I did have that happen once. I knew where i was at fault and didn’t take it out on the horse.
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This “dominance” of the animal is a very old way of training, and it has been proven time and time again by animal behaviorists that positive reinforcement is much more effective. But for some reason, men in particular, seem reluctant to adopt it.
Here’s a question, though, for R+ horse and dog training … how do you deal with anxiety and nervousness in situations you can’t just nope out of? Waving a treat in their face doesn’t seem to cut when an animal is stressed. And all the fun trick training and clicker cues seem to go out the window the minute shit hits the fan, even for behaviors that are perfectly well-established in low/no-stress environments.
As much hate as CA maybe deservedly gets, I at least appreciate that he gives you steps to get a horse’s focus back when the horse is well and truly freaking out. Just getting my horse’s feet moving, changing directions, disengaging his hind end on a small circle, etc, seems to snap him out of the doom spiral of reactive behavior.
Those are tools I didn’t learn from my NH trainer. She took the tack of avoiding any situations where my horse’s stress level went beyond a certain threshold. I think that’s the perspective most r+ trainers hold, actually, and I was fully on board with it in principle. But all I can say is that in practice, everything became stressful to my horse. He was just a reactive basket case, and the trainer’s response was to increasingly scale back what we asked from him until it was literally just “maybe he needs to be a pasture puff for the rest of his life.”
I certainly don’t want to chase and smack my horse into deadened submission, but I can see how simply following his lead to assess his comfort level with various activities led to his anxiety increasing.
Not a knock to R+, it is definitely the quickest way to teach a new behavior. But it really only works when a horse is relaxed and focused, and can leave you feeling stranded when you are trying to get from a stressed animal to a calm animal. The advice to just identify the stressor and move away from it, IME, oversimplifies things.
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Yeah, I get your uncomfortable feeling. I also get that when my “alpha” needs a reprimand for manners temporarily forgotten, it’s got to stick with her
It can be absolutely shocking for anyone who knows her and how sweet she is and how perfect her manners are, but if the correction isn’t big enough to leave an impression in her memory, she sees it as an open door to backslide further. Being in a situation where other people handle my horse, that absolutely cannot happen or someone would get hurt, and probably sooner rather than later.
Seconded, this was a big learning curve for me. It’s easy to smugly knock someone’s horsemanship when you have a sweet, chill horse that even on his worst day wouldn’t offer anything dangerous. I had that horse and was that person.
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Skilled horse people can handle horses so that unwanted behaviors rarely or never break out in day to day routine. Often it’s hard to communicate what you are actually doing to the less skilled. Skilled horse people also have more capability for handling unwanted behavior in novel or highly exciting situations.
At one pount I stepped in to handle a woundup horse that an adult beginner returning rider couldn’t even lead in a straight line. He was just fine for me. But I was unable to sort out the rider’s issues, including how they were repeatedly pulling the horse on top of themself. I can handle a horse but I can’t figure out how to change human behavior if they aren’t capable of watching me and figuring it out.
The NH trainers (bless their hearts) have taken on the challenge of how to break down horse handling into bite size chunks that they can try to teach to nervous adult beginners who have no natural feel and in some cases no proprioception. And each NH trainer has their own little progression.
It’s kind of a given that virtually everyone who goes to an NH clinic is having trouble with their horse. And in the vast majority of cases the source of the problem is primarily on the human side. And it’s really really hard to retrain humans who have gaps in their horse feel, intuition, and proprioception. They will tend to remember specific techniques but not the feel, and then overuse the techniques.
I would say that the situation of @eightpondfarm with a large pasture herd, most of which are not required to work, is the most peaceable and least likely to pose ongoing behavior issues.
I am at a large self board barn with runouts, but where you need to take the horses out of sight of the barns for attended turnout or any riding. The inhand issues I see new owners facing include horses getting barn or buddy sour so that you can’t get them out for exercise, and then horses getting overly hot because they don’t have a chance to burn off energy. My own good groundwork trick horse mare about lost her mind last week walking to turnout because she had spent a day inside due to rain. She had an almost unmanageable amount of bounce but I muscled her down the path to turnout where she had a huge buck and run session, then we had a grass walk for an hour after which she was happy and calm.
So my feeling is you need to manage environmental and emotional factors as well as handling ones. There’s not a thing you could do as far as “training” that would stop explosive bounce from my cooped up mare. She just needs to run it off.
Where a beginner might have trouble at my barn is if they weren’t able to get the horse to turnout safely and horse got more and more pent up. Indeed this happened to another friend, who had some physical limitations, and they ended up moving to a barn with 24/7 turnout and a way to work in a pen adjacent to paddocks so they didn’t need to lead the horse away anywhere to work it.
Not sure where I’m going with this. Maybe just that some horse living situations present more challenges in terms of managing horse energy and emotion, and others have less challenge. When I started working at a different barn with a project mare who had gone a bit feral it was very useful that I could just let her walk into an arena direct from the field and do liberty work with her within sight of her pasture buddies. It took a while to build on that so I could lead her around the property in a halter without her running backwards and rearing. If I’d had to put a halter on her and walk her a distance away to work at the start , we would have had a fight on our hands from day one. Now she is living in my regular barn and is a good citizen 90 % of the time.
Anyhow, in the right setup the progression of skills can come more naturally so that you end up with fewer conflicts.
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Yes, exactly.
R+ flies out the window when a horse is genuinely anxious and doesn’t want to play.
When I got my new trailer I thought I’d try playing clicker trained fetch with a towel up the ramp and into the trailer. Maresy was happy to fetch and get her treat right up the ramp but was not motivated enough to follow the towel into the trailer. The slight anxiety about entering took the fun out of the game.
She was a good traveller anyhow so the next day when I needed to load I just put a tiny bit of pressure on her, had someone up front by the escape door to hold her, and did up the butt bar quickly. Maresy has never given me any problems loading or travelling. She self loads now.
Actually this was reassuring to me. I now know that R + will not over ride any situation where she is actually anxious, really wound up, or in pain (different observations). I don’t have to worry that R + will make her override her better judgement or instincts.
It’s the opposite. R + works when horse is totally relaxed and feeling playful. The days she initiates a game with me by rolling her Pilates ball into the stall are days she is relaxed, not hungry, feeling good, wants interaction.
Dealing with her in all other aspects requires pressure and release. Pressure can be very very small. Pressure can just be a cue.
As far as stressors, a little bit of pressure to keep a horse in a stressful situation can in fact let the horse learn that she doesn’t need to be afraid. That works with all kinds of trail obstacles, as well as trailer loading or even just being in a new barn.
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^ and this is where i start. Before every session with a freshie mustang for example… I do a few relaxation moves for my body…right there in front of them. an exercise called ‘rag doll’ by my yoga and tai chi teacher. When i present myself in a relaxed state of mind and body, they will, like water, seek that level. We do nothing until the horse is in a relaxed state. And if that takes 10 minutes to accomplish, well then, that is probably all the lesson at that time. I walk away and come back a couple / few hours later. Usually (not always) that second session is pretty productive.
I have a shed near the horse trailer that i’m introducing one of the mustangs to. I work on the trailer a bit, then walk about 30 feet and attempt a few steps into the shed. I am pretty sure he recognizes that they are the ‘same thing’. No pressure, and if i’ve taken him to his threshold of nerves, we move off and do something he knows how to do well, do that, try the other one (either shed or trailer…whichever was not the one that got him nervous) and enter only to the point where i know he’s in a comfort zone… Treat, praise, and end our work session. I never stick with just one thing. I move off of it and circle back a bit later and try again one more time after having done something else inbetween.
I have two dogs, a mum and her nursing pup that i found off a gravel country road. He was 4 mos old and to this very day is naturally VERY shy of people. But, he has great drive, and has become very confident in his abilities. This alone has allowed him to overcome his natural shyness in a work setting. He can deploy to a tornado disaster, with a full team of men and women and heavy equipment and strange surroundings and be in hog-heaven. Because he knows what he is to do and knows he’s very good at it. It’s about developing confidence in themself and trust that i will not ask unreasonable things.
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lol point made, but…try riding one of them when their entire herd is running up and down their closest fenceline and hollering for their herd-mate. Try getting the one you want and ONLY the one you want out of the pasture (this is where airlocks come in verrrrrrry handy!). Try getting an aggressive gelding past ‘strangers’ without getting a big ole curled neck and prance.
True, basically their life isn’t stressful like a horse in a stall in a barn. And the goal here is to make them all as healthy and as happy as we can possible make them… But it’s a life not without it’s own little challenges.
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Many of us have these same issues with just 3 horses.
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These are normal everyday problems that ALL of us deal with.
Weirdly, most of us have learned how to overcome such challenges and do crazy things like walking into our horse’s field, right up to them, attach halter and lead and take the horse out without a fuss. Likewise for riding said horse when its pasture-mates are behaving like hooligans on the other side of the fence or doing their nightly sundowners run.
Some of us even have the skills to handle actual stallions and not just “big ole curled neck and prance” geldings.
Even more weirdly, those horses adore us (when we do it right - I’m not talking about all non R+ trainers) and respect us and do not suffer horrible fates when they are told that they are not allowed to act like inconsiderate morons when they’re are hanging out with humans.
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I do not get into discussions with r+ only training. Horses learn from a release of pressure. You cannot change that. It goes with Horses do not reason. They do not think like a dog. A dog has traffic sense, a horse does not.
If you want to talk about anxiety.
A horse called Orchard came here from Mum’s. Teeth never done. Never wormed. Agistment not paid etc etc.
I did a few things in the round yard, but to try and lunge in there is pretty difficult, square, not even, rocks, so I took him out in a paddock. This was before we built an arena.
I sent him out just as I had done in the yard and he went half a circle and then a very practiced, had obviously done it before, cut across in front of me to leave at a gallop.
I saw it happen and I was ready. I dropped the lunge whip and had 2 hands on the rope. I waited until he was at the end of the lead rope and yanked with my whole body to bring him to a halt. I said good boy and backed up to pick up up the whip.
All of a sudden I had a quivering, shaking mess on my hands. This horse was telling me he had beaten and he was expecting me to thrash him with the lunge whip. He was not just anxious, he was beside himself with terror. He felt imprisoned on the lunge rope and knew what was going to happen next and he was beyond desperate to get away.
I held that rope and did not let it go. I spoke softly. I slowly worked my way hand over hand until I could get to him. I was lucky that I was stronger than him. I steadied him and when I could get to his neck and he stood for a second I started stroking his neck.
Just small ones he could cope with to start with. I told him he was safe that he was the most beautiful horse in the paddock, etc, etc etc. As I was able to, the stroking became harder and longer, the entire length of his neck, on both sides. Then I was able to let the tension off the lunge rope and he stood while I continued to stroke him.
By the time I stopped stroking him the terror was gone. He was back looking like the pony I started with. I led him back to the whip, once again I stroked him with the whip as you do with any new horse and I said okay out you go. Out he went and he lunged like a lamb. He NEVER did an untoward thing again.
But more than that. The sun rose and set with me. Even hubby commented on how that horse lit up when I came into view. He would do anything for me and I guess that was their goal with beating him.
The owner was terribly upset when she found Orchard had been moved. Paid her agistment and Mum said I had to give him back. She came with a float and he refused to load.
It was so sad taking the lead rope and him following me into the float, because he would do anything I asked, to know he was going back to where he would be thrashed. It is a shame it is illegal to steal horses.
I should have told her he died, however, that is still stealing or fraud or something illegal. Sigh.
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When i present myself in a relaxed state of mind and body, they will, like water, seek that level. We do nothing until the horse is in a relaxed state. And if that takes 10 minutes to accomplish, well then, that is probably all the lesson at that time. I walk away and come back a couple / few hours later. Usually (not always) that second session is pretty productive.
Ok, don’t take this wrong. My frustration is not aimed at you! But I am so over operating in metaphors about horse behavior. Because what if in some particular circumstance the horse doesn’t, like water, seek that level? I’m not saying the metaphors and other touchy feely horse whispering proverbs don’t have something to teach us. But my “training” experience was literally all metaphors. And yes I appreciate the irony of using “literally” to describe metaphors, but then, that’s literally all it was!
If the horse didn’t respond to a cue the way he’d been allegedly trained to, her response to me would become very subjective and poetic. For example, the problem was I asked with the wrong energy, the horse wasn’t seeking the connection, my feel was not tuned in enough, etc. And not going to lie, I took it hard! And I thought, wow, maybe I am just one of those hopeless cases with no horse sense? But it was hard to ever actually improve, because it was all so subjective. It’s like when you are on a fad diet with a lot of weird nitpicky rules, and if you don’t immediately drop 10 pounds in 10 days as promised, it’s pointed out that you didn’t follow ALL 796 rules to the letter, so how could you expect to get the promised results?
Anyway, maybe that’s why I was a little more inclined to watch a few Clinton Anderson videos and hear him out. Because while feel and timing are important, you need to know actual techniques to apply it to. I wasn’t getting any concrete direction like “when your horse does X, you fix it by doing Y and Z.” I was just getting, “when your horse does X, lower your energy level, because the horse, like water, will seek that level.” And when that didn’t happen, the response was just, “you didn’t lower your energy level enough.” Smh.
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That’s heartbreaking. I’m sorry you had to load him and see him leave.
In a roundabout way reminds me of a giant Holstein cow who just said NO to all manner of being moved like a normal cow. She would not be herded. No idea why not, but it was a giant no. You could be quiet, loud, follow the latest research, nada. But, without ever having been taught aside from me having a similar CTJ with a halter and lead in the maternity pen about standing to be clipped, she led like a well-trained horse.
Came the day for hoof trimming and she would not load in the holding chute, let along the trim box. “You have to lead her.” “Can’t. Not safe.” “Its going to get a lot more unsafe if you carry on trying to push her and she gets fed up and unleashes her 2000lbs on us all.” At that point, my boss swallowed his fear (there is NO room for a human in a trim box) and led her in. Absolute lamb. Had to be led out too. When the front gate opened after her trim she stood there like a well-trained pony whose mom accidentally undid her before being ready to unload. “I can’t move. I need a human to lead me. It’s the rule.” Leila the Whale-a <3
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Maybe this is just me but in cases of extreme fear, I’ve seen most training go out the window especially the debunked dominance techniques. I don’t use 100% R+ but IME, the supplemental R+ training has made horses significantly more manageable in the moment before they’re actually spooking so the situation can be deescalated. Instead when we’re in a new situation, they tend to be more curious than fearful and the frequency of spooking is less. When they do spook, it’s less intense & they seem to bring themselves out of it faster. YMMV since each horse is different, these are just my personal experiences.
At the end of the day, an emotion like fear can’t be trained (just like pain) so if they’re actually in the process of spooking then the training methods don’t really matter. When they’re in the fight or flight moment, a horse’s brain cannot learn because the amygdala in their brain is over-activated so they can’t really learn anything new during this time since the prefrontal. This Dressage Today article “Brain-Based Dressage”, written by neuroscientist Dr. Arenander, has an excerpt that explains the amygdala and prefrontal cortex pretty well.
When Praise is Not Enough
If your horse has some very bad habits, and words of encouragement are not enough to set a platform for a friendly working relationship, then it goes without saying that you have to be firm. You might even have to sharply reprimand your horse to get his attention, stop the behavior and show him who’s in charge.
This brings up an important point regarding the prefrontal cortex and the dopamine reward system: Once you have completed the necessary correction, your horse’s brain is now in a fear-based mode. Although he initially acts more alert and becomes more obedient, this occurs at a cost to his intelligence. With his recent mistake at the center of his attention, he becomes more fearful and concerned about the events that just transpired. At this point, he is not in a position to learn anything. Fear can stop a mistake, but it will not help him learn an alternative form of behavior and, most importantly, develop an intimate, respectful bond with you, the rider.
Here’s the brain science behind the process: After a harsh reprimand, the horse’s prefrontal cortex gets turned off and the amygdala, the fear center, takes over. Since the prefrontal cortex is crucial for developing a sense of self as well as motivation, intelligence, creativity, alertness and learning, having it shut down is problematic. With the prefrontal-cortex function impaired, the amygdala gets activated. This smaller, almond-shaped group of cells is programmed to respond to any unpredictable or dangerous experience by preparing for flight or fight. So, when a horse goes into fear mode and the amygdala is turned on, he becomes temporarily more alert, but less intelligent and less able to learn.
Regardless of whether you use R+ or not, keeping them under threshold is the key either way! There are many roads to Rome or something like that. However, learning the equine neuroscience will help connect the “Why?” of their behavior which will ultimately enhance any training techniques.
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All animals can learn from release of pressure! If any R+ trainer ever tries to say that pressure & release does not work, they do not understand basic behavioral science. It is one of the four quadrants of operant conditioning.
For reference, the four quadrants are:
-
Positive Reinforcement (R+): Addition of an appetitive stimulus to increase the frequency of a desired behavior.
Example: Horse runs over to owner from far side of the pasture. Owner gives the horse scratches in their favorite itchy spot or a treat. Adding the scratches/treat is the appetitive stimulus which increases the frequency of the desired behavior of the horse coming to be caught. -
Negative Reinforcement (R-): Removal of an aversive stimulus to increase the frequency of a desired behavior. Aka pressure & release!
Example: Horse is being lead forward. Owner pulls back on the lead rope to ask for halt. Horse halts, Owner gives slack in the lead rope to stop cueing the halt. The release of pulling on the lead rope is the removal of the aversive stimulus to increase the desired behavior of the horse stopping when the lead rope is pulled. -
Positive Punishment (P+): Addition of an aversive stimulus to decrease the frequency of an undesired behavior.
Example: Horse is pawing on crossties and Owner gives a slap on the shoulder. The slap is the addition of an aversive stimulus to reduce the frequency of the pawing (undesired behavior). -
Negative Punishment (P-): Removal of an appetitive stimulus to decrease the frequency of an undesired behavior.
Example: `Owner is giving horse treats. Horse starts nudging Owner for more. Owner stops giving them whenever they’re being nudged. Taking away the treats is the removal of the appetitive stimulus to decrease the frequency of horse nudging Owner for food (undesired behavior).
Note: These are just the official terms used, using one of the quadrants that has “negative” or “punishment” in the name doesn’t automatically make someone an abusive owner/trainer.
For example, R+ training can slip into P- and create a frustrated horse when timed poorly which isn’t uncommon. Additionally, using R- (pressure & release) isn’t evil because the aversive stimulus doesn’t have to be painful/stressful for the horse. Etc etc for the other quadrants
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I do think that building a relationship on the ground helps horses become more resilient to new stimuli especially if you are able to keep the same thing going under saddle.
What happens if we see a scary object? I get between horse and object and act like it’s no big deal. What happens if horse spooks? I laugh at them and let them get their brain back. I think for some horses their reaction increases because they expect punishment for spookiing which could be only a correction that the handler doesn’t think of as punishment. If every time horse spooks you reef on their mouth and clamp your calves they may learn to anticipate rider reaction and spook from that.
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I kind of think the term R+ might be a little bit like how cowboy and cowboy can be used in both a positive and derogative manner. Hee. We have the people who truly understand operant conditioning and those that latch onto the term R+ and will die by R+ because it has the word positive in it and does not contain the evil words negative or punishment.
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When i have forged a relationship with a horse, the ask is not somethin that elicits a buck/bolt/wheel and run… no rearing, no histrionics. We just don’t play in that space.
NH training and making a horse move to signals… yes, i do that. In fact, i had to move a bunch of horses around today due to incoming storms. When i got to the new one that is just barely beginning halter training i initially tried to move him with arm signals. Adept as he is (and most mustangs are pretty much slam-dunk with free lunging because they are really attentive to body language) well, he didn’t understand my ask. Was trying to direct him off the circling around stuff and through the front part of the barn to the back half where i had some alfalfa waiting. He just didn’t ever turn in. I turned on the light trying to make it more appealing, still no go. So i picked up a big handful of alfalfa from the next corral and presented it to him near the barn entrance. He approached, i let him have some and then made the ‘go back’ hand/arms i give to the dogs when directing them. And, horse GOT IT! Well, i thought that was pretty cool.
well …i was no way suggesting that i had it harder than everyone else. What i was trying to do was respond to someone who thought i had it easier here. And i do not think i do. I think overall my horses probable do have a less stressful life than a horse in a stall in a stable does, but that’s not to say that riding is not without it’s challenges here nonetheless.
^This is who i was responding to. again…i wasn’t bragging that i had it so darn hard or anything.
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I haven’t had this experience at all with R+ training… I think the advice to avoid putting a horse over threshold specifically applies to the learning process, when you’re training a new behavior. No animal can learn a new behavior when they’re stressed, and many traditional training methods create stress as the entire learning environment by “teaching” through force.
If a situation arises where the horse is stressed, but you’ve already trained them on a certain behavior using R+ that they know well, it shouldn’t just “fly out the window”… if it does, they haven’t actually learned it.
It sounds like your trainer was just not very effective in teaching your horse what exactly was expected of him, through confusing timing or cues, which is probably easy to do, and can definitely result in increased stress and frustration in the learner.
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I always bristle when I hear people say things like “I only use R+ training” because you know what, the above was mostly P-. The punishment - or pressure if you prefer - was the hand signals and body movement. Getting into the horse’s space, as it were, to move the horse. The negative (remember, this is math not emotions) was the removal of that when the horse did what was asked.
Yes, there was a little break there where the alfalfa was shown to the horse and the horse approached, but then back to P- as above.
The whole thing about Natural Horsemanship was, at the start, a way to assess how horses act in herd environments and use that to better communicate with horses. Alpha horses move the other horses around as they see fit. The less dominant horses look to the more alpha horse for what to do in a scary situation. If you are properly the alpha, the horse is far less likely to spook, will not have as big a reaction to a spook, etc. in a scary/unusual situation.
That being said, yes, also, horses are individuals - witness my horse running around like a fool while the Amish are plowing the field next door and everyone else is grazing…including horses that are more dominant than her but she’s apparently a strong, independent horse that don’t need no herd.
So yeah, I work with her differently than my friend’s horse, differently than either one of the horses I am helping some other people with, differently than each other horse I ride because horses are individual so they all get customized training by me. I also use all 4 quadrants when I train.
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I touched on this in my previous post, but the only way to never stress a horse out is to never do anything with it and never go anywhere with it. All training will involve a certain amount of stress, even if it is just at the beginning. All adventures come with their own potential. Just today, I was walking my horse down the road and the shadow of a flag waving on someone’s front lawn was not appropriate - but I was able to redirect that energy because I am the alpha so we did some bending exercises and redirected the focus back to me. It is not about “never stressing/scaring the horse”, it is about teaching the horse to look to you in times of stress so that their reaction is not an explosion.
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