Did you guys know that I was on a podcast?
I was! I've been listening to a lot of podcasts lately, actually. Thank goodness for these people, having the difficult conversations about training, reinforcement, punishment, how they're defined, how they work in theory, and how they work in practice.
Fi, walk/trot/walk transitions
Most of the riding Fi and I have done has been largely led by her, with me reinforcing the things I liked. Trot has been something I’ve heavily reinforced, because a) it’s fun and b) she could use the exercise. Fi takes reinforcement pretty seriously, so after a while, we mostly only had TROT or STOP, which has been mostly fine by me because the only things on my agenda had been fun and play. However, she’s really starting to feel like she can handle a bit of refinement, so I figured I could start trying for a walk somewhere in there.
Chainmail boop
Tango is a delightfully game horse, which is perfect for her job as an equestrian mount in the SCA. However, she has some sensory issues when it comes to sound, and specifically things like bells and metal-on-metal. This doesn’t work well in a setting where many of the participants have bells on their garb, or wear armor and chainmail, and clang swords together.
PB bell target
We wanted to try something new with Princess Buttercup, and one of the things I always do with a horse is a target of some sort. It's always been a visual target - some sort of object, or a hand - but obviously that doesn't work, here. So, I took one of the targets I use for clients and put a Christmas bell on it. Voila! An auditory target!
Anything’s a target!
Anything can be used as a target! Marcy, a long-time horse owner and horsemanship teacher, has asked me for some ideas on helping Whisper become confident at the mounting block.
Impromptu oral syringe session
This time I didn’t ask for a face target in my hand (like I did for a previous mouth handling video), as the syringe was enough of a cue for her to get the game.
Twista, vaccine update
In Twista's previous injection training video, Erin was doing the "injecting," and Twista was in her stall, with a stall guard as "protective contact" so Twista could retreat if she wanted to. We did one practice round out in the barn area prior to the real deal with the vet, and here is the vet actually giving the injections.
What do you want to work on this year?
Is it groundwork, cooperative care, riding (bridled or bridleless), starting your horse under saddle (or restarting), developing your feel and proprioception on the ground and/or in the saddle, working on challenging behaviors, or something else?
Savannah & Stormy, counting game
This was our first attempt at a loose version of a counting game I first saw from Leslie McDevitt. Savannah is very new to R+ (this was our first lesson), and Stormy has had a fair amount of time off. So, I wanted to do a few things:
Cooperative mouth handling
About a month ago, Dr. Judy Batker from Country View Equine Clinic came out to do fall shots, and look at Siri’s eye, which had been weeping for a while (turns out the eye itself is fine, which was a HUGE relief). Fi has a snaggletooth (what I think is a baby tooth that never fell out), and I also wanted to make sure that wasn’t causing problems. Dr. Batker went to look at it, and since Fi is pretty suspicious of anyone trying to put things in her mouth (it could be Banamine!), she wasn’t super cooperative. I’d worked on a little bit of mouth handling with both my horses, but not a lot, and certainly didn’t get to the stage of having someone else do it. So, I took this as a cue to work a little more on it, and maybe by spring have a fairly complete mouth exam behavior. Or I may get distracted with any number of other things. We’ll see.
Anyhow, a few days ago it was cold, I’ve been sick with both a cold and fibro so I was highly unmotivated to do anything really involved, so I thought I’d give this a go...
Mindmap
I love using Mindmeister for initial brainstorming of pretty much any topic. Although just a way to organize thoughts, and not a final form, it allows the opportunity to see a broader perspective as well as make connections I wouldn’t otherwise see. This is a very small subsection of a much larger topic I’m working on. On the surface, it’s about shaping and the training process using R+. But really, it’s applicable to any quadrant, and therefore any conversation.
Variables
Whenever I’m problem-solving a situation, I like to get as much info as I can, and see if there are commonalities and/or differences in different versions of the situation. What is consistent, and what is variable? What seems to have a noticeable influence?
Vinny: baseline video
Vinny was having trouble standing for the farrier. His owner, Kristina, had said he was generally good for her when they were alone, so we decided to try a video review of the baseline behavior to see if there were any indicators as to why.
Depth perception
The R+ community can be caustic to those that question it, and that’s deplorable. But it isn’t the R+ community. It’s people, in any group committed to any ideal.
It's not just training
There's a lot of talk right now about how operant conditioning/learning theory/behaviorism no longer exists because it's not the only thing that's happening. Well, it's *not* the only thing that's happening, but it never has been, even before Pavlov and Skinner and Bailey. Just because it's limited in its application and description of how an entity learns and processes information doesn't mean it's not happening. It's just one part of what it is to be an electric meatbag on this planet.
Be judicious
Every time you’re in that horse’s presence, you are in control of what happens. The horse is not. Sounds simple, but horses are perfectly capable of rather sophisticated discernment. If they learn that you are aversive, either yourself or by proxy, it will change their behavior.
Non-resume
One of my favorite accounts on Instagram, @pantherflows, posted a question about “something you do (or once did) as an interest, hobby, or work, that is NOT super obvious as useful to your (horse or human) work, but that YOU feel adds something to what you now do.” I love this question. We are all people, and nothing we do is separate from anything else we do. EVERYTHING contributes.
It's *how* you do it
A previous post may have made it look like I don’t think relationship or connection exist and we shouldn’t talk about them. That’s not true. I just think those are things that are a little dangerous to label in the context of training, unless perhaps you’re sure you’re on the same page with the person you’re talking with.
Changes
This is unintentionally long, and potentially offensive. TLDR: I help horses and people learn to become comfortable with healthcare procedures using positive reinforcement training where traditional training has failed.
Recently I was asked to define what I do. To give my spiel. This is harder than it sounds!
Go with the horse's idea
Spontaneous ponying, yesterday. I rode Fi in the outdoor for the first time. It's right up against the highway, and she previously hadn't handled traffic well enough for me to add the pressure of a rider, so I let both horses explore the space loose a few times before trying anything new.
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