In the previous podcast episode with Sara Jackson, and in the next episode with Julia Inglis, you’ll hear mention of ‘positive reinforcement’ as a training approach. We’ve mentioned it ourselves too in talking about our Start Your Engines course+workshop.

I suspect that some of you listening will be well familiar with training using positive reinforcement, but there are likely others listening who are not so sure. So in this episode, we’re going to touch on what training with positive reinforcement, often abbreviated as R+, actually is.

We are not positive reinforcement purists at Abbey’s Run Equestrian, but training with positive reinforcement has become our primary and preferred approach to training anything with our horses here.

This was a big switch for me, as I grew up learning and then for many years also teaching, a more conventional approach to training with horses. It was some 8 years ago that I started to change my approach, initially as I had run out of other options with a challenging horse. Since then, I have continued to learn more and more about this training approach, the body of scientific research that sits behind it, and have been thoroughly exploring it with my horses, and absolutely loving the approach, the ethos and the results. Never have I had so much consistent fun with my training.

You’ll hear us talking quite a bit about positive reinforcement and all the connected bits and pieces through our podcasts to help share this fun and result producing training approach with you.

In this episode I discuss:

• a working definition of the words ‘positive’ and ‘reinforcement’ in a training/learning context and what it means when we bring them together
• who decides what’s pleasant (the added thing), why context matters and so the importance of having options
• broad types of positive reinforcers (the something pleasant)
• the need to provide the positive reinforcement immediately after the desired behaviour
• the potential to strengthen unwanted behaviours if we reinforce them
• a reminder of why we need to observe & interpret equine body language
• the importance of choice in training with positive reinforcement
• what you can do to start your positive reinforcement training journey right now

Our links mentioned this episode:  

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Start Your Engines course+workshop

Abbey's Run Equestrian website

Abbey's Run Equestrian on Facebook

Thank you to Matthew Bliss for podcast production & consultation. You can find out more about podcast support on offer via: Blissery.FM or email [email protected]