I don't know where to start really as there are a million thoughts in my head after my workshop yesterday.
Firstly, I found it really interesting to listen and watch an experienced horse-person working with all kinds of horses. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and truly expanded my knowledge of animal training. It reinforced some ideas I have learnt through other avenues of animal training and learning.
Defining your goals and how you intend to get there
One of the first things that comes to mind it the fact that you want to have clear goals and only work in small steps so that you are set up to succeed. When training horses this means preparing a "tool box" of foundation behaviours that will be the groundwork for more complex behaviours later.
When it comes to horses, the goal of the training in the first stages is to (as in all training it may help to write it down and clarify it to yourself):
1) Trust human handling -- i.e. the handler must be able to touch the horse anywhere and have the horse stand still
2) As handlers we must be able to move our horses in any direction
3) As handlers we have to teach our horses to "think backwards" i.e. reverse -- this can be used to stop a forward moving horse too -- when a horse is moving forward we can ask it to start thinking about moving backwards, the horse then slows down and then stops, at this point we stop asking for backward-thinking and we have a horse that has stopped (I found this quite clever)
4) We must teach the horses to be attentive to us -- here it is up to the handler to keep their horse "on it's toes" -- this means vary the excercises you do with your horse(!) Nothing should be "just habit" because in this state of mind no learning takes place.
I found all of these things very interesting and saw parallels to other animal training, of course foundation behaviours are always slightly different depending on what animal you are working with and, perhaps most importantly what you goal with training that animal is. For example teaching a horse to be ridden is vastly different from teaching a tiger at a zoo to present it's tail for blood sampling. The concept of training behaviour-wise is the same (the animal will offer behaviours that are rewarding) and yet the goals and hence the path there are different.
Dominance-theory and animal training
This leads me to the whole dominance-issue.
It seems that the equine world is suffering from too much dominance theory too. Not that it does not exist. I did not say that. I do believe that horses (or dogs) have heirarchies. BUT I also believe that the whole dominance-issue is given too much weight. I don't really think that animals are so stupid to believe that we are a horse or dog on two legs. We are a different species and what we ask of our horses and dogs is VASTLY different from what the "alpha" individual would ask from it's herd or flock.
Dominance theory is fine, but when applied to learning it can go a little awry. I think that learning about horse behviour in the wild can only do you good -- it may help you to understand and predict certain reactions your horse has to it's environment. But learning to read your horse can only be achieved by mutual communication with your horse. The exercises used in Natural Horsemanship are a brilliant example of teaching a horse a way that you can communicate what you want to it. A nice side effect to this is that the horse will learn to trust and respect your decisions because you are giving it a fair chance to do the right thing i.e. "if you do this for me I will promise you a pleasant experience". The only problem I have with the actualy teaching of these things is that they are done with a light form of negative reinforecement, granted not a seriously bad form of negative reinforcement, but negative reinforcement all the same. One teaches each exercise with a combination of punishment/reward where the reward is a removal of the negative stimulus. It works and is hardly "mean" but I think I would prefer to teach the same exercises with a clicker. Mainly because you will reinforce what is right and there are lots of good side-effects to rewarding good behaviour as opposed to teaching and animal to escape negative stimulus. And a friendly pat is not as motivating as food in the end. (Just let a human choose between a friendly pat or $50 - I think I'd choose $50 hands down, I would also approach the next lesson with much more enthusiam). Here's a great article on the natural Horsemanship foundation "games" combined with clicker training:
http://www.naturalhorse.co.uk/training/7games.htm
But yeah, back to dominance.
Here's food for thought when it comes to using dominance-theory to your advantage and when to set it aside:
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Here is a fascinating study that suggests that your interactions with other horses will effect interactions with a horse. The conclusion is to make training easier you should line up your horses in paddocks so they can watch you train. Then start your training day with the most dominant horse and work your way down the hierarchy!
DrO
Anim Cogn. 2008 Jan 9;
Horse sense: social status of horses (Equus caballus) affects their likelihood of copying other horses' behavior.
Krueger K, Heinze J.
University of Regensburg, Biologie I, Universitatsstrasse 31, 93053, Regensburg, Germany, Konstanze.Krueger@biologie.uni-regensburg.de.
Animals that live in stable social groups need to gather information on their own relative position in the group's social hierarchy, by either directly threatening or by challenging others, or indirectly and in a less perilous manner , by observing interactions among others. Indirect inference of dominance relationships has previously been reported from primates, rats, birds, and fish. Here, we show that domestic horses, Equus caballus, are similarly capable of social cognition. Taking advantage of a specific "following behavior" that horses show towards humans in a riding arena, we investigated whether bystander horses adjust their response to an experimenter according to the observed interaction and their own dominance relationship with the horse whose reaction to the experimenter they had observed before. Horses copied the "following behavior" towards an experimenter after watching a dominant horse following but did not follow after observing a subordinate horse or a horse from another social group doing so. The "following behavior," which horses show towards an experimenter, therefore appears to be affected by the demonstrator's behavior and social status relative to the observer.
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I've been doing this for years. I let the young ones loose to watch everything before its their turn. Usually they have a "oh, me too, me too" attitude by the time its their turn. Other people said I was crazy thinking that it made a difference and said I was just lucky to have nice horses.
One filly was watching as I showered everyone else with the hose one day until she couldn't stand it and shoved in to be next in line. When her turn was done, she still hung around to be squirted.
They always get to watch the farrier do all their friends first. Makes for some very interesting looks as they twist their head around to see exactly what's going on. Then when its their turn, they've never been a problem (well, until it gets boring and they want to go back to play)
I also clicker train and always let the newbie loose to watch a session with a more experienced horse. With the exception of one horse, all have jumped right in to give it a try.
In my experience, the reverse of this is also true. If you let them watch an obstinante horse or a refusing horse, they will also try the same tricks or take the "not me either!" attitude.
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Source: http://www.horseadvice.com/horse/messages/7/240095.html
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In reading some of the posts regarding herd dynamics and others on Mark Rashid, I thought I'd tell you about a lecture I went to by Mark at Kah-Ne-Ta Indian Reservation in Oregon.
Mark spoke about how some people consider assuming the alpha role to be essential in training horses. In other words, become like the dominant horse. When an alpha says, "Move!" the others say, "How far?"
Mark said that he's spent plenty of time watching horses in the wild. He said that he learned many things, one of which was that horses can be pretty boring as they generally just eat, drink, poop and sleep.
When things did happen though, it was usually initiated by the alpha horse. When the alpha horse walked into a group, everyone scattered. They wanted to get as far away from the alpha as possible.
Sure, the alpha was the baddest horse around but nobody wanted to be near him or her.
Mark realized that this herd scenario was telling him that if none of these horses wanted to be close to the alpha, then why would he want to present himself as an alpha to his horses? It was the horses that were kind to each other that had the closest knit groups. Kindness proved to make his horses actually choose to be with him.
Studies have been done which prove that animals, as well as humans stop learning when placed under stress. In fact if the stress is great enough, they can actually forget some things that they've previously learned.
I guess what all this tells me is to teach and associate with horses with kindness-above all: kindness.
To me kindness brings with it a feeling of calm. When an animal is calm, he is in the best possible mode for learning.
The clicker is always kind. It doesn't lack for respect, but sets up rules in a way that horses can easily understand and follow. It helps the horse achieve and at the same time gives him credit for being an individual.
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Source: http://www.angelfire.com/az/clickryder/different.html
I believe dominance theory is great tool to have in your animal behaviour box, but in your animal training box it's not very useful. It is more useful to see your self as a benevolent teacher with endless patience. A teacher to be respected because they are fair and don't wack you over the head with a ruler. A teacher that lets you make mistakes but who also, without fail, helps you to succeed. In this way your animals will come to respect you and yes, you will become "alpha" in the sense that you will be someone worthy to follow and listen to.
One of the reasons why I think dominance theory is not that great when we train is because the nature of what we want to train. Like Mark Rashid points out and the horse trainer this weekend himself pointed out, we are asking our horses to do very strange things -- things that no alpha horse would be asking the rest of the herd to do. No alpha horse pokes another horse in the side and asks him to move one step and then stand still, instead they usually say "scram, this is my pile of hay". No alpha horse puts a bridle on another horse and no alpha horse gets on top of another horse and asks him if they can for a ride! In the same way no alpha dog puts a leash on another dog and asks him to go for a walk. This are unnatural, human, ideas. And yes, in my belief training ANYTHING unnatural is essentially "trick-training". Training a bird to land on your finger, training a dog to stay on command, training a horse to move away from pressure -- these are all "tricks" we humans want to train our animals to do.
But before people who are allergic to the words "trick-training" get upset -- oh what great and practical tricks they are! They help our animals to coexist peacefully in a world that is adapted to humans. We are giving them tools to harmoniously coexist with us. What great joy it is to see a brilliant partnership and two-way communcation between a horse and rider or dog and handler.
When an animal is in a reactive state of mind this is not condusive to learning
Right the next thing I am thinking about is reactivity. All animals can be reduced to a reactive state of mind. A reactive state of mind is not condusive to learning. It was wonderful to see this in action this weekend. A horse was asked to trot around the handler on a lunge line -- being in a reactive state at that moment the horse reacted to the swishing of the rope and "fled" to the extent of the line and trotted around in an energetic trot. Here he was not thinking, just running. The guy who had the course pointed this out and said "right now he isn't learning to we want to try to ask him to slow down" with a flick of the lunge line (the horse had previously been trained to respond to this cue for "back up") the horse slowed down. Suddenly there was a change that I may have missed if he hadn't made us aware of it. The horse slowed to a trot that was very "thoughtful" each step he was taking was as if he was thinking about it and his ears were moving around as if in great thought and concentration. He seemed to focus his ears on the handler, then on hs steps, then on the surroundings, then on the handler again and really seemed to be thinking about things. Whereas earlier he seemed to only have one thought as it was "argh, scary rope, I had best run from swishy thing". I could really see how reactivity is not condusive to learning.
I see the same thing in training my dog and bird -- if a simulus is too strong they only have space in their minds to react to that particular stimulus. It doesn't matter if the stimulus is fear-induced of interest-induced -- if it is too strong it will block out other thoughts. Some trainers appropriately call this "becoming blocked". The key it seems to all animal training is to begin training in an evironment that is condusive to learning. This often means in an environment where the animal is calm and comfortable. For dogs it can mean at home in the living room. For birds (who are highly reactive) it can mean around the saftely of their cage. For horses it can mean a familiar paddock close to home. Only when the training progresses can you ask for the same behaviour but in a slighlty more challenging environment.
Also one thing to be prepared for it a break down in the "quality" of the behaviour as the animal slowly becomes used to performing this familiar behviour in an unfamiliar environment.
Horse loading problems and solutions - an example of the issues talked about above
Lastly I want to finish of with an example that actually adresses the problems of dominance theory, reactiveness and clicker training versus bribery.
It was a situation that my friend and her horse were in -- a bit of a catch 22 in fact.
She wanted her horse to participate in the workshop. And it was a great learning experience for them both. But problems arose when trying to get the young stallion to load at the end of the workshop.
As far as he was concerned he had had a really long day and did not want to get into the scary trailer.
One lady was saying that it is normal for horses that have "lost a few points of the dominance scale" to try to act up and win back a couple of points. Although she is a brilliant and experienced horse person I am inclined to disagree here. I find that it is more of a case of learning-overload. I really don't think the young stallion was trying to "win points". It's more of a case that the stallion was reduced to a reactive state from the begining -- concentrating is actually very hard for animals and they can only do it for limited amounts of time.
He was responding well to the learnt tug-on-lead-rope means follow the pressure (i.e. we pull on lead rope and the horse follows). In an untrained state all animals (inclduing humans) will resist someone pulling on them -- this is called activating the "opposition reflex". This is also a "default" or "natural" behaviour i.e. a behaviour that the animal will go into when in a reactive state. Bolting is also a default behaviour that you don't need to train (as all horse owners know).
The problem we were facing was that his trained behaviour only held together as far as part of the way up the ramp. It fell apart when the proximity of the trailer scared him too much. Also a tug on his lead rope could trigger an opposition reflex and then a fight-or-flight reflex (also natural behaviour for a horse). The horse will of course choose to flee first being the prey animal that it is, and if this doesn't work it may choose to fight. The problem is when all these behaviours become the "norm" when loading -- you can actually unwittingly train your horse to present these behaviours.
On a better day and in a better place I believe training wise we should have called it a day. The problem was my poor friend had no choice -- she just HAD to get him home. And getting home meant getting him in the trailer.
We spent what was literally hours trying to get him to go in and by this time my friend and her horse were exhausted. Her horse was highly reactive and even though he occasionally had moments where he concentrated for long enough he had several occasions where he just "switched off" and bolted backwards.
In the end we did manage to bribe him with feed (only after having broken one halter) and that was only just. I was literally pushing food into his mouth whilest my friend closed the trailer behind him (most domesticated animals have learnt to associate food with calm and actually do calm down whilest they are eating). Eating almost seems to be a cue that "everything is ok". If a dog will take food or not is always a good measure as to how stressed they are in a stressful environment.
Thank goodness we got there in the end. Unfortunately this experience will not have taught the horse anything particularly good. By bribing him into coming into the trailer and standing still he never actually had time to think about his actions. The times he did think was just before he flung himself out backwards and into freedom, unfotunately not the best learning situation or result. I am not for bribing as it is very different to clicker training (some people confuse the two). You can use food as a "lure" in clicker training only if you fade out the lure quickly. But usually it is more effective to lure train using a target -- a non-food cue. (In target training you teach the animal to touch the presented object -- often the end of a stick -- this can then be used to show the animal where you want it to be heading).
What to do from here? Well preferably (since I am all for clicker training) I would choose to clicker train exercises that are useful in trailer loading. The nice thing is that you don't need a trailer for these (a problem for many that don't own trailers).
Now we need to state our problems and solutions:
So what is the problem?
- The horse does not like loading
(forget "he's trying to be dominant" -- just focus on the problem at hand)
What does a horse need to have learnt for it to load well?
(this is where we break down the complex behaviour of loading into small bits -- for that is exatly what loading is, a combination of several behaviours)
1) To walk forwards
2) To walk forwards up a leaning ramp (and not come in from the side)
3) To walk into a confined space and stand still
4) To stand still and be tied to a stationary object
5) To remained tied and still over a period of time despite a distracting/stressful environment (including closing the rear bar behind the horse and closing the door of the trailer)
6) To be untied and remain standing still (before backing out of the trailer so that the horse does not explode outwrads once it's learnt that it's "free")
7) To back up when asked
8) To back down slowly down a leaning ramp (and not step down sidewards)
9) To back up and stand still
With the nine points above in mind I hope you have now realised that loading is indeed a complex behaviour. With this in mind it is a wonder that some horses actually do learn to do all of the above without needing to be taught in small steps. But then again, this may be why trailer loading is such a common problem.
For the experienced horse trainer I am sure there are many many ways to teach each of these nice different things.
Teaching #1 is incredibly important. To move on to teaching #2 you could lay two poles on the ground and ask your horse to follow you inbetween them. You could start with the poles really far apart and then move them closee and closer together. If you have several poles you and your horse could practice moving thorough an "obstacle course". The nice thing is that this can then be expanded upon and you could lay these poles going up and down natural slopes in the terrain laying the foundation to going up and down ramps.
Another very clever way of teaching walking forwards in a controlled manner is teaching your horse to target. In this example the horse is taught to target cones on the ground -- the nice side effect of this is that the horse is taught to walk with his head lowered (a calm state). Touching cones or a target stick can be a fun "game" for your horse and also lets him concentrate on something familiar in an unfamiliar environment.
Before teaching a horse to enter into a trailer you have to remember to teach your horse to back up (#7 and #8) unless you have a trailer that is large enough to turn around in or you may spook your horse. Remember that the hard past about backing downwards is that the horse actually cannot see where he is placing his feet (try closing your eyes and backing down a slope -- scary huh?). A great way of teaching backing down is to use a natural downwards slope and some poles. First you ask your horse to back up inbetween two poles and then you ask him to back up inbetween two poles but down a slope . If you don't have a slope try to make a ramp.
Here's some great and hopefully inspring vidoes, good luck loading! (And if you have no idea what clicker training is I do hope you get to try this great way of teaching behaviour)
Source: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=C8CwMZukYsU
Source: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0i9OXec83GI
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