Sabrina has a horse and and pony that she is getting started with positive reinforcement training. The first portion of this training is the trickiest for a lot of horses…or ponies. Her horse responded quite nicely and sorted it out quickly. However, her persistent pony is a different story. She is being kind of tenacious, instead of patient. A pony tenacious…now there’s a surprise! This first portion takes some good timing and looking for the smallest approximations toward turning their head away. This is the most important lesson they need to learn since it sets the tone for future interactions. The good news is that it doesn’t take long for them to get this skill worked out. Take a look at my last blog post to see a horse learning this task for the first time.
Often times people choose to ignore this unwanted behavior and not bring food around their horses at all, except for at feeding time. That is one way to deal with it but certainly teaching them how to behave correctly makes for a more well rounded horse, whether you plan to use positive reinforcement or not. When I watch a horse who is pushy when food is around, I will usually observe this same demeanor at feeding time. This attitude gets reinforced everyday when they get fed, so they have a strong reinforcement history with this unpleasant behavior. These horses are slower to give up on what has worked so well, for so long. So remember, every time you feed your horse you are reinforcing them for SOMETHING! If they are standing quietly, then you will see more of this behavior, if they are pawing or diving at the food then you will see more of this behavior. By simply being aware of what is happening you will be able to change their habits. I can go on and on about manners at feeding time but for this post I want to focus on Sabrina and her pushy pony learning to be polite in the presence of food.
I gave Sabrina a number of suggestions for how to handle this situation. One is to feed her pony before her session. Ponies are often on restricted diets and this can make the value of food skyrocket. By feeding her before the session, this is one ways we can set her up for success. I failed to mention another way that we might be able to set her up for success, would be by doing a session after she has had some exercise. This can take the edge off of their energy level and minimize the frantic seeking of food. Anyway that is something you may try and see if it helps her focus. As she gets the lesson worked out and knows what is expected of her we can fade out these tools that we used in the beginning to help make the learning less frustrating.
Watch the video for more suggestions. Anyone who is new to this training may go to my last blog post for more info for getting your horse off to a good start. Sabrina, please keep me posted and let me know how things are going.
