Most of us are cross over trainers. If we have been with horses for any length of time we have used correction based training. Yes, we would give a pet, a good girl or good boy, a secondary reinforcer, but we still would correct unwanted behaviors through various means.

If we look at the science behind operant conditioning / clicker training we see the opposite of reinforcement is no reinforcement. It is not correction. This can be a mind bender. The opposite of reinforcement is no reinforcement. This means when our horse is doing something we don’t want we ignore it and we reinforce what we do want. This may mean we keep the horse on a high rate of reinforcement in the beginning so the unwanted behaviors don’t have time to be practiced. So we ignore unwanted behaviors not correct them. Correction falls under the umbrella of punishment and punishment is a slippery slop to go down. Punishment always, always has fallouts. Unpredictable fallouts. Correction based training is reinforcing to the trainer, but it damages the relationship between the horse and human.

“When I was young, I did the best I could. When I knew better, I did better”. Maya Angelou

I used to be very goal oriented instead of process oriented. Lots of us get caught up in having goals run us without enjoying the process of discovery along the way. Sometimes we take that same energy to our horses. “I have this goal Mr. Horse and we are going to do it, and do it now”. We don’t take the time to see if the horse understands what we are asking or is physically or mentally capable of implementing our goal.

Clicker training has taught me to chunk things down step by step for the horses so they can understand them, own them and return them to me. Horses can be such great teachers of Universal truths. Patience. Clarity. Compassion. Love. Joy.

I have learned the best route for creating dream like relationships with our horses is to take the slow boat to China. Teaching the horse step by baby step, keeping them successful and not making them wrong, creates huge shifts in the unfolding of their individual personalities. This means managing their environments so they can be successful. Horses, children, people cannot learn if there are too many distractions around, fear, pain or the underlining threat of pain. In the beginning we create the best learning environment we can for our horses, later we add distractions to proof the
behaviors.

If I can let the horse have a voice through the free shaping process they own the behavior stronger. It is theirs. They have discovered it. I never tire of seeing a horse learn and explore, watching the twinkle in their eye come about when they understand.

This chat on reinforcement, no reinforcement and corrections reminds me of a client’s horse years ago. Nippers had suffered one form of abuse or another. He had been hit or slapped on his face as was apparent by his head shyness and general demeanor. Obviously correcting this horse’s unwanted behavior did not solve the problem. It escalated the problem. This is the fallout of punishment based training. Now the horse was very distrustful of humans. And they named him Nippers.

Our belief systems so color our training approaches.

Although clicker training is based in science it does require us to think outside the box at times and come up with creative solutions to help the horses.

So in comes Nippers to one of my seminars. His new owner of just a few months had taught him targeting (touching an object with his nose) before the seminar. So he understood that well. Nippers hated having his face touched and being haltered. So where do we begin? This is where creativity comes into lay. “We’ll treat him like a wild dolphin,” I thought. Marcia was trusting of the process.

We turned Nippers loose in the arena and we stayed on the deck outside the arena. Our goal was to have him willingly, happily and with trust let Marcia put on and off his halter. But we did not start with our goal.

We held out the target for Nippers to touch and waited. He was zooming around the arena. Any time he came in our direction we clicked and offered him a treat. We could see he was registering the click but he would not stop to take his treat. When the restraints are taken off the horse it is so interesting what they express and show us. Nippers was telling us quite clearly he did not trust humans and wanted nothing to do with them.

After awhile his running stopped and Marcia kept offering the target and clicking him when he came close but still he would not take his treats. This is where a teacher comes in handy. We’ll just stay consistent. “Patience is Knowledge in Disguise”. Marcia was wonderful in trusting the process.

Good training is like watching grass grow in drought. We were working on undoing the poisoning of correction based training.

After some time Nippers was targeting and taking his treats consistently so we could now up the criteria a little bit. He would tell us if it was too much. We put the halter behind the target. Click and Treat. He accepted it! Marcia did this a number of times and then I had her remove the target and have him touch the halter only. His eyes started to twinkle.

I next suggested we ask him another series of questions. “Can I touch a cotton ball to your face?” “Yes!” (We didn’t start with our hands as hands were suspect to him). “Can I touch the halter to your face?” “Yes!”. And so we continued step by step letting him guide the pace of the lesson until he was participating with us with putting the halter on and taking the halter off. Pretty cool.

We went through the process of building trust, letting Nippers tell us when he was ready for the next step. He was free to go at any time, but he stayed with us. We gave him all the time he needed to work through his distrust and fears to find the answer for himself. We all had tears as we watched him struggle with his fears, and then accept and start to trust humans again.

Sure, we could have forced the halter on him. That would be having the goal take control instead of letting the horse guide us in what he really needed. And by letting him have a voice, having the freedom to stay or go, we also started to change his inner view of the world. The connection, the bonding, the trust that was developing between him and Marcia was priceless.

As Marcia said, “I will do everything in my power to be deserving of his trust”. She also changed his name from Nippers to Major.

Major shows us powerfully that the opposite of reinforcement is no reinforcement, not correcting an unwanted behavior.

I had the privilege of seeing Marcia and Major last month. Major totally adores her now and she him. To watch them work with lateral flexions happily together was a joy. And he has generalized his trust of her and her daughter to others. He is a Major Star!

Here are some recent photos of Major and Marcia.

Left side cone circle

Major giving kisses

Major Posing

This one story of one horse has been duplicated over and over again each in a unique way. The power of equine clicker training is huge. From trust and confidence building to creating a balanced horse that is heaven to ride. Once tasted there is no going back to correction based training.

To learn more about the work Debra Olson Daniels teaches please go to her website: www.equineclickermagic.com

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