There is one really important message I’d like every trainer to burn into their brain.
If you are dealing with fear, trauma, phobias, worry, reluctance, avoidance, escape, “lack of motivation”, or any kind of difficulty around your horse training, consider Classical Conditioning, rather than Operant Conditioning (Positive Reinforcement).
Basically, if there is any kind of perceived emotion involved, your ‘go to’ needs to be Classical Conditioning, not Operant.
This is because, as my meme states, Classical or Respondent Conditioning involves how our horses feel and react (without thinking/instinctively) to things.
Whereas Operant Conditioning, as the name suggests, is how we operate on our environment. We (hopefully) have choices and control over outcomes, we behave in a certain way based on our learning history and preferences and we manipulate either our behaviour or the environment, for valued outcomes or to avoid aversive outcomes.
Therefore, if we want to help a horse with something they are concerned about, we don’t get out our target stick or our mat, we sit down and work out a Systematic Desensitisation and Counter Conditioning (SD/CC) plan.
Classical Conditioning is also about the pairing of stimuli. As I’ve said in previous posts, there is always Skinner on one shoulder and Pavlov on the other. Therefore, whilst we may be actively training a behaviour via Positive Reinforcement (Operant Conditioning), there is always a Classical component. This could be the pairing that we have worked on whereby the click = food, or the prompt to get the behaviour is then paired with a cue, or simply that repeated positive emotional experiences in the training means that we ourselves have been paired and coloured with Pavlov’s brush, to become a walking talking appetitive stimulus to our horses.
The danger of using Operant Conditioning for things the horse is scared, worried or previously traumatised by, is that we create Approach Avoidance Conflict. This means that although we are trying to get behaviour, we have forgotten that we need the horse to FEEL ok about the thing. It is less about *doing* and more about how they *feel* about the thing.
I can see how people become unstuck with this, because it’s easier to *do* than to see how the animal feels. That can take a lot of skill and also to take the time it takes for our horses to feel ok. Behaviour shows results, feeling better about something can be much less tangible to many people. We need to hone our observation skills to be able to see when our horses are worried about something and when they feel better about something, rather than see when they are doing something.
I’ll share a link about Approach Avoidance Conflict, but bear in mind that it is written in relation to humans, who have much more choice and control than animals. It basically means that there is a conflict between what is scary to the animal and what they can gain or the human is offering for them to approach the scary thing ie. “click and treat” for approaching the scary (or potentially scary) thing. Rather, we can feed for only just noticing the thing, staying under threshold and progressing in teeny tiny steps.
Operant Conditioning is for modifying/training behaviour when the horse feels safe, has their needs met and has no problems or issues whatsoever with everything in their environment and that we ask them to interact with during training. Classical Conditioning (SD/CC) is for changing how the horse feels, helping them cope with stimuli and pairing stimuli.
Finally, we can change an emotional response during a R+ training session. But it takes careful and mindful shaping, allowing the horse choice and control over reinforcers and most importantly teeny tiny approximations, much like we would do in a SD/CC program. We don’t say to the horse, “do this and you get that”, instead we say, “here’s some food no matter what you decide and if you decide to offer more, great, here’s even more food”. In this way we can avoid the Approach Avoidance Conflict, because they get something of value to them and the freedom to choose, no matter what they decide. But it’s an extremely fine line to walk.
Here’s an example of where we are shaping behaviour, but allowing room for the horse to go at their own pace, choose what they want to do (or not) and have no restraint (or compulsion) if they choose to do something or not. There is also other reinforcement available literally at their feet (grass). We are not offering a target to entice them towards the scary thing, in order to get the food, we are asking a question, whilst being super generous with the food.