Citizen Science- Why Do Clicker Trained Horses Drop?

The guest speaker at Clicker Expo was biopsychologist Susan Schneider, author of The Science of Consequences. In her closing talk, she stressed the opportunity we all have in this day and age to participate in Citizen Science.  Citizen Science is defined by Wikipedia as "scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur or nonprofessional scientists, often by crowd sourcing and crowd funding."

An example Dr. Schneider used is the Christmas Bird Count each year, where volunteers from around the country help do a bird census.  An experienced naturalist, she encouraged participants to observe the world around them and then share their findings with others via blog posts or letters to researchers or universities or any way one can think of to communicate and collaborate.

It occurred to me that an issue which would benefit from this sort of collaboration is that of dropping penises.  Many people find that having a horse going around with his penis dangling is a bit embarrassing.  And yet many male horses being clicker trained do this.  There are many guesses as to the reasons for this occurring, what to do about it and what it implies.

The important word in the previous sentence is "guesses".  They certainly aren't theories, which require a tested, well-substantiated and unifying explanation.  It would even be a stretch to call them hypotheses, since those are educated guesses and these guesses run the gamut on how educated they are.  

Some people warn that a dropping penis indicates Dominance.  The D word  has caused more trouble in animal training than any other I can think of.  I cannot follow the twisted logic that uses dominance to describe each problem every dog, horse or other animal exhibits.  I certainly cannot figure out any reasoned argument where it would apply to this situation.   

Other people think that there is a sexual component to it.  Perhaps the horse is too excited, over threshold, over stimulated by food.  Again, how does this line of reasoning proceed?  Where is the connection between food, excitement and the horse dropping his penis?  If there is a sexual component to it, why do so many the geldings do it?  I agree with those that say some real brain studies would need to be done to make this connection.  

I have also heard that somehow lateral steps initiate this and that race stables use stepping laterally to encourage a horse to urinate for a drug sample.  Others say their clicker trained  horses can do lateral work for a long time while keeping everything tucked away but this same horse will drop while being clicked for going straight.  And where is the connection between stepping laterally and urinating (and they don't always drop to urinate)?  

The time which I am most familiar with geldings dropping is when they are sedated.  They are relaxed, their heads drop, their eyes droop and their penises drop.  I would guess that this is due to loss of muscle tension.  Yet while clicker training can really help a horse relax, it also frequently perks them up and engages their minds.

Here is an interesting series of photos I just grabbed from a 55 second video I took of Alexandra Kurland working with my young horse Percy.  We had traveled to Alex's Clicker Center a year ago, fall.  Percy was very vigilant in his new surroundings- (I wrote several posts about this trip which you can read here if you like).  He looked, he paced, he worked himself into a sweat trotting back and forth, he didn't want to eat, etc.  At one point, Alex did some body work on him.  There was no special modality, just Alex doing what she felt Percy needed- and wow did it work.  As you can see in these photos, he completely relaxed- to the point of head hanging, yawning (photo 2) and finally dropping (photo 3).  There were no drugs involved, there was clicking and treating, he was free to express his opinion of the process, but he was soooo sleepy by the time she was done.  There were no lateral steps, no overstimulation from food and uh, no dominance.  
  

Percy being lulled into nap time by Alexandra Kurland.

I hope it's obvious I have no clue as to the cause of this issue.  But speaking with Alex about it, she brought up a very pertinent point in my opinion.  Lots of geldings who drop get punished for it.  Whether it's on the cross ties, working in hand or anywhere else, I've seen some pretty harsh punishment doled out.  So perhaps it isn't that clicker trained horses drop, but rather that all horses do, and we clicker trainers just don't punish, so the behavior persists, for whatever the antecedent and consequence naturally.

Bringing Citizen Science to this issue would include bringing the subject out of the closet.  We need to replace the embarrassment with curiosity, data collection, and sharing of our experiences and results.   I invite everyone to jump on this project.  I am going to create a table I can fill in quickly and easily when I observe this.  Horse, conditions (on cross ties, work in hand, being groomed?), any antecedents or consequences I can observe (what happened right before the dropping which might have triggered it?  What happened afterward that is reinforcing this?  Did the horse remain dropped or did something trigger him to pull it up again?).  And certainly note any erect component.  This is not as common but certainly does happen.

If anyone knows a graduate student looking for a thesis project, let's send them all our data and encourage them to research this!

One Last (?) Clinic Post

Here are some more photos from the clinic with Alexandra Kurland. One of the other participants sent them to me (thanks Mundi!). In the first two photos, above and directly below, you can see a little of the cone formation which Alex set up for us to use. If you look between the two red cones, you'll see the mat. Ande and I are beginning to turn down the "runway" toward the mat. The runway is formed by the funnel of purple, then yellow, then blue cones, ending at the mat. In the photo above, I am asking Ande for some lateral flexion...not just in his neck but asking him to step up and over as well, although because of the moment this photo was taken, you can't see that bit. The rope is over his neck- I ask and release for this bend; I don't hold it- that's Ande's job.

Then we ask the horse to straighten as we go down the runway (we need to be able to ask for straight as well as bend) toward the mat. In the runway, we practiced asking the horses to take just as many steps as asked for. A horse which has done any significant mat work has learned to love it but we don't want them charging for it without attention to us. So we practiced one step forward, one step back or more, just as long as the horses were attentive to what we were asking. When they showed they were listening and responding carefully, we "released" them to the mat (providing they were mat savvy) and let them go to it. The release was more of a symbolic one, not a physical one. The rope is only over the neck so at no point was the horse physically held back, but emotional control is one of the first things we, as Clicker Trainers, work on. So even though Ande wanted to go to the mat, he kept himself under control and stayed with me. Once I released him to the mat- he went and stood on it, happy and relaxed as in the photo below. And, may I point out, a nice square halt! That sentence should be underlined, in red and with flashing lights. The base of all of Alex's work is a well balanced horse. I did not have to fuss with him to get this halt- it simply happens as a result of the balancing work built in to her exercises. (oh, and the dog in above photo lived at the farm and was doing his job keeping things tidy by cleaning up any dropped hay stretcher pellets!)

The last photo is a fun one. This was Saturday morning (I think?) as we practiced rope handling skills. Alex built a horse out of four of us: each of us functioning as one horse corner. First she led us around the way many horses are led, with no concern for the horse. She went left and right, stopping suddenly and then just as suddenly taking off forward again. We certainly got to feel what horses feel! As I was the right hind, I frequently felt the whiplash effect of the outside hind! You can see by the rather evil grin on Alex's face and the way she is pulling on the rope, this was early on in her demo as she was saying "c'mon horse, get moving, what's the matter with you?!" We are not in step here and I am lagging behind as the caboose of the train!

After letting us experience that, Alex switched to more tactful rope handling and leading skills. It was quite a relief. She led us forward and back, through turns and stops and we became more and more in sync....the balanced horse. In order not to anticipate, but rather just feel, I stopped looking ahead and just looked down and followed the feel of the drill team of the horse. That was when I noticed that all of our feet were in lock step! We had not intentionally done it, but through the calm and smooth movements, we had coordinated ourselves, the way the horse learns to coordinate his own body.

Kizzy learns lateral work

I certainly had no intention of teaching Kizzy lateral work when I took her to the round pen today. It was one of those situations where my training plan worked backwards. I started at one place and kept backing up steps until I finally found a place that we could work from. That isn't the best method to approach these things with but it is eye-opening to see all the layers of training that can be missed if you don't take the time to back up.

Since Kizzy has learned to love targeting cones (and even went so far as to start smacking one around the other day!), I thought my next step would be to teach her to go between a set of cones. My purpose is to use this to give her a gateway of cones to go through, between which I could then place ground poles or small jumps for kids. It is challenging enough for kids to worry about position and pace without having to steer as well. Since Kizzy has no jumping background, she isn't a "point and shoot" pony who will figure out which general direction she's pointed at and find the jump for the child.

So I picked out some very different-looking cones so she could learn which to target and which to go through- these are smaller, white, flimsy and not solid whereas her targeting cones are the big road construction type cones. I also used two sets of "Bloks"...the plastic blocks that can be set at different heights and used to make little jumps. That way, they will transition perfectly to their jumping purpose. So with those 3 pairs of "gates" set evenly around the round pen, I started out leading her around and would Click/Treat every time we went through a pair. I am trying to be careful to get behaviors more solid before progressing with them so I made myself count out 10 repetitions of this behavior- 5 in one direction and then 5 in another. I found a huge discrepancy between the two directions. To the left, with me leading her on the traditional side, she marched right along eagerly and even quickened a tad as we approached the gate. But to the right, when I was leading from her right, she lagged behind me and would always try to go around behind me either when I clicked or after I treated. So I changed my criteria to doing 10 full repetitions to the right alone. By the tenth, she was staying more consistently next to me but still with nowhere near the enthusiasm she had to the left.

My next step was to lay the leadrope over her neck and walk to the inside of the inside cone while she walked between the cones. I want to progess to my standing in the middle of the round pen and sending her around on her own. Yes, I could just chase her around with the longe whip, but that would not have showed me all that going through these steps did and I think I am going to have a much happier and more cooperative pony in the end this way. Again, to the left, she seemed to pick that up pretty well, but she had a tendency to drift toward me so she wasn't in the center of the gate. I needed a way to send her away from me. I tried the same cue I had used to send her to target a cone....but that made her go to one of the cones or bloks and touch it with her nose. Well, that was good I guess, that she figured out that cue so well! But I was going to need something different here. So I thought of the longe whip. My traditional training has taught me how to send a horse out on a longe line, so that's what I decided to try next.

I let Kizzy loose in the round pen while I went to get a whip and do some thinking. What I was remembering was how Kizzy behaves while I longe her with kids on her. She does this a lot and is still happiest the closer she is to me. When I try to point the whip at her shoulder to push her out, she gets VERY cranky, pins her ears and swings her head at me. I realized I have never taught her to move away from a whip, I have just used the threat of a whip to send her out. Not that I really meant to threaten her with it....but when you wave a whip at somebody to make them go away...well that's what you are doing! And what I got in return was Kizzy's defensive behavior. I'll refrain from commenting on why that wouldn't be a good form of longeing in any situation but it certainly wasn't ideal for trying to teach kids on her back.

So I decided to use the same method I had used with Percy- if an 8 mo old weanling can do it, a teenaged pony should be able to! So I restocked my treat pouch, and took my lashless longe whip back to Kizzy. It only took me a trial or two to abandon the whip entirely and realize I had started (and in fact so far only used) my finger with Percy. Kizzy's pretty reactive and she wanted to move when I touched her shoulder. I clicked for that once or twice, just to tell her that moving was what I wanted (as opposed to a situation where I wanted her to stand still while I groomed or handled a wound). But then I withheld the click and lightly held the lead so she couldn't go forward. I didn't put any pressure on the lead, just held it so that if she tried to go forward, she would hit it and be stopped. She stepped forward and back a couple times before I saw a step that I could see was at least fractionally to the right and I clicked that. I tried again and once again we got a forward-backward try first, but then a distinct step to the right- away from my hand. I clicked and made a big fuss over her. That was all it took- she now knew that she needed to step away from the pressure (very light) of my finger on her shoulder. I was able to pretty quickly focus on her outside front leg as the clickable moment and within minutes, she was offering that as the first step and got lots of repetitions of that and lots of treats as well as verbal praise. I think that is important with her because of her worried temperament. She really responds to the kids and moms who fuss over her in a soothing manner :)

That quickly evolved into letting her walk forward, applying my finger and voila! beautiful lateral steps! We only did that about three times but I was sure she had it and so she got a huge handful of all the hay stretcher pellets left in my pouch as well as some carrot pieces I had. What a difference it will make if she will willingly move away from me pointing the whip at her shoulder instead of feeling threatened and forced to. Now if only I had started the day's session there :)

Ande at almost 3

Ande is the last one to be introduced and he has the biggest goal for the year! Ande will be three years old on May 23rd and so this year he becomes a riding horse. He has had lots of work in hand since birth, and late last year I introduced him to long lining. Late this winter I have been able to do a little more long lining with him and I've been thrilled at how much he has remembered and how brave he is. Last fall I also sat on him with the help of a friend at his head. This friend has done a lot more clicker training than I have so she made sure I took baby steps all the way and clicked and treated him as we went. He was great about it. A week or so later, I got on him again by myself- she had led me a couple steps on him but I did not try to do that on my own. At this point, he has no idea what leg aids mean.

One of my projects while I long line him has been to get him consistent on a voice cue for walk from a halt so that I have a way to get him to walk forward once I am on him and can then transition him over to leg aids. Normally I would use a "cluck" to get him to go forward but my history has taught me how to escalate the clucking too easily and that leads to my losing my patience. So instead I am using a kissing noise. I have used that to get his attention and to get him to come to me and it is a sound he likes and associates with paying attention and moving. So that is what I have used while long lining him. I try to click and reward frequently when he responds quickly to it, which of course means that he stops to get his treat...but that is a good excuse to practice it again!

I am also trying to fine tune some of the "Why Would You Leave Me?" (WWYLM) game that we have been doing for a while. This is how flexions are introduced on the ground and lead to lateral movement on the ground. I am very excited to get on a horse for the first time who already knows how to flex and move laterally...the babies I've ridden before have certainly not had those basics! It is challenging right now to find an area of ground the size of a decent circle that is not icy or muddy to practice this in. But on these nice warm days, we'll deal with the footing!