“although tactile signals have been used for millennia as the major means of communication with horses, given the acute aural and visual capabilities, it may be time to change our ways of communicating with horses”
“Generally, correct use of aids such as the whip but also spurs and leg aids are important to safeguard the welfare of the horse by offering an opportunity to escape the pain e.g., by moving in the wanted direction. [pain can be defined as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage”]”
Rorvang, Nielson & McLean - Sensory Abilities of Horses and Their Importance for Equitation Science (2020)
Both these quotes come from the 2020 paper cited above and for me help to clarify the main principle of negative reinforcement, often referred to as pressure and release. Pressure and release is still negative reinforcement I.e. doing something the horse doesn’t like and wants to avoid (aversive) in order to get them to do what we want. In my experience the theory behind r- (negative reinforcement) is misunderstood, especially when we soften it by calling it pressure and release. Having said that I do think it is the horse not the human who gets to decide if something is aversive or not which can include positive reinforcement (r+) / clicker training. It’s also worth noting that many ‘natural horsemanship’ methods use negative reinforcement.
I want my horse to feel good about training with me - to look forward to it. In my experience, what seems to achieve this is actually taking what the horse offers then add a voice cue and reward (horses appreciate being told how well they’re doing). Once the voice cue is familiar and habitual then pair it with a body cue (again with a reward and again until it is both familiar and habitual). Voila no need to use a formal method of training (r+. r- or the many natural horsemanship methods) you are building a language between you that you both understand. No second guessing or confusion about what is being asked. If you give horses the time to figure it out rather than expecting them to do as per your instructions immediately, you get to a place where you’re politely asking - I’d quite like to turn left here please (by looking where you want to go, turning your body, perhaps opening the left rein) and the horse answers - oh yes I know what you want and sure let’s do it!
One of my main mantras is ‘You can train out the no’s and you can train in the yes’s but to get to sure I’ll give that a go requires a different (more relational) approach.’ And a shared language.
25 odd years ago I had a horse who was competing at elementary level dressage and I wanted to move up to medium level but although I knew the theory behind half pass I had never actually ridden the movement. So I booked myself a school master lesson with Lizzie Murray at Catherston Stud. She said something at the time which only now do I realise the significance. She told me that you could teach a horse to half pass by flicking their ear. What! I’d read the manuals and listened to instructors who all told me I had to put my outside leg here, my inside leg there. I had to move my hips like so and my shoulders like this and then my outside hand did this and my inside hand did that. Flick an ear!!
Only now do I realise that the ‘traditional’ approach to riding half pass is not about teaching the horse the movement but using negative reinforcement (pressure and release) to get the horse to move the way the rider wants. Put the outside leg on and the horse moves away from the pressure (he doesn’t like it). But then he comes into pressure from the inside leg, so he sort of bends away from the pressure of the inside leg. At the same time there is pressure from the inside hand to look to the side but also pressure from the outside hand to not look too far to the side. Oh and then there’s pressure from the seat which he tries to avoid by moving forward away from it. In this sense the horse is not actually learning to do the movement but simply reacting to the pressures being applied to the various parts of his body. With repetition the horse learns that in order to ‘avoid’ the pressure they must move their body in a certain way.
So how can we do it differently? How do we teach half pass by flicking the horse’s ear? Honestly I’m not sure about the ear thing but what I do know is that we can use the horses other senses to teach them how we would like them to use their body. Using our voice (why the voice is not allowed in dressage competition I don’t know) and visual signals - perhaps if you're doing ground work a pointing of the hand in the direction you want the horse to travel. A touch of the leg or the hand or the movement of the rein or the rider’s body can become a cue (an ask if you like) rather than a pressure to be avoided.
We, as humans, are smart enough to do things differently and help our horses find a place where training with us is a pleasure, something to look forward to rather than something to be avoided.
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