Whorl Bias, Horse Whorls

By Neversummer December 4, 2021 Horse Whorls No Comments

Every horse should be judged according to their own individual nature.

If we look at a horse’s whorl wont it predispose us to judge them based on what we think the whorl tells us about them instead of who they tell us they are?

This is a very important point and not one to be dismissed. All horses are individuals. Even when born with a set of traits the way they are raised and the life they experience will change the way those original traits are expressed.

That said, even with the differences caused to nature by nurture, using the whorls to give us an idea about the horse in front of us can never hurt. Some of the old whorl lore tells us of horses that are bad or at least bad luck. If we go by that then yes, there can be harm. Instead we need to dismiss any idea of bad and simply accept different horses as just that, different. By looking at horses with that view we can use whorls to see beneath damage caused by life and see the horse they could have been instead. We can use the whorls to find a way to reach the best possible potential any horse has to give.

Whorls don’t cause bias against any horse. Instead they provide a deeper view of what is going on inside and how we can help the best possible traits rise to the top.

Counting With Rusty

By Neversummer December 3, 2021 Clicker training, Rusty No Comments

Rusty is learning to count. He and Harvey both. I have to admit that Harvey is better at it. That doesn’t mean Rusty isn’t good, just that he’s not quite as good.

Each horse has their own style and way of doing things. Harvey is working towards tricks that best use his skills, Rusty is working the opposite direction using his own unique skill set.

With Rusty we’re playing at having him choose the number of cones that matches the number I’m holding up. Technically this is easily cheatable. He picks up cones until I click. In fact I’m not sure there’s a way for him to do this without cheating at it. Maybe we’ll have to rethink it a little. Until then here is Rusty handing me the number of cones to match the number I’m holding up. What a good smart pony.

Counting

By Neversummer December 2, 2021 Clicker training, Harvey No Comments

I woke up one morning with a plan fully formed to teach my horses numbers and counting. I love when that sort of thing happens. I’ve been without concret goals for horse training for awhile now. It’s good to have a goal to work towards.

Can a horse learn to count?

Yes and no. A horse wont have the same concept of numbers that we do. They don’t, to the best of our knowledge, grasp abstract ideas.

But, there’s no reason a horse can’t understand that a number (picture) goes with a word (cue). We are taking that a step farther by adding a number of cones and teaching a number (picture) that goes with it. Harvey doesn’t seem to be having any trouble at all with that idea. This was his third time working with this idea and he is doing amazing.

He is getting a couple of days off now. Partially on purpose. This is a lot of mental work and stress I’m putting on him. Everyone needs a break from that sometimes. But also, horses learn best with some dwell time. Time to process what they’ve been doing, let it sink in a little.

We’ll see if he remembers next time we get to play.

Terms In Practice

By Neversummer December 1, 2021 Academy, Clicker training No Comments

We are just finishing up a month of looking at the terms we use in training. I’m a bit late with this but better lat than never.

I thought it would be fun to take a look at the words we’ve been studying in action. See how they apply in practice. And maybe some words we didn’t talk about but that we should know.

This video starts out with negative punishment. When we hear the word punishment we think bad. Not something we want to use! In scientific terms is simply means something that stops a behavior from happening. In the same way that a reinforcer encourages a behavior to happen again. The negative here doesn’t mean bad, it means removing something.

In short negative punishment means stopping a behavior from happening by taking something away.

I don’t want Harvey to pick up the cone so I am not rewarding him for it, I’m removing the treat he hopes to get.

Then we try again. I click too late. I was trying to click before he bit the cone. Instead I end up rewarding what I don’t want. Yes, this messes up our training but once we’ve clicked the horse gets a reward. Those are the terms of our bargain with the horses. I will not break them, I’ll just do better next time. I can just give one tiny pellet though, a tiny reward.

Then finally we both get it right! I click before he can pick up the cone and reward enthusiastically.

A bit of treat manners in there. Never ask for a trick while they are mugging you! The trick is a tertiary reinforcer, something that tells them they will soon be getting the secondary reinforcer, the click, then the reinforcer itself, the treat. That’s a lot of different names for a reward. We can break that down into simpler terms. The trick tells them the reward is coming, making the trick itself a bit of a reward. If we ask for the trick while the horse is mugging us we are rewarding the mugging and teaching bad treat manners.

Then Harvey gets the behavior I want right again! We never want to stop too long at one part of the whole picture. As a general rule getting the behavior right three times in a row tells us it is time to move on. Harvey got it twice. I know my horse and am happy to come back to this as often as we need to. I decided to throw in the next piece of the puzzle. I asked him to touch the card in my hand. I will chain the two behaviors together to make one trick that will only be rewarded after both pieces have been done.

To start with I’m going to reward for both, but only for a short time as he begins to understand what I’m asking. If I reward for both for too long he will get upset at only being rewarded for one. I will go back and forth for awhile rewarding after the last behavior and rewarding for both as we refine the exact behavior. I will need to reward for NOT picking up the cone quite a bit before he can just look at the cone then choose the number it matches.

Harvey is such a quick learner that he gets the idea immediately! He looks at the cone then chooses the right number after one try. That doesn’t mean we are done. This is a good place to stop though. Horses learn best with a bit of dwell time to think about what you worked on. It isn’t the end of the trick either. He needs more than one number to choose between for there to be any actual choice. The end goal here is for him to count the cones and choose the number that tells us how many cones there are. Lofty goals but by breaking things down and using all these tools at our disposal it is something he can easily accomplish!

Capturing

By Neversummer November 30, 2021 Academy No Comments

Capturing:

When a behavior is performed freely by the horse and we are able to reward it to encourage the behavior to occur again.

So many times we will look out and see our horses doing something incredible or just incredibly silly. If only we could get them to do these things when we ask them to!

Capturing a behavior is exactly that. Taking the things a horse does naturally and getting them to do it again, when we ask. We can do that by using our handy clicker. It allows us to ‘capture’ anything that we are there to see happen. Using capturing is an easy way to teach many tricks. Laying down for example.

When your horse goes to roll, click and reward. It is that easy.

Does that mean you have to wait patiently for your horse to offer a behavior by chance? Not at all! We can set up the environment to encourage our horses to offer a desired behavior. What will cause a horse to want to roll? Riding, a bath, a good place to roll. We can introduce these things to the horse so that they will be more likely to offer the behavior we want to capture. Go for a nice ride, give a bath, trickle water down your horses back. Take you horse to a good soft spot with deep dirt. Then wait. By introducing all the necessary ingredients our horses will most likely be happy to offer the behavior we are looking for allowing us to capture it.

What other behaviors do you like to or have you been able to capture with your horse?

Numbers

By Neversummer November 29, 2021 Clicker training, Harvey No Comments

I decided that it would be fun to teach the horses numbers and see how far we could go with it from there. They already know colors. Numbers are the same concept, put a cue, word, with an object. What else can we do with it though? Can they learn an order? How about addition? Can they pair the picture, number, with a number of objects?

Double Whorled Complications

By Neversummer November 22, 2021 Horse Whorls No Comments

The slightest change in the location of a horse’s whorls can make huge differences in temperament.

No where is that more difficult to figure out than in side by side and diagonal double whorls. These whorls show almost exact opposites in temperament types among horses. The whorls themselves can be almost impossible to tell apart!

High side by side doubles can be two very clear whorls, in a straight horizontal line, touching or very close to each other. Or, one whorl can be barely visible, there can be lots of feathering, or not, or, most difficult of all, they can be set at a slight angle. When the side by side whorls are at a slight angle they have to be perfectly clear. The whorls can’t be faint and they do have to be very close together. These horses are extroverts, bold, brave, sensitive, will let you know exactly what they are thinking.

Diagonal double whorls are always set at an angle to each other, they can be set at a small distance apart. In fact that is one way to tell the difference. Diagonal double whorls are usually an inch or so apart and one of them is usually very faint and hard to see, a ghost whorl. Feathering will arch over, or under, the two whorls connecting them. When a diagonal double whorl looks like this they are easy to recognize. These horses are introverts, hesitant, need time to think things through, will draw into themselves and not show a reaction until they explode if you keep pushing and miss the subtle signs they’re upset.

The difficulty comes when the diagonal double is clear, easy to see, set close together, and only at a slight angle.

How do we tell this apart from a side by side double at a slight angle?

I don’t have a good answer. One possible way would be ears and head shape. Introverts tend to carry their ears back. Not laid back and mad, just facing backwards. Side by side whorls tend to have moose noses, bold features, convex, and sensitive. Right brain introverts tend to have very sensitive features and can also have convex profiles, making the difference even harder to tell.

So where do we draw the line? How do we tell for sure which diagonal double whorl will be introverts and which extrovert? I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that. Here’s to more learning and getting this figured out!

These two horses are not going to help solve this puzzle. One is a diagonal double the other side by side, according to their owners descriptions of temperament. Can you guess which is which? If we look closely there is a small difference in the whorl placement that seems to be our only clue.

Chaining

By Neversummer November 17, 2021 Academy No Comments

Chaining:

Chaining is linking behaviors to create a new behavior.

We do this with almost every trick we teach our horses. We teach a few separate, simple behaviors. Then we put them together to form a big complicated behavior. Once they are put together the horse receives his reward at the end of the chain instead of after each piece of the chain like the do in the beginning. If we tried to teach the big behavior we would overwhelm the horse, confuse everyone, and get nowhere.

In chaining behaviors there are certain ways to put them together that are more effective than others.

That brings us to Back Chaining

Back Chaining:

When we start at the end of the trick, instead of the beginning, as we teach it. Then we teach each step back towards the very start of the trick.

Fetch is a trick, one of the many, that are taught using chaining. Picking something up, walking to us, carry the something, hand it to us. Trying to do it in that order can get confusing though. Instead I start by teaching the horse to target my hands with his nose. Then I start working on teaching them to hold an object, Then to bring that object a very short distance to my hands, gradually increasing the distance as he understands what is being asked.

By starting at the end of the trick the horse always knows what comes next. The hard part, the new part of the trick, is first. Then it gets rewarded by doing the piece the horse already knows and understands. As long as a hard piece is followed by an easy piece the horse will happily keep doing the hard and the easy thing. If an easy thing is followed by a hard thing the horse will stop wanting to do the easy thing.

The order that we do our training in is very important and makes all the difference.

Contrafreeloading

By Neversummer November 8, 2021 Academy, Heildorf No Comments

Contrafreeloading:

Contrafreeloading is when an animal would prefer to “work” or “play” for its reward versus simply being given food.

 

I had Heildof and Rusty out hoping to get them both worked with. While I played with one the other was free to roam about and graze. Rusty was happy to do so while I played with Heildorf. Those last bites of grass before winter sets in are cherished.

Then I lead Heildorf over to Rusty, let him go and grabbed Rusty.

Rusty and I were working on things when I heard a clatter behind me. Turning to look I saw Heildorf has stepped up onto the pedestal we had been working on. He was standing there looking around expectantly. Waiting patiently. I looked at the camera still set up and pointing at the pedestal but sadly no longer on and sorely regretted turning it off. I rushed back over to turn it on again! Even with all the green grass he could eat there at his disposal he would rather work for his food.

Contrafreeloading is the idea that animals in general, horses in this case, would rather do something to earn a reward than have it freely given. Obviously they aren’t going to turn down a cookie when we offer it just because we are glad to see them. When given a freely available resource though, they prefer to need to put in some effort to get it.

Is it that they enjoy the game? I hope so. If we make the effort too hard or not something they can enjoy they will happily go after the freely available resource. I’ve had that happen plenty of times when I ask for too much, or don’t explain clearly, in small steps what it is I’m asking for.

Whatever the reason that animals do this in general, I was happy to see that what Heildorf and I had been doing was apparently something he wanted to do more of. Bringing Rusty over I hurried to reward Heildorf’s efforts. Then we all spent some time hanging out on the pedestals.