19/05/2024
Let’s talk about positive reinforcement (clicker training) misconceptions:
Almost weekly I run into misconceptions about positive reinforcement training. A lot of these questions or misconceptions are just genuine misinformation/lack of understanding. Especially with horses this kind of training can feel extremely foreign and a lot of information can be biased. So, let’s start with these 6 misconceptions:
“My horse will get fat using food rewards.”
Food rewards are extremely common with every other species during training. Including most zoo animals. From a dietary perspective, one could argue that using food rewards with horses makes more sense than most other animals as horses should be spending 16-18 hours a day eating. Providing food as a primary reinforcer for horses is a lot easier. Some horses will even work low-value reinforcement such as hay, celery, or pellets.
“My horse will get pushy/dangerous if given food rewards.”
This misconception is probably the most common one I run into. And to be fair I’ve seen the aftermath of poor training with food rewards that results in “pushy” horses. "Pushy" is in quotations because these horses have been reinforced and given food at some point or another for being "pushy" or “muggy”. Food is not normally the issue, the training is. Proper positive reinforcement takes the guesswork out of food rewards and limits the withholding of food. In fact, one could argue that traditional training is much more dangerous due to the fact you need to use fear and punishment.
“The horse only works for the food and not for you.”
Horses are not altruistic. They are not selfless, self-sacrificing, or noble. Those are anthropomorphic concepts. There are always motivations behind their behaviours. With positive reinforcement, the motivation is the addition of something the horse finds appetitive to increase a behaviour. With traditional horsemanship, the motivation is the removal of something the horse finds aversive, pressure, to increase a behaviour. In both instances, there is motivation behind the behaviour.
“A clicker needs to be used.”
“Clickers” were introduced in the early 1990s by Karen Pryor and Gary Wilkes when they began to give positive reinforcement seminars to dog owners using box clickers. A clicker is used as a bridge signal. With negative reinforcement the release of pressure is immediate, with positive reinforcement there is usually a delay between the behaviour and the delivery of the reward. This bridge signal “bridges” the gap in time between the behaviour and the reward. Bridge signals gain their power through classical conditioning.
Let’s say you want to reward your horse for picking up their feet. You walk over, ask your horse to pick their foot up, you put the foot down and then deliver the food reward. From the horse’s perspective, you’re rewarding the last behaviour, which was putting the foot down, not picking it up. With a marker, you can mark the moment of picking up the hoof, so the horse is aware of what is being rewarded.
There are many different types of bridge signals ranging from auditory to visual.
“Positive reinforcement is just bribery.”
Bribery occurs before a behaviour happens. Bribery doesn’t typically change a behaviour over time; it just changes it in the moment. Positive reinforcement happens after the behaviour leaves a lasting positive change.
“Clicker training is only used for tricks.”
Clicker training can be used to teach numerous behaviours. For example:
• Picking up feet
• Ground Tying
• Leading
• Collection
• Receiving injections
• Taking medications
• Lining up to be mounted
• Being ridden
Just like traditional horse training, the use of positive reinforcement is a skill. The majority of the time the result of the training looks the same, but what’s different is how the behaviour is trained. For example: with traditional horsemanship to get a horse to move backward you would apply pressure either on the halter, the bridle, the chest, with a whip or even with your body and (hopefully) remove the pressure once the horse moves backward. With positive reinforcement, you could use a target for your horse to follow backwards. While taught differently, the result is still the exact same: the backup!
The more conversations we can have about positive reinforcement and science-based training, the better off our horses will be. For those of us who train with positive reinforcement, the more transparent and nonjudgmental we can be, the better. We should provide clarity and direction to those who have questions, in hopes that more people begin to see positive reinforcement training as an option.
