learning lateral

I have been working with Bodhi for a few five minute segments on side passing at liberty. We Keep it very short (5 mins) and work on it a few times a week. The biggest break through was getting him to hold still long enough to really understand what I was asking. That is one of our issues right now. He gets very excited and jumps into a behavior with out waiting for the cue. I know this just means he needs more work on cue control but I am also thinking about teaching him a chill cue. Never thought I would need a chill cue for this horse! It would be used specifically when he gets worked up during a shaping session. It is so adorable how hard he tries. He is one of the hardest working horses I have ever had the pleasure of working with. His slow little dopey baby self is shifting into a serious hard working adult horse. It is very fun to see him mature.

I am inspired by him to work with other horses. I wonder if it is just Bodhi or if it is the new way I am approaching training that gets me such consistent, positive results? I would love the opportunity to work with other horses so I can hone my skills as a positive trainer. Too bad as a graduate student I do not have the funds or time for a second horse.

I posted two videos below showing our process so far. The first one shows how I rewarded him after one correct step. The second video is later when I reward him after he fixes a straightness issue he was having.

Shawna Karrasch

Hey folks! Bodhi and I are still around though I have been very busy with grad school and Bodhi has been busy making new friends and enjoying the mild weather. I have some pictures to share and some news but for now I just wanted to share a horse trainer I just became familar with.

Her name is Shawna Karrasch. Her website is here. She has a background in training marine mammals and now applies the same concepts to horses. Talk about a woman after my own heart.
Her website has some great information about how to incorporate positive reinforcement into your training regime. Have any of you heard of her?

Video of a horse free jumping from the horse's perspective

Many ways to train a horse

There are so many methods out there today isn't there? Everyone has their trainer that they follow or their discipline they stick to etc...
The truth is that there are many ways to train a horse! Yes almost all of the methods work! Horses are amazing creatures and will adapt to almost any training method. The differences I have noticed between the methods though are how long it takes for a horse to learn, how readily the horse remembers the lesson, and what the residual side affects of training on the horses behavior.
Check this out:
Bookends Farm had an excellent post that I would love for you guys to read. I think it really explains the consequences of different training methods on the horse.

What I have personally noticed with + reinforcement is that it takes Bodhi less repetitions to learn new skills, and that he almost never forgets what he has learned. I have had very similar experiences to the blog post above where I slip back into traditional training and correct or even punish and I always regret it. As she says it does work, but is it really worth the stress in our relationship, or the negative consequences?

Yet another reason to love Steffen Peters... he is a clicker trainer! I am not surprised but I am definitely proud to learn that the riding team that won Rolex use clicker training!

This is what weekends are for

Having a great time with Bodhi!
I borrowed a measuring tape and measured out a little course of jumps; two diagnals and two lines along the rail. the diagnals are 5 strides and the rail lines are six strides. I determined a stride length the other day by setting up ground poles and seeing where Bodhi is comfortable taking them. I determinded 9 feet. I know that normal horses are 12 but I guess Bodhi is not normal!

Much to my dissapointment Bodhi is still a hair off! He had been following me around while I set up the standards and I left all the jumps as ground poles. I decided to just play with him at liberty and call it a day for him. I wanted to see how long I could keep his interest in his pasture where his hay and buddies are.

We started by targeting at the trot. We did the whole course I just set up targeting and it was so much fun! Then I tried asking him to leave my shoulder and do a 20 meter circle around me which he did. Over ground poles with halts and change of directions. what a good pony!

Today I played with him again for a few minutes just to make sure yesterday was not a fluke. He did every thing he did yesterday plus offerd a canter. He NEVER wants to canter during ground work. He even did a flying change when he picked up the wrong lead.

I feel so in sinc with him right now. He walks, trots, canters, turns, halts, rein back, all while being very light. All at liberty. I guess that is the big thing for me. He is being so light and responsive which is what I have been working twards.

I guess sometimes it is a good thing when your horse can't do real work. You have no choice other than to spend some quality time with your equine.

I will definitely need to come back to this post when things get difficult again as they always do and naturally so. I can't wait to get back in the saddle!

The school of hard knocks

I have had my thinking cap on today and in the mood to summarize as I have been working on a manuscript for work. Scientific writing always puts me in the critical thinking mood. So for my 60th post I wanted to try something different.

I was thinking about my life with horses so far. What I have learned through trial and error, what I have gleaned from trainers, magazines, books, videos, blogs, osmosis, diffusion, and of course the primary source: the horses themselves!

I thought I would make a list of my personal discoveries and maybe you guys could share some of yours? There is a ton of information out there so tell me what have you discovered? What has the school of hard knocks taught you?

• Use positive reinforcement-We are working with one of the few species that actually responds to Negative reinforcement at all but every animal on the planet (including whales, elephants, clams, fish, and humans) responds to positive reinforcement! Reward is the mechanism that makes work play.
• Be predictable- I think being a "leader" means the student can count on the teacher to react the same way every time. Confidence means you have a plan. In order to create a learning environment you have to be predictable in your cues, your rewards, and your releases. Trust is built when your horse can predict your response and you can reasonably predict theirs. It is not magic it is repetition.
• Keep it simple- Keep your cues simple and work on one thing at a time. I need this tattooed on my forehead because I am horrible at this!
• Be creative- There have been so many times that I have been stuck in one mind frame/discipline/trainers' philosophy. If you have a problem then find another way to look at it. There is no one right answer and horses are individuals just as much as humans are. Be an open minded skeptic.
• Have a plan for every ride- When I was younger you just got on and went through the gaits in circles. I think that really bores our equines. Same with lunging for the sake of exercise or blowing off steam. Same with throwing tarps in their faces all day. Have small objectives for every ride and when they get it right tell them! If you want a horse that likes to work make sure they know what you want them to do.
• Bad days are normal- Actually that has been scientifically proven( see illustration). As new behaviors are acquired and old behavior extinguishes there are always extinction bursts. They are like clock work.
  
• Find a yes- an answer to a bad day! If you are experiencing one of those nasty extinction episodes then ask your horse a question you know he will say yes to. That is how you build confidence.
• Consider biology- Training is a science, but don't factor out of the equation of horse's innate behaviors. Work them into your training regiment and don't fight them. I think this is what natural horsemanship is trying to say but I do wish they would use a little more scientific dialog and a little less magical thinking

And on the other side of the coin...

• Don't be afraid of being afraid-fear is nature's way of telling you something may not be such a good idea. We have a stigma against being afraid but it really is a good thing. Take it down to where your comfort level is and work from there. Horses really do pick up when we are nervous.
• Punishment does not work- it doesn't! It makes our animals fearful and is almost impossible to administer correctly. It only shows the animal what you do not want not what you do want. It also has the side affect of relaying to the animals that the behavior is appropriate when it is not punished. which increases the likely hood of re occurrence. Not fun, though we have all been there for sure!
• Don't use force- I know this seems repetitive but I am not talking about punishment but I mean when using an irritant in negative reinforcement. First they are bigger than us. If you use force you are playing a game you can't win. Also if you use force you are illiciting a prey response. We use force and punishment because we are primates. If we get angry or scared we aggress. We all do it from time to time, and most disciplines and training methods excuse it or condone it, but it is not productive or necessary in training. We do sometimes stoop to that level, but don't make excuses for it and see it as a mistake not a victory.
• Anthropomorphize- Horses do not think we are horses! They do not think you are their alpha or leader. It is not fair to them to think about it in this way. The horse responds in a way that reflects his biology and his repertoire of learned behaviors. "Trust" comes from generalizing your cues so that he reliably responds to them including when he is scared, excited or saucy, not because he thinks you are his herd leader.

So there it i!. So far this is what I have learned.This is not what I have perfected of course! In fact I think these things are what I have learned to think about because I make the same mistakes a lot.
I have come a long way from where I started though. How about you? How have horses changed your point of view?

Reinforcement: an Introduction

First what does it mean to reinforce? Reinforcement is a reward for a "right answer" Reinforcement is anything that increases the likelihood of a behavior recurring. What ever behavior is reinforced will then likely repeat. I like to keep this in mind when new behaviors pop up in horse training. "What behavior am I reinforcing and HOW am I reinforcing it"

The How
There are two basic types of reinforcement. Negative and positive reinforcement.
Positive- Is anything added that is rewarding when the appropriate behavior is expressed. Giving a dog a cookie for the command "sit", smiling at your partner and saying "thanks" for doing the dishes, giving a child a gold star on a completed homework assignment- these are all examples of positive reinforcement. Exotic animal trainers(dolphin elephant etc) use positive reinforcement. "Clicker" training is a gaining popularity, and also uses positive reinforcement- a topic for another post!

Negative-(not to be confused with punishment) is taking away an irritating, non rewarding, or uncomfortable stimulus. How we normally train dogs to walk on a leash is using negative reinforcement. A new puppy quickly learns that he can remove the uncomfortable feeling of tightness from the rope by walking forward, the same a horse is conditioned to move "off" a leg. The reward is in the removal of the stimulus or "aide" as we riders like to say.
Most traditional and "natural" horse training is primarily negative reinforcement. Leg and rein aides are of course negative reinforcement. You want your horse to move away from your leg, you want your horse to give to reins. This is all taught by negative reinforcement. Also Parelli's Seven Games uses negative reinforcement, along with Monty Robert's join up games. So you see in the eyes of a behaviorist the new "natural" movement is not so new or different after all!

Both forms of reinforcement have their own unique weaknesses and strengths, and just like disciplines have very passionate followers. I plan on delving into the drawbacks of each in following posts...

Bodhi News
The cold is finally here, in North Central Florida and Bodhi looks like a woolly mammoth. He just loves this weather! I am debating what I am going to do about blanketing this year. He is a Haflinger and I do live in Florida. Does he really need a blanket? Is this just to make me feel better? I am thinking about loaning Bodhi's Blankets to two ederly boarders who do not have any blankets. They are two short coated arabs that need all the help they can get keeping the pounds on this winter.

At what temp do you blanket your horses? What role does their individual winter coats weigh in your decision making process?