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2005 USDF Convention Dr. Sandy Venneman Can a horse learn “the look?” YES. Because enough times, “the look” has been followed with punishment, the horse has learned what it means. Horses learn to read us. Every time we (humans) interact with horses, we are training them to the good (or bad). We need to use a progression of aids, from light touch to squeeze to kicks… we hear this all the time, and it has its basis in CLASSICAL CONDITIONING. It is important to understand this so that the horse can be made as light as possible. It is also important to remember that horses are food and horses are herbivores, so evolutionarily, horses run when frightened. Behaviors that we may typically think as “stupid” or “annoying” are really ADAPTIVE, and if we think about them intelligently, we can use them to our advantage. When a horse SPOOKS, from a psychological point of view. The most effective way to deal with this is through EXTINCTION. Reassurance can be seen (from the horse’s point of view) as positive reinforcement and actually INCREASE the behavior. Ignoring the behavior as if it never occurred, however, will lead it to gradually disappear—this is called EXTINCTION. Learning theory can easily be applied to training horses. Example: Square Halt What could you use to increase the behavior? Potential positive reinforcers: rest breaks, food, change the training (move on to school something else), pat the horse on the neck, verbal praise How? Before, the imperfect halt would result in no pat/praise/treat. If the horse halted square, he would receive pats/praise/treats. The expected outcome would be an increase in the behavior. The positive reinforcers would continue until the behavior was confirmed, and then they would used intermittently so that the horse would be motivated to continue to work (since otherwise, then tendency is to take them for granted—intermittent reward has been shown to be the stronger motivator). Negative reinforcement would be another approach. This is what we do with our aids, but to be truly effective it requires an IMMEDIATE release when the horse answers. The more quickly the release comes, the better/more quickly the horse learns. Although we don’t usually think of it this way, our aids are annoying to the horse—when a horse does what we want them what to do, we stop annoying them. Punishment (which is different than negative reinforcement) should be reserved for behaviors that are dangerous, but before using punishment, look at the behavior from the point of view of the organism. An example was given of a student that had a horse that bucked. The student rode poorly, and had some “air time” in her sitting trot. The horse bucked, and the rider hit the ground. The rider would then smack the horse when she caught him. She thought she was punishing the horse for bucking. What was she really doing? The horse was feeling pain from the trot (a negative reinforcement), which was relieved when he bucked, so he wanted to repeat that behavior. However, when he was caught, he was punished for being caught, so he sure as heck didn’t want to let the rider catch him again… So what happened was that he’d buck, and then run and run and run, but he wasn’t going to stop bucking. EXTINCTION is another interesting concept. Horses mirror our emotions. If we’re tense/nervous, they are tense and nervous, because they don’t know WHY we are tense/nervous. If we don’t release when the horse responds (because we’re tense or for some other reason), the horse stops responding. This is called EXTINCTION. EXTINCTION is also the reason why schoolmasters often become dull when ridden by beginning riders. The beginning rider has wiggles/wobbles and meaningless movements, or speaks “too loudly” to the horse, and after awhile the horse learns to ignore much of what the rider does, and begins to ignore the aids, even when given by a skilled rider. |
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