The Popularity of Positive Reinforcement

Clicker Training and Positive Reinforcement methods are in an interesting place right now and I have to be honest and say it's a little scary. Its successes are attracting attention and getting press. There has been a 2 series article in "Practical Horseman" magazine recently as well as mention of it in a feature article on the jumper stallion Judgment in "The Chronicle of the Horse". So it's getting out there to the masses which is a good thing.

But along with the popularity comes a lot of misunderstanding and that's what worries me. People try to simplify it into an easy recipe: "just reward your horse when he does something right". Yeah, well, sorta. Or they think pressure and release is positive reinforcement (it's not- it's negative reinforcement). Or they feed their horses sugar cubes, thinking they are doing some good when their timing is such that if the horse learns anything from it, it's not what the people intended. Or they refuse to "bribe" their horses with food (clicker training is not bribery).

When it comes to teaching other humans, people fall into the trap of mindless praise. They think positive reinforcement means not screaming at students, but instead gushing over them and telling them "good job" every time they cross the street without falling down. That just creates "praise junkies"- people who can't function without begin told how wonderful they are all the time, and that is pretty damaging to kids. In the world of TAGteach, we use positive reinforcement along with an acoustical marker and other specific techniques. TAG teachers are certified after training and hours of documented and approved practice.

My current feeling is that to understand Clicker Training and positive reinforcement, you really have to have a basic understanding of Operant Conditioning. But some people just glaze over when you try to explain that. They don't want the gory details. They just want the magic that is in the little clicker box and well, sorry, no magic involved.

The whole thing makes me occasionally want to bang my head against a wall because the very notion of positive reinforcement does not allow me to shake these people and scream "You don't get it!". My biggest fear is for all those who try this watered down, incorrect and/or misunderstood version and walk away from it because it didn't "work". It works. But you have to do more than scratch the surface. And for those who do, we are rewarded with some of the most amazing eye-opening experiences and relationships you could ask for.

So I shall try to refrain from banging my head and shaking people. Instead I will remember the tenet of "babysteps". I will try to teach one person at a time, in a way that they find reinforcing and hopefully thereby help one horse at a time. And I will be so appreciative of those who are willing to educate themselves rather than look for someone to hand them a magic potion which will ensure rapid success.

Another thought on shut down

As I was mucking stalls this morning, I was thinking about horses in my past and the many horses you see in the stabling area of competitions who are rock steady in their manners on the ground. They will stand while they are groomed, wrapped, braided, etc, frequently without even being tied. But for many of these horses, it's because they have learned it's better to do nothing until told to do something. So they stand still unless they are pulled (rope) or pushed (shoved over). Rather than being taught TO stand, they have been taught NOT to move. There is a difference.

The first difference is the way that it is taught- with reinforcement or with punishment. Clicker training horses to stand still is done with reinforcement- stand still and you get a treat, now stand still longer and get another treat, etc. They learn self control leads to rewards. They learn good things happen if they stand still. Horses who are taught NOT to move are usually taught with punishment. If they move, they get yelled at, slapped, shanked, yelled at some more, etc. Pretty soon they are afraid to move because if they do, something bad will happen...that's fear.

The second difference is what will make these horses move and what happens when they do move for some reason. The horse who has been taught not to move by using punishment will stand until he becomes more afraid of something else than he is of the punishment. It may be a door banging, a dog barking down the aisle, a loose horse outside, kids running and screaming etc. The same things might cause a positively reinforced horse to startle but it is more likely that his frame of mind is calmer. And if he does startle, the response will be different. Rather than over-riding fear, he has been conditioned to think about the good things that will happen if he stands. So rather than spooking and then taking off for fear of the retribution, he will spook and then think, "oops, if I stand or go back to my person, good things will happen". A horse standing out of fear may be on edge on a windy day because he is nervous but is afraid to move for fear of punishment so the tension builds and builds in his body until he busts out with some nervous energy or becomes so afraid that he decides it's better to leave town than stay put. A horse standing from being rewarded will have a calmer, happier frame of mind and will be conditioned to calm himself in order to get rewarded. In addition, his person will most likely see his nervousness and begin reinforcing him more for standing as well as asking him to do relaxing things like dropping his head which is a conditioned activity for calming. That horse will feel safest with his person, doing what he knows will be reinforced. The other horse may very well decide that he needs to take matters into his own hands since his handler is scary and so is the banging door.

In the end, I'd rather have the reinforced horse under me when riding than the punished horse. I feel safer on a horse who looks to me for help in calming down than the one who may decide that truck coming down the road is scarier than the thought of any punishment I would dole out, especially if he dumps me just to avoid both options.

Loopy Training

Alexandra Kurland presented us with a new term this year- loopy training. Katie Bartlett does a wonderful job (as always) in explaining it at her website www.equineclickertraining.com To really get a good idea of what loopy training is, you should read her description but to put it very simply, (and looking through my understanding) it's looking at the flow of your and your horse's actions when you ask for a specific behavior. A very simple example is asking your horse to target something. The loop begins when you give the cue (hold out the target), continues as your horse touches the target, then you reward and the loop is complete when you ask for the behavior again. You can then go into another loop (either the same behavior or another one). The significance of this is how "clean" your loops are. A clean loop is one that does not contain any other other behaviors than the one you ask for. So this would require that your horse promptly touch the target when it's presented, that you click and deliver the reward promptly, that the horse have established manners for collecting his reward and at the end you are in a place where you can ask for the behavior again. A cluttered loop could include the horse being distracted by something when you hold out the target so that he doesn't immediately target it, could include you fumbling for the treat in your pocket, could include the horse being rude by reaching or stepping into your space for the treat, etc. You want clean loops for clarity of training. All that other stuff in the loop gets built into the final behavior if we, as trainers, don't clean it up.

To project this into the riding sphere, you could examine your canter transition. A clean loop would begin with your aids for the canter and would be followed by the horse jumping promptly into a balanced canter, followed by a reward (whether it is a click and treat, a kind word or scratch, or in the case of negative reinforcement, simply the prompt removal of the aids) all finishing with the horse being ready for the next request. A cluttered loop could include unclear or incorrect use of aids, aids timed incorrectly, uncoordinated use of aids including excess movement of the rider, all of which could result in a horse who may not take the aid, might rush into the canter, might show unhappy signs such as tail wringing or ear pinning, might not transition into a balanced canter and/or might canter off but would not be immediately able or willing to accept the next aids from the rider.

It's been fascinating for me to observe my own training in this context. I have been trying to clear up a lot of sloppy handling on my part. Clicker training has certainly made me aware of how I was always "shouting" at horses, not literally, but with my aids, and how unnecessary that is. Considering that my yearling, Percy, will walk alongside me, without halter or lead, politely and at an acceptable distance, and he will halt, trot or step laterally when I do the same, I really have no need for shouting of any kind. He does this as I walk through his paddock to get to the barn and I do not click or treat for any of it unless he does something fantastic...it's just the way we proceed from fence to barn these days. But it does mean that I am very careful of my thoughts and movements as he accompanies me. If my mind is elsewhere, my body is not projecting what I want from him. I may be hurrying to get chores done....and he reflects that back by hurrying and perhaps getting a little wound up. So the loop when I enter his paddock has become: duck under the fence, slowly stand upright because he is right there hovering, plant the expected kiss upon his muzzle as he sniffs my face (bad, bad horse trainer), step off toward the barn quietly but with intention and proceed with him at my side. There are many bits of this loop and all have been built individually before being added together, but now I simply have to keep myself attentive so that this loop stays clean- distractions pop up and that is all part of the training process. I need to make sure that I respond in a way that does not reinforce unwanted bits.

To go back to my recent Ear Obsession post, Ande putting his ears back was a piece of clutter that was built into several loops. I wrote about how I used going toward grass as a reward for him keeping his attention on me and with ears relaxed. I also intentionally built some loops once we got to the grass. When we first got to the field, I would let him graze until he was a little less frantic- initially tearing off hunks of grass and then settling into a grazing rhythm. I wanted to set us up for success. Then I would ask him to lift his head for a moment by just putting a little pressure on the lead. As soon as he did, I said "graze" and immediately let him go back to eating. I let him graze for another minute or two, then repeated but asked him to hold his head up for just a second or two. If he tried to put his head down, I simply anchored my hand to my hip so he couldn't. When he was still for a second or two, then I said "graze" and bent slightly at the waist to invite him back to the grass. It was amazing how quickly he picked up the graze cue. The cue "graze" became a reinforcer. I was not clicking because he would have looked to me for a treat- I wanted the action of grazing itself to be the reward.

At this point the loop was- cue for head up, he lifts his head promptly from a light rope cue, waits quietly, I give the cue "graze" and he puts his head back down and is ready for me to ask again. I began to lengthen my loop, adding in a couple walk steps: rope cue to lift head, cue to walk off, walk a step or two, say "graze" and let him go back to eating. What we were practicing was his response to my request for attention even when he is engrossed in heavenly deep fall grass, his willingness to leave the grass, and his waiting for a cue from me before diving for the grass, rather than just pulling for it all the time. Over the weeks of November when we were so lucky to have such nice weather this year, we continued with this exercise a couple times a week and built in walking down the road. He was allowed to graze for a bit, then I asked him to leave the grass, walk down the road with me a ways (slowly building up distance so that I returned to the grass BEFORE he showed any nervousness...I did not want to turn around and reward him for showing signs of anxiety) and then we'd return to the grass but he could only graze when he heard the cue. I'm glad I did that in November because as of this week, this is what that field looks like now!

Ear Obsession

I'm becoming really obsessed by the position of horses' ears. I do not like seeing horses with their ears back when they are worked, whether in hand or under saddle because to me it signifies unhappiness. But the more I watch horses, the more I wonder about it all. For instance when you watch horses in the circus or Lipizzaners, they have their ears back. Perhaps it's the way they have been trained- I always assumed whips and things would bring out an angry attitude. But watch horses gallop in the pasture and they have their ears back- even if they are free and alone. Is it sometimes a sign of concentration? Is that why so many clicker trained horses frequently have their ears back while being worked in hand? Certainly sometimes it is handler error, but it has been interesting to think about and study. Here is a photo of Ande just after I have asked him for a trot transition on the longe. I have been clicking him for a prompt little bounce into the trot, rather than shuffling into it. That seems to take more effort- and the ears went back:

Ande is the one with which I have the most difficulty with his ears and I've written about it before. He is much better than he used to be and I have learned a lot from working with him on it. One of the most important things I finally figured out was how many times he was pinning his ears at the other horses outside the round pen. I figured this out by clicking him for duration with an ear up. I started by just waiting for him to put one ear up at a standstill and clicking that. I did not go for two ears, because my understanding is that a horse puts two ears up when he is using his binocular vision as opposed to his monocular vision. So as long as his two eyes are focused on two different things (which we as humans can't do), then his ears are pointed different ways as well. But when something is so interesting- either appealing like a bucket of grain rattling or scary like something in the bushes, then he focuses both eyes on that spot and both ears go up. I was not interested in creating a picture-pretty pose, although you can see from these photos that he is much cuter when his ears are up! I was interested in assessing his attitude. I think when he was younger, I unknowingly reinforced him for putting his ears back by not paying attention to what his ears were doing when I worked with him a lot. That's why I've put so much energy into trying to untrain that now. My concern was that he was feeling grumpy at one point, put his ears back, got reinforced, and it told him, "ah, if I threaten her, then she'll click and treat me". But really, there was absolutely no other aspect of his behavior that felt threatening to me. He never tried to bite, was very polite when taking treats, and as a matter of fact, when he hears the click, his ears swivel forward in anticipation. I would think if he was threatening, he would keep the ears back to tell me to hurry up and feed him. Not so. Here you can see his attitude as I coil up the longe line- curious and polite:

So back to the other horses- as we worked on duration when walking forward, I found there were certain sections of the round pen where he would happily leave his one ear forward for 10 or more steps, but we had trouble getting beyond that...and that he had a hard time putting his ear up if we were in other parts of the pen. That is when I noticed that it was when we were across from other horses that he put his ears back, and in the parts of the pen when there was just open field beyond, he was happy to keep an ear up. So now I think he was in fact threatening the other horses, telling them, "this is my time and she's my person right now- you guys stay away!" So that was actually a good thing- he wanted to be working with me.

Another technique I used with him was the Premack principle which states that more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors. Rather than clicking him for ears up, I used another behavior he wanted to do as reinforcement. In this instance, I had wonderful fall weather and hayfields which were open and done producing for the season so I was allowed to hand graze in them. I took Ande out there once or twice until he knew where we were headed when I took him out and he was anxious to get to the field. The grass in the horse paddocks was long gone so he hadn't had grass in a while and it was very exciting! My method was to stand with him until his ears (or at least one) went up, and then allow him to walk forward...toward the grass. If his ears went back, then I stopped (a little negative punishment there). As soon as his ears went up, then we walked forward again. He learned that he had to have a pleasant expression in order to be allowed to proceed toward the grass.

At this point, I was also careful to observe his overall attitude as well as his ears. Last winter I made the mistake of clicking him for ears up when something in the distance attracted his attention. My thought was that I didn't care what caused it, I wanted to give him the idea that his ears should be up. The problem was that this reinforced him for looking off in the distance rather than paying attention to me, which I think exacerbated the bolting problem I was having at the time....look away, find something scary to focus on, then take off for the barn. Not good. So with the grass, I actually preferred only one ear up and attention on me. It was pretty funny the first time because he tried all sorts of things and finally looked at me as if to say, "what the heck do you WANT?" and that's when I let him go forward. So it quite nicely evolved into a process where when he wanted something- to go to the grass- he would look to me- perfect. I want a horse checking in with me mentally to see what comes next and if he wants something, to look to me for help getting it rather than thinking about getting away from me to get what he wants.

As a result of all this, I have become much more in tune with the attitudes I am working with. I pay attention to lots of other signs besides ears: eyes, expression, breathing, etc. It helps me know whether they are tense and "being good" in order to get a treat, or if they are truly relaxed and attentive. Thanks to Lindsey for her recent question on my first ears post which inspired me to revisit this!

And here is the little Ande man, ears up and getting rewarded for it! If anybody knows a small adult or capable child looking for a nice coming 4 year old pony.....

Shut Down

I have said before that I consider Stowaway to be "shut down". There is a technical term, Learned Helplessness, which is defined by Wikipedia (not a scientific definition but a layman one!) as an animal who has "learned to behave helplessly, even when the opportunity is restored for it to help itself by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance to which it has been subjected." This condition was found in a very nasty set of experiments with dogs, harnesses and electric shocks. If you google Learned Helplessness, you'll be able to read about it (it is also connected to depression in humans). I hesitate to use that term as it denotes very extreme examples (an animal who will stand still while being shocked), but I believe a lot of our horses, as well as other animals, have learned similar, if less severe, lessons.

Many visitors assume that Stowaway is an old pony- he stands quietly, does not approach or pester people, has to be dragged places by his halter or bridle, needs a lot of leg to get him moving under saddle and when he does move, it's pretty slow. All this is exactly why I bought him as a lesson pony. He is "safe" for children. But in fact, Stow is the youngest of the lesson horses. One could say that his quiet demeanor is his temperament or that he was just blessed with this perfect personality to be a lesson horse. But Clicker Training invites the horse into the learning process. It requires him to offer behavior, not just react when forced. Clicker trained horses learn that they can make good things happen. Watching Stowaway respond to his initial targeting lessons showed me that he really did not believe he could make good things happen...that he had learned to do nothing unless forced to. While the young horses catch on to CT rapidly, Stow took a long, long time to figure out that HE could reach out and touch the target and get rewarded for it. I spent a lot of time doing that with him and he still can't quite believe it when I introduce a new behavior.

Unfortunately, it is usually the shut down horses that we label as "well behaved". They do what they are told and nothing else. Horses learn this defense mechanism at an early age when they get their first lesson in being tied. Although horsepeople are currently warned against tying foals in the first weeks for fear of injuring their necks, it is still common practice that once this danger period is over, you tie the foal with a good strong halter, rope and ring and let him fight until he learns he can't get away. He may scramble, thrash, and fall in the process but with strong enough equipment, he does not get free and so learns....he is helpless. With enough repetitions, he gives up trying. So put yourself in those shoes...or that of a dog with a collar around his neck tied to something with a cable. You have no hands to free yourself and you are quite literally trapped. The animal gives up trying. All too frequently this is seen as a good thing. Think of the term "breaking" a horse...going back to breaking a horse's spirit.

A popular current practice, deemed "kind" in many circles, is that of round penning young horses. There are as many ways to round pen a horse as there are horsemen and there are certainly many popular so-called Natural Horsemanship techniques. My objection to most (not necessarily all) of these is that the horse is basically chased until he is so frightened or exhausted that he struggles to figure out a way to make it stop. Horses that try to jump out or fight back are deemed "dangerous". There is no doubt in my mind that these trainers have good eye, good horse sense, boatloads of experience and a method that works. But I do not agree that these are kind techniques and certainly not that they build trust. If someone chased you around a room from which you could not escape until you were so tired or frightened that you showed submission and complied with their requests, would that be because you had learned to trust them? Certainly not. You might learn afterward to trust them, if they fed you and treated you kindly. But the basis of your relationship would still be one of fear...indicated by a warning with a raised whip, whether you call it a stick or a whip or a magic whatsit.

The alternative as I see it is to give horses real choices. You can say that they have a choice to be chased around a pen or to turn in and approach the person in the middle, but I say that's not much of a choice. I'd rather give a horse the choice to approach me or to avoid me, with no negative consequences for either choice. If they approach me, good things happen; if they don't, nothing happens, so they choose good things over nothing. I would define examples of good things as Primary Reinforcers: food being an easy one to offer.

So rather than tying a young foal and letting him struggle until he gives up, I don't put him in a position where he feels panicked enough to struggle. I can put a tiny amount of pressure (which is a dicey word to use when a LOT of pressure is frequently used) on a foal's halter. If he backs up, I do not increase the pressure, but I maintain that tiny bit. It's not enough to cause pain or panic, just enough so that he is inclined to try to lessen it...the same you would put holding someone's hand to ask them to come with you. If he is in a stall, he may quietly back to a wall and if the light pressure remains, he may then step forward. THAT is when you release the pressure. The foal then learns that approaching someone increases his comfort. If he is also offered food (and yes, young foals quickly learn to like grain or hay stretcher pellets), that is even more enticement to approach a person. Once you have him coming to you on a tiny amount of pressure on his lead, you can add the click which makes the gigantic transformation into immediate information to the horse "YES!".

Long after he is comfortable with this, you can begin tying. Tying him for the first time can be done by simply running the rope through a ring on the wall and gently holding the far end of it so that you can release it slowly while maintaining that tiny pressure if he should back up. I make sure the sound of the rope running back and forth through the ring isn't scary before I ever do this. Then I apply that tiny pressure to the rope and this time, the foal needs to figure out that he still is better off yielding to the pressure even though he isn't necessarily approaching me. I take it in tiny baby steps as always, but am careful that he understands that sometimes the pressure will take him away from me, not always to me. With all this playing, he learns not to be afraid of the pressure, the ropes or me. He learns to relieve the pressure himself, not because things will get worse if he doesn't, but because things will get better if he does.

Begun this way, I think I train a horse who is not shut down, but instead grows up knowing that he can figure things out to make his life better. I believe my young horses do trust me- not only because I supply the food, water, access to fields of grass and beds full of fluffy shavings. They trust me because when I show up, good things happen and I have never had to frighten them into behaving.

If you carefully watch the physiological signs that horses in training exhibit, it helps you to decide whether the horse is stressed or not. Is the breathing rapid and heavy or slow and quiet? Is the head raised or low when given the choice? Are the eyes wide with fear or relaxed and blinking. There is a lot of talk about licking and chewing...is that submission or relaxation? Is that achieved after frightening or chasing the horse or present throughout the session?

To get back to Stowaway, I will continue to work with him and try to convince him that good things happen with us. He has begun whinnying when he sees me coming (he used to just hang back and ignore people). And he nickers when I click now..."oh boy, I got it right". His ears are up, his eyes are bright and he is looking for the right answer, not locked away in a little black box that you have to bang on to even get his attention. In the photo above, Stowaway is being offered oat cake by several students who made it for themselves and the horses. It is my goal to teach people and horses that good things happen when they are together.

You Can't Make Me Eat That

You Can't Make Me Eat That is one of Alex Kurland's "tricks" that I have decided would be advantageous to teach to help with the feeding situation. It teaches a tremendous amount of self control around food.

This photo shows Stowaway during the second session of this. Stowaway is an interesting one to teach to because he arrived here so "shut down" last year that it took forever to even get him targeting. He just could not believe he could make something good happen for himself. I spent last winter just introducing him to targeting and that was about it (obviously I didn't work with him a lot!) I didn't want to get him overly ambitious going into his first season as a lesson pony. The only thing he got clicked for this season was bitting. He was miserable to get a bit in his mouth and with the little ones just learning to bridle, I needed all the help I could get! Oh, I also used it for picking up his feet because he was awful about that too.

So now, with the work I've done this fall about standing at his "station", he has become much more interested in life and has even gotten vocal about it all- quite endearing. He whinnies when he sees me get the toys out and nickers some when I click (which Smarty always did- I miss him!). So now I was about to change all that enthusiasm into self control. I started by filling this little white bucket with hay stretcher pellets and just going to a point where he got hopeful and reached his nose through the panels. As soon as he did that, I stopped and turned away for a count of 5. This is technically Negative Punishment (-P). I am taking something AWAY ("negative") to make it less likely the behavior will happen again (punishment). Anytime he reached through the bars, the food disappeared. The first time I was able to turn back to him and he did not reach through the bars, I clicked and gave him 2 hay stretcher pellets- Positive Reinforcement (+R). He got something (Positive) that would make it more likely he'd repeat the behavior (Reinforcement). When he kept his nose on that side of the panel, he got a click and treat. That of course made him want to reach again, which caused me to turn away and count (slowly) to 5. Then I would turn back.

Pretty soon he kept his nose on his side of the panel for a couple seconds after chewing up his treat so I was able to click and treat again without having turned away. Now we were building duration. When he stood there patiently for a count of 10 to get his click and treat, I stepped closer. Initially I had been several feet back from the panel- he couldn't have reached me if he wanted to; he was just anxious to reach for the food. As I got closer, I went back to the beginning count- first to see if I could stand that close without him reaching at all, then to see if he could stand quietly as I increased the count to 10 without him reaching. Every single click and treat at this stage was building success for him. He got many many rewards for standing and not reaching. Therefore, when I got closer, he had a good idea of what was required. Any time he reached, I turned away, counted to 5, and turned back toward him. I did not increase my distance; the criteria was the same, I simply turned away as a punishment.

Slowly I brought the bucket closer and closer to him. The hard parts were when he could first actually reach the bucket and when I actually put the bucket inside the pen. But when the bucket was taken away if he reached for it, he stopped trying. In the photo above, you can see him pulling his head up away from the bucket so he doesn't accidentally touch it- that was my measure for too close. If he touched the bucket, it left. Pretty soon I could put it closer to him and he would back away from it...thus the name "You Can't Make Me Eat that"!

For the finale today, I went into the pen with him. I thought that might change things dramatically but he stepped toward me once and I turned away- that was the last time he did. After that, I could hold the bucket right under his nose for a count of 10 and he wouldn't move.

Adding this self- control to the self control of standing at the jug should give me a clear opening to enter the pen with food and not be accosted.

Tool Boxes

Working with horses, as with many other endeavors, it's not unusual to hear the term "tools in your toolbox" to refer to the different methods, exercises, and approaches we can use. We are encouraged to build up our collection of tools so that we have a good selection of possibilities to use in the myriad of situations that come up. While cleaning stalls this morning (always my thinking time), I discovered I think I really have four different tool boxes. I just added the fourth and that is how my train of thought developed.

Frequently, I think my tools are organized more like my husband's shop- scattered everywhere; some are in piles together, not necessarily for any particular reason other than they were used together last; some are strewn along the bench; others are in buckets or hanging from wire baskets. Now while he may be able to go in there and find just the right wrench when he needs it, I can't. I hope I am more successful at finding my own mental horse training tools but it helps to organize them.

I began assembling my first mental horse toolbox as a child. I learned how to groom, tack up, start, stop, steer, etc with the help of my parents, brothers and sisters. I learned about equine behavior from them and also went to camps and picked up some tricks from others- but mostly I learned from just being around horses and ponies. It's easier to catch a pony with a carrot. Sometimes it's best to hide the halter- it's always best to look casual. Two Shetland ponies can "take out" a child of 8 who has cornered them in a shed to flyspray them (that was a big lesson). No pony is truly bombproof- a pony with a log tied to a harness can gallop through the woods quite rapidly before finally detaching the log on passing trees. And of course, when a pony stops quickly, the rider doesn't necessarily do the same. I competed in small horse shows (not at all successfully) and decided it was not for me. Competitive 50 mile trail rides were more fun and I learned about conditioning- more tools.

Growing up in a family of riders, I didn't really have a formal lesson until I was in high school and this is when my second toolbox was started. Rather than just riding by the seat of my pants, I learned there were exercises that could be done to achieve certain outcomes and oh my, the bits and martingales and other pieces of tack that were available. I acquired my first thoroughbred and found that not many of the tools that worked on my Heinz 57 pony gelding also worked on an off-the-track TB mare. I graduated from high school and local instructors. I discovered eventing and was given a wonderful old campaigner to do it with. I loved it and went on to college as well as clinics, working student positions, and jobs with professionals. I read magazine articles and books on the art of dressage (pretty dry). I read about jumping, conditioning, competing and horse management. I learned from barn owners, friends, farriers and vets. Both toolboxes were expanding- the theory was no more important than the daily interactions.

I think my third toolbox was opened when we acquired our daughter's first pony. As grateful as I was to all the ponies and horses of my own, there was a shift in my heart watching a procession of ponies take care of our daughter. I watched as that first saintly pony tensed every muscle in her body when a cascade of snow came off the barn roof behind her (and almost on top of her); but she did not step forward onto the diminutive 3 year old child standing in front of her. I could observe more objectively the way that these ponies offered lessons that she was ready to learn- she had her share of falls, disappointments and close calls. But the gratitude of a mother's heart when they kept bringing her home safely shifted my thinking in irreversible ways. I owed these creatures something. Not just a roof over their heads and food in their tummies, but the respect that they knew more and felt more than I ever gave them credit for.

So the container was open and ready for Clicker Training when it appeared. This gave the horses an opportunity to show me what they could learn. I did not have to force things on them. They truly wanted to work with me. Now it took about ten years and it's still evolving because I had to learn how to balance what was in my previous toolboxes with this new Clicker Training toolbox. It required that I throw away some of my previous tools. That was very hard to do considering how much I had invested in them. The old tools worked: they were easy to find, a familiar fit and they were, quite frankly, easier to use, but I came to realize that didn't mean they were the best tools to use. But Clicker Training offered me the opportunity to combine two things- science and art. It is squarely founded on the principles of behavioral science- research based facts. But is also requires the art of reading horses, respecting them and being gracious enough to consider their feelings.

And feelings are the critical component in my fourth tool- which is really more of a specialized tool than a box per se. It's like a fancy gadget you get at the hardware store that comes with it's own specially fitting case. And it isn't a tool for everyday use although you can use pieces of it on a daily basis. It's called Constructional Approach Technique...although the name as well as the technique is still very much in flux. It's not a tool that every person needs since it is used for horses who are extremely fearful or aggressive. I don't have one of these horses and so I've never really been able to use this tool, but I "bought it" this fall after reading about it for the past six months or so. Like most tools, just reading the directions is important and helpful, but it isn't until you actually use the tool that you really see its benefits. So for now, I'm just keeping it on the shelf and using all my other tools. But if at some point, my regular tools aren't working, I may reach for this new gadget and give it a try.

And here- a blast from my past: