Equiosity

This week we begin a three part conversation with Cindy Martin, one of my “Click That Teaches” coaches. Cindy talks about her background with both horses and dogs. She introduces us to her thoroughbred, Porter. Porter was “that” horse who helped her go beyond the basics of clicker training.

Often it is one particularly challenging horse that brings people to clicker training. In Cindy’s case, her Yoda, as she refers to him, was Porter, a thoroughbred with a neurological condition. Porter is a head shaker. In the podcast Cindy describes his condition and the extreme behavior it created. She found the solution through thin slicing her training requests and the building of very predictable patterns.

If you are currently struggling with a hard-to-reach horse, you will especially want to listen to this week’s podcast. When a horse pins his ears at the sight of you - or worse, in Porter’s case, goes into a fit of head shaking, it’s hard not to take it personally. Cindy’s journey with Porter provides an excellent road map to help get you through what can be very challenging territory.

Enjoy!

Rules are useful things. They keep us out of trouble - especially when it comes to training. But always it is a study of one - so when do you follow "the rules" and when do you deviate from them? That's what we explore in this week's podcast?

Why do relationships run hot and cold?

The question isn’t about the quality of the relationships. It’s about the language we use to describe them. What has temperature got to do with it? And even more what has this got to do with horse training? It turns out quite a lot. The primary metaphors that are formed early on in life become part of our core belief systems. That takes us directly to horse training.

This week’s podcast introduces the work of cognitive linguist, George Layoff. We consider how metaphors and frames effect the training choices we make.

Observational learning - what does that mean? How many different ways can we interpret that phrase to the benefit of our horses. What kind of an observer/learner are you? Is that fixed for you or do you understand the power of "yet"?

Words matter. When you see a horse refusing to move forward over a simple trail class obstacle, what is the "story" you create around that? Is this horse being stubborn? Or is there another explanation?

Maybe he's feeling overwhelmed by the environment. Something that is okay at home has suddenly become very frightening. The first story leads to punishment. The second to lessons that will create training success. Which story will you choose?

Words matter. They very much effect both what we are able to observe and the training choices we make.

The basics well done. That’s what training is. When you have that, the basics start looking like very fancy performance. You develop a real back and forth conversation with your horse. That’s when it becomes truly joyful. Your horse not only has a voice, it is a voice that is being listened to.

This statement ended the previous podcast. As we continue the conversation, we explore what it means for the horse to be given a voice that counts. It includes a discussion of our animals being able to say “no”. How do we deliberately teach “no”. How do we show them that it is not only safe to say “no”, but there are many contexts in which we actually welcome it.

That’s just the beginning. Join us for a rich conversation about why we “behave”. It includes a question about the emotions that get associated with the occurrence of the click.

This podcast continues a conversation we began last week. We ended Episode 29: Pre-school with a “save that thought” comment about the importance of building an extensive repertoire of behavior.

As Dominique said: “If you don’t have a repertoire - you have nothing. How can we talk? You don’t want me to do - whatever. But you haven’t taught me what I CAN do. Teach me a hundred other things I can do, and then we can talk. And then you can redirect me. Repertoire of behavior is under-rated. It’s our tools we’re going to use to find solutions. And you can never have too many.”

Dominique’s closing comment was: “If you don’t know what to train - train anything”.

In this podcast we pick up on that statement and follow this conversation that’s centered around the building of a repertoire takes us.

This week’s podcast opens with a quote from our recent webinar with Dr. Susan Friedman. We were discussing a twenty year old horse that came to her new owner very shut down by force-based training. Susan ended the webinar with her recommendation for this horse - go back to pre pre-school. "This horse is not ready to learn even simple things such as targeting. How do we know this? The data tells us. The horse’s behavior tells us."

Susan’s recommendation provided the launching point for our discussion.

In the previous podcast our guest, Michaela Hempen set the stage for this week’s podcast by describing single-subject design studies. Now she shares with us some research she has been doing on cribbing.

Anyone who has had a cribber in their barn knows what an annoying habit this can be. But it is more than an annoyance. Cribbing has been linked to some serious health issues, including a higher risk of colics.

Michaela summarizes the different types of interventions people try - often drawing from the medical model and the ethological approach. These help but only up to a point. Michaela has been taking a different approach. She is looking at the types of interventions that might be effective if we think of cribbing from the perspective of operant conditioning.

You don’t have to have a cribber to benefit from this podcast. We can all become citizen scientists as we learn to incorporate single-subject design studies into our training.

What is the best training strategy for your horse? Does he work better if you use bigger treats, different treats, a variety of treats? Now you don’t have to guess. You can set up AB reversals and directly ask your horse these questions and many more.

The function of this podcast is to lay the ground work for a discussion of cribbing. Cribbing is a stereotypic behavior that some horses exhibit. The horse takes hold of a fence board or other protruding surface with its front teeth. Then it arches its neck and contract its larynx which creates a rush of air into its stomach. This action produces a grunting sound. Anyone who has been around a cribber knows this sound all too well.

Apart from the annoying quality of the sound, cribbing has been linked to a high incidence of colic. Its not been established that there is a direct cause and effect link, but cribbing does seem to correlate with a high risk of colic. There are many interventions one can do to try to stop cribbing, but most of the time, they are not effective.

One of my coaches, Michaela Hempen is working on developing a behavioral intervention to see if cribbing can be reduced or stopped through this type of approach. To understand her study, we must first understand how single-subject-design studies work. So in this week’s podcast Michaela first explains how the type of studies most of us are familiar with - ones that use a large sample size - work. She then compares this type of study with single-subject design. What is this type of study and how does it work? Next week she’ll take us through her on-going research on cribbing.

Even if you don’t have a cribber, understanding single-subject design lets you truly “go to people for opinions and horses for answers”. You can set up AB reversals to test whether a change you have made is really making the difference you think it is. In the podcast you will find out what this means and how you can use this type of study design to improve your training.

In today’s podcast we focus on the “Hierarchy of Behavior Change Procedures” as described by Dr. Susan Friedman. If that sounds very dry, don’t worry, it’s not. The hierarchy gives us a road map for changing behavior. The measure we are using is the least intrusive, most positive interventions that can create the change we want to see.

Before we get to the hierarchy, I share a brief goat training update then we jump into a discussion of Dr. Friedman’s hierarchy. But we don’t get very far. If it’s a road map, then we went as far as the first stop. We spent time exploring the often hidden health issues that interfere with training.