Rescuing Rusty

This is Heildorf learning to give to pressure.

There’s no excitement. No one is upset. He is loose, no reins or rope attached. There is nothing aversive going on here.

It makes me wonder why positive reinforcement people have developed such a distaste for using any sort of pressure?

Well used pressure can offer guidance to a horse, lower stress, and  make life easier for everyone. It is a natural way to steer or lead that makes sense to everyone. What is well applied pressure really except touching our horses? I touch Heildorf’s side here to ask him to step over. I touch the side of his face to ask him to turn. I touch  my hand to his chest to ask him to back.

I understand that not everyone uses pressure well. There are those who want to escalate and go to swinging ropes, chasing the horse around whenever they don’t immediately respond. That is pressure used badly.

That is a problem  with the individual trainer though. Bad horsemanship on that persons behalf. Not a sin of pressure itself. Even when training with pure -R, pressure and release, round penning, we don’t want horses to be upset by pressure. Use as little force as necessary, that is every true horseman’s goal and mantra.

When pressure has been used badly we need to recognize it as the bad training, abuse even,  that it is. To let those times cast a pall over any training that uses tactile cues and touch is wrong though. Instead of demonizing all use of pressure as being bad we need to look at the way we are using pressure. Perhaps the problem is in  the one using the tool, not in the tool.

Good horsemanship should always be the goal.

When it comes to working with horses we all have our own  personal, and strong, opinions on how it needs to be done. We are seldom shy about expressing them. Telling other people what they are doing wrong and how they should be doing things is a favorite pastime of horse people.

The problem  with this is that we have no idea about the other persons ideas, goals, or story when it comes to horses. Before offering help, or worse telling someone what to do, what will work, what wont,  we need to stop and remember that we only have experience with our own lives, that’s all we know. Of course we assume that that is what there is to experience and how everyone experiences life. It isn’t until we grow those gathered experiences and expand upon them that we begin to see that there is a whole other world out there, that everyone experiences life differently and responds differently to those experiences that we realize how much there is that we don’t know.

Just because one thing doesn’t work for us doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work for everyone. Just because we are able to do something one way doesn’t mean that everyone can. We all have our own separate roads to follow. That means that we can’t force others to follow our path or even that they should.

I train using positive reinforcement. Obviously I think its the best way to go. That doesn’t mean other ways don’t also work and make a happy well trained horse when used well.

There are so many different ways to train within the realms of positive reinforcement even. I use pressure and release, it’s a great tool in the positive reinforcement tool box. There’s no need to use escalating force,  no need to make it aversive to the horse. Pressure and release is a way to offer guidance and give clear signals to avoid stressing the horse as he tries to figure out what we want. It can be the equivalent of being lead by your partner in a dance or holding hands with a loved one as  they walk with you down the street. A kind, gentle guidance.

Some people aren’t able to use it well. That is just fine. They don’t need to use that tool if it doesn’t work for them. Nobody should use a training method they aren’t capable of using well. That doesn’t mean the training method is bad, it means the training method doesn’t suit that one person using it.

As we travel this path with our horses, and with the other people traveling the what appears to be the same path with us, we need to remember that even though our roads look the same we all travel them differently. The way that is right for one may not be right for the other.

The important thing, the way to decide if a method is working well, is whether or not the horse is happy. He is after all the one whose opinion matters here.

I saddled Rusty today Planning on a ‘real’ ride.

The kids were busily occupied and I had some time. He has been getting tired  of me riding in  our little arena. Tricks are more fun. He gets to stand around and have food shoveled into his mouth. What’s not to love?

He does seem to enjoy going out and covering country though, instead of the working on  intricate little details that I’ve been wanting to do. He came to the gate as usual but had to stand and think hard about actually coming through it. I thought I’d let him decide what we’d do to start with. He could chose something he liked to do before I asked him to do what I wanted. Once saddled and on I let the reins lay and off he went.

He was going somewhere and in a hurry.

We cut the corner around the trees tight, slipping and sliding on the ice. I was tempted to grab mu reins and steer us to safer footing but then we were through there and there was no point. I thought he was heading for the other horses, but no. We came to them and kept going. That wasn’t where he was headed.
Out to the cattle he sped. Up the lane in  the feedlot.

Now I remembered. We had ridden out here earlier this week. Came to check a tank  that had run over and stopped to share some of the cattle fed while we were here.

Sure enough. He went right to the feed bunk he had enjoyed last time.

When we think about positive reinforcement we usually think about the immediate reward. The click and the treat.

Positive reinforcement is any reward, at any time, that makes a behavior more likely to occur again.

By stopping to enjoy a snack Rusty rewarded himself for riding out there. He wanted to do it again.

When I was in high school my mom  would drop me off at the barn on summer mornings and leave me there to ride all day. Once I rode way down the road to a town with a little grocery store. I tied my horse to the railing at the front entrance and went in. I got a snack for me and a bag of carrots for him. We both enjoyed our treat then rode home.

The next time we rode out he went enthusiastically in that direction. I decided it was because he had enjoyed his carrots. Unfortunately I never put much more deep thought into it. I might have found positive reinforcement much earlier!

What is the point of all that? I’m not entirely sure. Except if your horse is reluctant to leave the barn for trail rides. You might want to consider bringing a snack for him to enjoy at the farthest point.

Mostly though, I think, it’s that positive reinforcement is so much more than a click and a treat. What other ways can we find to encourage the behaviors we want?

Rusty finally did it! And with all the new people here I think we should talk about it. Air our dirty laundry if you will, or airing something for sure 😉

Some geldings will never drop when we are working with them while others like to have it hanging out at all times.

There are quite a few reasons as to why geldings to drop while working with us. One is that they are stressed, overly excited about the food they are expecting to receive, not sure about what they should be doing to get it. In this case it’s a sign that we need to slow down and take a big step back.