This question has been rattling round my head for months now, so I’m finally getting round to posting it and seeing what you think. It’s purely hypothetical, I’m just interested in your views.
Suppose you train your horse with as much +R as possible, and encourage him to have ‘a voice and a choice’. You have a good relationship based on trust and mutual earned respect. One day you want to load your horse into a trailer to go to a show/sponsored ride/something pleasant (ie not an emergency), your horse gets to the bottom of the ramp and lets you know that he doesn’t want to go in the trailer. He doesn’t seem frightened or upset, he just quietly refuses to go up the ramp.
Obviously the horse has a valid reason for not loading. Do we assume that there is an ‘actual’ (sorry can’t think of a better word) cause – the horse is in pain, previous bad experience etc – or do you think it’s possible that the horse might just decide he would rather not travel? Do you think horses ever don't do something because they 'don't feel like it'? If it’s the latter, what do you do?
Sorry if I’ve not put this very well (I’m out of practice!) but I would be interested to know what your opinions are.
This is what I think:
If a horse doesn't go into a trailer, there are two reasons:
1. It hasn't been habituated to the trailer and is displaying a natural fear of an enclosed, dark space.
2. It has had previous frightening experience of the trailer or travelling or at a previous destination and the fear response has become automatic.
If you've trained your horse as you describe, and that training included trailer loading, then if the horse on a particular occasion did not go in the trailer when you were using +ive R to reinforce the behaviour of going in the trailer, I would suggest something happened on the last trip to cause fear, or there is something about the current loading set-up that is causing anxiety, fear or apprehension, maybe something in the surroundings, the direction or location of the trailer, the person doing the loading, any other horses being loaded, the list is endless.
Also, just because the horse is standing quietly not going in does not mean he isn't frightened, as "freeze" is one of the horse's natural fear responses.
Hope you, your family and Mali are all well. Take care.
In response to 'Do you think horses ever don't do something because they 'don't feel like it'? If it’s the latter, what do you do?'..
I think that a horse trained using +ve RE is used to having choices and not having to be afraid of -ve consequences so sometimes show those choices in the form of reluctance to do something when the alternative of not doing it/doing something else is more appealing to it. In those cases its our job to motivate the horse to want to do the thing we want it to....Sometimes I might not feel like going swimming but if Jon says we can have a bottle of wine afterwards etc my motivation changes and I'm more than happy to go to the pool etc.
Perhaps its similar for horses (although yes I do know the difference between PR and bribery but can't think of a good eg now as about to have my tea!).
What Sam was getting at (I think) was: what do you do if a horse is being 'perverse', 'difficult', 'stubborn', or any of those ways of describing what is actually quite a common situation. The conventional approach would be to 'make the horse do it', by whatever means are necessary, but the members of this group would probably feel that was not an appropriate response.
So here's another example: what if your eight year old daughter was being stubborn and refused to get in the taxi to go to the airport? You couldn't simply let her refuse, because that would cost money and time, and other people would also be inconvenienced. But you probably wouldn't hit her or drag her in and tell her to shut up. You would probably be very firm, very determined, but also sensitive to her wishes and feelings at the moment. But the point is, you wouldn't give her a choice. You would be as sensitive, civilised, humane, adult, reasonable as you could be - but she wouldn't really have a choice. In the end, you have to be the boss in that situation.
You might hope that if you dealt with ordinary situations using positive reinforcement, and behaved in a consistently fair and reasonable way all the time, then these sorts of perverse reactions would happen less and less, and I'm sure this is true. But when they do happen, I think you probably have to be decisive and firm.
However, if your eight year old daughter decides to fight you, she isn't likely to win, but if your horse decides to fight you, then you may have to backtrack... But if you've built up the right kind of relationship, your horse should respect you just as much as you respect him.
But I think that the difference is that you can reason with an 8 year old (and much younger) but not with a horse....I do think its important to be 'firm' (with a horse) but only in the way that is not showing wimpy, undecisive body language rather than aversive action. Still think its about changing the motivation and feeling safe etc...
....or a kid young enough not to be reasoned with. If the kid had a phobia about flying - say the last time it flew the plane bounced around a lot etc. - what would you do? - never take it on a flying holiday if all the reasoning in the world didn't help?
....so that would mean the family limiting itself to holidays in the UK or Europe (boat+driving). Would that be fair if other family members wanted to go somewhere that involved flying - would you leave the kid at home?
...while my mind is still on a 'horsey' track, this is what I wrote in answer to the first 3 answers, before I'd seen Suz and Teresa's responses:
Hi Debbie
I agree completely with what you’re saying – the horse has a valid reason for not loading (which could be any of the things you’ve mentioned or indeed hundreds more) and it is up to us to try to ascertain what the reason is and then do something about it. However, the point I also wanted to touch on is what Suz put far more eloquently than I did
“reluctance to do something when the alternative of not doing it/doing something else is more appealing to it.”
We have all seen horses do things they don’t really want to do for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is their willing and forgiving nature. But if our +R horse has been encouraged to think for himself and have his own opinions, do you think it’s possible that (touch of anthropomorphism coming up!) he might think “Well I could go in the trailer, but I think I’d rather stay here and eat grass.”
Hi Peter, I don’t think of horses (owners are a different thing entirely!) in terms of being ‘perverse’, ‘difficult’ or ‘stubborn’. Of course, there’s always that classic standby, my personal (what’s the opposite of favourite?) least favourite “he’s taking the p***”. As discussed above I’m sure we would all agree that any horse who doesn’t load has valid reasons for not doing so.
I like your example about your 8 year old daughter. Fills me with trepidation for when Megan gets older However, you say “she wouldn’t really have a choice” and I think most of us in this group would like to think that our horses do have choices. Or do we only give our horses choices when it suits us? In which case how do our horses know when they have a choice and when they don’t?
Here's the way I see it. If you have a horse that is encouraged to make decisions for himself then he is likely (by the law of averages) to sometimes choose an option that YOU don't want.
So, he may choose NOT to go into the trailer. If he sees no benefit (or does not foresee a reward) for going into the trailer, or in other words doesn't see the point, then why should he?
Of course, the tricky bit is working out whether it is the trailer he doesn't see the point of, or if he finds the travel stressful or as someone else said he has not been habituated to the trailer. Or is he linking, via conditioning, the trailer with the stress of the show? There are too many variables to consider - it would have to be done on an individual basis.
You could sit all week probably and work out why he won't load. What's REALLY tricky IMO is how you deal with it there and then. If you've paid lots of £££ on entries and to all intents and purposes your ned is capable of doing whatever is at the other end it makes sense to at least try to get him there. However I think most people here (and elsewhere) would habituate the horse to the trailer BEFORE an occasion arose where travel was required, thus limiting the stress of the loading itself. If this was not possible (perhaps you're not the showing/competing type and ned needs to move home suddenly/visit vet for X-rays etc) then I would use out and out bribery/+R - carrots laid up the ramp works wonders and the horse is reinforcing himself so no timing errors ) unless the horse was a clicker master in which case I'd use that!
Teresa
No, wouldn't never go on a holiday abroad but would try to distract/bribe it.
Having said that I don't actually like kids that much and am more likely to use positive punishment (or just pick it up and sort it out later) with a kid than with a horse, even though I know I shouldn't admit to that!!
This message has been edited by illeroc on Sep 17, 2004 2:12 PM
I've clarified my thoughts on this now. To my mind the key issue here is that children (even very young ones) can have things explained to them. You can also comfort them, which I don't think applies to horses. (Okay, there's my next thread: Can horses be comforted?)
Hi everyone, what a really fantastic question Sam and something that has definately crossed my mind before.
I think the really important thing is to work in the moment and feel the situation. In my experince I have never found this kind of situation very black and white, there are often many a gray area entangled in them.
When working with a horse that you know, it is much easier to have an idea 'why' a horse, for example has decided not too load when previously there has been no problem - I often find it is something slightly different about the environment, but of course there are endless reasons, many of which we could not possibly know without looking inside the particular horse head. On the otherhand, I think working with a horse you don't know is a completely different situation.
Do horses ever have as much choice as we would like? I'd like to say yes, but in reallity I'd say no. I once aspired to giving my horse as much choice as I could - basically I wanted everything we did to be his choice. The trouble was, by giving him this amount of choice and freedom resulted in a horse that was training me and subsequently shinking his comfort zones. What I found was that I had a horse that would rather spend 95% of his time grazing in the field with his friends and 5% of the time clicker training totally on 'his' terms - I had a horse that if he decided he didn't feel like doing something, he would plant and look at me as if to say 'make me'. In short the balance was completely scewed towards him. When you get into this situation, what do you do? resign yourself to having a field ornament with no real 'partnership' or do you re-balance and in doing so take some choice away?
It's a tough call, and not one that I took lightly, but one that depended ultinatley on what you want from having a horse. I reasoned with myself, that if I had 100% choice, would I work? would I even get out of bed in the morning? Possibly not, but in reality we don't have 100% choice, no matter how free we may feel, we are still restricted.
So simply, my horse still has a voice and still expresses his opinion - sometimes we do it his way, sometimes we do it my way. It's a balance but it seems to work well. So when my horse decides to express his feelings about continuing walking out on a ride, I asses the sitation - is there something different? Does he seem 'stressed' in any way? Is there something physically wrong? Does the path look dangerous - when I have assesed the situation, if I feel there is something 'bad' about continuing we deal with it - this could mean me getting off and walking him, turning around and heading home, siting on him and calming him. But, there are times when my horse, as far as I can possibly knew, just doesn't want to go on, simply decides he would rather head home and go and eat grass in the field, in these cases I will often take his choice away and say 'no' we are going on. Sometimes I make the wrong choices, but often I do not feel I did the wrong thing by him nor did he seemed particulary aggrieved by the situation - just that he was testing me, pushing his own comfort zones backwards to see if I would bite...it is quite simply in my mind a game of give and take, a balance that is continuously shifting, I'd like to say it is a partnership
Hi Sam , Good question ,one we've talked about before ;0)
Like your answer Marie.
Okay here are my thoughts.
I try to give my horses and Donkeys choices like most of us.I try to listen to what they are telling me ,when a situation arises that what the horse is choosing is actually different to what I want to choose I have a dilema.Do I make them do it my way or there way.I think in these cases you have to be true to yourself and your relationship with your horse.I question myself whether they are reacting in this way from lack of training on my part or has outside influences changed.Very many people say that of course they have 'done the training' with trailer loading for instance but have they really.Have they followed it through to the final degree to completely ensure the horse is comfortable with loading.
My situation for instance ,when I was doing all that trailer loading with Maddy.We came along way but just when I was getting to the bit of training where I should have been taking her out to new and fun,exciting places to give her a good and positive association with the trailer I had to stop becasue of her lameness.The only place she has been since in the trailer if Leahurst - not very positive experiences atall. So I could say yes of course she has had the necessary training and practice but deep down in my heart I know she hasnt had THE CORRECT training right through to the end.So if Maddy ever has a sticky moment loading then that is perfectably acceptable and depending on whether it was absolutely essential she travelled I wouldnt put pressure on her to load. However if I had of carried out her loading training right to the end and she travelled very happily all the time , if one day came she wouldnt go in ,then ,there again,there would have to be a reason and my reaction would depend on what I thought and felt that reason too be.
There have been many times I have made a horse do something and given almost the same behaviour said okay then and I have given in.for example when first riding Maddy out alone she was very on her toes not wanting to go, I made her go forward and hack out ,why ...because I knew she was very capable of doing it and I knew the reason why she was saying no would actually not be beneficial to our long term partnership.She had to push her own boundary and I knew she could do it.However hacking out on another occasion she stopped and said no and I turned and headed for home , why... she was with her mates , loved going out , nice day ect so when she said she didnt want to go she MUST have had a VERY valid reason...It turned out she was becomong more and more lame , she knew, I didnt , but trusted her ...she wasnt taking the p**s.
So I suppose what I'm trying to say in a long winded way is with knowledge of your horse and a sound knowledge in behaviour and why horses react in the way they do I think you just go with your gut instinct.As long as youv'e put in the correct training then yes I do think you can say to them okay Iv'e listened to you but in this instance were doing it my way.
That's the point I was trying to make about the young kids. If you bow to their every whim, they'll rule your life. (Did anyone see that nanny programme on television? - she didn't always reason with them, she set boundaries) Same with my horse. We went through a phase where he was making all the choices and I just had to fit in with him - this was also potentially dangerous. We have redressed the balance now and to be honest, I find the important thing in asking (or telling) him to do something that he seemingly isn't keen on doing, is clarity. Once he knows what I want, and that I mean it, he will usually readily cooperate. If he cooperates in a very half-hearted sort of way, then this is an indication that there is some underlying problem which I need to resolve.
I haven't read the whole thread I'm afraid but here is my take on the question following on from recent experiences with one of my mares! As part of their conditioning programme for their feet they have to go out for a walk inhand each day. Caspar whose had the misfortune of having me as an owner for most of her life, has discovered since my change over to CT & +re that she is allowed to express herself and have an opinion on everything we do. We don't always agree but hey, life would be boring otherwise!
Depending on which route we take Caspar has met some rather lovely youngsters who she would much rather spend time getting to know than walking back to her field. To me this is all about motivation, in the here and now she wants to interact with these strange, new horses. I want to get her back home to the safety of her field! Bearing in mind in my other hand I have brave but nervous little pony who doesn't know much about humans or cars and as a consequence I panic quite quickly with any hold up we may have!!!!! So if I am to stick to my principles but still keep us all safe I have to find a way to convince Caspar that what I want to do is better/more fun than chatting to the other horses. Fortunately she loves her food (a little too much)and is in general a willing soul, so we get back on our way quite quickly. I think you can negotiate terms with your horse and motivate them to want to do the things that are important even if they are only important to you. Find your horse's big motivator and exploit that to it's fullest!
Some great replies to your question, aren't there? I like Lucy's - even if you've clicker trained your horse to trailer load really well, there may be a time when there's a more interesting and meaningful stimulus which stops your horse from performing the loading behaviour you've come to expect as automatic! And then you're on the "convince them" road, as Lucy says. And if ya can't convince 'em, then ya gotta think: hmmm, entry fees, points show, extending their training with whatever you were going to travel to, a lovely day out in the hills with your mates on a LDR.......or maybe, "I wonder what's on the lunchtime menu at the local pub?"......lol!
Hi Sam - see it wasn't only me who'd been missing you on here!!
Marie, I couldn't agree more - you've saved me writing a lot of what I was going to say!
I've had exactly the same with Jak - if you give a horse 100% choice then he will generally choose to stay in the field for most of the time (and I would need to be there 24 hours a day to dispense scratches when it is convenient for him to use me). But it's amazing how just retaining a few percent of the choice for yourself and making sure you continue to stretch the horse's comfort zones just a little bit at a time, will mean that you have a horse who is prepared to do one hell of a lot for very little (obvious) reinforcement. They are just so incredibly willing.
In the case of suddenly not loading I suspect that there is normally a problem you could look for, be it lack of +R or some reason for not wanting to go in. But it may also be a sudden spontaneous recovery from loading problems in the past. Right there and then, depending on how bad the problem was, I may "force" the horse to load (force in the sense of applying some pressure and getting the feed bucket out) but I would then start a retraining program before trying again.
But having said that, I do believe that horses will have "off days" when they just don't feel like it. I did a sponsored ride a few weeks ago and Jak made it pretty clear that he didn't want to jump anything bigger than hoof height. I thought maybe there was a bit of a confidence issue, bit of a confusion issue, bit of a crap riding issue, maybe even a paralysis by analysis or me feeling frustrated issue!!! etc.. Yesterday we did another sponsored ride and I was expecting more of the same - but no, he was flying over huge jumps and taking me towards them really strongly and really seemed to want to do it. There was also a deep sand gallops which I thought would require more effort than he could be arsed with - but again, no, we absolutely belted round it. I have no idea what caused the complete change of heart but can only imagine that the first time he just wasn't in the mood. I certainly don't see him as being disobedient the first time as I don't really tell him to jump, I just put him at them and see what happens.
In the case of kids - I do think there is a difference because of the communication being easier. But if a kid is being brat-like then, as with a non-loading horse, there are a whole lot of training issues that probably haven't been addressed properly. If it is more of an out-of-character genuine fear then using flooding (eg forcing the kid on the plane!) could have serious long term repercussions. Or it might not - it depends. We need to look at the big picture and the context of the whole behaviour, rather than just a one-off situation.
Teresa - I think if it were a genuine phobia of flying then I wouldn't force someone to fly. My mother never flew and it wasn't such a hardship for the family - there are plenty of holiday destinations within driving/ferry distance. I am all for stretching comfort zones but it's hardly a pleasant holiday for someone who spends the whole time worrying about the journey home again. So I think it comes down to whether we are talking flooding or gradual CZ-stretching.
Catherine
Current Topic - Hypothetical question, opinions please
