Tips for a two-way communicating with your horse

I believe that when you really want to have a great two-way communication with your horse, in which you listen to each other (!) and act on each others communication (!), you should stop coercing him. I believe that the foundation of a trustworthy and loving bond with your horse starts with listening to him and addressing what he’s trying to tell you all along.

Ways we coerce our horse (sometimes even without realizing it)

• When you shut a horse down with a tied noseband, so he can’t open his mouth to avoid the working of the bit. A horse wants to avoid to bit because of discomfort or pain
• When you use a whip to correct him when he’s not forward enough or to ‘remind’ (I find the word ‘threaten’ sometimes more suitable) the horse’ of the consequences
• Using a rope halter. These halters are thin and made out of polyester and therefor work harshly into the horses sensitive skin, onto the thin bone in their nose and behind their ears. All pressure is laser focused on that one tiny part of the thin rope that presses on the horse’s head and therefor “we” (we as in horse people in general) like to use them, Even when we aren’t aware of what they are doing to our horses, we do see our horse listens better when we use these, instead of soft halters made out of band or leather.
• Chase after out horses in the pasture until they give up or give in, so we (again, ‘we’ as in horse people in general, not you! 😉 ) can catch them and do something our horse obviously dislikes (and anticipates on by running away from you)

What would happen if we would listen more?

We would hear the message of our horse!

“But I don’t know how to listen!”

Start by simply observing and noticing what you’re feeling when you see certain reactions, or behaviours of your horse. Look at these photo’s above. In which ones looks the horse more comfortable?

Pay attention to these things and how they relate to each other:

• The shape of the eyes: round and relaxed, or open and round, half closed and relaxed or half closed and tension above the eye.
• Head position: high with tension in the neck, or more horizontal and relaxed? Is the head position natural or forced?
• Mouth: open, closed, lips open, lips and chin relaxed? Wrinkles around the corner of the mouth or upper lip
• Nostrils: open or closed? Wrinkles above the nostrils?
• Ears: open or flattened (closed), to the front, sideways, are both ears doing the same?

The more you pay attention, the more you’ll see. Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. Look up pain faces in equines.

How to listen to our horse

• When our horse shows discomfort or when he wants to avoid our equipment (like his halter, bridle, bit, saddle) we investigate: does he have pain, an injury, is he sore, is he anticipating on what’s coming with avoidance. It’s painful when our horse walks or runs away from us in the pasture because he’s anticipating on riding, right? BUT, when we would address his feelings about it, we can change it! When a horse shows signs of avoidance or pain, investigate!
• Correcting is a nice word for punishment in the equestrian world. The goal of punishment is saying (but often: shouting) ‘NO!” to our horse. It’s meant to decrease behaviour. When you simply say ‘No’ to a behaviour, you’re not explaining to your horse what he’s suppose to do. It’s likely that he’ll fall into the pitfall of that undesired behaviour. Usually what’s undesired behaviour for us, is desirable for the horse! Punishment is clear ONE-way communication. Punishment will not give the learner the feeling of being heard or understood. When we focus on what we do want and find ways to reinforce more desired behaviours positively (by adding appetitives/something the horse values and wants to receive), punishment will be unnecessary. Not only will it make our horse feel better, we feel better too.
• Rope halter vs flat halters. Simply try using a flat halter again and focus on the behaviours that change. Will your horse grass dive, pull you when you use a flat halter? These are the behaviours that you can improve using positive reinforcement/ clicker training. Teaching your horse to lead by following you, can make a lead rope unnecessary. Even when leading on grass! Your horse will feel heard and valued.
• When your horse is hard to catch, he’s definitely telling you he doesn’t want to be with you. Worst case scenario, ‘you’ means ‘all people’. You can change his feelings by listening to him and addressing what’s bothering him. It can be that he dislikes grooming, or being manhandled when cleaning his feet, or he’s anticipating on a bumpy ride with an unbalanced rider, poorly fitted tack. All these things can be solved! And when you find an experience horse person, it will be worth the investment in time and money. In return you’ll get a better understanding and a better relationship with your horse.

Want to learn to listen to your horse?

Find someone who can help you interpret his language. You’ll know! Actions speak louder than words. When your looking for a trainer, riding instructor or clicker coach, pay attention to how they treat their horse and how the horse reacts to the person. That will tell you a lot!

Want support implementing what you’ve learned? In the HippoLogic training method, ‘Emotions in Training’ is one of the Key Lessons for Trainers. I find that when we notice how our horses are feeling about training, we can make it better for them. This enhances our bond with them.

Need help training your horse?

Are you a compassionate horse owner who wants to build a strong friendship with your horse? Would you like to understand your horse better and help your horse to understand YOU better? Get access to many online clicker training courses and a fabulous, supportive R+ community in our HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy. Check out the link!

Not sure? Start with a free clicker training assessment to get taste of what it feels like to work with me. When you have a specific struggle that you want to overcome, don’t hesitate to contact me. In this assessment you’ll discover what’s holding you back from accomplishing the things you want with your horse. After our conversation you’ll know exactly what to do, in order to move forward towards your goals.

Book here

Happy Horse training!
Sandra Poppema, B.Sc., founder of HippoLogic & HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy

Join us!

https://mailchi.mp/5d676526ba5a/clicker-training-academy

How to Multiply Your Time at The Barn

“You multiply your time by giving yourself the emotional permission to spent time on things today that wil give you more time tomorrow”. This is a quote from Rory Vaden’s TedX talk How to Multiply Your Time.

I want to have more time tomorrow

That quote fits exactly in my description of me being a ‘lazy horse owner’. I like training and I rather spent invest my time in solving the problem than in dealing with the symptoms of a undesired behaviour over and over and over….

Time saving training hacks

Here are some examples. People often think I ride and work on long reins bitless out of belief, but I started it out of laziness:

• I started Kyra bitless long reining when she was changing teeth. This went so well I never got to the point to teach her bit aids and start using a bit. Too lazy… Now it saves me time to clean the bit, warm it in winters and spending time and money on going to the tack store and buying and trying different ones.
• I applied the Konmari method to my equestrianism which saves me tons of money and hours of debating with myself which colour saddle pad I want to add to my (non-existing) collection. And  deciding if I need a new halter to go with it. I have 2 saddle pads: a black one and a white one. I the use that is clean. Simple.
• I house-trained Kyra and taught her where to poop in the arena (next to and preferably in the wheel barrow in the corner). This will save me hours in the future of going back to the arena to scoop her poop. It was also a good investment in my relationship with my barn owner and barn friends because I often forgot to do it.
• Out of frustration I went looking for a way I could teach Kyra a ‘stop grazing’ cue. The way I reacted for decades (and how I was taught) didn’t give long-term results. Now I don’t get pulled to every single patch of juicy grass anymore (I have a clear “you can graze now-cue”) and I never have to pull her head up. I simply ask her to stop grazing and she does. I never expected this to work so well and even when she is on a restricted diet because of her EMS she still follows my cues. This saved me so much frustration and really contributed to our relationship.
• Same goes for trailer loading. I spent time practising this, so it takes less time in the future.

Watch the TedX talk to see what Rory is talking about:

Now I think of it…. I apply this to all my training. It’s just something I learned over the years when I realized that there are no shortcuts in training and a poorly trained horse cost more time, more energy and costs more of my joy than the few hours I spent in training.

Plan ahead and keep track

Using positive reinforcement, making a good shaping plan and keeping track of my process and progress taught me that most behaviours don’t take ‘weeks’, ‘months’ or ‘years’ to train. I now count training in minutes and hours, divided over multiple short training sessions. Very reinforcing!

Training time outweighs your frustration

Teaching a horse to come to you in the pasture may take a few short training sessions and some adjustments of your side, but chasing your horse every day in order to ride him will suck up more energy and time than the training costs you.

Share your hacks!

How about your genius time investments? What are they and  how much time did you end up spending on training?

Join our Community!

• Are you looking for professional positive reinforcement advice?
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• Do you want to turn your equestrian dreams into reality, but you don’t know where to start?

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Join our community for online positive reinforcement training tips, personal advice and support in training your horse.

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!.

Book a Clicker Training Assessment when you struggle with a particular thing in clicker training that you want to solve. This assessment is FREE and it will give you valuable insights in what you can change in order to get the results you want..

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How to get rid of limiting beliefs (that prevent you from being a confident horse owner)

Here is a test to see how much you know about horses and horse training. Take a moment to get a pen and paper to write down your answers.

Simply complete these 10 sentences as fast as possible.

Don’t think, just write down first thing that comes up in your mind. This is super easy for horse people as well as novice riders. We all know the answers.

How to Prevent Your Horse from Spooking

We all know this scenario. There is something new in the arena, but only the third or maybe the fourth time you ride past it, your horse spooks. “What a poseur,” you think.”He just walked past it several times!” What is going on here?

If you know it, the next question is: Do you know what to do about it?  In animal training we call it ‘trigger stacking’. That is what this blog is about.

What is Trigger Stacking?

Trigger stacking is when too many stimuli occur in a short period of time that the horse can’t coop with. In other words: tension builds up. If you can’t recognize triggers and trigger stacking your horse can go over threshold.

When your horse goes ‘over threshold’

When we talk about a threshold in animal training we talk about ‘a level at which the animal goes into another emotional state which causes a negative (undesired) reaction.’

If your horse goes ‘over threshold’ due to trigger stacking it means the horse can’t coop with the stimuli (the unfamiliar or new thing in the arena, the fact that he can’t investigate, that he is forced to approach it and so on) and he goes into flight (sometimes fight) response in order to release the tension.

That is why the horse doesn’t spook the first time, but only after he has to approach the scary thing several times in a short period of time without releasing the tension that the anxiety causes.

How to keep your horse under threshold

Make sure you read your horse. Get rid of the myths that prevent you from being creative. I am talking about the  “He is a poseur” or “He is out there to get me” statements. Those statements don’t help you find solutions, they keep you stuck (the “It’s the horses’ fault”- attitude).

I help my students keeping an open mind and treat everything the horse does as ‘information’. Is he getting tense going near that new flower pot in the arena? Is he hesitating to go past it? Did he slow down a bit? That is your information! That could be a trigger.

Pay attention to your horse and to everything he does. Even the ordinary things like pinning his ears when being saddled. Something like that could be the first trigger already.

If you feel your horse is tense about something, make sure you pay attention and let him know you care by letting him look and investigate. Or move away to a safer distance if that is what he needs. Don’t force him to stay and investigate. That will only increase the triggers that are already stacking.

Doesn’t that take a lot of time?

Giving your horse the opportunity to take a look at scary things, even though he has seen already hundreds of flower pots is only the first step in ‘despooking training’. The next step is reinforce walking by scary things, but before you are ready to do so, your horse needs to know he can trust you first.

You do that by giving him the time to explore on his own terms. Not giving him 3 seconds and “now you’re done” because 3 seconds seems enough to you. Let the horse explore for as long as he needs to decide it is safe. It can take up until 15 seconds (in the second video it takes 20 seconds for Kyra). Believe me that everything after counting slowly to 5 already feels like eternity!

Try it out, it will change your training and the relationship with your horse. Kyra almost never needs more than 8 seconds. Then she is done, tension is released and I know that keeps us both safe.

In this video, with the horse ball she needs 24 seconds (0:49-1:13) to decide she wants to approach me, standing near the ball. After the session in the videos she was never afraid of the ball again. Where other horses kept spooking because the ball had moved to another corner, Kyra was OK where ever the ball was of whomever was playing with it. Well worth my few minutes of training.

More ways to keep your horse under threshold

Another way to keep your horse under threshold is to do exercises that make him calm or offer exercises that release tension from his body.

Calming exercises are things that has been positively been reinforced in the past like touching a target or mat training.

In some situations  you can calm your horse by exercise so if they can ‘walk it off’, in some situations movement increases the adrenaline. Watch the video again and see what Kyra needs.

Sometimes you need to dismount in order to break that negative spiral of trigger stacking and tension building up. That is OK, because you are doing the sane thing, which is the safe thing. When you and your horse are calm you can mount again. You might only have to do this once or twice before you find other ways to deal with it under saddle.

This blog doesn’t have enough room to tell you everything I know about trigger stacking, preventing it and dealing with it. Do you want to learn more about ‘Emotions in Training’ and how to coop with them? Join HippoLogic’s online course Ultimate Horse Training Formula. In this course is a whole module about Emotions in Training. Not only equine emotions and how you can recognize them, but also human emotions, like dealing with frustration, feeling like a failure, fear and more.

Here is another blog about it.

Please share the love

If you want to share this on your own social media, that’s awesome! Use one of the share buttons  below. I also love to hear your view on this subject, so please add a comment. I read them all!

If you don’t know what to say simply hit the like button so I know you appreciated this blog. Thank you!

PS Do you know about my membership program?

Happy Horse training!

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get results in training they really, really want. Getting results with ease and lots of fun for both horse and human is important to me. Win-win!

Sign up for HippoLogic’s newsletter (it’s free and it comes with a gift) or visit HippoLogic’s website and join my online course Ultimate Horse Training Formula in which you learn the Key Lessons, Your Key to Success in Clicker Training.

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Clicker Training 101: Your first clicker session (including a step-by-step training plan)

When you are new to the idea of clicker training your horse you might ask yourself: How do I start? What do I need? Where do I buy these things? How do I teach my horse to respond to the clicker? These and more questions are answered in this blog to help you get started.

How to become a Top Horse Blogger

When I started blogging I never would have thought that one day I would get an award for my blog. Here is my story.

How I started blogging

I started this blog in 2009 when I got Kyra, my feral 11 month old filly. Fresh out of the wild- well a nature reserve to be precise- and grown up without human interference.

When my friend gave her to me (that is a story for another time) I had no idea if I could tame a wild horse or, if I could, how long it would take me. I was willing to give it a year and see what would happen. It was the perfect opportunity to start documenting this adventure for maybe a future book or something.

Online training logbook

So I started this blog as an online training journal and it was called ‘From feral filly to Success Story’. I wrote in Dutch and only a handful of my horse loving friends read it. I made a summary every month of our achievements. Read the summary of our first month of our training diary that I left on my blog.

After a few months my interest in blogging about taming and training a wild horse faded because there was no reinforcement. In other words: I had no readers.

I kept using my training journal (that was very reinforcing). I kept track of our progress and made a list of our achievements every month.

Blogging break

After a year of blogging I stopped and almost entirely forgot I had a blog. A few years later I emigrated to Canada. I became a stay-at-home mom. I felt often very lonely without my social network, so I became very active on the Internet answering questions about positive reinforcement (clicker) horse training.

After a while I noticed I was repeating myself all the time. Everyone seemed to ask how they could use clicker training more effectively and everyone seems to have the same basic problems. I wondered how could I help horse lovers more efficiently?

Reviving my blog

I could use my blog! Then I could refer to a certain blog post that contained an extended answer to their problem! I wouldn’t have to write the same answers over and over. That’s how I started blogging about clicker training horses in December 2014.

Overcoming my blogging struggles

When I picked up on blogging in 2014 I pushed myself to write in English. It’s not my first language and at first it was quite a struggle. In the beginning it felt that I had to use Google translate every other sentence to look up a word. When I saw the word I remembered it again. Writing was a very slow process.

I learned a lot about writing,  getting my blog out there and delivering content on a regular basis.

That’s what I did: I blogged and blogged and kept blogging, even though in the beginning I only had a handful of readers. I felt writers block, uninspired and fearful at times, but I kept going. Even though it’s rare that someone gives my blog a ‘like’ (the little star at the bottom) or comments on it. Did you know it is very reinforcing for a blogger to get a comment? Maybe next time you read a wonderful blog, leave a comment or click the little star.

Slowly my blog grew and I got my first subscriber, and another one. I blogged twice a week and that is a big commitment. Setting deadlines helped to keep me going.

Achievement

I also love the achievements WP gives: they let you know when your ‘stats are booming’, when you’ve published one hundreds blogs and so on. Last week WordPress gave me an achievement: I started this blog 8 years ago! Wow! I had no idea! Thanks WP, that is so nice of you to let me know.

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com! You registered on WordPress.com 8 years ago. Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

How HippoLogic became a Top 75 Horse Training Blog

Then I got another surprise! In January 2018 my HippoLogic Facebook business page was tagged in a Facebook post of Feedspot. Curious what that was all about, I found out my blog had been awarded with a Top 75 Horse Training Blog. Wow! I didn’t know I was nominated, so this was a huge surprise!

HippoLogic is Awarded Top 75 Horse Training Blog

[Quote from Feedspot:] “CONGRATULATIONS to every blogger that has made this Top Horse Training Blogs list!

This is the most comprehensive list of best Horse Training blogs on the internet and I’m honoured to have you as part of this!

I personally give you a high-five and want to thank you for your contribution to this world.”

So this is how my blog became a Top 75 Horse Training Blog. Writing one blog at the time! And I kept going for 4 years, I will keep going to serve you.

I am curious about the stories behind the other bloggers in this Top 75.

Please check out the 74 other horse training blogs! There might be some blogs out there that you want to know about: Feedspot Top 75 Horse Training Blogs

Share YOUR story

Do you have an amazing story to tell about something you never dreamt of achieving? Please share your success story in the comments, I would love to read yours! If you don’t want to share and you like my story just click the little star so I know you’ve popped by and enjoyed my time with me.

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I improve human-horse relationships. I reconnect you with your inner wisdom (you know what’s right) and teach you the principles of learning and motivation, so you become confident and knowledgeable to train your horse in a safe, effective and FUN way. Win-win.

All HippoLogic’s programs are focused on building your confidence and provide you with  a step-by-step formula to train horses with 100% positive reinforcement.

Sign up for HippoLogic’s newsletter (it’s free and you receive a gift) or visit HippoLogic’s website.

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Recipe Horse Cookies

We all would like to treat our horses from time to time. Positive reinforcement trainers are always on the lookout to find a special treat for their horse which they can use in training.

Kyra is an extremely picky eater when it comes to treats and she won’t eat commercial horse treats. I was very exited when I tried this recipe and discovered that she liked these right away. For Kyra this is a high value treat, so it makes it worthwhile to make.

Healthy Cinnamon Horse Cookies
The molasses is optional. Without the molasses these are very low-sugar treats. I make them all the time without molasses. I have yet to encounter a horse that doesn’t like them! Sometimes I use turmeric instead of cinnamon.

Ingredients
1 ¾  cups uncooked (brown) rice / 6 cups cooked rice
1 cup ground stabilized flax
3 tablespoons cinnamon
½ cup flour
½ cup molasses (optional) or water

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit (135 degrees Celsius). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Cook the rice and let cool down.

Mix all ingredients together. It will make a very sticky dough.

Wet your hands before making little balls of the dough. This is very time consuming. If you don’t have much time you can also roll the dough simply onto the 2 cookie sheets with a rolling pin. Make it half an inch thick. Pre-cut the cookies with a pizza cutter into little squares before baking.

Bake them for 60 minutes. Turn cookies and bake for another 60 minutes. They should be crisp and not squishy. Let them cool down for several hours to harden.

If baked properly and stored in freezer or fridge, they will keep for up to several weeks.

I hope there is no need to keep them stored for weeks. My horse Kyra loves these!

These healthy cinnamon horse cookies make excellent gifts, too.

Here is the video with instructions:

Here is the connaisseur who did the tasting:

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I improve human-horse relationships. I reconnect you with your inner wisdom (you know what’s right) and teach you the principles of learning and motivation, so you become confident and knowledgeable to train your horse in a safe, effective and FUN way. Win-win.

All HippoLogic’s programs are focused on building your confidence and provide you with  a step-by-step formula to train horses with 100% positive reinforcement.

Sign up for HippoLogic’s newsletter (it’s free) or visit HippoLogic’s website.

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How to change emotions in your horse during training

 

Sometimes a horse shows undesired emotions during training, like biting, mugging, signs of frustration or even aggression. What can you do to change it? My mentor always told me it is foolish to keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. How do you break this circle?

 

Change the setup

Take a break and rethink your approach. Go back to the point where the behaviour (emotion) was still desirable. Do do know what has changed? Change it back and see what happens.

Maybe you have to change the setup of your training entirely so you won’t trigger the undesired emotion/behaviour(s). In this way you can first ‘work around it’ until there is a more desired emotion or behaviour associated with the behaviour.

Find the cause of the undesired emotion

If you change your training approach you might find the cause of the frustration, boredom or other undesired emotion/behaviour in your horse.

When I encountered a lot of frustration in a horse I used this approach. I didn’t realize what had changed at first.

Change one variable at a time

At first I experimented with a different target, a different area to train, hand feeding instead of feeding her from a  bucket and so on. I talked it over with someone who watched the whole session and we figured out it might be the high value food I was using as a reinforcer.

The mare got so excited by the very  yummie treats, she couldn’t wait (anymore) until the target was presented to earn a click and reinforcer. Because she ‘couldn’t wait’, she started to display all her impatience by pacing up en down the fence, tossing her head and pinning her ears. She soon got so frustrated she couldn’t pay attention to what behaviour lead to presenting the target (ears forward, standing still, head at medium height or below) and a click. She went back to her ‘old ways’ to get what she wanted: displaying her unhappiness. This worked for her in the past and she just went back to her default behaviour, as we all do from time to time.

It was only when I changed the food reward to a lesser value food that we immediately saw a huge difference in her behaviour. Apparently the food I was using was really high value for her, so she literally couldn’t wait for another opportunity to earn more clicks and more high value treats. That’s what caused her frustration.

As soon as I offered her much lower value treats, she went back to thinking mode and she was open to learning again.

I never met a horse that showed me so clearly that a high value treat can cause so much frustration.

Sandra Poppema

Are you interested in online personal coaching, please visit my website or send me an email with your question to info@clickertraining.ca

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How to Turn ‘training’ into ‘fun time’ for your horse

I see a lot of people who are struggling with riding or training their horse. For example, they would love to ride a certain discipline, let’s say dressage, but their horse ‘doesn’t like it’. Would you like to change that if you could? If the answer is yes, keep on reading, if your answer is no, I am curious why not.

Motivation

Is it really your horses’ motivation that is standing in your way or is it maybe your own (lack of) motivation that is holding you back? How does one change motivation?

Over the years many riders told me that their horse doesn’t like to work in the arena or doesn’t like to do dressage. If I asked for more information it was often the rider who actually didn’t like to work in the arena or do ‘dressage’ as opposed to the horse. The times it was the horse, there was an existing negative association with the arena.

Rewards

If you think your horse doesn’t like to work in the arena ask yourself if you are ‘paying a decent salary’ to do the job. What is in it for your horse?

Is his only reward after walking with a stretched neck on a long rein a few pats on the neck at the end of your ride? How do you motivate your horse? Or do you motivate him with pressure-release? What is his reward? If his reward is not having to work anymore it is not good motivation to get started.

Reinforcers

Do you realize in order to turn a reward into a reinforcer you have to deliver the reward during the desired behaviour or within seconds after the behaviour ended. If the reward comes too late, the horse doesn’t associate the behaviour with the reward and your desired behaviour will not get stronger. That is why a bucket of grain after riding doesn’t improve your horses motivation to go to the arena or perform better in trot next time you ride. It only reinforces him to go back to his stall (where the good thing is happening).

A bucket of food after riding is usually not associated with all the exercises the horse had to perform in the arena. It is simply too long after the desired behaviour and it is not paired with one behaviour. It is more likely that he sees it as a reward for putting him back in his stall or taking the saddle off or doing whatever you where doing in the three seconds before you allow him eating his food.

Associate the reward to the right behaviour

In order to motivate your horse in the arena, you have to make sure the reward is coupled to the behaviour you want to see more of. The same goes for the rider: pointing out their successes (small or bigger) while they are performing, make them feel that they are achieving something in that moment. After the ride they have the feeling they accomplished something and that they are getting closer to their riding goals.

For a horse it works similar. He wants to know what he does well in that moment. If you  use positive reinforcement you have a powerful communication and motivation tool in hands.

Working in the arena

The secret of enjoying the arena work more is learning what your horse likes and pairing it with the things you like. As soon as horses learn that ‘working’ in the arena equals being paid in a currency of their choice, their association with riding, arena work or dressage will turn around. Turn training into a positive experience with positive reinforcement.

Have more fun in the arena next time!

Sandra Poppema

Are you interested in online personal coaching, please visit my website or send me an email with your question to info@clickertraining.ca

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How to… make the arena more appealing

In my previous post What if your horse doesn’t like arena work I already mentioned that the first step is to find out the reason why.

If you can exclude physical reasons like pain from the saddle, medical reasons like hoof cracks or maybe an unskillful (or rude) rider and so on, you can look for solutions to make your horse more happy in the arena.

What floats his boat?

It is obvious: positive reinforcement (+R) of course. This way of training will make your horse more eager to work for you. With +R you will trigger your horses brain. He has to find out what made him earn that bridge signal (paired with a lovely reward). He will be challenged to think. Horses like that. Really they do!

Variation

If your horse gets bored in the arena because everything you do is very predictable, try something new. If you always ride him, try some at liberty work, long reining or horse agility. Variety is the spice of life.

Use more positive reinforcement to create a better association with the arena or ‘work’ he has to do. Change your Rate of Reinforcement, your treats or your exercises. Raise your criteria (slowly). Trick training is a lot of fun.

Challenge your horse and do something crazy together like ‘101 things to do with a cardboard box’. You can bridge & reward him for every new exercise he comes up with: touch the box with his nose, left hoof, right hoof, kick it forward, play fetch with it, shake it and so on. Don’t bridge a second time for the same idea.

Give him a ball (small or huge) to play with, or to wake his curiosity. Make sure he is not afraid of it.

Relax time

Don’t forget: there is a time to work and a time to play. Do nice relaxing activities in the arena.

I like to let Kyra roll before we ride in the indoor arena on a rainy day (she loves rolling in hog fuel when she has a wet coat) or after our ride.

If your horse likes to be groomed, groom him more often in the arena. Spend time scratching his favourite spots. Watch a video about TTouch or horse massage and try if your horse likes that. 

Feed him in the arena. If you have an outdoor arena where patches of grass grow, let him find them. So he can display his exploration behaviour.

Don’t forget: it can take some time before a negative association changes into a positive one. Make haste slowly.

 

What do you do to create variation or make the arena more appealing to your horse? Share it in the comments!

Sandra Poppema

For tailored positive reinforcement training advise, please visit my website and book a free intake consult!

 

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What if… your horse doesn’t like arena work?

This is a common statement in the equestrian world: ‘I don’t ride dressage because my horse doesn’t like it’ or ‘I don’t use the arena because my horse hates it’ or… Who hasn’t heard this? Can you do something about it? Yes, you can!

Find the reason

First question I always ask people when they say this is:’Do you like to ride in the arena?’ When the rider says ‘no’ it is usually because it is hard to believe your horse enjoys riding in the arena if they don’t.

If the answer is ‘I know this because my horse refuses to go into the arena’ it is more likely that the horse indeed has a negative association with the arena.

What is associated with arena work?

If you don’t like to ride in the arena, you may have some negative associations with riding in the arena yourself. What happened? Did you fall off of your horse? Does it reminds you of shouting, angry instructors you have had in the past? Is it because you are ‘lumping’ (=making too big a steps and you set yourself and your horse up for failure) your building blocks in training and get frustrated or discouraged?

If the horse doesn’t want to go into the arena, what happened to him? Do you know? Do you think you can counter condition him?

Change associations

If it is about you, try to find out what it is you don’t like about the arena and why. If you were hurt due to a fall, try to take a step back in riding until you find your confidence back in the saddle. Find an instructor who is specialized in anxious riders. If you don’t know where to find one, search for an instructor with a Centered Riding or Murdoch method background. They can help you get your self-confidence back.

If riding in an arena is associated with instructors who seem never satisfied with little improvements, find some one else. You pay, you choose.

Is arena work associated with some frustration, desperation or feelings of anger? Maybe you were never taught you how to split your training goals properly into small steps to set you and your horse up for success. I can help you make a training plan.

Maybe you don’t have a goal in mind and that makes arena work feel purposeless. What are your dreams and how can you change them into goals?

Maybe you love trail riding more because you have the feeling that you are not training your horse and you don’t have to meet anyone’s expectations on the trail. Even if trail riding or endurance is your goal, you can still think of many exercises to do to prepared your horse properly.

Change your horses associations

If your horse doesn’t want to go into the arena or is a bit reluctant to enter, work on making his associations more positive. Just enter the arena to do things he enjoys. If your horse loves to be groomed, just groom him for a couple of weeks in the arena. Or just let him in for a roll. Find out what he likes and use that to your advantage!

You can also make the work more attractive by using appetitives (adding rewards) in your training instead of using aversives (unpleasant things) in training. If you don’t know how to start using positive reinforcement start with something fun, like trick training.

I think in 99% of the cases it is not about the arena, I think it is about the associations a rider or horse have with the arena. You can change the associations and make it fun (again).

Sandra Poppema

For tailored positive reinforcement training advise, please visit my website and book a personal consult!

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How to teach your horse anything

Whenever an idea forms about what I want to teach my horse Kyra I set it as a goal. I then start writing a training plan and make a shaping plan to achieve this goal.

Goal setting

My goal in this example is teaching Kyra to stand still, next to a mounting block, until I mounted and give the cue to walk.

Shaping plan

After I set my goal I make a shaping plan. I think about all the possible steps I have to teach Kyra to achieve my final behaviour: standing parallel to the mounting block so mounting is safe and easy for me. I have to teach her to stand still when I’m mounting, put my feet into the stirrups, taken the reins and I am ready to ask her to walk.

I write all these steps down. I don’t even have to bring it to the barn. Just writing it down makes me focused.

A few of the building blocks of this goal are:

• making her comfortable near the mounting block
• teaching whoa
• mat training
• hip targeting (to be able to align her to the mounting block)
• aligning with the mounting block without stress
• waiting until I have mounted
• and walking on queue

Context learning

Horses learn in a certain context. I use this into my advantage when I am teaching Kyra something new. I practise as much as possible in the same circumstance (context).

If I have a portable mounting block I always put it in the same place in the arena to practise. I will only put it in another place if she has already mastered lining up in the first spot.

I lower my criteria a bit when I change something in the context she learned the behaviour. In this way I always set Kyra up for success and I always have a good feeling too!

Set it up for success

I always take into account my horses emotions when I teach her something new. I recently saw a video in which the trainer put the mounting block next to the track in order to mount. Unfortunately this was the place where her horse was the most nervous (‘trapped in between the fence and the mounting block.) She made her training much more difficult than it needed to be.

For Kyra the most comfortable spot in the arena was in the middle where she has the most space and couldn’t hurt herself. Secondly I noticed that facing the door was more comfortable for her than facing the opposite side of the arena. I guess she likes to know where the exit is… After all it is an enclosed area and horses are flight animals.

Practising

Then I started to practise the steps in my shaping plan. I usually go up one criterion if Kyra masters it three times in a row.

Latent learning

After a few days of practise I give Kyra a break or I train something completely different. Often something she has already mastered. After giving her a ‘weekend’ off she performs much better. This latent learning is very valuable to me. It saves time!

Rinse and repeat

After a short break I lower my criteria a bit and start with some repetition to give her the confidence that she knows what is expected. After that I can move on very quickly.

Context shift

After Kyra has mastered the basics of the new behaviour, I change one thing in the context. I put the mounting block somewhere else in the arena. Not too far away from where she was used to.

Generalize

After a few times of putting the mounting block in different spots in the arena, I noticed that Kyra generalized the mounting block. Time for a real change: a different kind of mounting block.

I started practising with benches in the park, fences, rocks etc. Now Kyra is used to all kinds of mounting blocks and she is very safe to mount.

This is the general ‘recipe’ I use in teaching my horse new behaviours. You don’t have to use positive reinforcement training to use this in your training.

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Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

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What if your horse bites you?

What if your horse has a tendency to bite you? How can you solve this behaviour?

The first question that has to be answered is: ‘Why does a horse bite people?’ If you want to solve a problem behaviour start with finding the cause and work from there.

Possible causes

There are many reasons horses bite people. In some cases it is just play or asking attention. Stallions and geldings can play for hours the ‘I bite you, try to get me back’-game. The reaction to the behaviour is usually also the reinforcer. In my experience stallions don’t care about pain during this game, so punishment will have very slim chances to stop this behaviour.

Horses can also bite because they feel a need to defend themselves and all the other body language that they displayed to warn you, has been ignored. The horse is not ‘whispering’ anymore but now he is ‘shouting’ in order to express himself. If horses are consequently punished for giving warning signs, they might decide one day to skip the warning signals and start attacking right away.

A horse can also start biting because he is in pain, for example a poorly fitting saddle or bridle. The horse starts to bite in reaction to the saddle during saddling, cinching or a mounting rider.

Maybe the horse is not biting but nibbling and that is mistaken for biting. Horses nibble out of curiosity, they nibble during mutual grooming or because they like to take objects into their mouths due to teething or being playful.

Biting also can become learned behaviour if the cause of the behaviour is long gone, but they still gain something by it. Horses that are stabled in a very busy environment and are being touched by people all the time without liking it can start biting out of agitation in order for people to let them alone. They can still bite people even if they have moved out of that situation, just because it became a habit.

Mugging behaviour can also turn into biting behaviour if it has been reinforced or if the horse gets frustrated because he doesn’t understand when to expect a food reward and when not to expect it. Some people stop feeding treats altogether, but I would suggest instead of avoiding the problem, solve it.

Sometimes we simply don’t know the cause but we still want to find a solution.

Solutions

The best solutions are tailored to the cause. If a horse is playful, it won’t help if we buy another saddle for him. If the horse is in pain, solve the pain and make adjustments to prevent more pain.

It isn’t always easy to know or make an educated guess about the cause of the problem. Ask for a professional opinion of a horse behaviour specialist or ethologist to help you find solutions that are tailored to the cause and not just solved by punishing or avoiding the behaviour all together.

Biting can be a very dangerous behaviour. Always take (an attempt) to bite you seriously, even if it is play. It still can be dangerous. I personally know three people who lost a (part of their) finger, two due to their own horse.

Sandra Poppema

For tailored positive reinforcement training advise, please visit my website and book a personal consult!

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‘Grass Training’: Teach Your Horse to Ignore Grass

Haven’t we all experienced that a horse pulled you towards some grass in order to grab a few bites? Isn’t that annoying? I think it is!

I didn’t want to be pushed around anymore by my horse every time there was some juicy patch of grass growing around. Grass is everywhere! I decided to look for a proper, force-free way to teach my horse more desired behaviour around grass.

I tried a few different approaches, before I found one that works well, gave me a solid result and is totally force-free. I would like to share it with you.

Define ‘proper behaviour around grass’

It took me a while to teach Kyra to behave ‘properly’ around grass. With ‘properly’ I mean: no more pulling me towards grass, wait until I give the ‘graze’ cue and ‘stop grazing and come along’ if I ask her to. I was tired of pulling Kyra off the grass.

Preparation

I must say before you can start training this you need a bit of preparation and… lots of practice time. After all, what is more enticing than grass? Well, a click can be…

What really helps is already have a solid history of click & reinforce. Secondly a horse that walks with you properly and the key lessons ‘head lowering’, ‘patience’ and ‘targeting’ are required to make this challenge most likely to succeed.

Shaping plan

Here is a summary of my shaping plan:

• solid reinforcement history of the clicker
• teach Kyra to walk on a lead rope
• halt
• key lesson patience
• key lesson targeting
• key lesson head lowering

How I trained it

I started to reinforce lifting Kyra’s head while grazing. Why? Because this is the first step to move away from the grass. I began with leading her to grass and I would cue her to graze. Then I just waited (very, very patiently) until she lifted her head by herself. That is the moment I wanted to capture and reinforce.

I can’t stress how important it is to wait until the horse moves (his head) away himself. I tried other methods like pulling the head up/preventing the head from going down or asking Kyra to target while grazing in order to lift her head, but reinforcing her own head raise worked best.

High value treats

Every time she would lift her head , I clicked and reinforced Kyra with a very high value treat. One that could compete with grass. After she ate the treat I immediately gave her the cue to ‘graze’. Here is when the key lesson ‘head lowering’ comes is really handy.

I also clicked and reinforced the ‘graze’ cue. But instead of offering a treat off of my hand, the reward was to graze as long as she wanted.

Every time she would lift her head again, I clicked, reinforced and would then give her the ‘graze’ cue.

Next step

After a certain amount of training sessions, which Kyra enjoyed very much (!), I noticed that she started to lift her head more often during grazing sessions. This is a perfect time to add a ‘lift head up’ cue. The key lesson targeting helped me a lot.

So my next clicker session looked like this:

• walk to the grass
• give the cue ‘graze’
• wait until Kyra lifts her head
• click and reinforce
• give her the cue ‘graze’
• let her graze until I thought she was likely to lift her head up again, ask ‘touch’ target stick
• click and reinforce
• cue ‘graze’
• et cetera.

In this way she is always reinforced for whatever I ask.

Raising the criterion

After several sessions I noticed that Kyra didn’t seem to mind lifting her head up anymore. She was eager to see what I had to offer her. The ‘diving into the grass’ behaviour was gone. She seemed so much more relaxed on grass.

I thought this would be the perfect time to raise a criterion. Now I wanted to lift her head and take one step forward before I gave the ‘graze’ cue again. I literally built this behaviour step-by-step.

The final step in this process was to teach her to wait for the ‘graze’ cue when we would walk on or approach grass.

Result

Now I can ask Kyra to leave grass at any time. She is very willing to come with me. She never pulls me towards a patch of grass and I never have to pull her off of the grass. Win-win, for her and for me.

Kyra turned from a I-need-to-graze-now-and-store-fat-before-winter-comes-horse into a I-see-grass-so-what-horse. She knows she can trust me and is allowed to have her share… only when I say so.

Join my online Grass Training Sign up here

Today I wanted to make a video for the FB Grass Training FB Group. Kyra didn’t want to graze, so I couldn’t show how to start walking on grass when all your horse wants to do is graze. Never thought I could be in that position: a horse that doesn’t want to graze because training is way more valuable.

 

 

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

HippoLogic helps establish, enhance and excel horse-human relationships

 

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How to … bring your horse to the pasture (safely)

As positive reinforcement trainer you always want to train the opposite behaviour as well. So after writing a post about getting your horse out of the field (effortlessly), it’s time to write about bring your back to the field (safely).

How to bring a horse to the field

Some horses are very excited to be back in the field and take off immediately. Some horses do this bucking and bolting. This can be dangerous but is very easy to prevent.

Safety

Bringing your horse back to the pasture in a safe way requires a few steps. You can train and reinforce each step separately. The steps are similar to getting your horse out of the pasture, but in the opposite order.

To graze or not to graze

The greenest grass always grows outside the pasture. A lot of horses take the opportunity to have a juicy bite of grass while the handler is opening the gate.

You can teach your horse to stop grazing/lift his head with positive reinforcement. He has to wait patiently until you have unlocked the gate.

Turning around

I always teach my horses to turn around on cue, so I can close the gate safely. I don’t want horses to escape and I don’t want my horse to run off before I say so.

Prevent running off

If you turn your horse around before unleashing him or before you take the halter off, he is facing the fence. This will help prevent him from running off immediately.

Make sure your horse wants to stay with you after you set him free. Simply reward him for staying and not taking off. I click and reinforce my horse for waiting. I usually reward this with a desired reward like a treat.

Reward the desired behaviour

In the beginning you might need to click and reinforce your horse just after going through the gate and turning around. Now you have his attention.

Take the halter off and click and reinforce immediately for waiting patiently. Then you can leave the field.

You might want to click and reinforce again for ‘waiting’. A few freshly picked dandelions or some grass will do. Horses learn very quickly that staying with you for a few moments after you’ve left the field can be very rewarding.

End-of-session signal

After you have left the pasture you can give your horse the ‘end-of-session’ signal. Your horse now knows there are no more treats to earn. Your horse will probably not run off, but even if he does, you’re not in danger of being knocked over.

After he no longer has the urge to go running off when you set him free, you can fade the clicks out slowly. Sometimes I just ask Kyra to perform a simple trick after I have left the pasture. She really likes that.

Related post: The safest way to bring a dangerous horse to the pasture

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

My mission is to improve horse-human relationships by educating equestrians about ethical and horse friendly training. I offer coaching to empower you to train your horse in a 100% animal friendly way that empowers both you and your horse.

Sign up for HippoLogic’s newsletter (it’s free) or visit HippoLogic’s website.

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How to get your horse out of the pasture effortlessly

I sometimes jokingly call myself a ‘lazy horse owner’. Why? Because I rather spend a bit of time training my horse than deal with undesired behaviour day in and day out and get frustrated all the time.

Tips for getting your horse out of the pasture

Here is a video of me getting Kyra out of the pasture.

I prefer not to get stuck in the mud, surrounded by horses. I am, like I mentioned, a bit lazy and I don’t want to chase my horse or to walk over to ‘catch’ her if she is in the far end of the pasture. Way too much work…

Make yourself fun to be around

Since I started clicker training horses, I discovered a huge change in their attitude towards me. I have changed from being (I am guessing here) ‘not so much fun’- to be around to ‘I rather be with my human than with my herd’ attitude. Just by switching from traditional/natural horsemanship methods to positive reinforcement.

It is not only the food rewards that make my training interesting. I think it is also the puzzles my horse must solve in order to get that click. She is not afraid to try out new behaviours, she is not afraid of being punished for displaying her ideas. On the contrary, she is encouraged to think and to figure out what it is I want from her.

So the first step in getting a horse interested in coming out of the pasture is to ‘offer’ something. Be more reinforcing than the herd and the hay or grass.

Chain of behaviours

What you see in the video is actually a chain of learned behaviours. These are the steps I all trained separately.

Responding to her name

I taught Kyra to respond to her name and come to me. I used targeting to teach her that. As you can see, I don’t need a target anymore and I even don’t need to call her. If she sees me, she wants to be with me.

Stopping at the gate

I taught her to always stop before an open gate and wait for a cue. I reinforced her in the past (click & treat) for stopping and waiting until I clicked my lead rope to the halter.

The second step in this proces is to reinforce her for the opposite behaviour too: walking thru the gate on my cue.

Turning around

I always teach my horses to turn around on cue, so I can close the gate safely.

Waiting

After walking calmly thru the gate and turning around, Kyra has to wait for me to close the gate. I have reinforced this step many, many times.

I realize that I need to be more reinforcing than the juicy grass patch on the outside of the fence. I don’t want her to drag me to places she wants to go. I have often clicked for waiting while I closed the gate. I used a lot of high value treats, like a whole handful of pellets.

To graze or not to graze

Every horse and every horse person knows the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. I have taught Kyra to wait for my cue to graze and to follow my lead if we want to get away from the grass. As you can see in this video Kyra walks over to the grass (I wasn’t paying attention), but she is also willing to leave the juicy patch when I gently ask her to follow me.

This was a difficult lesson to teach Kyra and I did a lot of trial and error in this process. How to learn from my mistakes: join HippoLogic’s online Grass Training Course.

Last but not least

I taught my horse to walk with me without pulling the lead rope.
Is getting your horse out of the pasture just as easy? Let me know what difficulties you have and I can help you find +R solutions.

Related post: How to bring your horse to the pasture safely

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

My mission is to improve horse-human relationships by educating equestrians about ethical and horse friendly training. I offer coaching to empower you to train your horse in a 100% animal friendly way that empowers both you and your horse.

Sign up for HippoLogic’s newsletter (it’s free) or visit HippoLogic’s website.

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How to… shape behaviours

In positive reinforcement training one of the techniques to get behaviour is called ‘shaping’. In shaping the goal behaviour is achieved by splitting the desired behaviour into many tiny steps. Each step is trained separately (clicked and reinforced).

A criterion is only raised if the previous tiny step is confirmed. In this way you can build a behaviour from scratch (free shaping). You can also shape existing behaviours. This is when elements like distractions, distance or duration are gradually added.

Shaping plan
It is not very common in horse training, but writing down your training steps in a shaping plan is a very valuable tool. It will help you become better at splitting behaviour faster.

If you think before you train, you know what to do when things don’t work out the way you expect. It is much easier to understand/find which steps you skipped and what you can do next time. Even if you don’t bring your shaping plan to the barn, it is much clearer in your head once you’ve written it down.

The questions are:

What is the tiniest step you can think of to train behaviour X?
Next question is: can you split that step into smaller steps?
Then: Can you make it even smaller?

It is not relevant if you think your horse already mastered a particular step. Write them all down. One day you might train another horse that needs step 1 to start.

Start shaping
The easiest way to get experience in shaping is to build on existing behaviour and modify it.

You can work on duration. Example: your horse already knows to lift his foot for cleaning but he is not yet ready for the farrier. You can shape the behaviour into holding his foot for longer periods of time. Each second can be one of the steps to bridge and reinforce.

Not only lifting his foot is important for a farrier, but also stretching the front leg forward will help the farrier trim the hoof properly. Once your horse can do that, you can also start building duration.

You can also shape ‘distractions’ into his training. Your horse can already lift his feet for trimming, but now you want to add people and or horses walking by while you’re hold your horses foot up. Or your horse needs shoes and you want him to get used to the hammering on the hoof or the smell of a hot shoe burning the hoof. Again, start with very tiny steps to implement these kinds of distractions.

Free shaping
In free shaping the trainer teaches a completely new behaviour to the horse, for instance teaching a horse to jump at liberty over a low jump. A horse will naturally avoid a jump if he can walk around it. That is why people build chutes and chase the horses over it with a lunge whip.

Wouldn’t it be great if you can teach him to jump over it because he chooses to? If you can positively reinforce him to go over a jump he learns to like it in the process. After all: there is something in it for the horse (other than the relief of any pressure or threats taken away).

In order to shape the goal behaviour the trainer has to divide this complex behaviour into baby steps. What are the tiniest steps you can think of?

It depends on the horses attitude towards jumps and his experience with them. A general shaping plan for teaching to jump at liberty could look like this.

Each step can be divided into as many steps as your horse needs, for instance moving one step towards the pole must be repeated until the horse is so close he can step over it.

• Look at the pole
• Move towards the pole
• Step over the pole with one foot
• Step over the pole with two feet
• Step over the pole with three feet
• Step over the pole with four feet
• Walk over the pole
• Walk over the pole and keep walking for 1 metre
• Walk over the pole and keep walking for 1 + x metres
• Trot over the pole
• Keep trotting after the pole for 1 metre (1+x metres et cetera)
• Change the pole for a caveletti/low jump and start from the beginning
• Change the place of the pole/jump and move it from the rail a bit more to the middle
• et cetera

It can help if you can use Key Lessons like standing on a mat (standing still and sending your horse off of the mat), back up and safe hand-feeding.

Until your horse can trot or canter the arena at liberty and jumps freely and enthusiastically over all the jumps.

Have fun shaping!

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Or simply hit the like button so I know you appreciated this blog. Thank you!

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

My mission is to improve human-horse relationships. I connect horse women with their inner wisdom and teach them the principles of learning and motivation, so they become confident and skilled to train their horse in a safe and effective way that is a lot of FUN for both human and horse. Win-win.

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How to treat your horse on Valentines Day

[Klik hier voor de Nederlandse versie]

Giving is better than receiving. Here are some horse treat ideas for Valentine’s Day. These suggestions are healthy so you can use them for clicker training too.

Carrot hearts ~ Ingredient
Carrot

Directions
Cut a V-shaped notch along the length of the carrot with a pairing knife or the top of your peeler. Then slice the carrot into hearts. Adjust the shape a bit more if you like.

Apple hearts ~ Ingredient
Apple

Directions
Cut the apple into slices. Use a cookie cutter or a pairing knife to make heart shapes.

 

Special treat
If you want to make something really special, make your own horse treats.

Healthy Cinnamon Horse Cookies
The molasses is optional. If you don’t use molasses you can use an extract for flavouring, they are low-sugar treats.

Ingredients
1 ¾  cups uncooked (brown) rice / 6 cups cooked rice
1 cup ground stabilized flax
3 tablespoons cinnamon
½ cup flour
½ cup molasses (optional)

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit (135 degrees Celsius). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Cook the rice and let cool down.

Mix all ingredients together. It will make a very sticky dough.

Wet your hands before making little balls of the dough. This is very time consuming. If you don’t have much time you can also roll the dough simply onto the 2 cookie sheets with a rolling pin. Make it half an inch thick. Pre-cut the cookies with a pizza cutter into little squares before baking.

Bake them for 60 minutes. Turn cookies and bake for another 60 minutes. They should be crisp and not squishy. Let them cool down for several hours to harden.

If baked properly and stored in freezer or fridge, they will keep for up to several weeks.

 

I hope there is no need to keep them stored for weeks. My horse Kyra loves these!

 

These healthy cinnamon horse cookies make excellent gifts, too.

 

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If you are ready to get the results in clicker training you really, really want this is the course for you. Do you want…

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Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

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Technieken om gedrag te verkrijgen: shaping, targeting en capturing

[Click here for the English version of this article]

Deel I van deze serie ging over de voor- en nadelen van luring en moulding.  In dit tweede deel licht ik de begrippen shaping, targeting en capturing toe.

Shaping
Shaping betekent ‘vormen’. Shaping houdt in dat het eindgedrag wordt bereikt door het op te delen in zoveel mogelijk kleine stapjes. Elk stapje naar het gewenste gedrag wordt afzonderlijk getraind (geclickt en beloond). Het criterium wordt pas verhoogd als de vorige stap goed bevestigd is.

Door het doelgedrag in vele trainbare stappen te verdelen, kan elk gewenst gedrag vanuit het ‘niets’ aangeleerd worden. Dit heet free shaping.

Shaping kan ook worden gebruikt om al bestaand gedrag verder te trainen. Zo kan men langzaam elementen als duur, afleidingen of afstand erbij in trainen.

Voordelen van shaping
Het is een veilige en zekere manier om elk gewenst gedrag te trainen.

Het is een goede manier om je paard op te zetten voor succes. Elke stap van het shaping proces is gemakkelijk te begrijpen voor het paard en makkelijk uit te voeren. Het brugsignaal (de click) begeleid het paard door het gehele proces, zodat hij voldoende informatie krijgt over wat er van hem verwacht wordt.

Shaping kan gebruikt worden om complexe gedragingen aan te leren.

Het paard werkt in vrijheid. Dit maakt het gemakkelijker om mentale veranderingen in het paard op te merken (emoties) of fysieke veranderingen zoals vermoeidheid of fysieke beperkingen op te merken.

Nadelen van shaping
Het kan erg lastig zijn voor de trainer om het doelgedrag in voldoende kleine stappen te verdelen. ‘Splitting’ heet dat in het Engels. Als de trainer de stappen te groot maakt (‘lumping’) of zijn criteria te snel verhoogd, kunnen paard en/of trainer gemakkelijk gefrustreerd raken.

Afhankelijk van de complexiteit van het gedrag wat men wil trainen, kan shaping enige tijd in beslag nemen. Elke kleine stap moet immers afzonderlijk getraind worden.

De beloningen moeten voldoende waarde hebben voor het paard en de taken moeten voldoende uitdaging bieden om het paard geïnteresseerd te houden. Dat kan een uitdaging op zich zijn.

De trainer moet een goed observatievermogen en goede timing hebben om elke kleine voortgang naar het eindgedrag op te merken, direct te clicken en te belonen.

Targeting
Targeting is het aanraken van een bepaald object (bv de bal aan een stok, de targetstick) met een specifiek lichaamsdeel. Het paard moet bijvoorbeeld met zijn neus de targetstick aanraken.

De targetstick is niet hetzelfde als luring of lokaas gebruiken omdat de targetstick geen primaire reinforcer (voer) is. Targeting wordt aangeleerd met behulp van shaping.

 

Voordelen van targeting
Targeting is een oneindig veelzijdig omdat bijna elk gewenst gedrag met targeting aangeleerd kan worden.

Het is een veilige trainingsmethode. Er hoeft geen fysiek contact te zijn tussen het paard en de trainer. Je kan zelfs trainen met een hek tussen jou en je paard als dat wenselijk is of noodzakelijk.

De target heeft niet zo’n grote aantrekkingskracht als lokaas en leidt het paard daardoor minder af van het te leren gedrag.

Een targetstick kan je bereik vergroten (je arm verlengen). Je kunt met een lange targetstick je paard van je af leiden, dus weg van je zakken vol met lekkers en uit je persoonlijke cirkel. Zie foto hierboven.

Het paard kan vrij lopen tijdens de training waardoor het gemakkelijker is om emoties in het paard op te merken zoals angst, nieuwsgierigheid, frustratie enzovoort. Ook is het gemakkelijker om te zien of het paard fysiek in staat is de opdracht uit te voeren.

Nadelen van targeting
Je moet de target afbouwen. Dat kan een uitdaging zijn. De gemakkelijkste manier is om het gewenste gedrag eerst goed op cue te zetten.

De targetstick is een extra stuk gereedschap in je handen.

Targeting wordt aangeleerd door middel van shaping, zie nadelen van shaping.

Capturing
Capturing betekent letterlijk het ‘vangen’ van het doelgedrag met de clicker (markeren) en het versterken (belonen). Voorbeeld: de klassieke buiging lijkt erg op het natuurlijke gedrag van een paard dat zich uitrekt na een dutje. Click en beloon terwijl je paard zich uitrekt.

Voordelen van capturing
Het grootste voordeel is dat het een snelle manier is van iets nieuws aanleren, aangezien je paard het eindgedrag al vertoont.

Het is een veilige manier van trainen, het kan van een afstand.

Onervaren trainers kunnen het gebruiken. Je timing hoeft niet heel nauwkeurig te zijn om het (hele) gedrag te markeren.

Nadelen van capturing
De gehele training staat of valt met de bereidheid van het paard het gewenste gedrag te vertonen als de trainer aanwezig is. De trainer moet altijd zijn brugsignaal en beloning bij de hand hebben.

Het kan lastig zijn om het paard achter een nieuwe cue voor het gewenste gedrag aan te leren. Tijdens het aanleerproces kan je paard iets al als een cue hebben opgevat. Aangezien de trainer niet weet wat het paard als cue opgevat heeft, kan de trainer dit niet in zijn voordeel gebruiken om van de ‘werk cue’ over te switchen naar de ‘definitive (opzettelijke) cue’. Zie ook Introducing and using cues.

Mijn favoriete training methodes
Bovenstaande drie methodes zijn mijn meest gebruikte technieken in paardentraining. Targeting en shaping gebruik ik dagelijks. Ik ben altijd alert om gewenste gedraging te ‘vangen’ (capturing).

Ik heb capturing gebruikt om Sholto de klassieke buiging aan te leren (zie onderstaande foto) en het flehmen op commando. Bij Kyra heb ik het liggen en het naar mij hinniken met capturing aangeleerd.

Kyra’s flemen en haar klassieke buiging heb ik haar stap-voor-stap met een combinatie van shaping en targeting aangeleerd (zie onderstaande foto).

Welke methode gebruik jij het meeste om nieuw gedrag aan te leren?

Sandra Poppema

Bezoek mijn website voor persoonlijk advies of hulp bij clickertraining

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Techniques to get behaviour part II: shaping, targeting & capturing

[Click hier voor de Nederlandse versie van dit artikel]

In part I of this series I discussed the pros and cons of luring and moulding. In this part I will talk about shaping, targeting and capturing.

Shaping
In shaping the goal behaviour is achieved by splitting the desired behaviour into many tiny steps. Each step is trained separately (clicked and reinforced). A criterion is only raised if the previous tiny step is confirmed. In this way you can build a behaviour from scratch (free shaping). One can also shape existing behaviours. This is when elements like distractions or duration are gradually added.

Pros of shaping
It is a safe and sure way to train any behaviour.

It is a good way of setting the horse up for success: each step of the process is easy to understand and easy to perform. The bridge signal ‘guides’ the horse through the process, so he gets lots of information about what is expected.

It can be used to train very difficult and complex behaviours.

The horse is not restrained in any way. This makes it easier to notice mental changes (emotions) or physical changes like fatigue in your horse.

Cons of shaping
It can be hard for a trainer to split the behaviour into small enough steps. If the trainer is ‘lumping’ (making the steps too big, raising the criteria too fast) shaping can cause frustration in trainer and horse.

Depending on the behaviour, the process can take a while since every step of it has to be trained separately.

The rewards must be reinforcing enough and the tasks must be challenging enough to keep the horse engaged. That can be a challenge.

Trainer must have a keen eye and perfect timing to observe and click the tiniest steps towards the goal behaviour.

Targeting
Targeting is touching a specified surface (eg a target stick) with a particular body part. Example: teaching your horse to touch a target stick with his nose. The target is not a lure because it is not a primary reinforcer. Targeting is taught through shaping.

Pros of targeting
Targeting has a lot of practical uses and you can train almost any behaviour with it.

It is a safe training method. There is no need for physical contact, so you can train even your horse from behind a barrier if necessary or desirably.

The target is not distracting the horse like a lure would.

A target on a stick can enlarge your reach. You can send your horse away from you and your pocket full of treats.

The horse is free (not restrained) during training and it is easier to notice emotions in training like fear, curiosity, frustration and so on. It is also easier to notice if your assignment is physically (im)possible to perform for your horse or to notice fatigue.

Cons of targeting
You have to fade out the target. That can be a bit of a challenge. The best way to do this is to put a cue on the behaviour first.

It is an extra tool in your hands.

Targeting is taught through shaping, see cons of shaping.

Capturing
Capturing is ‘catching’ the end behaviour as it happens with your bridge signal and reinforcing it. Example: the classical bow looks very much like the natural behaviour of a stretch after a nap.  Click and reward your horse while he is stretching. Capture the behaviour several times. Then add a cue. See also Introducing and using cues.

Pros of capturing
The most obvious pro is that it is a really fast way to get a new behaviour, since the horse is already displaying the ‘goal behaviour’.

It is a safe method to train the behaviour.

Novice trainers can use it. Timing doesn’t have to be very accurate.

Cons of capturing
The training is totally dependant on the horses willingness to perform the behaviour and the chances of the trainer being present at the time. The trainer must have a bridge signal and reward present.

It can be hard to communicate a (new) cue to your horse. While training you may have accidentally introduced one already.  You might not know what it is as a horse is very perceptive of your unconscious movements. This might be difficult to change afterwards.

My favourite training methods
These three are my favourite ways of getting a behaviour. I use targeting and shaping on a daily basis.

I used capturing to teach Sholto the classical bow (see picture below) and flehmen on command. Kyra’s lying down and nickering to me are also taught through capturing.

Kyra’s flemen and her classical bow (see picture below) are taught with shaping and targeting.

What is your most used method to teach your horse behaviours?

Safe the date: Thursday March 7, 2019

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Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

Sign up for HippoLogic’s newsletter (it’s free and it comes with a gift) or visit HippoLogic’s website and join my online course Ultimate Horse Training Formula in which you learn the Key Lessons, Your Key to Success in Clicker Training.

Follow my blog  on Bloglovin