by Sharon Foley

Consistency is an important aspect of ALL work, whether in hand or under saddle. It is an understanding of just this sort of thing that is essential to becoming a really good trainer. However, it is nearly impossible to practice until you are already a really good rider because you are just so busy trying to -do- dressage that you just don't even begin to realize the training skills you don't have. I think it is incredibly valuable to be able to work on just your training skills completely separate from "dressage." This is the skill that clicker training allows us to develop.

Clicker training (CT) isn't about what is being trained (be it "bow" or "piaffe") or what exercises you might use (raising the neck or shoulder in) but rather about the learning experience itself. Study CT and you discover fundamental truths that transcend ALL training. By spending time teaching the horse to do anything... especially something not dressage related... you learn how your horse learns, how what you do can affect how quickly (or slowly!) he learns. I can't even begin to adequately express what a revelation about these issues can be experienced by clicker training your horse. Take away the dressage goals. Strip it down to just that thin line of communication. How do you teach a horse to do anything?? How well are you able to communicate anything to your horse?

By learning this in a separate context you suddenly start looking at dressage in such a different light. You go, oh I see now what he is doing and why he does it like that....

For example this exchange took place in a dressage discussion group ....

"...during the 1930s. She told me he had a horse that he could place between the pillars and tell him to start to piaffe. Then he would turn away and teach a student. In the meantime, the horse continued the piaffe, and even increased his effort, until Zeiner told him: "halt".

On a similar note, I have seen a video of Nuno Oliveira doing piaffe work in the pillars with one of his horses. What is interesting is that Oliveira acts so casually, smoking a cigarette and talking to students, as if he were not doing anything at all. When you watch closely, you notice a pattern."

Yes, exactly, the pattern! It is all about seeing the pattern. The interesting thing about the first quote... about how the horse increased his effort... is I know exactly what is going on there and why it can happen like that. It make sense when you know something about learning and behavior. Now that I understand the process I can find ways to leverage the knowledge. Why would a horse increase his effort upon being ignored?

Learning and behavior is an interesting subject. The rule we work with is "reward the behavior you want." A simple phrase on the surface but it is like the saying "still waters run deep"... doesn't seem like much at the top. Its corollary is behavior that is ignored (not rewarded) will extinguish (go away). In between those two there is an interesting phenomenon called an "extinction burst." First you begin with a behavior that is pretty well established. You have rewarded it a LOT and the horse knows that if he offers the behavior a reward is definitely forthcoming. The horse must believe this (reward is coming) with absolute certainty.

Then you stop rewarding it... you ignore all attempts made by the horse to get the reward that has always resulted from this behavior in the past. Interesting thing will happen... again this needs to be a really well established behavior... the horse will become a little like, "Hey you! You are ignoring me!" and will try harder to get the reinforcement he expects (whatever it may be, even just getting to stop as in the example above). This moment is the extinction burst. If you wait out the extinction burst you will see the behavior begin to fade away. However, if you reward the burst the behavior will not only resume but resume at a higher level. The wise trainer will let the horse reach that point just a little and then reward the horse. In this way you have just bumped up the level at which the horse believes he must perform the behavior in order to get his reward.

Look around you and you will see this in action all over the place! Usually in reference to something a little less desirable than piaffe. Pawing is a good example. Somehow whether we intend it or not it gets rewarded (especially if you realize that the reward is whatever the horse believes it to be). You may think you are trying to make it stop (smacking him, yelling at him, whatever) but the horse sees it as reinforcing. He can make you do stuff (give him food, pay attention, move him, whatever) by pawing. He knows this and it gets heavily reinforced day in day out.

Then one day, some smarty pants like me comes along and points out all the ways that that behavior is being reinforced and that if you ever want to have a prayer of seeing it gone you have to never ever ever allow that behavior to be rewarded ever again. So you try real hard to ignore it and what happens? He starts to paw even MORE fervently. At which point you decide I don't know what I am talking about and start to yell at him again because you can't stand it anymore. And, what have you just done? Yes, shown him just how hard he has to work at that pawing to get you to pay attention.

Although it is two entirely different scenario's they are both drawing from the exact same concept. It is so empowering, in my opinion, to be able to look at things and see the parallels... the patterns. When we can begin to influence behavior in one context then we can do it in another.

It is important to note that there will unlikely be any noticeable extinction burst at the early part of training the behavior. When the behavior is still pretty shaky it doesn't take much ignoring (or worse punishing--even unintended) before the horse stops offering it. Which (partly) explains how the less skilled rider/trainer's horse learns so "slowly." And, also how when a skilled rider gets on a horse and have him start doing things. The skilled rider is able reinforce the behavior enough to get the horse to start offering it quickly. (Horses really do learn really fast!) And, I don't mean treat type reinforcing, just simply riding well enough to not block the effort. The poor rider is not only "ignoring" the efforts (no releasing) but also "punishing" them (with poor position and timing). Ooooo a double bad whammy.

The more you know about how these things work the more effectively you can respond to other situations, including those that happen under saddle. But first you need to spend some time honing your skills. I think that there is great value in honing them outside the context of dressage. Teach your horse something...anything... and discover what you know or don't know about training. See how quickly you can teach the horse something new. See how fast your horse actually learns when you aren't de-training him with your every blunder. Can you keep the behavior alive and fresh day after day? What does it take to do it? How does the way you behave change the outcome?

Last summer I decided to play with an idea. Flys were causing my horse, Tulsa, to display a whole range of random behaviors... head shaking, stomping feet, tail swishing, etc. I decided to click any and all behaviors no matter how goofy. So, it went swish tail (click and give a treat) shake head (c/t) stomp right fore (c/t) and so on and so on, for perhaps half an hour. As I went through this process I decided that I would start to concentrate on the head shaking because I thought it would be fun to put it on cue. So, I started to c/t the other behaviors less and the head shaking more. Until I was only c/ting the head shaking.

Because Tulsa "gets" this training game, she started to offer the head shaking behavior more and more. This was all less than an hour. Then each day thereafter, whenever I saw her kinda-sorta shake her head I would c/t. Within a few days, she was offering it quite a lot (and I continued to c/t every effort). Then I put it on cue. So, now I can present the cue (usually associated with some cute question that shaking her head "no" would be appropriate) and she will shake her head quite reliably. Shortly thereafter I decided to play with a nodding behavior (gotta have a yes too!) and within 10 MINUTES she was starting to offer it quite enthusiastically. In a few days it was on cue. See how fast things CAN go? Now only to do be able to do the same under saddle.....

The point here is to note how quickly a horse can learn a behavior if only you know how to present it and reinforce it such that that behavior increases in frequency. Once you know how this works in general, you can begin to self correct some of your riding mistakes. Rather than fuss over how the horse isn't co-operating, or even that you are just such a terrible rider you can look at things from a different perspective--the HORSE'S. Come at it from a position of positive knowledge. Instead you can ask, what am I reinforcing here? The horse is obviously not getting what I'm trying to say or is not able to perform, so what do I need to change? Do I know what I'm reinforcing? How can I find out? How can I HELP the HORSE?

Once I really began to understand that my horse's problems could be predicted it lifted a weight off my shoulders. I no longer felt powerless to change things. Clicker training changed my entire outlook and relationship with my horse and my effectiveness a trainer.

So often we are in a situation in which the horse is not doing what we think they ought to be doing. Having no other tools we are left blaming the horse for being ornery or naughty. We all have heard the saying, if the horse isn't doing what you want is it because he can't (or thinks he can't) or he doesn't know what you want. One sees a fair amount of lip service paid to this idea yet when faced with some difficulty the response is, "no he does know this and he can do it he is just being difficult." I have to say, I don't buy that. I say, if the horse KNEW what you wanted and was ABLE to do it, he WOULD BE DOING it. End of story.

This puts a heavy burden of responsibility on us as riders. We need to know a lot more than 'how to ride' in order to be a really good trainer. And if dressage is your game then TRAINING is what it is about.