery is where the original startle response to the stimulus comes back. It is not usually as intense as the original response and habituation can still be used to reduce the response. This can occur during habituation if the presentation of the stimulus is not frequent enough, or if the horses has been habituated but then does not see the stimulus for some time.
Sensitisation:
If the initial reinforcement of the reaction was salient (important) enough the horse can learn to be fearful with one presentation of the object. The fear can also be learned over time and is characteristic of the increasing response to the stimulus. One of the characteristics of a horse becoming sensitised to an object is that each time it is presented, the startle or fear reaction increases in intensity. During the time of sensitisation, measures can be taken to prevent the reaction becoming a conditioned response (i.e. it always happens). Once the reaction is conditioned, a different approach to changing or amending this learned response is required.
Summary
| Habituation | Sensitisation | |
| 1 | Reaction is not rewarded or punished(neutral feedback) | Reaction is reinforced(either by managing to escape or by feeling fearful) |
| 2 | Context-specific(needs to be learned about in each environment) | Not context-specific(once learned that something is frightening, it is frightening in all environments) |
| 3 | Frequent presentation reduces reaction | Frequent presentation increases the reaction.If initial presentation induces fearful enough response, the reaction will always occur at the same intensity |
| 4 | Spontaneous recovery may occur | The reaction eventually always happens(becomes classically conditioned) |
The S.M.A.A.R.T. Horse Company Ltd
info@smaarthorses.co.uk
www. smaarthorses co.uk
Everyone welcome. Learn about clicker training, how it works, why it works, see how you can apply it to day-to-day life with your horse and learn how to get started yourself at this in-depth demo with clicker training specialist, Amanda Martin
Both during and after the demo there will be time for questions with Amanda. See details below.
Contact amanda@smaarthorses.co.uk for enquiries and bookings (booking required in advance).
Enjoy a private lesson at your own yard with clicker training specialist, Amanda Martin. Work on anything you need to from problem behaviours to starting youngsters and high school movements.
Whether you are already clicker training or want to get started, a private lesson with Amanda will help you achieve what you hope to achieve, and more. She will help you set realistic goals and learn how to break exercises down in to trainable pieces.
Learn how to positively teach your horse the classical art of physical and emotional balance. See details below.
Contact amanda@smaarthorses.co.uk for enquiries and bookings.
www.smaarthorses.co.uk
www.smaarthorsesblog.com
0777 196 5083
By Karen Pryor on 06/25/2002
Behavior analysts refer to a learned stimulus that triggers an operant behavior as a ‘discriminative stimulus.’ The behaviorists do not, as far as I know, differentiate between a discriminative stimulus that was trained through positive reinforcement and one that was trained through negative reinforcement.
In practice, however, there is a distinct difference. In clicker training (operant conditioning with a marker signal) the behavior is developed first, as an operant freely offered in expectation of positive reinforcement. The discriminative stimulus is then paired with that operant in order to function as an indicator of a reinforcement opportunity. Each discriminative stimulus signals the opportunity to earn reinforcement for one particular behavior or suite of behaviors.
This positively trained discriminative stimulus always ‘opens the door’ to positive reinforcement. If the behavior does not occur, the only result is that no reinforcement occurs. When the behavior occurs, reinforcement is guaranteed. (We clicker trainers sometimes call this kind of signal a cue, to differentiate it from the traditional term, a command.)
As soon as the animal understands what a given cue means, the cue, or positive discriminative stimulus, becomes in itself a conditioned positive reinforcer, like the click. Thus a cue can be used as a reinforcer for behavior that occurs as the cue is being given. One may for example use the well-established positive cue for one behavior to shape another behavior, or to reinforce previous behavior in a chain. The cue can be used also as marker signal, just as if it were a click, to pinpoint especially good aspects of another behavior. It seems likely, too, that the desirable emotional response that we know to be associated with the click also accompanies the presentation of these positively conditioned stimuli.
Behavior that has been trained by correction may also have associated discriminative stimuli, which indicate when the specific behavior is to occur. However, these discriminators, or commands, may or may not lead to positive reinforcement. If the animal fails to perform the behavior, or performs it incorrectly, the stimulus may lead to punishment (usually called ‘correction’). The negative discriminative stimulus, usually called a command, is now a conditioned negative reinforcer, signaling the opportunity for avoiding punishment.
Even if the behavior was trained entirely with positive reinforcement, if one now clicks for correct behavior following a discriminator (a cue, command, or signal) but also gives aversive correction (leash pop, verbal reprimand, etc.) for incorrect behavior following that same stimulus, the stimulus immediately loses its value as a positive reinforcer. It is, at best, ambiguous in terms of reinforcement. It is not a click. It no longer automatically triggers the positive emotions associated with conditioned positive reinforcers. It can no longer be predictably used inside a chain to reinforce previous behavior.
Even if primary reinforcers, such as approval, toys, and treats are supplied in abundance during or after training or performance, the discriminative stimuli themselves-the commands-are now threats as well as promises. Behavior tends to break down, interestingly, both preceding and following these ambivalent stimuli: preceding, because the preceding behavior may begin to extinguish due to lack of a positive conditioned reinforcer consisting of the now-aversive stimulus, and following, because the behavior that might be punished tends to be avoided. The shift becomes visible in the learner’s attitude, which switches from attentive eagerness to reluctance, often with visible manifestations of stress. Even though successful response to a given discriminative stimulus is still followed by reward, if failure is now followed by punishment, you have made that discriminative stimulus ambiguous in terms of predictable outcome. It is no longer ‘safe.’ You have poisoned your cue.
Karen Pryor is the founder and CEO of Karen Pryor Clickertraining and Karen Pryor Academy. She is the author of many books, including Don’t Shoot the Dog and Reaching the Animal Mind.
For information on how to help your horse overcome poisnoned cues and fears, please feel free to contact me…..
Amanda
amanda@smaarthorses.co.uk
smaarthorses.co.uk
A time out is when you give the horse space from you during a training session. It’s not like a time out for children in that, we can’t tell the horse what they are getting a time out for. We have to hope they will figure it out. And that is a risky approach.
When we decide to apply a time out we first have to stop what we are doing, then we have to start to walk away. So immediately we have to ask ourselves. “at what time does the time out begin ?”, is it when we stop what we are doing, start to walk away, disengage eye contact, or are out of sight ?. Should we go completely out of sight, or should we just turn our backs ? Already I am seeing a problem with the use of a time out because there are so many variables I need to think about.
On top of this I need to know if my horse wants me to be there or not. If my horse wants me to be there then leaving acts as a negative punisher (-P), yes its a punisher….negative means you remove something the horse wants and punisher means that the behaviour that was happening at the time the punisher was applied is less likely to happen again. Do I want to be actively using punishers when I train with my horse ? As a clicker trainer, my answer is a firm no.
If your horse does not want you to be near then a time out acts in a very different way. You are removing your presence (negative) but your presence is unwanted so taking it away acts as a reinforcer (the behaviour that was happening at the time you leave is more likely to happen again). So if your horse wants you to leave, leaving is a -R (negative reinforcer).
With a negative reinforcer we are ending up in the correct part of the operant conditioning spectrum, but we’re still not working with positive reinforcement (+R).
Quite simply all that happens is that you don’t get to see what your horse is doing. As such, you are missing out on all sorts of behaviour that is happening and you are not able to make judgements on the efficacy of your time out, your continued presence or when you should turn back. If you did look at your horse you would likely see, assuming your horse did want you to be there, that your horse is offering lots of behaviours and you are not responding.
By not responding to behaviours offered you will cause confusion and may even cause regression of behaviours (a topic of another blog to come soon).
Punishers work, there is no getting away from that. May people are shocked when they hear me say that, but it is true, they work. However, that statement must always be followed up immediately with discussion about the many caveats to using punishers and how that makes them very difficult to use correctly. The outcome of a punisher is potentially only going to be known until after the punisher is applied.
The emotional fallout of the use of a punisher also has to be considered. As clicker trainers we spend a lot of time, well all of our time, building a relationship with our horse that is based in mutual trust and respect. The use of one punisher could break that trust significantly and for a long period of time. The emotional fallout will be significant. If in doubt about the effect of punishers then a great read is ‘Coercion and Its Fallout‘, Murray Sidman. Alas, this book is very hard to come by now but it definitely a great book.
If you have a behaviour that you are struggling with or would like to advance without the use of time outs contact me and I will be able to help.
Amanda
amanda@smaarthorses.co.uk
smaarthorses.co.uk
This is a question that comes up every now and again and I hear many thoughts on why gelding drop when we are training with them. Having worked with a large number of horses, and some of them having been stallions, I have watched with great interest the reactions of each of them to clicker training.
Some horses instantly understand clicker training and just take it on board as if it had been there all along, only now they can converse better, others need encouragement to come out of their shells and try new (or even old) behaviours because they have never been allowed/encouraged to do things without being ‘told’ what to do, and there is another general category who get really quite excited about clicker training. It is this last category that seems to raise most eyebrows.
In case you don’t know what we mean by ‘dropping’, let me explain; some geldings with drop their penis when they get excited by clicker training. Some get a little more excited and even get a full or partial erection, and some even start to get excited in the behaviours they offer (people often say their gelding is acting like a stallion).
Mares can also show excited reactions, but they can’t drop. So mares can emotionally react to clicker training the same way geldings do. However, when you work with stallions you find that they don’t tend to drop during clicker training.
The stallions I have worked with tend to be stallions that are in a breeding environment, are breeding already, or have bred in the past. As such, they know the reason for and level of excitement required for an erection. Much as these stallions love clicker training, the level of excitement that clicker training creates is not anywhere near to that of breeding, and so they don’t get ‘that’ excited when they are clicker training.
The majority of geldings have not bred, they were gelded prior to ever being mature enough to breed. As such, they have no excitement level comparison and so it seems that clicker training is about the most fun they could be doing.
Clicker training with S.M.A.A.R.T. Horses is all about physical and emotional balance. If your horse is getting over excited about clicker training then there are behaviours you can use to help them manage their emotions. These can include targeting, head lowering and stand on a mat though which behaviour you choose depends very much on your horse and what is calming to them.
You can use the calming behaviours interspersed in to the more active behaviour you are training to prevent your horse from getting emotionally aroused.
If you have a horse who gets over-excited about training and you need some advice or help with teaching him or her emotional control, I can help you by email (video or email consults), at clinics, and with distance education and 1-2-1 lessons (contact Amanda for more details on 1-2-1 lessons). Feel free to contact me at amanda@smaarthorses.co.uk and I will be more than happy to help.
Amanda
S.M.A.A.R.T. Horses
At S.M.A.A.R.T. Horses we offer a variety of ways to learn how to clicker train
with your horse. These include distance education with our online Clicker
College as well as a variety of face to face courses, classes, demonstrations and more.
To find out more about each way to learn about Clicker Training with S.M.A.A.R.T. Horses follow the link.
If you have questions, would like to find out more, or book up with us just
email Amanda at amanda@smaarthorses.co.uk.
When to stop a training session is a great question and one that crops up a lot. The answer is not so easy, as with everything horsey, the answer is “it depends”.
When to stop a training session depends on a number of things which come under the basic umbrellas of; how your horse is reacting to the training and how you are reacting to your horse.
Alexandra Kurland (The Clicker Center) has a great rule called “the 20 treat rule”. This is a fantastic way to get used to assessing your training sessions and lets you get lots of practicing making decisions about when and how to stop your session.
The 20 treat rule is as it says, you train in blocks of 20 treats. You simply count out 20 clicks worth of treats and go to your horse with a plan for your training session (know what you are aiming to achieve and have a good idea of how you will get there). At this point I would also refer you to the 10 laws of shaping behaviours (see previous blogs) which talk about training plans, if the plan is not working, and the 5 second rule (featured in The Click That Teaches Step By Step Book).
At treat 20, click, give your horse the treat and make a big fuss. Then you are going to leave your horse and go to count out 20 more clicks worth of treats. While you do this you should be thinking about how the last session was, what went well, what did not go so well, were you making progress, do you need to change something, do you need to break the behaviour in to smaller criterion, do you need to move on faster, how clean was your loop, how does your horse look, is he engaged, are you still focusing….and so much more. This assessment will help guide you as to
what you need to do with your next 20 treats, or even if it is time to stop for the day and the 20 treats are given to your horse a freebie.
Using the 20 treat rule not only allows you time to think about your training, it also gives you and your horse lots of practices at stopping a training session. You get used to knowing how to gauge when your treat pouch is empty and learn when to give signals for the end of a session, and your horse gets more opportunities to learn that the clicker training stops but comes back again thus reducing any stress around the game leaving.
However, these are short sessions ending and you are going to be coming back quite quickly. So we do need to think about how to tell our horse that we are finishing up for the day and going home.
Think about leaving a meeting at work, there tends to be a bit of a ‘ritual’ as to how people finish up meetings. You follow an agenda and at the end there is often an ‘any other business’ (AOB) topic. So you are being given a cue that we are nearing the end of the meeting just by the AOB topic being covered. There will also be some language used, e.g. “so that just leaves us with AOB” and body language; people might start to relax, pack up documents, put pens away etc. What this tells us is that we give lots of clues that we are about to finish up, leave the meeting room and get on with daily chores in the office.
Now think about being in a meeting where you are not sure of the agenda, AOB does not necessarily come at the end and when people are finishing they just get up and walk out. Would you feel like you could relax in the meeting or would you be constantly watching for clues about what is coming next ? Without being able to tell our horses what is coming next, or when we are starting to wrap up the training, they must feel a bit like this….its unpredictable. Unpredictability can lead to stress in some horses.
A way we can ensure our horses do not get stressed when you are wrapping up your training session is to get in to a routine. Find things that you can do at the end of a session that are just for fun, or you could let him lead the dance and tell you what he wants to do for the last 10 mins or so.
Then as a way to let him know that the session is over is to leave him with some free goodies on the floor of his stable, or a treat ball or something like that. You could also remove your treat pouch (if you wear an external treat pouch…which is a good idea as it is a great cue for the horse for game on and game off).
Horses love consistency, when we take that away we can make them feel stressful. So instead lets find ways to give them reliable cues (consistencies lead to reliable cues) and make sure our training sessions are fun for horse and handler.
Amanda
smaarthorses.co.uk
amanda@smaarthorses.co.uk
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