Having a horse that has more energy or gets spooky durning cooler weather is pretty common. It can also be very frustrating. I’ll discuss some reasons why this happens and how to deal with it.

There are many unwanted behaviors that can occur as consequences of using aversives in training. Escape, Avoidance, Learned Helplessness, Coercion, and Aggression are some common issues that can happen. I’m going to give an overview on what these side effects are and how to avoid them.

In this episode, I’ll talk about the punishment side of the learning quadrants. Unlike reinforcement, punishment is effective when it decreases or stops a behavior. Lots of people use punishment effectively or ineffectively without knowing it. I’ll discuss what punishment is and the details of negative punishment versus positive punishment.

There are four learning quadrants. They are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. I’m going to stick with the reinforcement side for this episode. It is common for people to get confused on what positive and negative reinforcement is and the terms are used in the wrong way a lot. I want to clear up what each of these are and how they effect us and our horses in training.

Operant conditioning is the kind of conditioning that you will see most often during training and it is more obvious than classical conditioning. Operant conditioning is when an animal operates on its environment to get what it wants or avoid what it does not like. Operant conditioning is happening all the time whether using R+ or R- training methods.

Classical conditioning is happening all the time, for better or for worse. It is essentially learning by association. This can work in a negative way such as when you hear a bee buzzing right before you get stung. Now you associate buzzing with being stung. Or classical conditioning can work in a positive way. You hear the song of an ice cream truck and want to go toward it and get a treat. I’ll talk about how classical conditioning is training our horses and how you can use it to your benefit.

I’ll talk about what desensitization and habituation are and how they differ. Most importantly I’ll cover how they affect the horse during training. What we are usually doing and calling desensitization is actually not and is more flooding/ habituation. I’ll clear up what these terms mean and what’s best for the horse.

I’ll talk about the role sensitization plays in training horses. I’ll also cover what unconditional and conditional reflexes are. These topics are the beginning of training a horse to respond to different cues, either with R+ or R-.

I want to do a series on the science behind horse training and behavior. First I want to talk about reflexes. Why they are important to clicker training and why normal reactions in horses can cause us so much frustration.

I want to talk about common reasons why horses kick and some ways that we can help to change that behavior.