This is the second session of cooperative oral syringe training with Bucky, a mustang mare of one of my clients’. I started with just targeting her muzzle to the syringe, and added the hand target to the bridge of her nose as a separate piece after that, combining them when I was sure she understood both. She knows what the syringe is and doesn’t love it, so I’m not going to get particular about where she touches it. I’d started off using my hand as a proxy, and built in the syringe from there. This is toward the end of the session, and the last trial shows that I pushed a little farther than she wanted, so she disconnects and goes for the dropped pellets on the ground. No harm done, we did reconnect again.
I was listening to “Not Another Dog and Pony Show Podcast”. One point made was on fully cooperative care with 100% opt out, and an experience where dogs trained with 100% ability to opt out struggled at the vet when opting out wasn’t available.
I have always felt like less of a trainer when teaching cooperative care behavior with “restraint” - like with my hand on the horse’s face. I teach it that way because not everyone is going to approach it the cooperative care way, so it made more sense to me to teach it the way people will do it, as long as it’s not unduly stressful for the horse. We can build in restraint as part of the behavior. A kind of future-proofing. It also gives the horse information about what’s going to happen. I don’t fully use my hand as restraint, but will add “egg yolk” pressure if the horse can handle it. Otherwise I let go and try again. It’s a good tactile barometer of the horse’s understanding and comfort level. This can work for better or worse, and that’s where the art of training comes in.
That said, I still do it with no tack as the presence of a halter often creates a mental/emotional restraint. That type of restraint is often what has contributed to the problem I’m trying to solve, and in training (not a “live” situation) I need the horse to give me information about how they’re feeling.
It’s not as “flashy” as horses grabbing for the wormer syringe themselves. But maybe it doesn’t have to be that way? Maybe it’s okay that they do something they don’t like because it’s important to us, as long as there’s a balance between that and choice where it’s possible.
It brings up a larger question of who we’re training for - us, the client, the horse, other people who may handle that horse, or the community we identify with?
