Een interessante "post" over het gebruik van verschillende soorten druk en combinaties daarvan.
Een gesprekje tussen Jo en Sarah
Jo wrote:
The reason that I'm uncomfortable with R- is the ease
with which it
can escalate - I'm NOT suggesting that this is what
you or anyone
else does – however, take the instance I saw
today....a horse being loaded onto a trailer.
He refuses point blank. Someone tries running him at
the nasty dark
place. Next they try pushing, next they prod with a
whip, next they
smack and finally the horse is loaded....the immeidate
reaction was to esclate the R-.
Or - the over excited horse that wouldn't stop........
..pull on
reins, pull harder, YANK, DOUBLE YANK and yell and
wallop………….
The horse that wouldn't move over, push on flank,
shove on flank,
whack with a crop on flank.
Yes, Jo, you are right. Go to enough horse shows and
you will see more examples like this than you can
count. Lots of it is just plain old bad horsemanship.
Here are some things I see going on in the scences you
describe:
• When using -R without any +R, you don't want to stay
at a very low level of pressure for too long because
you just end up
desensitizing the animal and getting
nothing. So in that sense, trainers who up the
pressure are doing what works. You are right, this is
a "trap" of using -R.
Having +R allows us to more effectively use pressure
to "get something to happen" and then reinforce it.
It's not "pure" clicker training, but it is more
humane than just escalating and it gives the horse
time to think - "Hey, there's some pressure here, my
person wants something..." and start to experiment to
find the right answer. Because from a clicker
"mindset" (even when using pressure), I'm not going to
come down on the horse like a ton of bricks when he
guesses wrong. Most of the time, I'm going to "make
like a tree" and just keep the pressure there until I
get an approximation of what I want, which I can then
reinforce. Good horse trainers of any background, even
those who don't actively use +R, use their -R more
along these lines.
• Teaching a horse to respond to pressure in a more
"operant" way, meaning to actively give to it versus
learning to just follow it or be molded by it, takes a
fair amount of time, patience, and feel from the
trainer at the beginning. (But yields a lighter, more
responsive horse in the long run.) Most horse people
are not taught to "set it up and wait," they are
taught to escalate. There are lots of wonderful
horsepeople who love their horses dearly and yet
handle them in the manner you witnessed because that's
all they know how to do. (I certainly handled horses
differently before learning about clicker training.)
• Sometimes the training you see is the expression of
a rider/horse relationship that is nothing like what
you and your daughter have with Lady. Sometimes, the
horse is mainly a vehicle for the person's financial,
competitive, or social success, and needs to perform
well enough to meet that function with the least
possible investment of time and effort. Heavier-handed
training can meet that need, because the resulting
damage to the long-term results and the
trainer/trainee relationship isn't a concern. Doesn't
make it right, but sometimes that's what it is.
Jo wrote:
In many ways I like a subject to be able to refuse,
or not respond as it tells me that there's something
wrong with my training plan.
You're right, when the subject says no or can't
perform, something in the training plan needs to be
adjusted. (Or maybe something in the environment or
the animal's health...) But there's something to keep
in mind when trying to see through the eyes of that
exotic breed, the horseperson - For the majority of
horsepeople, what you describe touches on the "trap"
of learning to use +R. Until the trainer has good
timing, good mechanical skills, and an understanding
of how to use cues and develop stimulus control,
having a horse who offers lots of behavior (i.e.:
operant/enthusiastic) or who feels comfortable saying
no (i.e. "disobedient") can become scary and downright
dangerous.
As Alex says, when you use CT you have to learn to
deal with an eager student. This isn't something most
horse people know how to do, and something many aren't
so sure they want at all. It doesn't sound like you
experienced the
"oh-my-gosh-this-is-so-much-fun-let-me-show-you-how-smart-I-am-oops-I-just-stepped-on-you"
stage with Lady. You started out with top-notch
clicker training and mechanical skills. (And it sounds
like Lady came to you with some baggage, but good
basic manners.)
Most horse people aren't so lucky. As someone who
teaches clicker training to other horsepeople, this is
the tricky part. Get the horse operant and tuned into
the game, but not so much that the owner can't keep
ahead of (or at least keep pace with ) the horse's
learning curve.
Yes, in -R the pressure can escalate, and often too
much too fast. But with +R what can escalate very
fast, and sometimes too much, is behavior from the
horse. I don't say this to bash clicker training, I
LOVE clicker training! I just say it to "call a spade
a spade." For me, blending +R and -R helps keep the
potential drawbacks of both approaches in check. But
maybe five years from now I'll say something totally
different.
Anyway, this is getting long, I just hope you find it
helpful as you explore working with horses and,
consequently, horsepeople.
Best,
Sarah
Piet
natuurlijk Natuurlijk!
Warboel
