On positive reinforcement and clicker training

[glenatron]

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

Comments

[fleefloodle]

Personally, I couldn't see clicker training working with either of ours. Willow tends to have a meltdown about noises she doesn't understand (ie phones, speakers etc) and I suspect a clicker would have a similar effect. Ranger is too food orientated, and any training method involving treats (even if only in the early stages) would likely result in a very heavy, very strong pony attempting to obtain food from you in a rather indelicate way.

However, generally I'd agree that positive reinforcment is the way forward. Willow is terribly people orientated, so for her a pat/scratch/vocal praise is a reward to her so she knows she's done well. An easy example is if we've been having trouble with a particular jump, once we get over it I'll praise her vocally, give her a quick stroke on the neck and her ears will go up and her whole body language will become more positive (of course this may also be because she's pleased with herself for getting over it...).

Positive reinforcement is fantastic, and in the long run much more effective than negative I would say, but a lot of people don't realise that it's a lot more difficult giving a horse food rewards than it is to say a dog. Dog's are generally smaller if nothing else. What this all seems to come down to is the fact that a lot of NH users seem to assume that one thing will work for every single animal in the world ever, which most people of course realise is complete nonsense. I'm quite sure clicker training is very effective for some people, but for me and my family's horses, probably not.

[glenatron]

I think positive reinforcement is pretty handy for animals in general and I certainly use rubs and scratchies as a reward with my horse ( but also just when we're sharing some undemanding time- a training regime that suggested one should only use those as training aids would not work for me at all ) but I see it as a nice thing to do, but not core to anything.

Negative reinforcement is how horses communicate among themselves and it's the approach that I use in most training- any time you apply your leg to ask the horse forward, put pressure on the rein to ask for a bend or anything else along those lines that is negative reinforcement after all - and I honestly can't imagine getting close to the results I am getting if I wasn't using it.

I think the source of that "one thing" idea is that you see a really good trainer and you think that the thing they do must work for every horse and it does work for them with every horse and it's not until you've got a reasonably clear understanding of what they are actually doing that you can see how much they adjust their approach to each different horse.