What are my cues....really?

This weekend Eloise (dog) and I head down for our second KPA workshop. As I had hoped, this course is improving my skills and depth of knowledge in training. Whenever the exercises are appropriate, I try to do them with a horse as well as, or instead of, a dog. And when they aren't compatible, I stretch my brain to see what correlations I can draw.

My biggest stumbling block (so far!) is stimulus control. I have been whining to anyone who will listen (or read) how frustrating I find it. All trained behaviors should be under stimulus control. This is defined by:

1. The animal should perform the behavior every time it perceives the cue (can be verbal, visual or other...thus "perceives")
2. The animal should not perform this behavior when it hears a different cue
3. The animal should not perform a different behavior when it perceives the cue
4. The animal should not perform the behavior in the absence of a cue

The first one is easy. The second one is pretty easy. The third one is less so. The fourth one is impossible.

My problem is that my animals offer behaviors all the time. They love training. They love to work for me. They love to show off, interact with people and get attention. This is the result of Clicker Training- animals who throw behaviors at you in order to engage you. It's far better than animals who do obnoxious things like bang on stall doors or paw on the cross ties. Instead, they offer lovely Pilates positions, target anything which might be accepted as a target and grab clothing they think you might have dropped and hand it to you helpfully. How lovely! So I reward. But did I ask for these behaviors? No. So technically they aren't under stimulus control.

I thought it would be doable to correct this. I had read my lessons, watched the videos, understood the concepts and related it all to things I've done before. How wrong I was. It seems like everything in the environment is functioning as a cue. Percy thinks a target just needs to be touched. "What do you mean, wait until you say touch? Why? I know what you want. Give me the bloody thing so I can touch it!"

One of the reasons I did not predict such a problem is that horses who are not under stimulus control can be dangerous (as opposed to Eloise who sees me pick up the clicker and starts popping and backing and downing and spinning helter skelter but does no damage). The crutch I have used, however, is asking for an incompatible behavior. If I don't want Percy to touch a target, I ask for Grownups. He happily complies. But that's different from an animal who simply waits to see what exactly you want. I should be able to put out a target and choose to have him pick it up or touch it. If I speak fast enough, I can do that...but if I don't immediately tell him what to do with it, then he decides. I should be able to put down a mat and ask for him to touch it rather than step on it. Not a chance. Mats are for stepping on! (he actually tried to step on it when I held it up to try to get him to wait...yup, dangerous).

Now it's not that Percy doesn't understand the cues. It's Jane that doesn't understand the cues. As Alexandra Kurland says, objects are cues. People are cues. So he knows what to do in the presence of all these things (put anything on the floor these days and Eloise has the same opinion only she lies on it, rather than just stepping on it....her mat work is excellent. But not under stimulus control. Sigh). So if the object is the cue, then neither Eloise nor Percy are wrong. They are not performing the behavior in the absence of the cue...the mat is present. Cue perceived, behavior performed.

Wow, I've been struggling with this for over a month and there it is, right there. Alex says cues evolve out of the shaping process. So for Percy, the presence of an object evolved into a cue. I did not train for it differently. I'm taking well-known behaviors with well-known cues and changing the rules. It's a wonder he hasn't refused to work with me at all. Just like we need to generalize cues to new environments (Eloise believes strongly that the chair I am sitting in, the room we're in or whether I'm standing or sitting are the cues), we also need to introduce the idea that an object, a place, a body position is not a cue fairly early on in the shaping process. Unless of course we want the object to be a cue.

In hindsight that all seems so obvious. I've got work to do in the next 2 days....wish me luck!

How Much does "Why" Matter?

Frequently the first thing which pops into mind (above, Eloise demonstrates "POP" this past weekend) when a problem arises with a horse is "why did he do that?" Or, "why won't she do this?" In the last couple years, I've come to tell myself that frequently it doesn't matter. It's hard to let go of, but the truth is, many of us get horses who have backgrounds we know nothing about. No amount of Freudian questioning is going to reveal the truth. We may know some or even a lot about the previous home...but before that? The horse may have had several owners and homes and certainly has had innumerable experiences with people, trailers, competitions, other horses, other animals, etc. Rarely do we know this horse's parentage beyond possibly a name on registration papers- nothing about the temperament of the mare who raised him to weaning.

So it's reassuring to think that, using proper training theory, we can usually overcome any previous experiences and train the horse to respond differently to a given situation. I love to ask other trainers their thoughts about this and this past weekend was a great opportunity. I attended my first KPA workshop, part of the six-month Karen Pryor Academy Training Partner certification. The other trainers were dog trainers so it was a different community from which to learn. The instructor, Carolyn Barney, of DOGS! Learning Center, reiterated a couple very valid points which I had previously decided were critical. First, before beginning to train anything, we have to make sure that there is no medical reason preventing the horse (dog, whatever) from performing a desired behavior.

A horse who refuses to stand still for mounting should have his back checked and his saddle fit assessed, as well as the mounting skills of the rider evaluated. If the answer to "why won't he stand still" is any of these making the horse uncomfortable, he is not to be blamed for moving and the behavior can be easily modified by making adjustments to make him comfortable. Horses can be taught to stand for awkward riders of course- therapeutic riding horses and lesson horses do it all the time. But if the rider can be corrected instead, it's a kinder route. There is also the issue of whether or not the horse is enjoying being ridden, but I consider that part of the training process, so it will right itself.

The other situation Carolyn mentioned was an emotional issue. If you ask yourself "why" and the answer is that the horse/dog is afraid, then that should be addressed before trying to train. Peggy Hogan, of The Best Whisper is a Click, reminded me of this when I was trying to teach Percy to tolerate being hosed. When fear is involved, you go to classical conditioning. Many of us use Clicker Training (a method of Operant Conditioning) specifically because it does not include fear and we know animals do not learn well in a fearful state. You can scare a horse into doing something such as getting into a trailer or crossing water, but he isn't learning, he's just doing. By using positive associations with the fearful situation, you can remove fear from the picture, and then use Operant Conditioning to teach. Standing and hand feeding Percy while the hose was running (not on him) allowed Percy to change his associations with the noise and sight so that I could begin to train him to tolerate being hosed.

Some people will tell you that a horse is just pretending to be afraid, but I don't think that's part of a horse's nature.

We discussed other over-the-top emotional states like anxiety and excitement. I would say anxiety is simply another form of fear and so should be addressed in the same way. I'll need to think and observe more about excitement because my experiences so far don't bear that out. A horse who is excited is probably showing distraction which in a horse can come right back to fear- watching that horizon for the lions coming over it in a new situation. Or he is anticipating something- speed for instance- and positive reinforcement can be used to teach the horse to stand and wait but still be ready to leap from the start box (just watch Susan Garrett's dogs on the start line of an agility competition).

One of the other students at the workshop brought up a very valid reason to share the "why" if you can come up with it- to reassure the owner that it's not necessarily something that he or she is doing which is causing the problem (sometimes of course it is!). Because this course is about becoming teachers as well as trainers, it was really helpful for me to hear this. I may not need to know why an animal is exhibiting a certain behavioral problem, but if I am going to help someone else with their animal, we need to find out if they need to modify their training to prevent this problem. If it isn't related to the owner's handling, then that owner can be reassured that we can correct the problem with training and not to worry about what may have happened in the animal's past to cause it.

Do I Have to?

Recently, the topic arose of whether or not a horse ever "has to" do what he is asked when we are Clicker Training. I think both sides of the debate have merit and it comes down to how you define "have to" as well as a lot of other things.

On the side of those who think that "have to" is not part of the Clicker Training process, I agree. One of my basic premises is that the horse has the choice of whether or not to respond to any of my cues (which differentiates a cue from a command in my opinion). If I give a cue and the horse does not respond, that is information, not defiance. It could very well be that I have not trained it well enough, or have not trained it well enough to generalize to all situations (the difference between a horse who goes wonderfully at home but things fall apart in a new situation). It could be that my cue was unclear in a given situation, or that I was not paying attention to see that the horse was distracted. If I am in the mindset that the horse "has to" respond, then I am closing the door to all that information and my training will suffer as a result- I have eliminated the possibility of feedback from my horse until, well, it's a dire situation and the horse feels he needs to react in a very strong show of emotion to be heard.

On the other side of the question is the people who say that there are times when a horse has to respond in certain situations. Who wants to ride a horse that decides not to stop when asked? Or even lead one for that matter? It's dangerous.

So I think it's important to define what we mean by "have to" and what training methods we're going to use to get there. For many trainers, "you have to" means there will be consequences if you don't. In fact, there are always consequences- we don't live or train in a vacuum. So what will those consequences be? Do we ask again? Ask in a different way? Make a training plan to address this? Those are all what I would call clicker compatible consequences to a horse ignoring a cue. Others may give up. This is what many beginners do because they have no tools with which to address a problem. Still others will escalate- kick harder, pull more, put on stronger equipment. And others will punish- a whack with a stick is just one item in a collection of punishing responses. Those are not clicker compatible consequences.

Another question to ask is what behaviors you think a horse "has to" respond to and why? Is it because you don't want to be embarrassed in front of other people or at a competition? Is it to keep you comfortable? As in, "I don't really feel comfortable with this horse trotting through here and I'd rather be walking". Or is it safety? "You HAVE TO stop right now or that truck is going to hit us both?" Certainly the last is a reason I would agree with is a situation that I would say the horse HAS TO stop. And feeling comfortable is very close to that same need. Feeling embarrassed? Well, as clicker trainers, we're pretty used to people looking at us like we've lost our marbles anyway so this is just more practice for letting that roll off our backs.

So how do we convey "have to" using Clicker Training? We train. We make "have to" equivalent to "I'd be happy to". We Think, Plan, Do, to quote Susan Garrett. Think about what we want (as opposed to what we don't want). For instance we want a horse to stop when we ask. We come up with a plan, using all the tools that Alexandra Kurland and other clicker trainers have generously shared. And then we train: foundation lessons, baby steps, regular progression, assessing progress, plan some more and train some more, reinforcing every step of the way so that the horse says "stop? I'd love to" and he stops.

I think "you have to" implies some sort of threat out of the fear that the horse might refuse. But if the horse learns to love to work with us, why would she refuse? Well, shit happens, as they say. Things don't always go according to plan. A situation may arise that we have not had time to train for. Or we may not have thought to train for. We may have been building up a great response from our horse to our stop cue and may have a horse who walks politely along with us, following our cues for stop and go without a problem. But then early one morning a wild animal goes through your pasture fence, tearing it down and scaring your horse silly so that she gets out. You may no longer be in your safe training area and may not have trained for the neighbor's property yet. Plus you have this horse who's acting half out of her mind thanks to the intruder. Now what?

I think the answer is different for all of us, depending on our own personal emotional state at that point. I know the more I have clicker trained, the more confident I am in those situations. A chain over the nose never made me feel as safe as having a horse who knows how to calm down on cue. Even though, in a hairy situation, she may not go into complete responsive relaxation, the training that has been laid down gives me the tools to ask her to relax....traditional training never gave me that. It gave me tools to be bigger and tougher and threaten good behavior, but a simple touch on the poll which simply means relax? Magic. If I get even an inkling that I have been heard in that request, I know I'm on my way. The trust that builds up over those training sessions- putting a horse in a mildly uneasy situation and helping her learn emotional control- will mean that she is more likely to look to me for assistance rather than feeling threatened by my "you have to".

Think of yourself in a tense situation- if there is someone there whom you trust, doesn't that in itself make you more comfortable? And if that person suggested a way for you get out of that tense situation, wouldn't you be likely to take that person's advice?

The Power of Targeting

The other day I was reminded of how powerful targeting can be. I don't think we understand this when we first learn about targeting.

I had taken Rumer out for a little walk and we were doing silly things. If she is going to be appropriate for kids, she needs to learn about silly. So we went for a walk, we stepped over logs in the woods, we got the mail from the mailbox and other things we've done before. Then when I was putting the mail in the garage, I decided she might as well learn to go odd places. I certainly took my pony odd places when I was a kid. So I invited her into the garage. The big door was closed and so I stepped into the person door. It was a bit dark in there but she bravely followed me, tiny step by tiny step. Our garage is a bit of a catch all so the recycling boxes were on one side of her, along with the hose coiled on the floor. The cot that I sleep on for foaling is stored in there, covered with plastic; various buckets, a wheelbarrow, bikes hanging from hooks in the ceiling- all were carefully and hesitantly checked out. So far I was doing no CT. I was just taking a step and letting her explore. Our winter tires were stacked in there, four to a pile each covered with a white plastic bag. I led her between the two stacks, just barely room for her to fit. I lifted up the big overhead door a couple times, but she was a bit reactive about that and I didn't want her backing into the hanging bikes such that they came crashing down on her head so we just played with the door going up and down a foot or two- then back out to the sunshine.

I asked if she wanted to jump up onto the porch. She looked like she would be fine with that but unfortunately we have no porch steps and it would have required jumping over her knee height. I didn't want her slipping on landing so instead she just investigated all the flower pots and things she could reach.

Then we came to the laundry line. Again, she followed me to it and sniffed the clean laundry hanging from it, but when I asked her to follow me under it, she said no thank you. First I asked just the way I had done all afternoon- I walked forward a step and waited to see if she would follow, no pressure. The line was high enough that she wouldn't guillotine herself on it but low enough that the socks were going to drape over her back as she walked under. But she was concerned enough that her head was up and the socks were at face height. I put the tiniest bit of pressure on the rope- no more than a suggestion. She still thought it was not safe. Considering how many things she had done already even when she was worried, I knew we had reached a new level of concern.

So I put out a fist. Oh- there's a target, she said, and took a little step forward to target my fist- CT. I stepped back a little and did it again. It was as if the laundry had magically disappeared. Two touches to my fist and she was under the laundry line without dislodging a sock.

My only reasoning is that all her life, targeting has been a fun and successful thing to do. It's never failed her. If it was as easy as targeting my fist, she lost all fear and was able to be successful.

Using What Comes Up (or The Difference Between Angus and Holsteins)

Apparently, from an equine perspective, there is a difference between black cows and black-and-white cows. We have Black Angus. The photo above shows some of our weanling calves, pastured about 75 feet from the horses. The horses see them daily and in the short lives of my youngsters, the cattle have been pastured on all sides. They hear them, see them, smell them and watch them daily. They watch them with interest, but not usually concern.

Today, however, they saw black-and-white cows. Holsteins, to be precise. The neighbor's heifers got out and although they stayed on their own property, they came in sight of my horses. I had just put Percy in the round pen for a little training session and had gone to get the mats out when I noticed the heifers...or rather I noticed Percy notice the heifers. I called the neighbor (good friends) and he said he'd go fetch them back to where they belonged. It was a bit of a hike from his house to the far field that adjoined us where the heifers had wandered. It would be a few minutes at least. Percy was doing his Standing Stallion Statue pose as he watched the heifers at the bottom of the hill. Every 10 seconds or so, he'd terrrottt around the round pen very importantly only to freeze and stare some more. All the other horses were rooted to the spot in their paddocks as they watched the strange black and white creatures.

A training opportunity had arisen. I was in complete management control- he was in a safe place and so was I. I could see how much I was worth to him compared to the side show of Holsteins. I wasn't interested in forcing him to pay attention to me. I wanted to know just how much of a "cookie" I was. How much value had I built up? I had a pouch full of treats since I was about to work with him anyway so I was ready. I stood on the opposite side of the round pen- he was facing away from me- and I called him. He turned immediately and trotted to me. Well, that was impressive and earned him a people-peppermint (his favorite).

I can't remember exactly what order I did things in, but my mind was whirring as I tried to figure the best approach. I know I asked him to put his head down and he promptly did- C/T. He trusted me enough to relax into that- good. I considered working on 300 peck pigeon since I wasn't sure I wanted to get any more complicated than head down considering the distraction. I thought it would be good to see how long he would keep his head down in that situation. But then I realized that would break one of the 4 D rules. I didn't want to increase the criteria in more than one of the 4 Ds- distraction, distance, duration or difficulty. We already had Distraction to the extreme, so I didn't want to up the duration as well. I was also changing the cue on him a bit so I was really pushing things. Normally I place my hand on his poll for a non-rope cue for head down but because he was on the other side of the panels and was at high alert, I couldn't really reach his poll and was doing a modified cue of just raising my hand. He seemed to get it, but I needed to be careful to keep things successful even if it was a bit of a test.

So we did a bit of easy targeting, then some head down for a count of 5. He'd give me some good responses and then trot back to check on the heifers. After a couple seconds, he'd come back to me. I did not call him back to me after the first time. I was hoping for, and in fact I got, him to choose to come back and play with me. I'm not sure I was overwhelmingly more interesting than the heifers, because he did feel the need to go check on them regularly, but he did return to me each time on his own. I checked to see if he'd offer head down if I didn't cue him after we'd done it a couple times. He's currently offering Pilates moves when given the choice and I didn't want to encourage him to puff himself up any more so I went back to asking for head down or targeting. His eyes softened considerably and I was able to get a head down for count of 10. That was enough so that I decided to take the mats and go into the round pen with him for our original lesson plan.

By this time, the heifers had disappeared over the rise in the distant field. They were not forgotten, but I did have Percy's full cooperation. I was very pleased to notice improvement in his work from the previous day (we're working on a pre-riding pattern of three mats) even with the higher level of excitement. All in all, I was very pleased.

Schooling ditches

I love fall- it's such a great time to ride with no bugs, cool temperatures, and beautiful scenery. It's not hard for students to convince me to take them on a hack so we can work on riding "in the open"...something many kids and adults sorely miss in these days of disappearing open land available to ride on.

This fall, I've gotten confident enough to ride Ande with students...I needed to be sure he was quiet enough that I didn't need to worry about him sparking an unusual moment in an otherwise quiet lesson horse and also that I could focus on a novice without needing to be on alert and horse training every second. Yesterday, at the end of a short ride with a student on Mariah, I decided to introduce the rider to ditches. We'd done uphill, downhill, steep ups through low woods (in other words on Mariah, she had to duck a lot more than I did!) and I was pretty confident Mariah would step quietly over the ditch so she could practice correct position without my needing to worry that she'd really need it.

When my daughter was younger, we'd practice ditches along the road- she could jump from the road over the ditch up onto the hayfield or lawn- uphill with less worry about bucking on landing. The town road crew had cleaned out the ditches with the grader after Hurricane Irene, so they were clear and obvious. Mariah was a champ and stepped carefully into and then over the ditch- the only challenge being keeping her head out of the deep grass on the other side. Ande, however, wasn't too keen on following her. As sure footed as he is, he is the one who still likes to leap over the little spring on the way to turnout in one of the fields when everyone else will simply splash through. I only had one peppermint in my pocket and I bit it into as many pieces as possible. Every tiny step toward the ditch (he had no problem going right to the edge, but then got worried), got a click and a tiny peppermint bit. The hardest thing of all was not going into complete "do it!" mode. Amazing how old habits kick in. Luckily, I knew the student's ride home was coming soon and so when the peppermints were gone, I shushed all the little trainer demons in my head who were telling me I couldn't let Ande "win" by not going over the ditch. I hopped off and led him over it. Sure enough, he leaped high and wide enough to make a Training horse proud. I let him graze and then led him back and forth a couple more times. Each time he avoided the possibility that any alligators in the ditch could reach him. Each time he got 10 mouthfuls of grass as reward and then we went back to the barn.

the ditch full of alligators

Today, I put a pouch full of treats on me and a halter and lead on Ande and we returned to the ditch. Standing him in the road, I asked him to step a tiny step toward the ditch. I knew he would gladly leap the ditch but I wanted him in it. Some schools of thought say never to teach a horse to step in a ditch because in competition, you want them going over it, not in it. I decided I'd risk it because I think it will be more important for Ande to be a quiet trail pony, rather than a high level event horse. And I figured, once again, he could be my guinea pig for Percy. If Ande proceeds to be unwilling or difficult to teach to jump ditches in the future, I'll do it differently with P.

I approached the ditch the way I approach a horse who is difficult to load into a trailer. It's not about the end result, it's about each tiny step of the way. I wanted him comfortable approaching the ditch and being in it, just like I want a horse comfortable approaching a trailer and comfortable being on the ramp. If you can get that, the rest is easy- and the training sticks. It's not just a one time deal. So I only asked for 2 inches forward at a time. And I made sure those were two inches straight ahead (using the Tai Chi wall if necessary), not toward me. I did not want him leaping onto me for safety (if you've seen the Thelwell sketch of the pony with his legs wrapped around his owner's neck when he sees a mouse, you know what I was picturing). When we had gone forward 6 inches down the little slope, I asked him to back up so we could do it again. Pretty soon, he was happily going forward and back, further and further down into the ditch until- ta da- he could reach the grass. So we stood and grazed there, another couple inches and he'd forgotten all about the alligators.

We went back and forth several times and he never again tried to leap. Next- I'll put the saddle back on and try again while mounted. I need to find a fairly level spot though because riding him with front feet in the ditch and head down in the bottom of it grazing will be a challenge!

Don't

As a clicker trainer and TAG teacher, I have tried to remove the word "don't" from my vocabulary. It hasn't been easy, but it has been very worthwhile. Positive reinforcement techniques are all about focusing on what we want as opposed to what we don't want. Initially, this can tie a person in knots. Working with a young student whose horse was trying to bite her as she tightened the girth, I asked her to tell me what she wanted the horse to do. She simply couldn't figure out anything beyond "not bite me!" (yes, consideration was given to all the things which could be causing this behavior before trying to re-train it).

Step 1 in Alexandra Kurland's Step by Step book is "decide what you want your horse to do". Susan Garrett, dog trainer, does all her training in "do-land". TAG teach instructs us to make tag points of what we want. The easiest way I have found to explain this to people is to quote the title of a book. I tell them to close their eyes and then I say "don't think of an elephant". Then I ask, what is the first thing that popped into your head? In all cases, it's an elephant. But I said DON'T think of an elephant! Why did they? Because that is the way our brain works. Our brain thinks in positive images. It doesn't have a picture for "no". It pulls up the things we think about. So if we go through the day thinking "no chocolate, no chocolate, no chocolate", our brains are hearing "chocolate, chocolate, chocolate".

Having raised a few young horses in recent years, there were plenty of things I didn't want them to do. I didn't want to be bitten, or kicked, or run over for example. I didn't want them to rear, or pull back on cross ties or bolt away from me. For all these situations, I had to do what clicker trainers call "train an incompatible behavior". That meant I had to come up with things to train them to DO, that made it impossible for them to do the things I didn't want. Don't bite became "mouth closed and head away from me". Don't kick became "four feet on the floor". Don't run me over became "walk a safe distance from me". Pretty soon, these things I taught became incompatible behaviors for other things I didn't want. "Four on the floor" also meant they couldn't rear and couldn't pull back on cross ties. Walking a safe distance from me meant they couldn't bolt off.

Now there was a lot of management that went into the process as well. You don't turn your backside to a young colt and just leave it hanging there begging to be bitten. I know that colts are all about biting. Not because they are bad, but because they are colts and that's what colts do! It wasn't personal- they bit everyone- their moms, their pasture buddies, the cat. It's part of their play which is part of their education. So while I was around them, I protected my backside (and arms and legs and face) by keeping a safe distance and training them to do something else with their heads which they got reinforced for. I had to make not-biting more reinforcing than biting.

I still remember exactly where we stood the first time Percy, as a weanling "struck" with a front foot and caught me in the back of the leg. At least that's how I saw it at the time. My mind was yelling "DANGER, RUDE, AGGRESSIVE" while this little clicker angel on my shoulder was saying "reward the positive". That little clicker angel and I had quite a discussion.

"But it was dangerous", I argued.

"Keep yourself in protective contact", the little angel said.

"I can't keep myself protected every second!"

"You know horses are dangerous big animals", the little angel said, "you have chosen to work with them and specifically with young ones".

"Why can't I punish this behavior?", I demanded.

"Punishment has unintended consequences", the clicker angel said.

"LIke what?!"

"You know perfectly well"

She was right, I did know. I didn't want this little horse to fear me, fear being with me or fear offering things because I might hurt him. I taught Percy to walk next to me, not behind me, where an enthusiastic paw wouldn't catch me in the back of the leg. I taught him how to turn and stay next to me when we went through gates so I could shut it behind us (the instance that had him behind me on that memorable day).

Now he's three and even though I never punished him for it, he doesn't strike. And many repetitions and a high rate of reinforcement for being next to me mean that when he gets startled and shoots forward, it's not been over the top of me. Am I absolutely, positively, without a shadow of a doubt, sure he'll never hurt me? Nope. He's a horse. A young horse right now. He weighs half a ton and he has hooves. Accidents happen. I must take responsibility for my own safety as much as I can and hope for the best.