Finding every opportunity to praise- the power of positive feedback, and the soundbite that summarises my current training philosophy.
I don’t get too hung up on R+, R-, I do use so-called aversives like spurs and whips and bits but I try to use them in the non-aversive way that we are taught is possible by 2000 years of classical tradition. And I am willing to learn and evolve, with the horses as my most reliable and honest teachers. So this article summarises where I am now. It’s a long way from where I was 10 years ago. And we may all read this in another 10 years and think what nonsense?
I seek to share my current understanding because writing it down helps me to clarify my thoughts, and because occasionally it seems to help other people too.
So, I seek every opportunity to praise…the horse, the junior doctor, myself. It becomes a way of being, seeking the opportunity to praise the positive in every action or interaction
As some of you will already have read, my glorious warmblood was recently diagnosed with a kissing spine.
As he is still young, green and growing, and as my personal circumstances have been a bit complicated recently, I have made a conscious decision to take his rehab very slowly. To allow the growth spurt to complete, to let him down and let the spasmed muscles relax, to get him pain free and in good shape physically and mentally and then to start again from the beginning. This time I will pay meticulous attention to posture and correct muscle usage and see if we can end up with a better back that will allow me to sit on it without causing trouble or pain.
This rationale also gives me time to completely rebuild our training relationship, from the ground, so we have trust and a good communication system in place before I get back on. And this process has set me thinking about how I train: what is my methodology?
And I have arrived at the soundbite; seek every opportunity to praise.
I’m not very good at clicker training. Currently I don’t own a horse that is more motivated by food than by praise, so the premise of training to a click backed up by food doesn’t work for my current equine partners. I’m also not as quick to click as I am to praise with my voice, so for me it is much easier to ‘mark’ with my voice. And as horses are basically telepathic, even if they don’ t hear the word, they hear the thought…so for me a clicker just introduces a layer of delay.
I’m also put off by the tragic story of Tilikum- when clicker training goes wrong, the result can be dangerous frustration for the animal.
I’m sure the horse will come along one day that forces me to learn clicker training and I will have to eat these words, as I have so many others!! But life is a journey…
The key question is what to praise. Now the horses and I are back in company rather than living at home in our little private bubble, we are once again exposed to other humans and their relationships with their horses. One can learn a lot by listening.
The other day our neighbour was grooming her pony. Every other word seemed to be a No, or a Don’t Do That, or a Stop That, or another No.
Now I am a proud survivor of surgical training; in the good old days, you knew you were doing well if the boss kept quiet, and you only got spoken to, or rapped on the knuckles, if you were doing it wrong. When we read about how to raise children, we read that “the average toddler hears the word “no” an astonishing 400 times a day, according to experts. That’s not only tiresome for you but it can also be harmful to your child: According to studies, kids who hear “no” too much have poorer language skills than children whose parents offer more positive feedback.”
Disciplining Your Child Without Saying No. – Redbook
https://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/advice/a2560/how-to-say-no/
But if we just randomly say Good Boy, how will the horse, or the child, learn what was good or desired?
It’s all about timing.
Here’s an example. Rocky, the young warmblood, has really mobile shoulders and very expressive front legs. His reaction to food, to buckets, to grooming, to challenge, is to wave, particularly his right, foreleg around, and for me the waving is often at waist height. There is no point telling him not to do this; by the time we are saying No Don’t Do That the foot is already up in the air. He doesn’t choose to do it, it’s a reaction, an instinct. Horses don’t reason or plan, they react. There is no possible way of teaching the horse Don’t Do That once the action has already occurred.
Instead, how about we teach him to put the leg back down on the ground on command? At first this is opportunistic training; every time the leg hits the ground as he’s scraping or waving, I praise- “Down- Good”. Eventually, we just have to say ‘Down’ and the leg will land.
I don’t want to teach him not to wave the leg around; who knows, we might want Spanish Walk one day, although I’m not sure gymnastically that this particular horse will ever require that exercise LOL; his shoulders are already mobile enough.
So the principle is: rather than trying to teach a negative after the unwanted behaviour has occurred, instead we teach a positive correction to the unwanted behaviour, a correction that we can cue and then reward. This has the advantage of not preventing a behaviour or movement we may want to access again in the future, and also gives us the opportunity to praise our horse rather than rebuke him. Horses, like children, respond much better to positive feedback than negative. They enjoy being right, and being rewarded for being right.
Another common misconception is that we can get a horse to calm down by stroking or patting them when they are on high alert.
Effectively, what we are doing here is rewarding the horse for being anxious or fractious. We are reinforcing the unwanted behaviour. Far better to change the mood and then reward the following calm, which is the desired behaviour. How do we change the mood?
Laughter or yawning are my two favourite strategies here. When Cal was a youngster and we were hacking around Kingsley as the annual scarecrow competition hit full swing, I used to giggle at the crazy stuff in the hedges. The best one was a pair of legs, sticking up out of the hedge, as if diving into a pool; I think it must have been London Olympic year. Cal would be eyeballing the scarecrows and sidling past at speed and I would be chuckling and giggling, but with hands loose on the reins and concentrating on loose legs and relaxed seat. He’s pretty bombproof now.
At competitions with Cal, or handling Rocky recently when he’s been in pain having physio, I focus on boredom and yawning. Boredom slows your heart rate and lowers your energy, while yawning relaxes the jaw and the neck, and therefore the hands, as well as changing the frequency of your thoughts. When the horse comes down in energy, relaxes or yawns, then we can take the opportunity to praise the relaxation and the calm, because that is the desired behaviour.
Now I’m far from perfect. I’m not trying to preach, just to share some stuff I have learned. Tonight was worming night, and Rocky still had me swinging around the stable because yet again I didn’t do enough prep work in between wormings. But I will do the prep work, and it will get easier.
When I’m riding nowadays, I’m alway looking for the moment to praise, the topline stretch or the moment of throughness or relaxation that I can mark as desirable so I might get offered it again. I am also careful to praise myself- although that’s much more subtle. I don’t vocalise those moments so much, although maybe I should, but a turn in balance or good use of a seat aid will get noted as a nice feeling, or a good moment, with a nod or a smile.
More importantly, I don’t beat myself up for the not perfect moments anymore- I have a giggle, regroup and do it again, better. I no longer hate my disobedient legs, or my flappy elbow, or my gripping left hand, instead I notice them, change them, forgive myself, correct them again…until the corrections become fewer and further between….and then you notice your flappy knee or your sticky out toe and move onto to the next bit of homework.
Finding every opportunity to praise, ourselves and our horses, keeps training fun and rewarding, and beats the winter blues.
So here’s some homework. First spend an evening wth your horse just listening to what you say to him, is it no or is it yes, is it don’t do that or clever boy?
And then spend an evening being really careful to look for the moment to praise, both you and him, for the good stuff, and to replace a Don’t with a Can You Do this instead. And then observe both your moods. I predict your horse will be proud and puffed up and loving at the end of a positive session.And you will go home energised and enthused and looking forward to the next session, no matter what has occurred, because you have both had more fun.
And then suddenly might just happen over a very long time 😉
https://www.nelipotcottage.com/suddenly-happens-over-a-very-long-time/
Because there is pure magic in the power of perfectly timed positive feedback.
Seek every opportunity to praise xxx
Lovely Fran xxx
Thank you xx