I have trained my mare to rear by clicker. It is something I have wanted to do for a long time but have put it off, for obvious reasons. My horse never rears under saddle, but has a lovely balanced rear in play. And I was impressed by how quickly she learnt to do it on command in only a few minutes.
HOWEVER, that was Yesterday.
This morning, I wanted to test out my mares new impressive trick to ensure that it wasn't a fluke. So I groomed her and then led her in a head collar to the menage. Unusually, she jogged all the way. I let her go in the menage and she stuck by me like glue. I did a couple of her usual tricks such as 'wait' and 'back', which she did. Then I turned to her and said 'up' gesturing with my hands and schooling whip, and up she went into a perfectly controlled impressive rear. I did it again, and again she obliged. Impressed, I thought now was the time for an audience, and so, called my friend. By the time my friend arrived though, my horse was rearing left right and centre, WITHOUT the command, and right next to me, and as I didn't click and reward her, she became more and more worked up. She did it again on command, and I clicked her, then thought I had better leave it there and so got a jump out to distract her, as by now she was leaping about and bucking and play kicking out at me! Not very nice. I set up the jump and tried to send her away with my whip, but she wasn't having any of it. All she wanted to do was rear, and rear and rear. I was shouting "NO!" every time she did it and trying to send her to the jump. In the end she got really frustrated and exasperated and turned round and kicked me! She has never ever done that before and I was lucky she didn't break my leg. I shouted "No" at her and left the menage immediately, leaving her alone (which she hates) to think about what she'd done. Then I realised. It was all my fault:
Firstly, she was already full of it before entering the menage, so I shouldn't have done anything exciting with her.
Secondly, I realised to my horror, that I used the same arm signals to send her to a jump, as I did to get her to rear. All that was different was the voice command. So she thought I was telling her to 'rear, rear' and when she did, I was shouting "No!" at her rather than treating her. In her utter frustration she thought "sod her!" and kicked me. Doh!
Thirdly, I had over done it. She loves exciting things, and is the same with jumping. I have to forget about the rearing until another day when she has been worked and is relaxed.
Fourthly, only give the command to rear, at a safe distance!
There IS some good news. After this disaster, I decided to tack her up and ride her, as she obviously had excess energy. She has never ever gone so well under saddle. Absolutely magnificent and the most perfect manners. Phew!
But now someone has said that what I have done was stupid, and that she could end up doing it in all kinds of circumstances and harm me or someone else handling her, and I can see their point! I am fairly confident that if I don't do this for a while, and never reward an uncommanded rear, she will cease to do it. In fact, it does seem to be the way she learns, in that every time I teach her something new, she goes overboard, performing the action uncommanded, in the hope that it will be rewarded, then gradually, when it isn't, she stops doing it and only does it when commanded. I am hoping that it will be the same thing with the rearing. What do you think? Has anyone else ever taught this? Any advice?
Hmm, I think teaching this trick was a mistake. Not because my mare is misbehaving or rearing in other situations, (she isn't, she is behaving as well as she ever has), but because I have lost confidence handling her loose in the school.
I tried some more clicker today, and when I tried to send her away, she reared again, and when I shouted 'no', she threatened to turn her quarters on me again. I put out a jump, and at first she reared instead of going to jump it. Eventually she cottoned on and went over and jumped it on command several times, then resumed her usual routine and movements I have trained. I thought I would ask for a rear at the end, because I was trying to establish with her that it was only okay on command. She knew what I wanted, but started to paw the ground in frustration, and when I asked again, rushed at me aggressively so I had to turn her away with my schooling whip.
I know it is because she cannot understand why I am shouting 'no' when she does it unprompted, and not rewarding her, then I am asking her to do it! Obviously horses lack the ability to generalise rules (i.e. an action is only rewarded when the activity has been asked for) across to different activities. It is as though I have to teach this from scratch for each new 'trick' that she learns. Usually, there is no problem as the activity is not potentially dangerous, but in this case, it is. I am torn. My friend thinks I should leave it a month, without the rear, and then try again. I am wondering whether to try to completely forget the rear. As I have lost confidence and trust in my horse because of this, I think this would be the best option. I am still left with a fear of sending her away, in case it propts a rear, and/or aggressive behaviour, which she has never before shown. And I also know that it is not her fault and is because I have managed to inadvertantly confuse her.
Wow - what a thread! In answer to your question, errm, no I haven't tried this!
I'm in two minds about this - on the one hand I think you've done a great job of identifying some of the mistakes you've made and I think it will be a really useful learning experience for you.
On the other hand (and apologies if I'm sticking my neck out further than I should) I think we owe it to our horses to plan in advance a little better. A bit more forward planning could have predicted a number of the problems you have now realised in retrospect have been the case.
Getting behaviours on cue is a hard thing to do, if we define "on cue" to be behaviours offered only when cued and never in other circumstances. Therefore if we choose to train a behaviour that may have implications if offered in inappropriate (ie un-cued) situations then we need to make sure that the behaviour isn't going to be dangerous. You would normally want to have a behaviour fairly well-established before putting it on cue and so if you want to train rearing then you need to be prepared to allow the learning process to take place, in the same way you did when you first started simple targetting.
One of the problems with CT is that the animal is being encouraged to offer behaviours. If we then counter that offering with punishment (ie shouting, threatening with a schooling whip etc) then I feel that we are betraying a part of the trust that a +R animal places in us. To encourage a horse to rear but then punish it for doing so, just because (from the horse's perspective) you have changed your mind seems a bit harsh to me.
So personally, I would not continue with the rearing behaviour. The fact that there seems to be a fair amount of frustration in your training session suggests that you need to train behaviours that you are both comfortable with.
When choosing behaviours to train I think we need to look at our motivation for training them. Is it for the horse's benefit or our own? Is the human ego creeping in at any point? If so then we need to reassess what we are doing.
So, again, I apologise if I've spoken out of turn. If you can make this work for you and your horse then great, fantastic (and can I come and watch please!). Otherwise I would say it's been a great learning opportunity but there are better things to train.
Thank you Catherine. No, you most certainly HAVEN'T spoken out of turn, and I agree with everything you said. I think I have just found myself way out of my depth with this one. I feel it is one which should be left to the real animal trainers who train animals for film roles etc.
My mare is an extremely fast learner, and normally never rears except occasionally when playing in the field, so when she offered up a playful rear during our training session, I clicked it without thinking of the consequences and paired it with the first command I thought of: "up".
On a positive note, I rode her this morning and then did a bit of clicker afterwards. She was brilliant, and never offered to rear. Now it is just me with the problem, as I am frightened of her now, on the ground, whereas, I completely trusted her before. So I am scared when asking her to do a jump as I need to send her away and I am afraid of her swinging round at me. But she didn't and we had a lovely training session. Now I just have to get rid of my nerves, as I'm sure she can pick this up.
I agree, this has been a valuble learning experience, and I fully blame myself for the mistakes I made. I think I'll leave the fancy stuff for the experts.
Pen
I think you've pretty much realised where you've gone wrong. I too have used the same non-verbal cue for a new behaviour without realising it until I experienced confusion. However my biggest concern with your tale is that you have taught something which is potentially (and actually) so dangerous. You are lucky not to have been badly hurt by your mare.
Can I suggest at this stage that perhaps until you are completely prepared for it, you now use extinction techniques to let you mare forget this behaviour.
Being such a potentially dangerous activity, your response in panic when it goes wrong is too destructive to your relationship and could impact on other areas of your Clicker work.
Please don't read the adjectives in this post too literally - I'm not trying to be alarmist - just trying to suggest that for now - don't ever give her any command that she could take as being a rear.
I would also be very concerned at you using a schooling whip to move her out of your danger zone. Again this is because you put yourself in a 'panic' /safety situation.
Thanks very much for posting this - it isn't often that people will admit their mistakes let alone post them - personally I have learned from your post and I'm sure others will do too.
Good luck for the future and happy training
Thanks Indy, I think I went some way today in getting her to forget about the rear. It almost seems as if my mare is back to normal in our training, but it is me who isn't. I daren't use any expressive body language, which I need in order to send my mare away to go and do her jumps, otherwise she sticks to me like glue. I have always used the schooling whip to help me in sending her AWAY from me to do the jumps, otherwise I have to jump them all too as she sticks with me and she is jumping 4 foot sometimes. Today, I ran with her but dodged the jump at the last minute and she jumped it. Before, I was able to send her away with an open arm gesture, but it only worked if I had the whip. Not to use of course! Then she would go to the jump I was motioning her towards, jump it (I click) and then return to me for her treat. But I feel we are making progress again, and much quicker than I expected. Just shows how forgiving animals are.
Yes, hopefully I will regain my confidence. She often used to run towards me playfully with arched neck and ears slightly back (as they are in play), but now when she does it I'm scared she will swing around and kick me. Stupid, I know, but it's like that one kick has set off a conditioned response in me! Even though I know she has no need to kick me as the circumstances are different. I'm sure it is just a matter of time.
The important thing with mistakes is to learn from them. You've done that! I'm not sure how hard it would be to change the cue to send her away to jump. I feel that it might be easier to just wait a while and only send her away with that cue when you want her to jump and the pole is present. I would guess that there will be a few 'extinction bursts' along the line but as long as you're prepared (and wear a hard hat!) you'll be fine. I say wear a hard hat as even though you might never need it, it's amazing how much more confidence I have if I have safeguarded against all the possibilities. Your mare would easily pick up on that confidence.
Lastly it takes guts to come onto a public forum and admit such a mistake. I can think of other forums where you'd get a hell of a slanging match (entertaining for the rest of us )but even here I'd be a bit scared of the response. If it were me I'd feel a 'reet t*t' so I have to commend you on sharing this with us!
Phew! As I said before, well done for realising what you're created and well done for admitting it.
I can't help wondering why you're putting yourself through this. If things are getting a little out of hand you're getting a bit nervous of sending her away then why not bring things back down to a level you feel comfortable with. Who says you have to be doing 4ft jumps? If she won't leave you without being sent away with a fairly dramatic schooing whip cue then maybe you need to wonder why. Horses are so good at picking up on body language (think Clever Hans) that there must be a reason for this.
Why don't you try bringing things back down again with a bit of free shaping so that she has the confidence to offer the going away behaviour, rather than sticking to you like glue and waiting to be told what to do? Why not do some simple targets, then get her going over to the target and coming back to you. You could stretch this out - really gradually build up to doing it at trot, put in a little jump and get all of this on a tiny cue *eventually*, but not until she is offering to do this happily. It may take longer to get back to where you are now in terms of physical achievement but in terms of the relationship it sounds as though something like this (although not necessarily exactly what I have suggested - you know your horse) may help.
The feeling of worry may just extinguish but it may also become more of an issue unless you take things in bite-sized chunks. Stick to easy things and build your confidence up again, don't just wait and hope. Are you sure that her running at you was in play and not frustration? Similarly offering that rear in the first place. I don't want to suggest things and worry you unnecessarily but given the situation you now find yourself in it may help to consider whether there were any clues previously.
Good luck building things up again and please let us know how you get on
Thanks Diane. I don't feel so much of a 'tit', as that I have let my horse down and temporarily spoilt our very special relationship (though only whilst training). I am not the sort to get embarassed about mistakes, and felt that it was important to report them in case others were tempted to do the same. I could have just left up my first posting, which had a few doubts, and been too embarassed to put up the others. Then, you would have not known the outcome, and SOME readers might have tried it themselves. So no, I do not feel a fool at all. I am only human and we all make mistakes. But I have learnt my lesson and will not be repeating them.
Catherine, thanks again for your response. I will be taking it more slowly in future. I am not worried about my horse rushing towards me (in the way that she used to) as it was when I called her, it just sets off an instinctive response in me now. The rear she offered up was definately in play, as I have seen her do exactly the same thing with her field mate whom she adores. She is extremely playful for a mare, and I suppose I let her be a bit rough with me at times, in terms of playful nipping and nudging. I only tell her 'no' if she catches me wrong and it hurts, so that she learns how hard she can do it, and what is going too far. It is things like grabbing my toggles on my fleece and pulling my hat off my head, nipping my bum when I bend over, playing with her lead rope etc. However, she will also 'groom' me and rest her chin on my shoulder and nuzzle my ear. I KNOW these nips are playing. I know her very well.
However, she DOES have a quick temper and is very easily frustrated if she doesn't get something right, both on the ground or under saddle. If I am teaching a new schooling move and she can't understand what I am getting at, she will throw a paddy. That hardly ever happens any more with me, but always does with my instructor who asks more of her. She just so wants to get things right, and is SO impatient for attention (door banging etc), in her day to day life. A VERY demanding mare who you can never ignore. I tell myself it's a sign of her intelligence, but maybe that just makes me feel better.
)but even here I'd be a bit scared of the response. If it were me I'd feel a 'reet t*t' so I have to commend you on sharing this with us!