On positive reinforcement and clicker training
One of the most endless and repetative discussions that turns up from time to time among Natural Horsemanship types is the conversation about Positive Reinforcement, which is an entirely reward-based way of training animals used very effectively by a lot of animal trainers. I think it's a great way of training animals in general, but not a particularly useful way of training horses specifically. In a reply to a discussion elsewhere I finally managed to put my thoughts on why it's not so great into a coherent order so I thought I'd crosspost here in case I my future self wants to know what my opinion is...
I think maybe if I could achieve something with a clicker that I wanted to achieve and couldn't do with my current approach it might appeal more to me, but when I watch the riders I aspire to be like they're doing fine without the extra stuff and it just seems a little unnecessary really.
It seems like it's very much a tool for a job, but I've never seen it used for a job that wasn't pretty easy to do in another fashion. I mean yes, you can use it effectively for helping a horse to pick up their feet or load into a horsebox or whatever, but actually a lot of people can do all those things anyway.
Once things do get complicated I'm not sure how it helps. For example, one thing I'm working on at the moment is asking for flexion and engagement of the hindquarters to build up a Travers type movement. When I'm working on that I need to be using the reins in both hands to ask for the flexion I want, certainly at first, so I wouldn't really have a hand free to operate a clicker ( sorry bridging folks, I'm not planning on shouting "sexsexsex" at my horse, I get enough funny looks for the zebra-print hat cover ) even if had enough braincells to manage asking for flexion with the rein, asking for engagement with my leg and operating a clicker when I felt the thing I was looking for. And then I'm having to fish around for treats so I lose all the flow of the work where I might have been able to turn it into something else useful. And also I have a "no treats by hand" clause in Zorro's loan agreement so even if I could do all that, my horse would get taken away
I don't find it disagreeable as a training concept and I'm sure it's great for dolphins and dogs and whathaveyou and probably essential for some trick-training type work, but when we start asking a bit more of ourselves in our riding I think we need to be in the moment focussing on the job in hand, rather than reflecting on our shaping plans and I can't see how this approach can avoid creating a layer of mental beaurocracy that could not help but create a layer of remove. I'm thinking that when you watch a really great rider working with their horse the rider's muscle memory and the horse's muscle memory are sort of connected so they flow into each other to a degree. I just can't see where a click-and-treat would fit into that. I'd love to see a proper behaviourist do a badminton run to match Olly Townend, outride William Funnell around Hickstead or turn in a dressage test to match that Andres Helgstrand one, but I'd also be surprised.
I'm not suggesting I can do any of that stuff either , I'm not there yet by any means- indeed I'm much further from there than most people on this forum - but as I begin to glimpse more technical riding the more I question where and whether a +R oriented training approach can be used to enable it.
This is all a bit theoretical for me, obviously, I've only really used a clicker for dog training ( the only time I tried it with my first pony he was scared of the "click" ) but I guess my feeling is that there comes a point where it has to stop coming from the tools and come from you instead and that some tools flow into that better than others.
I think maybe if I could achieve something with a clicker that I wanted to achieve and couldn't do with my current approach it might appeal more to me, but when I watch the riders I aspire to be like they're doing fine without the extra stuff and it just seems a little unnecessary really.
It seems like it's very much a tool for a job, but I've never seen it used for a job that wasn't pretty easy to do in another fashion. I mean yes, you can use it effectively for helping a horse to pick up their feet or load into a horsebox or whatever, but actually a lot of people can do all those things anyway.
Once things do get complicated I'm not sure how it helps. For example, one thing I'm working on at the moment is asking for flexion and engagement of the hindquarters to build up a Travers type movement. When I'm working on that I need to be using the reins in both hands to ask for the flexion I want, certainly at first, so I wouldn't really have a hand free to operate a clicker ( sorry bridging folks, I'm not planning on shouting "sexsexsex" at my horse, I get enough funny looks for the zebra-print hat cover ) even if had enough braincells to manage asking for flexion with the rein, asking for engagement with my leg and operating a clicker when I felt the thing I was looking for. And then I'm having to fish around for treats so I lose all the flow of the work where I might have been able to turn it into something else useful. And also I have a "no treats by hand" clause in Zorro's loan agreement so even if I could do all that, my horse would get taken away
I don't find it disagreeable as a training concept and I'm sure it's great for dolphins and dogs and whathaveyou and probably essential for some trick-training type work, but when we start asking a bit more of ourselves in our riding I think we need to be in the moment focussing on the job in hand, rather than reflecting on our shaping plans and I can't see how this approach can avoid creating a layer of mental beaurocracy that could not help but create a layer of remove. I'm thinking that when you watch a really great rider working with their horse the rider's muscle memory and the horse's muscle memory are sort of connected so they flow into each other to a degree. I just can't see where a click-and-treat would fit into that. I'd love to see a proper behaviourist do a badminton run to match Olly Townend, outride William Funnell around Hickstead or turn in a dressage test to match that Andres Helgstrand one, but I'd also be surprised.
I'm not suggesting I can do any of that stuff either , I'm not there yet by any means- indeed I'm much further from there than most people on this forum - but as I begin to glimpse more technical riding the more I question where and whether a +R oriented training approach can be used to enable it.
This is all a bit theoretical for me, obviously, I've only really used a clicker for dog training ( the only time I tried it with my first pony he was scared of the "click" ) but I guess my feeling is that there comes a point where it has to stop coming from the tools and come from you instead and that some tools flow into that better than others.