Contemporary Horsemanship Podcast

Clicker training requires a marker signal. This marker is usually a click from a handheld clicker or a tongue click. The marker signal tells the horse that what he is doing right now is what you wanted and he will be getting reinforcement soon. The signal creates a bridge between the behavior and reinforcement. It can be very hard to feed at the exact right moment when the behavior you want is happening and that is where the marker signal comes into play. I’ll talk about how to pick out a good marker signal for your horse and how to start clicker training with a fearful horse.

My mustang Atlas recently injured his eye which required me to put two different medications in it four times a day. I used clicker training to get him to cooperate during this process. I discuss how I did this with him at liberty and what I learned from this experience.

Training horses with positive reinforcement is different than training using traditional training methods. There is a lot more attention to detail, planning, and arranging the environment. These are all little but important things that will make you more successful in your training. I’ll talk about these small things that I didn’t realize were so important when I started training with R+.

I see people releasing a pressure cue before they are getting the behavior they want happen often and in many different forms. For example, picking up on the reins and asking the horse to stop. The horse ignores the cue and keeps going. The rider thinks he’s done something wrong or let’s go of the pressure on the reins for another reason. The horse has inadvertently been given a release of pressure which tells him that this was the correct answer. The horse then continues to ignore rein cues to stop. This miscommunication can grow quickly in to a frustrated and confused horse and rider. I explain why this happens, how to spot a miscommunication and what to do to make your cues more clear to the horse.

I wanted to do a revised version of my old episode on leading. I am always learning and adding new stuff to my training program and getting rid of old techniques or beliefs as I grow. I have definitely found what I consider to be the best way to teach a horse to lead and that is with a target. I’ll also talk about how to fix some common leading issues and why they happen in the first place.

There can be a lot of confusion about cues for both people and horses. Sometimes horses don’t respond to the cues we give them, sometimes horses do a behavior without a cue, and when the context changes (when you are in a new or different environment) the behavior can seem to fall apart. I’m covering what a cue is, how to train one, issues with cueing and what stimulus control is.

We can easily get wrapped up in why we want to show our horses. We can often forget how horse shows and other events feel like to the horse. Horse shows are filled with scary things that can cause a horse to be very stressed. I’ll talk about some important things that we should take into consideration and prep for while taking a horse somewhere new.

Shaping is done when using both negative and positive reinforcement. It is more often associated with positive reinforcement though. Shaping is when you reinforce small steps toward the behavior that you ultimately want. By reinforcing behavior that is close to what you want, the horse keeps trying and will be less frustrated.

I want people to have realistic expectations with horses. Everyone loses when a horse is promised to be bombproof and will never spook. I’m going to talk about why I think this is so dangerous and give some tips on what to really expect from a horse, bombproof or not.

We all get burn out and just need a break sometimes. There is a culture in the horse world that you must work with or ride your horse all the time, no matter how you or your horse feels. But instead of working just to get something done, there are lots of other things we can do while still getting a mental and physical break from working with horses. I’ll cover some of those options and why they are beneficial.

Start buttons are a tool used in clicker training where the animal performs one before to let the handler know he is ready for another behavior. I have found start buttons to be very helpful in horse training. I’ll cover what start buttons are and how to use them.

Once the horse is ok with crossing and standing on a tarp, then you can start training the next two behaviors. I’ll explain the process of teaching a horse to be ok with having the tarp over his back and how to teach him to drag a tarp from the beginning.

The usual ways of training a horse to cross a tarp include chasing, pulling, and pressuring the horse until he does it. By forcing a horse to cross in this way you can very easily make going near the tarp a source of pain and fear, making your goal even harder. By using positive reinforcement the horse will be more willing to cross the tarp and will do so faster and easier than any other form of training.

All horses spook at some point. I’ll give you some tips on how to help your horse when he is afraid. Keeping the horse under threshold and slowly building their confidence is key.

Whips are a highly debated topic in the horse world. Much of the debate comes from tradition or opinion and not from science. I’m going to talk about the science behind how a whip functions in horse training. I’ll also cover some of the side effects that can happen when the whip is used improperly.

There is a lot of myths around why a horse licks and chews. The behavior is often explained as a horse showing that it is relaxed. Licking and chewing is actually a calming signal. I’ll explain what a calming signal is and how they function.

I’m explaining the science behind ‘relationship training’ or getting a horse’s focus to get them to relax. Then I’ll talk about the different types of clinics and how they effect horses. Finally I’ll give my thoughts on the movie Buck.

I use protected contact quite a bit in my training, especially for horses who are fearful or display potentially dangerous behaviors. By using protected contact I can still train the behaviors I want, while we both can have the space we need to feel safe. Once the behavior is trained I can then progress to free contact.

Most people overlook this critical piece of training with their horses. How the horse takes the treat and when are extremely important as this information tells the horse what behaviors are being reinforced. I’ll go into detail on how to teach a horse to take a treat properly and when to give the food.

This week I want to cover some common misconceptions about clicker training, also known as positive reinforcement.

There are many misconceptions out there on how natural horsemanship, R- or pressure works. I want to clear up some of those ideas and explain what is actually happening when using those types of training.

I thought I’d do a quick episode about my horses. I talk about them sometimes in training episodes but never really gave details about them. They are very important to me and are the reason I’ve learned so much in the last few years. Later I’ll do an update on them in the future about where they are in their training.

I’m talking about more human examples on how we learn through classical conditioning. But I want to connect these examples to the horse world so we can see how easily connections can be made in the horse’s mind and how classical conditioning is always working whether we notice it or not.

I share my opinions on how we can make three day eventing safer for horses and riders.

I recently saw a video showing some of the reasons why a race horse had the best care. I definitely disagreed with these reasons as horses don’t care about most of them. People tend to anthropomorphize with our horses. We need to instead look at what is really important for a horse from his point of view. I talk about the 5 freedoms and what horses truly need.

I’ll go over the steps on how to teach a horse to do a spin on the ground. This is an easy trick, that my horses enjoy doing. I explain how to teach it using R+ or R-.

I’m discussing the different types and kinds of fly masks. I also talk about the process of training a horse to wear a fly mask.

I watched the most recent horse starting competition recently and wanted to share my thoughts on the event. I’m going to discuss the competition its self and the training procedures used by the different trainers.

If you are considering getting a mustang either wild or trained there are few important things you should know first. I have gained so much from my experience with my mustangs. I want others who are interested and their horses to have good experiences and stay safe too.

Having a horse that has more energy or gets spooky durning cooler weather is pretty common. It can also be very frustrating. I’ll discuss some reasons why this happens and how to deal with it.

There are many unwanted behaviors that can occur as consequences of using aversives in training. Escape, Avoidance, Learned Helplessness, Coercion, and Aggression are some common issues that can happen. I’m going to give an overview on what these side effects are and how to avoid them.

In this episode, I’ll talk about the punishment side of the learning quadrants. Unlike reinforcement, punishment is effective when it decreases or stops a behavior. Lots of people use punishment effectively or ineffectively without knowing it. I’ll discuss what punishment is and the details of negative punishment versus positive punishment.

There are four learning quadrants. They are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. I’m going to stick with the reinforcement side for this episode. It is common for people to get confused on what positive and negative reinforcement is and the terms are used in the wrong way a lot. I want to clear up what each of these are and how they effect us and our horses in training.

Operant conditioning is the kind of conditioning that you will see most often during training and it is more obvious than classical conditioning. Operant conditioning is when an animal operates on its environment to get what it wants or avoid what it does not like. Operant conditioning is happening all the time whether using R+ or R- training methods.

Classical conditioning is happening all the time, for better or for worse. It is essentially learning by association. This can work in a negative way such as when you hear a bee buzzing right before you get stung. Now you associate buzzing with being stung. Or classical conditioning can work in a positive way. You hear the song of an ice cream truck and want to go toward it and get a treat. I’ll talk about how classical conditioning is training our horses and how you can use it to your benefit.

I’ll talk about what desensitization and habituation are and how they differ. Most importantly I’ll cover how they affect the horse during training. What we are usually doing and calling desensitization is actually not and is more flooding/ habituation. I’ll clear up what these terms mean and what’s best for the horse.

I’ll talk about the role sensitization plays in training horses. I’ll also cover what unconditional and conditional reflexes are. These topics are the beginning of training a horse to respond to different cues, either with R+ or R-.

I want to do a series on the science behind horse training and behavior. First I want to talk about reflexes. Why they are important to clicker training and why normal reactions in horses can cause us so much frustration.

I want to talk about common reasons why horses kick and some ways that we can help to change that behavior.

I wanted to do another book review, this time on Ray Hunt’s book Think Harmony With Horses. It had some good ideas, but overall I preferred Mark Rashid’s book Horses Never Lie. Mark has very similar ideas but explained them in more detail.

I’ll go over the process of how I train a horse to get vaccines and how to give them.

I recently read one of Mark Rashid’s books Horses Never Lie. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot, so I wanted to share what I though about it in a little review.

The reason that horses have problem behaviors is because they are either afraid or uncomfortable. When a horse feels like this they often default to using flight or fight behaviors, which almost all are what we consider problems. If the horse learns that a behavior, like biting, works to get the human to stop doing what is making them uncomfortable it then becomes a learned behavior. We need to find the cause of why the horse feels uncomfortable or afraid to truly solve behavior issues.

You never know when a horse will need eye drops or ointment. I like to prepare them for this by doing desensitizing and targeting so that they will be comfortable when I need to handle the eyes. I’ll cover why horses become afraid when you hold them for these procedures and how to train a horse to stand quietly for them.

Lots of horses get worried when they have to be near the clippers. I will walk you through the process that I use to get a horse comfortable being clipped.

Lots of things that have been happening in the horse world recently have really disappointed me and made me think of how we can change the industry for the better. I go into my story with horses and how I have grown throughout the years in my training. Hopefully this will open some minds when seeing or trying out new methods of working with horses.

This is a very quick episode talking about why horses chew wood and what you can do about it.

I just wanted to discuss some of the recent events that happened at this year’s derby. I’ll also talk a little about other horse sports and racing in general. These are just my opinions on racing. The overall ideas I hope to share are how to make the world better and safer for horses.

In part 2 I’ll be talking about feeding, environment, and exercise and how they effect the horse’s behavior. I’m also going to cover some red flags to look out for when buying and selling.