Recently, on the Yahoo Classical Dressage group talk has turned to how to deal with ‘bad’ behavior such as biting and kicking. Absolutely all agree that this is not something that we ‘wee humans’ can really tolerate since our bodies are pretty fragile when compared to horses. They can do Real Damage to us! There is no agreement, however, as to what is the right way to deal with such behavior.
Several people weighed in with their techniques for biting or kicking back those horses who offered such behavior. I shake my head reading these suggestions. [more...]
Recently I wrote about horses who drag owners to eat grass. In response, Nell made a deceptively simple comment, “So what if your horse has a fit? – does this work both ways?” I’d replied, “Sure, if her ‘fits’ get your attention!”
That exchange got me to thinking about reinforcement in general and how important it is to understand how behaviors get stronger or weaker. This relates to riding as much as with any other horse related activities.
The first principle always to keep in mind is that behavior that is reinforced/rewarded will become stronger–more likely to occur in [more...]
Recently this issue came up on the Clickryder group. What to do when you are walking your horse and he just dives for the grass without any thought of you. No amount of clicker training for leading nicely seems to keep the horse from running to the grass when he sees it. I answered it there and I thought it was a good one to keep. I added a few more thoughts here.
To me, this is a great example of needing to live and train in the Real World where there are all manner of reinforcers [more...]
