Equiosity: Recent Episodes
Equiosity
This is part 2 of our conversation about shaping on a point of contact. In Part 1 we began the conversation with Dominique saying she doesn’t believe you can fully reap the full benefits of positive reinforcement training if you don’t understand and use this concept of shaping on a point of contact - at least when you’re working with horses. That’s a strong statement to make. As always, contrast is a good teacher. Dominique has been watching trainers in the barn where she keeps her horses using treats to teach some behaviors and traditional commands to teach others. The difference in the demeanor of the horses under these different contexts is striking. The change reminded her of the poisoned cue research that was done by Dr Jesus Rosales Ruiz and his graduate student, Nicole Murray roughly twenty years ago. So that’s where we began - with a description of the research and the implications for horse training. When the research first came out, the conclusion was negative and positive reinforcement shouldn’t be mixed. When you do, you’ll end up with poisoned cues. My response was to say: but we would never use the lead in the way that it was applied. In the experiment, when the dog did not respond appropriately, it was dragged by the lead to the handler. This was clearly aversive to the dog. Dragging was a clear escalation of pressure.In shaping on a point of contact, you take the slack out of the lead. That makes contact. You have made your presence known. The lead is saying: “I want something.” But it’s not up to you to solve the puzzle for the learner. If you add more pressure, you will move the dog’s body for him. In shaping on a point of contact, it is up to the dog to move his own body. Waiting is part of the process. Small approximations are part of the process. The use of the lead is there to provide information that helps the learner get to his reinforcement faster. If the ask begins to be painful, scary, threatening in any way, then you have crossed a line and you run the risk of creating poisoned cues with all the negative, long lasting consequences that we observed in the original study.So in Part 1 we set the stage with the discussion of the poisoned cue research. In Part 2 we contrast shaping on a point of contact with more abrupt techniques that make use of escalating pressure. I talk about the crippling effect that backwards traction has on horses. It’s one of the many reasons learning to go to a point of contact and not beyond is so very important.
Dominique has been watching trainers in the barn where she keeps her horses working with treats to teach some behaviors and traditional commands to teach others. The difference in the demeanor of the horses under these different contexts is striking. This has made Dominique appreciate all the more how important shaping on a point of contact is. That’s a concept that is very much part of my work. To understand what this phrase means we begin in Part 1 of this conversation with a discussion of poisoned cues. Ideally we would like the signals we use to request a change in our horse’s behavior to be an invitation. We refer to this type of signal as a cue. But what happens if our invitation is ignored? Does the signal escalate into a “do not or else” threat? That means that first mild request is really a warning signal. It is saying: respond now or things will become uncomfortable. Are you training with cues or warning signals? That’s question is key to understanding shaping on a point of contact.
This is part 4 of a conversation that’s on one subject - the foundation lesson that I call the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt. In several recent podcasts Dominique has said this is her favorite behavior. That’s a strong statement to make, so we both thought we should have a conversation where she gets to explain why she likes grown-ups so very much. It turns out we both have a lot to say about grown-ups. In Part. 1 I got us started by describing the behavior I’m referring that I call the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt. We ended that episode by saying that we aren’t just looking for a particular head orientation, but we are looking for the whole expression of the horse because we want to build in calmness and Deep all-is-well relaxation. In Part 2 we described how you go about creating not just a horse who stands still when asked, but who is relaxed, confident and at ease when doing so.We included some handling tips for building duration. Building duration helps the base behavior of grown-ups to expand. It morphs into ground tying meaning your horse remains in stillness while you move around him and perform tasks such as grooming, foot care, saddling, etc.We looked at what it means for grown-ups to be an off switch for other behaviors. And we ended with the way grown-ups can be used to teach great balance. We can use grown-ups to normalize the feel of standing in balance. That’s so important, so we continued to talk about balance, both physical and emotional in Part 3 We described default behaviors - what they are and how they function. Default behaviors for me include “the pose” which is a behavior that has been a keystone in Robin’s training. I describe both how the pose was taught, how it functions and its many benefits.We ended just as we were starting to talk about how grown ups can be used to teach great grass manners. That’s the main focus of this episode - how you transform grass into a welcome carpet of motivation. Grown-ups perfected becomes an elegant behavior. Clicker training turns the ordinary into extraordinary behavior.
This is part 3 of a conversation that’s on one subject - the foundation lesson that I call the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt. In several recent podcasts Dominique has said this is her favorite behavior. That’s a strong statement to make, so we both thought we should have a conversation where she gets to explain why she likes grown-ups so very much. It turns out we both have a lot to say about grown-ups. In Part. 1 I got us started by describing the behavior I’m referring that I call the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt. We ended that episode by saying that we aren’t just looking for a particular head orientation, but we are looking for the whole expression of the horse because we want to build in calmness and Deep all-is-well relaxation. In Part 2 we described how you go about creating not just a horse who stands still when asked, but who is relaxed, confident and at ease when doing so.We included some handling tips for building duration. It turns out the process of building duration helps the base behavior of grown-ups to expand. Grown-ups morphs into ground tying, meaning your horse remains in stillness while you move around him and perform tasks such as grooming, foot care, saddling, etc.We looked at what it means for grown-ups to be an off switch for other behaviors. And we ended with the way grown-ups can be used to teach great balance. We can use grown-ups to normalize the feel of standing in balance. In Part 3 we continue to talk about balance, both physical and emotional. We describe default behaviors - what they are and how they function. That includes “the pose” which is a behavior that has been a keystone in Robin’s training. I describe both how the pose was taught and its many benefits.
This is part 2 of a conversation that’s on one subject - the foundation lesson that I call the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt. In several recent podcasts Dominique has said this is her favorite behavior. That’s a strong statement to make, so we both thought we should have a conversation where she gets to explain why she likes grown-ups so very much. It turns out we both have a lot to say about grown-ups. In Part 1 I got us started by describing the behavior I’m referring that I call the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt. We ended that episode by saying that we aren’t just looking for a particular head orientation, but we are looking for the whole expression of the horse because we want to build calmness and a deep all-is-well relaxation into the behavior. In Part 2 we describe how you go about creating not just a horse who stands still when asked, but one who is relaxed, confident and at ease when doing so.We include some handling tips for building duration. Building duration helps expand the base behavior of grown-ups. It transforms basic grown-ups into ground tying, meaning your horse remains in stillness while you move around him and perform tasks such as grooming, foot care, saddling, etc.We explain what it means for grown-ups to be an off switch for other behaviors. And we end with the way grown-ups can be used to teach great balance. We can use grown-ups to normalize the feel of standing in balance.
This is part 1 of a conversation that’s on one subject - the foundation lesson that I call the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt. In several recent podcasts Dominique has said this is her favorite behavior. That’s a strong statement to make, so we both thought we should have a conversation where she gets to explain why she likes grown-ups so very much. It tuns out we both have a lot to say about grown-ups. I get us started by describing the behavior that I call the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt: what it looks like and how you teach it. I explain why I gave it that name, and I describe how it evolved into one of the core foundation lessons that I use to introduce a horse and handler to clicker training. We’re teaching stillness. Both Dominique and I share some stories that help explain why we so value this behavior.
, Michele has actively competed in both horse and dog sports since 1970. After successfully competing in dog obedience for 20 years, she moved into the new sport of agility in 1992. In 2006, Michele became fascinated with the sport of canine musical freestyle and began a dog sport journey she continues to love. She has competed in canine musical freestyle with her English Springer spaniel, Cabo, Australian Shepherd, Listo and her young Springer spaniel Deja Vu. Michele thoroughly enjoys this artistic sport that combines the precision of obedience with trick behaviors and challenges her creative side through music and choreography. Michele has won numerous international competitions and Championship Titles. She thoroughly enjoys the ongoing challenges in the sport of canine freestyle and the use of Clicker Training to achieve innovative and entertaining routines.In Part 1 of our conversation we began with some of the differences that exist in the horse and dog communities in terms of what prompts people to compete. Michele talked about strategies she has developed to create long sequences for competitions in which you can’t stop for a click and a treat. In Part 2 we talked about how important it is to protect the learners enthusiasm for the behaviors you’re asking for - and how difficult this can be, especially when you begin to ask for more duration.Michele shared several strategies for building duration. We ended with an example of teaching a horse (or dog) to put a foot on a raised stand and keep it there. We emphasized the point that you want to begin by teaching easy behaviors. Michele made the distinction - are you clicking for movement or for stillness? That brought us to a question I keep returning to which is: to click or not to click. That’s where we begin in Part 3 of our conversation. We consider also strategies for those times when training falls apart.
, Michele has actively competed in both horse and dog sports since 1970. After successfully competing in dog obedience for 20 years, she moved into the new sport of agility in 1992. In 2006, Michele became fascinated with the sport of canine musical freestyle and began a dog sport journey she continues to love. She has competed in canine musical freestyle with her English Springer spaniel, Cabo, Australian Shepherd, Listo and her young Springer spaniel Deja Vu. Michele thoroughly enjoys this artistic sport that combines the precision of obedience with trick behaviors and challenges her creative side through music and choreography. Michele has won numerous international competitions and Championship Titles. She thoroughly enjoys the ongoing challenges in the sport of canine freestyle and the use of Clicker Training to achieve innovative and entertaining routines.In 2007, Karen Pryor invited Michele to join the faculty of Clicker Expo Conferences. Her presentations are for me always one of the highlights of the Expo.In this episode Michele shares strategies she uses for developing her freestyle routines where she can’t click and treat during the performances. Maintaining her dog’s enthusiasm for the behaviors she asks for is essential if they are to succeed in competition. So the question is how do you go from clicking and treating every small effort to long sequences in which you can not include a click and treat mid-way through a performance.
, Michele has actively competed in both horse and dog sports since 1970. After successfully competing in dog obedience for 20 years, she moved into the new sport of agility in 1992. After much fun and success in agility with Labradors, English Springer Spaniels and even Great Danes, Michele took a break from dog sports to focus on her equine hobbies.In 2006, Michele became fascinated with the sport of canine musical freestyle and began a dog sport journey she continues to love. She has competed in canine musical freestyle with her English Springer spaniel, Cabo, Australian Shepherd, Listo and her young Springer spaniel Deja Vu. Michele thoroughly enjoys this artistic sport that combines the precision of obedience with trick behaviors and challenges her creative side through music and choreography. In 5 years in the sport, Michele has won 4 international competitions and attained 5 Championship Titles. In 2008 she received the first scores of double 10's (perfect scores) for Technical and Artistic in one routine in WCFO's Championship division (Perfect Dance Partners). She repeated this accomplishment at the 2009 International competition when all 3 judges awarded double 10's to her freestyle routine. To date Michele and Listo have earned 'double 10' scores a total of twenty-four times. Michele thoroughly enjoys the ongoing challenges in the sport of canine freestyle and the use of Clicker Training to achieve innovative and entertaining routines.In 2007, Karen Pryor invited Michele to join her faculty for Clicker Expo Conferences. At Clicker Expo, Michele presents on the application of clicker techniques for a variety of dog sports, general training, and for the training of guide dogs for the blind. Karen Pryor and Michele collaborated for the development of Michele's online freestyle course which is available from the Karen Pryor Academy.In this episode we begin a conversation that is centered around strategies used in competition where you have to develop long duration programs in which you are not allowed to use treats.
We recorded this conversation early in April 2026 right after the Clicker Expo. In Part 1 the Clicker Expo served as a launching point for our conversation. We talked about Dr Susan Friedman’s presentation on Doing Compassion and my own talk on Thinking Fast, Making Quick Decisions. My program included a discussion of the characteristics we see in skilled trainers. In part 1 I listed some of those characteristics.Among other things skilled trainers able to be flexible as needed. They are able to make adjustments in what they are asking. And they are creative. They are able to find teaching strategies and appropriate training steps that suits their learner’s individual needs. For the full list refer back to Part 1. These characteristics are not some special gifts that people are born with. We can think of them as a by-product that emerges as we gain experience training our animal learners. The point of my program is we can be more deliberate, less hit or miss, in the development of these traits. When we jump into this training, of course people are focused on what they will be teaching their horses. That’s only natural. But it isn’t just the horses who are learning new skills. In the Thinking Fast program, I turned the spotlight onto the handler. What are the lessons the handlers are learning as they introduce their horses to basic targeting and the other core lessons? The structure and focus of these lessons helps to develop advanced training skills. In Part 2 we continued with the discussion of the Thinking Fast presentation. We talked about what advanced training means, especially for handlers, and how do we develop advanced training skills?In Part 3 we begin with another of my Expo Talks, this one is on Training Traps. To introduce that topic I have to first define what I mean by broad and narrow end of the funnel thinking. Defining terms to start out with is important. It means we are all on the same page, talking about the same thing. A good illustration of that is the discussion of starter button and constant on cues. I’m using definitions that for me go back to Karen Pryor’s book, “Lads Before the Wind”.In this Episode I also share what happened in the Backstage Pass presentation where I was supposed to work with a dog. Find out how that turned out in this week’s episode.
We recorded this conversation early in April 2026 right after the Clicker Expo in New York. In Part 1 the Clicker Expo served as a launching point for our conversation. We talked about Dr Susan Friedman’s presentation on Doing Compassion and my own talk on Thinking Fast and Making Quick Decisions. In Part 2 we continue with the discussion of the Thinking Fast presentation. We talk about what advanced training means, especially for handlers, and a teaching process that helps to develop advanced training skills.
We recorded this conversation early in April 2026 right after the Clicker Expo. Dominique was really torn. She wanted to attend the Expo, but she didn’t feel comfortable traveling to the US given the current political climate. In the end she decided to stay home. That meant she was especially eager to hear about my Expo experience.In this episode we talk about Dr Susan Friedman’s presentation on “Doing Compassion” and my own talk on “Thinking Fast”.
In 2025 Dominique needed to take some time off over the summer. I went ahead and did a series of interviews, including one with Dr Claire St Peter and Dr Carol Pilgrim, episodes 349 to 351. We were talking about stimulus control. Those episodes aired in the fall.The episode you’re about to listen to was supposed to air back in the fall as well, but somehow it fell between the cracks and we moved on with other interviews instead. Now we’re airing that conversation.In Part 1 we talked about the standard instructions for teaching cues and the way that I prefer to teach them. The standard instructions make use of extinction. I prefer to teach behaviors in pairs. I make use of a very powerful reminder: for every exercise there is an opposite exercise you must teach to keep things in balance. The result is strong stimulus control.In Part 2 Dominique asked about learning what to click. When you are first starting out and you’ve never taught a behavior before, how do you know what to click? How do you avoid making a total mess of your stimulus control because you are clicking so many different versions of the behavior you’re after. We talked about becoming a selective sifter. Even when you aren’t sure what you want to click because the behavior you’re teaching is new to you, you can still apply “narrow end of the funnel” thinking as you build the new behavior.In Part 3 we begin with environmental cues and pre-performance cues. Then we head into a discussion of 300 peck pigeons. Environmental cues include distractions. Distractions are often seen as something negative, something handlers try to avoid to the point that distractions become a source of anxiety for the handler. Instead distractions can be transformed into stimuli handlers can use to advance their training.Distractions led us to training for duration and that took us to a discussion of a lesson I developed for Robin when he was a youngster. I called it the 300 Hundred Peck Pigeon Lesson. Dominique wondered if 28 years on from the time I developed that lesson for Robin would I still use it? That took us to a discussion of boarding barns and the constraints we are often working under when we can’t keep our horses at home. Those constraints often mean we have to become very creative to meet the mental, emotional and physical needs of our horses.
In 2025 Dominique needed to take some time off over the summer. I went ahead and did a series of interviews, including one with Dr Claire St Peter and Dr Carol Pilgrim, episodes 349 to 351. We were talking about stimulus control. Those episodes aired in the fall.The episode you’re about to listen to was supposed to air back in the fall as well, but somehow it fell between the cracks and we moved on with other interviews instead. Now we’re airing that conversation.In Part 1 we talked about the standard instructions for teaching cues and the way that I prefer to teach them. The standard instructions make use of extinction. I prefer to teach behaviors in pairs. I make use of a very powerful reminder: for every exercise there is an opposite exercise you must teach to keep things in balance. The result is strong stimulus control.In Part 2 Dominique asked about learning what to click. When you are first starting out and you’ve never taught a behavior before, how do you know what to click? How do you avoid making a total mess of your stimulus control because you are clicking so many different versions of the behavior you’re after. We talked about becoming a selective sifter. Even when you aren’t sure what you want to click because the behavior you’re teaching is new to you, you can still apply “narrow end of the funnel” thinking as you build the new behavior.
In 2025 Dominique needed to take some time off over the summer. I went ahead and did a series of interviews, including one with Dr Claire St Peter and Dr Carol Pilgrim, episodes 349 to 351. We were talking about stimulus control. Those episodes aired in the fall.The episode you’re about to listen to was supposed to air back in the fall as well, but somehow it fell between the cracks and we moved on with other interviews instead. We talked with Dr. Stephanie Jones, Sofia Abuin and Lucy Butler about control, coercion and empathy. After that, in the run-up to the Clicker Expo we did an interview with Chirag Patel.And now finally here’s Part One of a three part conversation that Dominique and I had after Dominique listened to the interview with Dr Pilgrim and Dr St Peter. You might want to listen to those episodes first, but it is by no means necessary for you to have heard that conversation for you to be able to follow along here.The conversation with Dr Pulgrim and Dr St Peter sparked lots of questions for Dominique.We begin by comparing the standard instructions for teaching cues and stimulus control with the way that I prefer to teach them. The standard instructions make use of extinction. I prefer to teach behaviors in pairs. I make use of a very powerful reminder: for every exercise there is an opposite exercise you must teach to keep things in balance. The result is strong stimulus control.Another expression that I refer to frequently when we talk about cues is cues evolve out of the teaching process. The standard instructions for teaching cues distorts the handlers ability to see cues as they are evolving. We need to be noticing what our horse is noticing and this old way of teaching cues is taking us in the opposite direction.Several stories illustrate how the teaching behaviors in pairs works to generate well understood, reliable cues.
This is part 3 of a conversation with Chirag Patel. Chirag is based in London where consults on the ethical and science-based practice of behavior management and training for animals housed in domestic, zoo, and laboratory environments. Chirag earned his BSc (Hons) in Veterinary Sciences from the Royal Veterinary College in London and a Postgraduate Certificate in Clinical Animal Behavior from the University of Lincoln, UK. He is also a certified parrot behavior consultant (CPBC) with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC). Currently, Chirag is studying for a MSc in Applied Behavior Analysis.In Part 1 talked about the up-coming March 2026 Clicker Expo. For several years now Chirag and several other faculty members have done a presentation that they call The Backstage Pass. Basically each trainer picks a dog/handler team from the audience and works with that team on stage towards a stated goal behavior. Each team works with the trainer for a few minutes at a time, then there’s a discussion of the why’s and wherefores of the methods used. It’s an interesting presentation. You get to see different styles of training as each trainer gets to know the dog and the handler they are working with. This year they decided to do something a little different. Instead of inviting dog specialists to participate as the trainers, they decided to ask faculty members who don’t typically work with dogs. When they asked me, for some very bizarre reason, I said yes.Chirag will be the ring master for the backstage pass. When I’ve watched him in previous years I’ve seen that he is a very creative trainer who comes up with some inventive solutions for helping dogs and handlers to be at ease. His training style is very different from mine which for me is of interest to me.We ended Part 1 with a question about marker signals. Often in those backstage pass demos Chirag trains with food, but he doesn’t yet use a marker signal. He described his thinking behind this strategy.In Part 2 we began with my reasons for the choices I make related to the use of marker signals. The click in clicker training has been referred to in many ways. It is a bridge, a marker signal, a snap shot. It is very much a cue. I add yet another metaphor for the role the click plays. It is a gatekeeper. I explained what I mean by that in Part 2.In Part 3 we add the use of chains and the role that cues play in linking behaviors together to the discussion of marker signals.
This is part 2 of a conversation with Chirag Patel. Chirag is based in London where consults on the ethical and science-based practice of behavior management and training for animals housed in domestic, zoo, and laboratory environments. Chirag earned his BSc (Hons) in Veterinary Sciences from the Royal Veterinary College in London and a Postgraduate Certificate in Clinical Animal Behavior from the University of Lincoln, UK. He is also a certified parrot behavior consultant (CPBC) with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC). Currently, Chirag is studying for a MSc in Applied Behavior Analysis.In Part 1 we ended with a discussion of marker signals. In many of the demos I’ve watched of Chirag’s training he uses with food without a marker signal. Chirag explained his thinking behind this strategy. In Part 2 we begin with my reasons for the choices I make related to the use of marker signals.The click in clicker training has been referred to in many ways. It is a bridge, a marker signal, a snap shot that captures a precise moment. It is very much a cue. I add yet another metaphor for the role the click plays. It is a gatekeeper. I explain what I mean by that in this episode.
We have amazingly reached episode 365. That means you can listen to an equiosity podcast every day for a year and not have to repeat any episodes - unless you want to. That’s a lot of talking. So join us as we look back over 365 episodes. We talk about why we started the podcast and what has kept us going.If you are new to the Equiosity podcast, you have a lot of great listening ahead of you!Equus plus Curiosity combines to create Equiosity. It is our curiosity about all things Equine that keeps us going.
This is part 1 of a conversation with Chirag Patel. Chirag is based in London where consults on the ethical and science-based practice of behavior management and training for animals housed in domestic, zoo, and laboratory environments. Chirag earned his BSc (Hons) in Veterinary Sciences from the Royal Veterinary College in London and a Postgraduate Certificate in Clinical Animal Behavior from the University of Lincoln, UK. He is also a certified parrot behavior consultant (CPBC) with the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC). Currently, Chirag is studying for a MSc in Applied Behavior Analysis.Chirag is a member of the Clicker Expo faculty which is where I first met him. The Clicker Expo is the reason behind this conversation. For several years now Chirag and several other faculty members have done a presentation that they call The Backstage Pass. Basically each trainer picks a dog/handler team from the audience and works with that team on stage towards a stated goal behavior. Each team works with the trainer for a few minutes at a time, then there’s a discussion of the why’s and wherefores of the methods used. It’s an interesting presentation. You get to see different styles of training as each trainer gets to know the dog and the handler they are working with. This year they decided to do something a little different. Instead of inviting dog specialists to participate as the trainers, they decided to ask faculty members who don’t typically work with dogs. When they asked me, for some very bizarre reason, I said yes.Chirag will be the ring master for the backstage pass. When I’ve watched him in previous years I’ve seen that he is a very creative trainer who comes up with some inventive solutions for helping dogs and handlers to be at ease. His training style is very different from mine which for me is of interest.
This is Part 4 of our conversation with Dr Susan Friedman. Dr Friedman is one of our favorite guests on this podcast. She’s a professor emeritus in the psychology department at Utah State University. She’s been a long-time member of the Clicker Expo Faculty and she runs the very popular on-line course Behavior Works: Learning and Living with Animals. In Part 1 Susan shared with us her most recent project - the Behavior Works Zoo School which you can read about at BWZS.org. We talked about why teams matter. In Part 2 the conversation centered around how to develop great working teams. We talked about what it means to be a leader. How do you maintain control and support a creative, generative team? Susan discussed ways to maintain healthy teams.In Part 3 we talked about influence. Susan reminded us that we have evolved to be influenced by our environment. To build an effective team you need to get the explanation for a person’s behavior out of the inside of the person and into the environment where it belongs.To use Susan’s example: instead of talking about what a jerk someone is, we should be looking at how the environment selected for that jerky behavior and how the team can change the environment to change that jerky behavior.To build a good team you commit to the science of behavior.Part 4 takes us to an in-depth look at what it means to be a teacher. Teaching is not an opportunity to show someone what you know. It’s an opportunity to influenceSusan stressed the great need for mentors. To stay on only the life long learning path and not become a mentor is a huge lossWe discussed imposter syndrome, defining it and then setting it aside as a concern. As Susan said, you only need to be one or two chapters ahead of your students.I added my favorite definition of a teacher - a teacher is someone who started before you.You don’t have to be THE expert and have all the answers because nobody has all the answers. How do you know when you’re ready? You ask your mentors.And remember, one of the best ways to learn is to teach. When you can clearly explain something to someone else, you know you understand that piece. You own it. When you explain it to a second person, you may well discover that your first set of instructions aren’t enough. Each learner is unique. You’re learning flexibility, creativity. You’re discovering new details that make the instructions better and expand your own understanding of the work. Teaching is such a great way to learn.Susan provides a strong nudge to the lifelong learners to get out there and teach.
This is Part 3 of our conversation with Dr Susan Friedman. Dr Friedman is one of our favorite guests on this podcast. She’s a professor emeritus in the psychology department at Utah State University. She’s been a long-time member of the Clicker Expo Faculty and she runs the very popular on-line course Behavior Works: Learning and Living with Animals. In Part 1 Susan shared with us her most recent project - the Behavior Works Zoo School which you can read about at BWZS.org. We talked about why teams matter. In Part 2 the conversation centered around how to develop great working teams. We talked about what it means to be a leader. How do you maintain control and support a creative, generative team? Susan discussed ways to maintain healthy teams.Part 3 is about influence. Susan reminds us that we have evolved to be influenced by our environment. To build an effective team you need to get the explanation for a person’s behavior out of the inside of the person and into the environment where it belongs.To use Susan’s example: instead of talking about what a jerk someone is, we should be looking at how the environment selected for that jerky behavior and how the team can change the environment to change that jerky behavior.To build a good team you need to commit to the science of behavior.
This is Part 2 of our conversation with Dr Susan Friedman. Dr Friedman is one of our favorite guests on this podcast. She’s a professor emeritus in the psychology department at Utah State University. She’s been a long-time member of the Clicker Expo Faculty and she runs the very popular on-line course Behavior Works: Learning and Living with Animals. In Part 1 Susan shared with us her most recent project - the Behavior Works Zoo School which you can read about at BWZS.org. We talked about why teams matter. In Part 2 the conversation centers around how to develop great working teams. We talk about what it means to be a leader. How do you maintain control and support a creative, generative team? Susan talks about the different reinforcers people chase. There are individuals who want to be the empire builders. You can often recognize them by how often they use the word “I” in their presentations. And there are people who enjoy being part of a team, who enjoy collaborating and being influenced by others. In teams attribution is still important. When others take credit for your ideas, there’s a sting that can fester into resentment. Susan discusses ways to maintain healthy teams.
This is Part 1 of a five part conversation with Dr Susan Friedman. Dr Friedman is one of our favorite guests on this podcast. She’s a professor emeritus in the psychology department at Utah State University. She’s been a long-time member of the Clicker Expo Faculty and she runs the very popular on-line course Behavior Works: Learning and Living with Animals. In part 1 Susan shares with us her most recent project - the Behavior Works Zoo School which you can read about at BWZS.org.This four part conversation grew out of a wonderful afternoon’s conversation that I had with Susan in the Fall of 2025. I had just finished editing the podcast interview that Dominique and I did with Rick Hester and Amy Schilz from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. I was telling Susan how much I had enjoyed the conversation and how impressed I was with both Rick and Amy. They are both part of Susan’s Behavior Works team. Susan’s mentoring was very much in evidence, and that prompted a great discussion about teams and team building. I knew our conversation had to be a podcast. The timing for recording this conversation could not have been more perfect. Susan and her Behavior Works Team has just launched their newest project - Zoo School. So in this episode in addition to talking about why teams matter, Susan introduces us to the Behavior Works Zoo School.
This is Part 5 of a conversation with Lucy Butler of River Haven Animal Sanctuary, and Dr Stephanie Jones and her grad student, Sofia Abuin. In Part 1 we talked about the common links between teaching people and working with animals. We talked about coercion, control, and most importantly about empathy.In part 2 Stephanie described a pilot study she and her colleagues set up at the River Haven Animal Sanctuary. Shaping can be incredibly challenging to teach well. Often people refer to the science and the art of training. What Stephanie and her colleague Michael Yencha wanted to investigate is what makes up the “art” part of training? Is there a way to tease this apart so it becomes less mystery and more approachable through science?In Part 3 Stephanie reminded us that the goal of this research project was to help new trainers shape well. That was the reason for the latency criterion. They were using it to judge when to shift criteria. They weren’t looking at any other aspects of shaping. They weren’t looking at the details of the reinforcement strategy or the set up of the environment. They weren’t saying those elements aren’t important, but they wanted to focus on this one component and give it a good rule.The question was how do you get robust interventions that aren’t influenced by implementer errors? Even in art there is technique. If you give people this rule, does that mean learners will be better off because shapers are able to minimize exposure to extinction without even needing to know what it means to minimize exposure to extinction? Can new trainers shape well even when they are lacking experience and a broad theoretical background?We ended Part 3 at a point where Stephanie and Sofia had to leave, but we continued the conversation with Lucy Butler. In Part 4 we talked about the latency rule Stephanie and her colleagues used in the study with the goats and contrasted that with Loopy Training. Whether we’re talking about science or art, there are principles that guide us towards better results. Lucy suggested that instead of trying to design a study that teases apart the elements that lead to better shaping results, it might be more useful to watch a master teacher train to see what they do. In Part 5 we continue to explore the what we can learn from watching effective trainers. When there are constraints on the training, what becomes really important? The constraints may be the time you have to train, or the environment you have to work in, how do you prioritize what to work on? The discussion takes us to this great statement from Lucy Butler:When we understand how behavior is selected and reinforced, we understand that we don’t have to fear behavior. There’s going to be some way we can design and train our way to something better. It’s such an optimistic and hopeful way of being with our animals, and what it turns into is confidence. Join us as we weave our way to this very hopeful statement.
This is Part 4 of a conversation with Lucy Butler of River Haven Animal Sanctuary, and Dr Stephanie Jones and her grad student, Sofia Abuin In Part 1 we talked about the common links between teaching people and working with animals. We talked about coercion, control, and most importantly about empathy.In part 2 Stephanie described a pilot study she and her colleagues set up at the River Haven Animal Sanctuary. Shaping can be incredibly challenging to teach well. Often people refer to the science and the art of training. What Stephanie and her colleague Michael Yencha wanted to investigate is what makes up the “art” part of training? Is there a way to tease this apart so it becomes less mystery and more approachable through science?In Part 3 Stephanie reminded us that the goal of this research project was to help new trainers shape well. That was the reason for the latency criterion. They were using it to judge when to shift criteria. They weren’t looking at any other aspects of shaping. They weren’t looking at the details of the reinforcement strategy or the set up of the environment. They weren’t saying those elements aren’t important, but they wanted to focus on this one component and give it a good rule.The question was how do you get robust interventions that aren’t influenced by implementer errors? Even in art there is technique. If you give people this rule, does that mean learners will be better off because shapers are able to minimize exposure to extinction without even needing to know what it means to minimize exposure to extinction? Can new trainers shape well even when they are lacking experience and a broad theoretical background?We ended Part 3 at a point where Stephanie and Sofia had to leave, but we continued the conversation with Lucy Butler. In this episode we talk about the latency rule Stephanie and her colleagues used in the study with the goats and contrasted that with Loopy Training. Whether we’re talking about science or art, there are principles that guide us towards better results. Lucy suggested that instead of trying to design a study that teases apart the elements that lead to better shaping results, it might be more useful to watch a master teacher train to see what they do. Dominique shared a quote from Learning and Behavior by Paul ChanceThe rate at which training proceeds depends upon the skill of the trainerSo yes, it does make sense to look at skilled trainers. We had some fun talking about the backstage pass presentation at the up-coming March Clicker Expo. For some unknown reason I agreed to participate. Instead of working with a horse, I’ll be training a dog. It should be interesting to say the least.It is certainly interesting to think about the different presenters at the clicker Expo. When we watch, for example, Ken Ramirez train or Michelle Pouliot, or Kay Laurence, we see very different training styles. But what are the commonalities?
This is Part 3 of a conversation with Lucy Butler of River Haven Animal Sanctuary, and Dr Stephanie Jones and her grad student, Sofia Abuin Dr. Jones graduated with her PhD in Behavior Analysis from West Virginia University in 2021. Her primary research focuses on effects of implementer errors that occur during well-established behavioral treatments. To meet this aim, she conducts laboratory and applied research with the aim of supporting development of robust behavioral interventions. She started teaching and conducting research at Salve Regina University in 2021 and is the principal investigator for the Translational Research and Applied Intervention Lab. IN PART 1 we talked about the common links between teaching people and working with animals. We talked about coercion, control, and most importantly about empathy.In part 2 Stephanie described a pilot study she and her colleagues set up at the River Haven Animal Sanctuary. Shaping can be incredibly challenging to teach well. Often people refer to the science and the art of training. What Stephanie and her colleague Michael Yencha wanted to investigate is what makes up the “art” part of training? Is there a way to tease this apart so it becomes less mystery and more approachable through science?Stephanie began by describing the shaping procedures they used with the goats at River Haven. In one context the criteria was changed when the goat had successfully met the current criterion three times in a row. In the second context a latency component was added. The goat had to meet the criterion within a certain time period which was determined by the goat’s own previous performance.I described the metaphor of shaping from the wide versus the narrow end of the funnel and what it means to shape using narrow end of the funnel thinking.In Part 3 Stephanie reminded us that the goal of this research was to help new trainers shape well. That was the reason for the latency criterion. They were using it to judge when to shift criteria. They weren’t looking at any other aspects of shaping. They weren’t looking at the details of the reinforcement strategy or the set up of the environment. They weren’t saying those elements aren’t important, but they wanted to focus on this one component and give it a good rule.The question was how do you get robust interventions that aren’t influenced by implementor errors? Even in art there is technique. If you give people this rule, does that mean learners will be better off because shapers are able to minimize exposure to extinction without even needing to know what it means to minimize exposure to extinction? Can new trainers shape well even when they are lacking experience and a broad theoretical background?
Finding Science in the Art of TrainingThis is Part 2 of a conversation with Lucy Butler of River Haven Animal Sanctuary, and Dr Stephanie Jones and her grad student, Sofia Abuin Dr. Jones graduated with her PhD in Behavior Analysis from West Virginia University in 2021. Her primary research focuses on effects of implementer errors that occur during well-established behavioral treatments. To meet this aim, she conducts laboratory and applied research with the aim of supporting development of robust behavioral interventions. She started teaching and conducting research at Salve Regina University in 2021 and is the principal investigator for the Translational Research and Applied Intervention Lab. Through her lab, she supports research engagement of students at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral training levels. She publishes in and reviews for several peer-reviewed behavior-analytic journals, such as the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Education and Treatment of Children.Good training is very much emphasizes the importance of taking the time to build a relationship with the individuals you’re interacting with. We modeled that in Part One. Dominique and I were meeting Stephanie and Sophia for the first time in this recording. So I instead of jumping straight in to the study Stephanie and her collegues conducted at River Haven, in Part One we began by talking about control, and even more about empathy.In this episode Stephanie describes a pilot study she and her collegues from Salve Regina University set up at the River Haven Animal Sanctuary. Shaping can be incredibly challenging to teach well. Often people refer to the science and the art of training. What Stephanie and her colleague Michael Yencha wanted to investigate is what makes up the “art” part of training? Is there a way to tease this apart so it becomes less mystery and more approachable through science?
This is Part One of a conversation with Lucy Butler of River Haven Animal Sanctuary, Dr Stephanie Jones and her grad student, Sofia Abuin Dr. Jones is new to Equiosity. She graduated with her PhD in Behavior Analysis from West Virginia University in 2021. Her primary research focuses on effects of implementer errors that occur during well-established behavioral treatments. To meet this aim, she conducts laboratory and applied research with the aim of supporting development of robust behavioral interventions. She started teaching and conducting research at Salve Regina University in 2021 and is the principal investigator for the Translational Research and Applied Intervention Lab. Through her lab, she supports research engagement of students at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral training levels. She publishes in and reviews for several peer-reviewed behavior-analytic journals, such as the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and Education and Treatment of Children.Good training is very much emphasizes the importance of taking the time to build a relationship with the individuals you’re interacting with. We modeled that in Part One. Dominique and I were meeting Stephanie and Sophia for the first time in this recording. So instead of jumping straight in to the study Stephanie and her collegues conducted at River Haven, we began by talking about coercion, control, and even more about empathy.
Dominique is back! Dominique took some time off over the summer. Now she is back and full of enthusiasm for the recent Equiosity conversations she’s been listening to. In Part 1 we talked about the recent podcast with Rick Hester, Amy Shilz, from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and Lucy Butler from the River Haven Animal Sanctuary in Rhode Island. We talked about the enrichment programs at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the four operant freedoms.In Part 2 we shared the story of Oliver, a pony who is now living at Lucy’s River Haven Animal Sanctuary. Prior to his rescue, he spent seven years locked in a stall with zero turnout. We shared a recent experience Lucy had with her vet. The visit highlighted how resilient animals can be. We also talked about bits and bridling. In Part 3 we continue with discussion of bits as Dominique returns us to the question of whether or not to use bits at all. My answer comes straight from the “horse’s mouth”, no pun intended. We look at what horses tell us. In particular we consider the instructions so many first time riders are given - “kick your pony to make him go, pull back on the reins to make him stop”. That advice has led to the large collection of bits that every tack store has on display. Many of those bits look more like medieval torture devices than anything that belongs in a horse’s mouth. The question is not should bits be used, but what should we really be teaching those first time riders and novice horses?
Dominique is back! Dominique took some time off over the summer. Now she is back and full of enthusiasm for the recent equiosity conversations she’s been listening to. In Part 1 we talked about the recent podcast with Rick Hester, Amy Shilz, from the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and Lucy Butler from the River Haven Animal Sanctuary in Rhode Island. We talked about the enrichment programs at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the four operant freedoms.In Part 2 we shared the story of Oliver, a pony who is now living at Lucy’s River Haven Animal Sanctuary. Prior to his rescue, he spent seven years locked in a stall with zero turnout. We shared a recent experience Lucy had with her vet. The visit highlighted how resilient animals can be. We also talked about bits and bridling.
Dominique is back! Dominique took some time off over the summer. Now she is back and full of enthusiasm for the recent Equiosity conversations she’s been listening to. In this episode we revisit the conversation we had with Rick Hester, Amy Schilz and Lucy Butler. Rick is the Curator of Behavioral Husbandry for the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado. Amy is in charge of the giraffe at the zoo. Lucy Butler and her husband own the River Haven Animal Sanctuary in Rhode Island. With Dominique we revisit the four operant freedoms, and we consider the parallels between the way zoo animals are managed past and present and the way we keep horses. There is so much we can learn from modern zoo keepers. As Dominique says at the start of the conversation, she’s been looking through some of the traditional horse training books she owns and they just seem so out of date especially when she compares them to the work that Rick and Amy talk about. Her takeaways from their interview make for a lively conversation.
This is part three of our conversation with Dr Claire St Peter from the University of West Virginia where she is currently the Chair of the Department of Psychology, and Dr Carol Pilgrim, a Professor Emerit in the Psychology Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.Dr Pilgrim has received many honors throughout her career including the North Carolina Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award, the Faculty Scholarship Award, the Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award, the ABAI Student Committee Outstanding Mentor Award in 2006, and the ABAI Distinguished Service to Behavior Analysis award in 2017. Her research contributions include both basic and applied behavior analysis, with an emphasis in human operant behavior and relational stimulus control.Our subject is for this podcast is stimulus control. In Part 1 Dr. Pilgrim started us out with definitions and an introduction to the subject. She shared the story of Clever Hans, a horse who was said to be able to do complicated math problems. What he really could do was read the very subtle cues his handler and others were giving that told him when he had reached the right answer.In part two we took a deeper into the subject of stimulus control, including a discussion of relational stimulus control. That brought us to the use of models. Dr Pilgrim described the use of models to teach women to do their own breast cancer exams to detect any abnormalities in the very earliest stages. In Part Three we continue with the discussion of simulators as it relates to training riders. I share a story about a riding simulator I got to experience during a visit to the UK. We also talk about why science matters as we describe the use of A/B reversals to develop riding and handling skills.
This is part two of our conversation with Dr Claire St Peter from the University of West Virginia where she is currently the Chair of the Department of Psychology, and Dr Carol Pilgrim, a Professor Emerit in the Psychology Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.Dr Pilgrim has received many honors throughout her career including the North Carolina Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award, the Faculty Scholarship Award, the Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award, the ABAI Student Committee Outstanding Mentor Award in 2006, and the ABAI Distinguished Service to Behavior Analysis award in 2017. Her research contributions include both basic and applied behavior analysis, with an emphasis in human operant behavior and relational stimulus control.Our subject is for this podcast is stimulus control. In Part 1 Dr. Pilgrim started us out with definitions and an introduction to the subject. She shared the story of Clever Hans, a horse who was said to be able to do complicated math problems. What he really could do was read the very subtle cues his handler and others were giving that told him when he had reached the right answer.In part two we take a deeper into the subject of stimulus control, including a discussion of relational stimulus control.
We’ve covered a lot of topics with behavior analysts. This week we’re talking with Dr. Carol Pilgrim and Dr. Claire St Peter about stimulus control. Dr Claire St Peter is from the University of West Virginia, where she is currently the Chair of the Department of Psychology. Claire has been on this podcast many times. Claire is not only a behavior analyst she is also a horse person. When I say that everything is connected to everything else, Claire has been helping us to see the connection between behavior analysis and horse training. We wrote an article together on loopy training which was published in 2022 in the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior.The title was: Connecting animal trainers and behavior analysts through loopy training.Claire has gone on connecting animal trainers and behaviors analysts via this podcast. This past spring I received a SABA award for all the equiosity episodes Dominique and I have done on topics directly related to behavior analysis. When Claire and I met up after the award ceremony, we were chatting about topics that would be interesting to cover. Claire suggested we reach out to Dr Carol Pilgrim for a deep dive into stimulus control. Dr Carol Pilgrim is a Professor Emerit in the Psychology Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.Dr Pilgrim has received many honors throughout her career including the North Carolina Board of Governors Teaching Excellence Award, the Faculty Scholarship Award, the Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award, the ABAI Student Committee Outstanding Mentor Award in 2006, and the ABAI Distinguished Service to Behavior Analysis award in 2017. Her research contributions include both basic and applied behavior analysis, with an emphasis in human operant behavior and relational stimulus control.In Part 1 of this podcast we begin the conversation with basic definitions and concepts related to stimulus control.
For the episode we’re continuing our conversation with Rick Hester, Amy Shilze and Lucy Butler.Rick is the Curator of Behavioral Husbandry for the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado. He oversees all the zoo's behavioral programming. His work includes the zoo's animal training for husbandry, medical, and public show behaviors, enrichment, developing programs to improve problem behavior situations, the zoo's formal animal welfare assessments, and exhibit design for behavior goals. We’re also joined by Amy Schilze, who has the dream job of working with the Cheyenne Mountain zoo’s giraffe. Amy is the Senior Animal Behaviorist for Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's International Center for the Care and Conservation of Giraffe, where she runs giraffe workshops and conferences, both stateside and internationally.Both Rick and Amy also partner with Dr. Susan Friedman and her Behavior Works consulting team so you’ll hear a lot of references to Susan throughout this conversation.In addition to Rick and Amy, I invited Lucy Butler to join us. Lucy and her husband run the River Haven Animal Sanctuary in Rhode Island. I knew she would have a lot of questions for Rick and Amy. When you take in animals who are the victims of abuse, there’s a lot to be learned from the work that goes on in zoos to reduce the stress of handling and also to improve the overall quality of life for the animals under their care. In this episode Rick and Amy talk about the educational programs which are woven into the experience Guests have as they tour the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. There are twenty-three shows for the public every day. In these shows the animals are the star. It is about showing what they can do, what their natural behaviors are - all while protecting the dignity of the animals. The shows at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo show animals controlling their reinforcers and using their bodies in ways that are natural to them. Trainers interpret both what their life in the zoo looks like, what their life in the wild environment looks like, and how capable they are of learning. They are trying to create connections between the public and the animals at the zoo in a way that elevates the animal. For Lucy this part of the conversation was especially relevant because the public is invited in to tour the River Haven Animal Sanctuary that she and her husband run. She was getting many great ideas for how they can make this experience better both for their guests and their resident animals. But even if you don’t give tours, there’s much here that can be used to enrich your horse’s life.We begin the episode with a discussion of techniques used to introduce new animals into an existing social group.
For the episode we’re continuing our conversation with Rick Hester, Amy Shilze and Lucy Butler.Rick is the Curator of Behavioral Husbandry for the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado. He oversees all the zoo's behavioral programming. His work includes the zoo's animal training for husbandry, medical, and public show behaviors, enrichment, developing programs to improve problem behavior situations, the zoo's formal animal welfare assessments, and exhibit design for behavior goals. We’re also joined by Amy Schlis, who has the dream job of working with the Cheyanne Mountain zoo’s giraffe. Amy is the Senior Animal Behaviorist for Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's International Center for the Care and Conservation of Giraffe, where she runs giraffe workshops and conferences, both stateside and internationally.Both Rick and Amy also partner with Dr. Susan Friedman and her Behavior Works consulting team so you’ll hear a lot of references to Susan throughout this conversation.In addition to Rick and Amy, I invited Lucy Butler to join us. Lucy and her husband run the River Haven Animal Sanctuary in Rhode Island. I knew she would have a lot of questions for Rick and Amy. When you take in animals who are the victims of abuse, there’s a lot to be learned from the work that goes on in zoos to reduce the stress of handling and also to improve the overall quality of life for the animals under their care. In this episode Rick and Amy introduce the concept of freeing up the operant: what that means and how that impacts the implementation of enrichment opportunities for the animals under their care. This episode is rich with ideas for providing more enrichment for our horses.
For the episode we’re heading to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for a conversation with Rick Hester, Amy Schilz and Lucy Butler.Rick is the Curator of Behavioral Husbandry for the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado. He oversees all the zoo's behavioral programming. His work includes the zoo's animal training for husbandry, medical, and public show behaviors, enrichment, developing programs to improve problem behavior situations, the zoo's formal animal welfare assessments, and exhibit design for behavior goals. We’re also joined by Amy Schilz who has the dream job of working with the Cheyanne Mountain zoo’s giraffe. Amy is the Senior Animal Behaviorist for Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's International Center for the Care and Conservation of Giraffe, where she runs giraffe workshops and conferences, both stateside and internationally.Both Rick and Amy also partner with Dr. Susan Friedman and her Behavior Works consulting team so you’ll hear a lot of references to Susan throughout this conversation.In addition to Rick and Amy, I invited Lucy Butler to join us. Lucy and her husband run the River Haven Animal Sanctuary in Rhode Island. I knew she would have a lot of questions for Rick and Amy. When you take in animals who are the victims of abuse, there’s a lot to be learned from the work that goes on in zoos to reduce the stress of handling and also to improve the overall quality of life for the animals under their care. In this episode Rick and Amy talk about fine-tuning what a “no response” looks like and what handlers should do when they see the first signs of an animal saying “no”. As they fine tuned their understanding of “no” responses, they were actually describing an operationalized behavior that is “yes”. What does it look like for an animal to say “yes” Assent is a behavior the learner performs and continues to perform that lets us know we can continue. When they stop performing that behavior, assent is withdrawn, so we have to withdraw. This is the process that the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo trainers follow. Relief is readily available to the animal learners. Across species in a system where relief is abundantly available and there are strong reinforcers at a high rate for opting in, most animals opt in more and opt out less. After Rick and Amy describe the training that they are doing at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, we switch the focus to horse training. Letting horses opt out runs counter to traditional horse training methods. But certainly we know that horses also opt in more when they have the option of saying “no”.This episode also includes an announcement for my new book: “Never Get A Wizard Mad At You”: Book One in the Upstairs Armadillo Series.
This is part 3 of a conversation with Michaela Hempen and Lucy Butler about their visit in August to attend Anja Beran’s 12th International Workshop held at her stable in Bavaria.Both Michaela and Lucy have been guests on the podcast many times before. Michaela is well known for the research project she did on the operant control of cribbing. With her own horses she has been using my work to help make Anja’s beautiful riding more accessible. This year Michaela helped interpret Anja’s work for a group of clicker trainers who attended the workshop. Lucy was one of the people in that group.In part 1 Lucy shared her first impressions of Anja’s work. She described the facility and some of the horses she watched. Many of these horses are at the foundation because Anja was their last chance. They were on their way to slaughter. These were young horses who had been crippled by inappropriate training. Anja’s work not only shows that good riding doesn’t have to harm horses. It can heal them. In Part 2 Michaela and Lucy help make the connections between what I teach and Anja’s training. One of the major links is the ever present focus on balance. Now in Part 3 we look in more detail at lateral movements and ways of exploring them that can help you understand how to use them in training to help your horse maintain healthy movement.
This is part 2 of a conversation with Michaela Hempen and Lucy Butler about their visit in August to attend Anja Beran’s 12th International Workshop held at her stable in Bavaria.Both Michaela and Lucy have been guests on the podcast many times before. Michaela is well known for the research project she did on the operant control of cribbing. With her own horses she has been using my work to help make Anja’s beautiful riding more accessible. This year Michaela helped interpret Anja’s work for a group of clicker trainers who attended the workshop. Lucy was one of the people in that group.In part 1 Lucy shared her first impressions of Anja’s work. She described the facility and some of the horses she watched. Many of these horses are at the foundation because Anja was their last chance. They were on their way to slaughter. These were young horses who had been crippled by inappropriate training. Anja’s work not only shows that good riding doesn’t have to harm horses. It can heal them. In this episode Michaela and Lucy help make the connections between what I teach and Anja’s training. One of the major links is the ever present focus on balance.
This is part 1 of a conversation with Michaela Hempen and Lucy Butler about their visit in August to attend Anja Beran’s 12th International Workshop held at her stable in Bavaria.Both Michaela and Lucy have been guests on the podcast many times before. Michaela is well known for the research project she did on the operant control of cribbing. With her own horses she has been using my work to help make Anja’s beautiful riding more accessible. This year Michaela helped interpret Anja’s work for a group of clicker trainers who attended the workshop. Lucy was one of the people in that group.I asked Lucy about her first impressions of Anja’s work. She described the facility and some of the horses she watched. Many of these horses are with Anja because she was their last chance. They were on their way to slaughter. These were young horses who had been crippled by inappropriate training. Anja’s work not only shows that good riding doesn’t have to harm horses. It can heal them.
Equiosity Episode 342: Horses for Future Jane Myers and The Equicentral System Pt 2This is part 2 of a conversation Jane Myers on the equicentral system and pasture management. This episode comes from the archives of my Horses For Future podcast that I produced from 2019 to 2021. The podcast explored what horse people can do to help in the climate change crisis. Think of the green plants in your horse's pasture as tiny solar panels. The plants create sugars which they send down into their roots. But they aren't just nourishing themselves. The sugars are transferred to fungi and bacteria in exchange for minerals the plants need. When a pasture is overgrazed, plants can't develop deep root structures. They don't have enough "solar panels" left to do the work. The fungi and bacteria die off, and the soil deteriorates. We can turn this around with better pasture management. It's a win-win situation. Our horses become healthier as we sequester more carbon in our pastures.The Horses for Future podcast began with an exploration of pasture management practices and then looked at other ways in which horse people can make a difference for the health of the planet.So for this weeks equiosity podcast I’m sharing a podcast from the Horses for Future archives. It is an interview with Jane Myers about the Equicentral System. Pastures which are overgrazed or have turned to mud lots can be restored. Jane describes how the equicentral system works to restore overgrazed, damaged pastures. Healthy pastures contribute to healthy horses and a healthier planet.Enjoy!
We’ve just finished a three part conversation with Dr Susan Schneider that was centered around the climate change crisis. In that conversation I referenced my Horses For Future podcast. This is a podcast that I produced from 2019 to 2021. It explored what horse people can do to help in the climate change crisis.The premise is a simple one. Horse people can make a difference in the climate change crisis. We can sequester carbon! Think of the green plants in your horse's pasture as tiny solar panels. The plants create sugars which they send down into their roots. But they aren't just nourishing themselves. The sugars are transferred to fungi and bacteria in exchange for minerals the plants need. When a pasture is overgrazed, plants can't develop deep root structures. They don't have enough "solar panels" left to do the work. The fungi and bacteria die off, and the soil deteriorates. We can turn this around with better pasture management. It's a win-win situation. Our horses become healthier as we sequester more carbon in our pastures.The Horses for Future podcast began with an exploration of pasture management practices and then looked at other ways in which horse people can make a difference for the health of the planet.So for this weeks equiosity podcast I’m sharing a podcast from the Horses for Future archives. It is an interview with Jane Myers about the Equicentral System. Pastures which are overgrazed or have turned to mud lots can be restored. Jane describes how the equicentral system works to restore overgrazed, damaged pastures. Healthy pastures contribute to healthy horses and a healthier planet.
This is Part 3 of a three part conversation with Dr. Susan Schneider. Dr.Schneider is the author of “The Science of Consequences”. For the past eight years Dr, Schneider has made climate change her primary focus. Dr. Schneider is on the faculty at Western Michigan University and serves on its Climate Change Working Group. She also serves on the Tools of Change Landmark Peer Review Panel for Climate Change, and on the board of the nonprofit Green Driving America.Now if you are wondering why a podcast about all things equine is talking about climate change, here’s the connection. Horses are grazing animals. That means that collectively horse people own, manage, make decisions about a huge amount of land. What we are learning is healthy pastures help to contribute to healthy horses. Healthy pastures also contribute to biodiversity. Healthy pastures come from healthy soils. Improved soil quality absorbs more water which helps to reduce flooding. Healthy soils also sequesters carbon. So horse people can help in the climate change crisis through the way we manage our land. It’s one of those win-win-win situations. Healthier pastures are good for our horses which is good for us and it’s also good for the planet.I wanted to explore three major topics with Dr. Schneider. The first is where are we now in terms of climate change? Why should we care? The second is what can we do to make a difference. And the third area is how can we talk to others without shutting them down and driving them away? There are lessons to be learned here not just about how do we talk about climate change, but how do we talk about positive reinforcement training when we’re surrounded by command-based trainers.In the previous episode we looked at alternatives that don’t force people to make the kind of life style choices that mean going without. For example, we don’t have to give up driving. We can drive an electric vehicle instead of a fossil fuel car. Choosing the alternative to a gas powered engine means we still get to drive.In this episode we consider actions which horse people in particular are in a great position to take as we consider changes to the decisions we make about the way we manage our pastures. Even if you board and the only land you manage is the lawn around your house, you can take actions that collectively make a difference.
This is Part 2 of a three part conversation with Dr. Susan Schneider. Dr.Schneider is the author of “The Science of Consequences”. For the past eight years Susan has made climate change her primary focus. Her work on climate change and sustainability includes outreach, community projects, organizing, academic and nonacademic publications, and extensive public speaking. As Senior Scientist for the sustainability nonprofit Root Solutions, Dr Schneider helped design projects and coauthored two chapters in its 2022 guidebook, Making Shift Happen: Designing for Successful Environmental Behavior Change. Recent outreach includes a podcast for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Schneider’s award-winning book for the public, The Science of Consequences, covers basic learning principles, their role in nature-nurture relations, and their broad range of applications, including sustainability. Schneider is on the faculty at Western Michigan University and serves on its Climate Change Working Group. She also serves on the Tools of Change Landmark Peer Review Panel for Climate Change, and on the board of the nonprofit Green Driving America.Now if you are wondering why a podcast about all things equine is talking about climate change, here’s the connection. Horses are grazing animals. That means that collectively horse people own, manage, make decisions about a huge amount of land. What we are learning is healthy pastures help to contribute to healthy horses. Healthy pastures also contribute to biodiversity. Healthy pastures come from healthy soils. Improved soil quality absorbs more water which helps to reduce flooding. Healthy soils also sequesters carbon. So horse people can help in the climate change crisis through the way we manage our land. It’s one of those win-win-win situations. Healthier pastures are good for our horses which is good for us and it’s also good for the planet.I wanted to explore three major topics with Dr. Schneider. The first is where are we now in terms of climate change? Why should we care? The second is what can we do to make a difference. And the third area is how can we talk to others without shutting them down and driving them away? There are lessons to be learned here not just about how do we talk about climate change, but how do we talk about positive reinforcement training when we’re surrounded
In this three part series we’re joined by Dr. Susan Schneider is a behavior analyst. She is the author of “The Science of Consequences” which many of you may have read. Normally when we have behavior analysts as guests we talk about academic subjects such as schedules of reinforcement. In this case I wanted to talk to Susan about what horse people can do to help mitigate the climate change crisis.For the past eight years Susan has made climate change her primary focus. Her work on climate change and sustainability includes outreach, community projects, organizing, academic and nonacademic publications, and extensive public speaking. As Senior Scientist for the sustainability nonprofit Root Solutions, Dr Schneider helped design projects and coauthored two chapters in its 2022 guidebook, Making Shift Happen: Designing for Successful Environmental Behavior Change. Recent outreach includes a podcast for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Schneider’s award-winning book for the public, The Science of Consequences, covers basic learning principles, their role in nature-nurture relations, and their broad range of applications, including sustainability. Schneider is on the faculty at Western Michigan University and serves on its Climate Change Working Group. She also serves on the Tools of Change Landmark Peer Review Panel for Climate Change, and on the board of the nonprofit Green Driving America.Now if you are wondering why a podcast about all things equine is talking about climate change, here’s the connection. Horses are grazing animals. That means that collectively horse people own, manage, make decisions about a huge amount of land. What we are learning is healthy pastures help to contribute to healthy horses. Healthy pastures also contribute to biodiversity. Healthy pastures come from healthy soils. Improved soil quality absorbs more water which helps to reduce flooding. Healthy soils also sequesters carbon. So horse people can help in the climate change crisis through the way we manage our land. It’s one of those win-win-win situations. Healthier pastures are good for our horses which is good for us and it’s also good for the planet.I wanted to explore three major topics with Dr. Schneider. The first is where are we now in terms of climate change? Why should we care? The second is what can we do to make a difference. And the third area is how can we talk to others without shutting them down and driving them away? There are lessons to be learned here not just about how do we talk about climate change, but how do we talk about positive reinforcement training when we’re surrounded by command-based trainers.In part 1 I set the stage for this conversation and then Dr. Schneider took us to some hopeful solutions that are available to all of us.
Our guest this week is Anita Schnee. Anita is a Feldenkrais™ practitioner who has joined us many times on this podcast. During the recent conversation we recorded with Dr Brennan Armshaw and Dr Claire St Peter (episodes 324 and 325), I kept thinking - I wish we had invited Anita. Well, it turns out Anita was listening. Anita offers Awareness Through Movement classes twice a month via zoom. After listening to the podcast I did with Dr, Armshaw, the introduction to Anita’s next on-line ATM lesson was built around his work. That conversation generated all kinds of fun connections for Anita. In last week’s episode much of the focus was on what happens in the body when there’s an injury. Dr. Armshaw uses electromyography biofeedback to help people recover from injury. The Feldenkrais™ work also provides a pathway towards recovery. In this episode we’re going to switch the focus to look at why starting small is so effective. In her introduction to the Feldenkrais™ work from last week’s episode Anita made the point that this work is not exercise. It is not physical therapy. It is not yoga or pilates. So what is it?What I would say is the Feldnekrais™ work comes first. Through the awareness lessons you learn how to move well so when you engage in these other activities you are better able to perform well. That includes the work we do with our horses. Starting small is effective for us, and it is certainly effective with our horses. The “why” behind this is what we’re going to be talking about.
Our guest this week is Anita Schnee. Anita is a Feldenkrais™ practitioner who has joined us many times on this podcast. During the recent conversation we recorded with Dr Brennan Armshaw and Dr Claire St Peter (episodes 324 and 325), I kept thinking - I wish we had invited Anita. Well it turns out Anita was listening. Anita offers Awareness Through Movement classes twice a month via zoom. The introduction to her next on-line ATM lesson was built around Dr. Armshaw’s work. It was sparking off all kinds of fun connections. I loved Anita’s introduction to that evening’s class. Of course, I wanted her to join me in a conversation, so here we are. We begin with a much better description of the Feldenkrais™ work than I provided during Dr. Armshaw’s podcast. Dr. Armshaw uses electromyography biofeedback to shape at the level of the activation of individual muscle fibers. Compared with his starting point we are all massively lumping!What interests me in this is what can be achieved when you start small. When we look for what comes before what comes before the action we are interested in, good things happen. Dr. Armshaw and Anita are helping us to understand what happens when we start small.
This week we are joined by two behavior analysts. Dr. Claire St Peter is the chair of behavior analysis at the University of West Virginia. She has been a frequent guest on this podcast. We are also joined by Dr. Brennan Armshaw, who also teaches at the University of West Virginia. Claire is a horse person so she’s able to bridge the world between behavior analysis and horse training. Dr. Armshaw has not yet been drawn into the world of horses, but his work is of great interest to me. As we learned, in Part 1 Dr. Armshaw takes starting small to a whole new level of smallness. He shapes at the level of individual muscle fibers firing which he measures with surface Electromyography. Surface electromyography records the electrical activity of targeted muscles. Dr Armshaw has been using surface electromyography biofeedback to improve outcomes for patients undergoing physical therapy. This may seem a long way from horse training, but given the number of injuries horses people sustain plus all the injuries we treat our horses for, our conversation should get some wheels turning. My interest is in what Dr. Armshaw has been discovering as he begins small. With the horses we see over and over again the value of microshaping. In this episode Dr Armshaw helps us understand why starting small can produce such huge results.
This week we are joined by two behavior analysts. Dr. Claire St Peter is the chair of behavior analysis at the University of West Virginia. She has been a frequent guest on this podcast. We are also joined by Dr. Brennan Armshaw. Claire is a horse person so she’s able to bridge the world between behavior analysis and horse training. Dr. Armshaw has not yet been drawn into the world of horses, but his work is of great interest to me. We have talked a lot about micro shaping in these podcasts and the importance of starting small. Dr. Armshaw’s work makes us all seem like lumpers. Using Surface electromyography, he has been training responses at the level of the firing of individual muscle fibers. His research brings new insights into how starting small can create the huge results we see.
We want to start small. That’s an important part of loopy training and constructional training in general. You begin with a small, simple, easily achieved response which means you are starting with a high success rate resulting in a high rate of reinforcement.This is great from your horse’s point of view. Very little effort yields consistent goodies. From our point of view we want to start small but we don’t want to stay small. Staying small means you are staying stuck in the narrow end of the funnel. Instead of the behavior expanding through gentle nudges, you are stuck in a tight cylinder. In this episode we look at different strategies for breaking free of the narrow cylinder so your training can expand into ever more complex behavior.
Dominique and I spent a very hot June afternoon recording this three part conversation. In the previous episode we talked about the weather because when it’s over a hundred degrees, it’s hard to think about anything else. We shared what we do to keep our horses comfortable in this extreme heat.We also talked about neck ropes. I described what you can use them for and how you introduce neck ropes to your horse. We ended with the neck rope evolving into a trailer loading lesson and then into ground driving.At the start of this lesson Dominique is asking about the difference between handlers who are absent versus handlers who are light. This leads to a discussion of riding on a release versus riding on contact. We talk about the difference between describing what an experienced riding is doing to influence her horse versus describing the process that got her to the result you’re admiring.We also talk about mounting blocks and how to teach your horse to line himself up next to the mounting block.
It’s hot. The day we recorded this conversation it was 105 degrees (Fahrenheit) where Dominique lives. My area was positively balmy by comparison. It was only 94 degrees. So the weather is what we both wanted to talk about and more specifically how do we manage our horses when the temperatures are so extreme? We aren’t authorities on horse care. We’re just two horse owners who worry a lot about our horses’ well being. In the first half of this podcast we exchange ideas about how to deal with extreme temperatures. Hot weather leads to talking about something else that’s very current for me and that’s ticks.The first half of our conversation is about management. The second half is all training. I describe how to introduce a the use of a neck rope. Working in a neck rope is a great stepping stone towards riding. It also evolves into a lesson that helps prep a horse for riding in a trailer, and for ground driving.
This is Part 3 of a conversation with Muna Clough. I’ve wanted to have Muna on the podcast for quite a while. She’s a participant in my on-line clinics along with her Irish Draft cross, Frank. One of the first videos she sent me showed Frank rearing up at her and then snaking his head around and biting at her legs.In the more recent videos Muna has been teaching a calm Frank lateral work. The change in their relationship has been an absolute pleasure to watch. I wanted Muna to share with us the process she’s gone through to create this transformation. I can make suggestions, but we have an ocean separating us. It has been Muna who has done all the training. She’s created the changes that we’re seeing. In this episode we talk about the principles Muna has used to guide her choices with Frank. These principles let you weave a strong safety net under a horse. I’m always so appreciative when people share their training stories. It’s very much a pay it forward system. There’s always someone listening who is where they used to be with a horse. Sharing what worked, what they learned, the process they went through to get where they are today - all of that helps the next person who’s new to this way of training. It is always go to people for opinions and horses for answers. We can’t invite Frank onto the podcast but we can very much ask Muna to join us so she can share his story.We ended last time with a discussion of principles and that’s where we pick up as we rejoin the conversation in Part 3.
This is Part 2 of a conversation with Muna Clough. I’ve wanted to have Muna on the podcast for quite a while. She’s a participant in my on-line clinics along with her Irish Draft cross, Frank. One of the first videos she sent me showed Frank rearing up at her and then snaking his head around and biting at her legs.In the more recent videos Muna has been teaching Frank lateral work. The change in their relationship has been an absolute pleasure to watch. I wanted Muna to share with us the process she’s gone through to create this transformation. I can make suggestions, but we have an ocean separating us. It has been Muna who has done all the training. She’s created the changes that we’re seeing. I’m always so appreciative when people share their training stories. It’s very much a pay it forward system. There’s always someone listening who is where they used to be with a horse. Sharing what worked, what they learned, the process they went through to get where they are today - all of that helps the next person who’s new to this way of training. In this episode we talk about “hot potato” horses. These are horses with issues somebody else didn’t want to deal with so they passed the horse on to some unsuspecting person who now has to figure out what to do with the “hot potato”. I share stories of other “hot potato” horses and Muna talks about how she worked with Frank to transform their relationship.
This is Part 1 of a conversation with Muna Clough. I’ve wanted to have Muna on the podcast for quite a while. She’s a participant in my on-line clinics. She has an Irish draft cross named, Frank. One of the first videos Muna sent me showed Frank rearing up at her and then moments later snaking his head around to bite at her legs.In the more recent videos Muna has been teaching Frank lateral work. The change in their relationship has been an absolute pleasure to watch. All of the coaching has been through emails and the monthly coaching sessions. I can make suggestions, but we have an ocean separating us. It has been Muna who has done all the training. She’s created the change that we’re seeing. I wanted Muna to share with us the process she’s gone through to create this transformation. It’s all well and good for me to say clicker training works. When you’re struggling with a horse, you can feel really trapped. When you hear from someone like Muna whose horse started out with very similar behavior, her experiences can become the light that gets you to the end of the tunnel.In this episode I begin by talking about the SABA Award that I was recently given at this year’s ABAI conference. This is a very roundabout way to introduce Muna and Frank. The connection between the two is loopy training. Muna’s other horse Sandro was featured in the presentation I gave during the Awards ceremony. So this seemed like the perfect time to invite Muna to join us.She began by introducing Frank, a horse she bought as a two year old and then quickly discovered that she was in way over her head. We’ll be focusing on the work Muna did to transform Frank from a fire-breathing dragon into delightful equine company.
This is part 2 of our conversation with Ken Ramirez. For over thirty years Ken was the executive Vice President overseeing animal care and training at the Shedd Aquarium. He is now the Executive Vice President and chief training officer of Karen Pryor Clicker Training. Those are impressive sounding titles, but they don’t come close to describing Ken’s talent as a trainer and teacher. Dominique and I were delighted to be able to spend an afternoon with Ken shortly after this year’s Clicker Expo. Dominique had a long list of questions for Ken relating to a talk he gave at the Expo.In this episode the discussion centers around treatless clicks, keep going signals, clickless treats, and end of session signals.
You know you’re in for a great conversation when the guest for this week’s episode is Ken Ramirez. For over thirty years Ken was the Executive Vice President Overseeing Animal Care and Training at the Shedd Aquarium. He is now the Executive Vice President and Chief Training Officer of Karen Pryor Clicker Training. Those are impressive sounding titles, but they don’t come close to describing Ken’s talent as a trainer and teacher. Dominique and I were delighted to be able to spend an afternoon with Ken shortly after this year’s Clicker Expo. Dominique had a list of questions about keep going signals, treatless clicks and end-of-session strategies. We begin with why Ken describes advanced training as the basics done really well. Ken shares some great stories and then we jump into a discussion of keep going signals.
This is Part 5 of a five part series with Dr. Susan Friedman. Susan is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University. She is well known around the world for her very popular on-line course: How Behavior Works: Living & Learning With Animals). She has co-authored chapters on behavior change in five veterinary texts, and her popular articles have been translated into 17 languages. She shares many of those articles on her web site: behavior works.org It’s a great resource for all of us who want to learn more about the natural science of behavior.Susan is a member of the clicker expo faculty. Her presentations at the March Clicker Expo prompted this conversation on schedules of reinforcement.In Part 1 Susan reviewed with us the basics of fixed and variable schedules. She ended with a question about how you get behavior to vary when you are using a continuous reinforcement schedule. We carried that question over into Part 2.In Part 2 we took a deeper dive into continuous reinforcement schedules. We considered how you get behavior to vary without using a variable reinforcement schedule. Susan talked about a moving away from transactional training to training with assent. Part 3 Susan helped us to understand schedules of co-variation. She defined conjugate and synchronous schedules and gave some very practical examples, especially as it relates to husbandry procedures that may involve some discomfort. Again, she discussed what assent looks like and what it means when an animal says no. What conditions must be present for a conjugate schedule to begin and what conditions mean that the training should stop?Part 4 was very much about working in teams. Especially when you are working on husbandry procedures that the animal may not be comfortable with, you need to notice and respond appropriately to the subtle “no answers” an animal presents. When one person is in charge of feeding and the other is handling the procedure, effective communication needs to be there.At the Cheyenne Mountain zoo where Susan does a great deal of consulting work, the goal of each training session is not getting the procedure done. It is having a willing animal for the next session. She talked about the difference between empathy and compassion, and somehow that took us to parenting styles and what to do when a baby cries.Now in Part 5 of this conversation we’ll be talking about non-linear analysis. Susan talks about the shift in focus from proximal to distant antecedents. She defines what this means and shares several stories that really help us to understand these concepts. When you’re faced with unwanted behavior an empowering question is to ask: if he did what was wanted, what would this individual be giving up? In other words what other contingencies are reinforcing (or perhaps not reinforcing) the behavior such that, from the handler’s perspective, an unwanted behavior emerges. If we could make a change in these other contingencies, we might not have to deal with this unwanted behavior. Susan’s stories make it very clear what this means and how to go about designing behavior change plans that take the distant antecedents into account. My favorite example involves the penguins at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
This is the fourth in a five part series with Dr Susan Friedman. The general topic is schedules of reinforcement. Susan is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University. She is well known around the world for her very popular on-line course: How Behavior Works: Living & Learning With Animals). She has co-authored chapters on behavior change in five veterinary texts, and her popular articles have been translated into 17 languages. She shares many of those articles on her web site: behavior works.org It’s a great resource for all of us who want to learn more about the natural science of behavior.Susan is a member of the clicker expo faculty. Her presentations at the March Clicker Expo prompted this conversation on schedules of reinforcement.In Part 1 Susan reviewed with us the basics of fixed and variable schedules. She ended with a question about how you get behavior to vary when you are using a continuous reinforcement schedule. We carried that question over into Part 2.In Part 2 we took a deeper dive into continuous reinforcement schedules. We considered how you get behavior to vary without using a variable reinforcement schedule. Susan talked about moving away from transactional training to training with assent. Part 3 Susan helped us to understand schedules of co-variation. She defined conjugate and synchronous schedules and gave some very practical examples, especially as it relates to husbandry procedures that may involve some discomfort. Again, she discussed what assent looks like and what it means when an animal says no. What conditions must be present for a conjugate schedule to begin and what conditions mean that the training should stop?Part 4 is very much about working in teams. Especially when you are working on husbandry procedures that the animal may not be comfortable with, you need to notice and respond appropriately to the subtle signals an animal presents. When one person is in charge of feeding and the other is handling the procedure, effective communication needs to be there.At the Cheyenne Mountain zoo where Susan does a great deal of consulting work, the goal of each training session is not getting the procedure done. It is having a willing animal for the next session. In this episode we talk about different magnitudes of reinforcers and the importance of making a distinction in the reinforcers that are available in order for a choice to be made.Susan talks about the difference between empathy and compassion, and somehow that takes us to parenting styles and a question from Dominique about what to do when a baby cries.
We’re talking with Dr Susan Friedman about schedules of reinforcement. Susan is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University. She is well known around the world for her very popular on-line course: How Behavior Works: Living & Learning With Animals). She has co-authored chapters on behavior change in five veterinary texts, and her popular articles have been translated into 17 languages. She shares many of those articles on her web site: behavior works.org. It’s a great resource for all of us who want to learn more about the natural science of behavior.Susan is a member of the clicker expo faculty. Her presentations at the March Clicker Expo prompted this conversation on schedules of reinforcement.In Part 1 Susan reviewed with us the basics of fixed and variable schedules. She ended with a question about how you get behavior to vary when you are using a continuous reinforcement schedule. That’s where we began in Part 2.In Part 2 we took a deeper dive into continuous reinforcement schedules. We considered how you get behavior to vary without using a variable reinforcement schedule. Susan talked about a moving away from transactional training to training with assent. Part 3 Susan helps us to understand schedules of co-variation. She defines conjugate and synchronous schedules and gives some very practical examples, especially as it relates to husbandry procedures that may involve some discomfort. Again she discusses what assent looks like and what it means when an animal says no. What conditions must be present for a conjugate schedule to begin and what conditions mean that the training should stop?
We’re talking with Dr. Susan Friedman about schedules Susan is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University. She is well known around the world for her very popular on-line course: “How Behavior Works: Living & Learning With Animals”. She has co-authored chapters on behavior change in five veterinary texts, and her popular articles have been translated into 17 languages. She shares many of those articles on her web site: behavior works.org. It’s a great resource for all of us who want to learn more about the natural science of behavior.Susan is a member of the clicker expo faculty. Her presentations at the March Clicker Expo prompted this conversation on schedules of reinforcement.In Part 1 Susan reviewed with us the basics of fixed and variable schedules. In Part 2 we take a deeper dive into continuous reinforcement schedules. We consider how you get behavior to vary without using a variable reinforcement schedule. Susan talks about a move away from transactional training to training with assent. She explains what that means and what it might look like for the learner.We ended Part 1 with a question about how you get behavior to vary when you are using a continuous reinforcement schedule. That’s where we pick up as we continue the conversation.
This week we’re starting a new series with Dr Susan Friedman. Susan is well known around the world for her very popular on-line course: How Behavior Works: Living & Learning With Animals). She has co-authored chapters on behavior change in five veterinary texts, and her popular articles have been translated into 17 languages. She shares many of those articles on her web site: behavior works.org It’s a great resource for all of us who want to learn more about the natural science of behavior.Susan is a member of the clicker expo faculty. Her presentations at the March Clicker Expo prompted this conversation on schedules of reinforcement. In this first part Susan gets us all grounded in the subject with a review of the basics. As always, Susan makes clear what can often be confusing definitions and distinctions.
Last week Dominique and I were talking about the Clicker Expo. We shared our impressions of the Expo and then I talked about my presentation on the participating horse.This week we are continuing to explore what changes in the relationship that established when active participation is encouraged. Active participation very much means that it is safe for our animals to say “no”. We begin with a discussion of what a “no” really represents. We consider what it means for our animals to have a lifestyle of choice - an expression that comes from Dr. Susan Friedman.We discuss the use of multiple marker signals, treaties clicks, keep going signals, and treating without clicking. And we celebrate the wonderful clicker expo training community that is part of Karen Pryor’s legacy.
We recorded this podcast on March 20, 2025. Dominique and I were just back from the Clicker Expo so of course that’s what we wanted to talk about. We begin with highlights from the Expo including the Saturday evening keynote presentation given by Jade Fountain. Jade has been involved with Apopo the organization that trains the giant poached rats that are used for land mine detection in Africa and Southeast Asia. Both Dominique and I were enchanted, impressed, fascinated by the rats, their training, and the work they are doing. In addition to the many other Expo highlights, I talk about my presentation on the Participating Horse. I describe the difference between passive and active participation, both in terms of the procedures used and the outcomes that emerge.
This is a continuation of a conversation that Dominique and I had together at the beginning of February.Last week we were talking about the new on-line mini courses I am creating out of the original DVD Lesson series. I have recognized for a long time that people no longer have DVD players, so I am transferring the DVDs to the same platform that hosts my on-line clinics. But I’m not just transferring the original lessons, I am providing updates and additional material. This work is very simple and very complex both at the same time. Most people, even if they are very experienced horse people, can’t jump in at the deep end. To get to the complexity that is really simple and the simplicity that is very complex, you have to start in the kiddie pool. And that’s where the DVDs begin. But it’s the nature of this work that at the same time we’re in kindergarten we’re also in a graduate level seminar. Now I know there will be people listening to this who are thinking: “I just want to ride my horse. I’m not interested in all this mind-bendy stuff. Just tell me how to teach my horse to stand still so I can get on.”The problem is you may just want to ride, but if you don’t have a simple, straightforward horse, you may need do dig deeper into this work. It’s all there in the books, the DVD lessons, the on-line courses, the blog, this podcast. I share both basic how-to lessons plus the details that the horses have shown us that make a difference to them.Converting and up-dating the DVDs is a huge project. It’s also been a fun project. Revisiting these lessons has been filled with surprises. So, of course, I want to talk about them and that’s what Dominique and I did on a very cold February day.Our conversation covers a wide range of topics: including loopy training, the T’ai chi wall - what that means and how to apply it, shaping on a point of contact, head lowering, and strategies for dealing with pushy horses.
Talking of Many Things Part 1: Loopy Training, The T’ai Chi Wall, Head Lowering and Pushy HorsesThis is a continuation of a conversation that Dominique and I had together at the beginning of February. My original intent when we got together was to talk about the new version of the DVD lessons, but then I got sidetracked because I really wanted to share the videos that Muna Clough sent me as part of the on-line clinics. That was the subject of our previous two episodes. I even included a discussion from our monthly on-line coaching session that included contributions from Muna, Anita Schnee and Lucy Butler. Both Anita and Lucy have been frequent guests on the podcast.So now finally in this week’s episode we’re going to talk about the DVD lessons. I have recognized for a long time that people no longer have DVD players, so I am transferring the DVDs to the same platform that hosts my on-line clinics. But I’m not just transferring the original lessons, I am providing updates and additional material. For me it’s been a fun project. In the first four lessons I get to watch a very young Robin illustrating key elements in the foundation lessons. Twenty-five years later we are still using those elements and enjoying the many benefits they create.In this episode we are going to focus primarily on Lesson 2: Ground Manners. This lesson provides the connections, the bridge between traditional pressure and release of pressure training and what we want clicker training to be. Whether it is a leash attached to a dog collar or a lead attached to a halter, the communication is tactile. It is pressure and release of pressure. For me it has never been a choice between using these tools or never touching them. It has always been about the teaching process and the way we frame our training. One teaching process leads to command-based, do-it-or-else training. The other process leads to cue-based conversations. I want the conversation.So Lesson #2 seeks to understand the difference. The focus is on shaping on a point of contact. We’ll be talking about loopy training, head lowering, the t’ai chi wall and what to do when you are working with a horse who falls over his inside shoulder and crowds into you. That’s something I know a lot of people struggle with when they try to lead their horses so I’m sure this topic will be of interest.
This is Part 2 of a conversation that Dominique and I had together at the beginning of February.I’ve been sharing a remarkable series of videos from one of my on-line clients, Muna Clough. In the previous episode I described the videos Muna sent me and the remarkable changes that occurred over a six day period. I shared Muna’s videos with my monthly coaching session group. The videos sparked a fascinating discussion about the power of tiny movements. We’re joined by Muna Clough, Anita Schnee, and Lucy Butler. Anita is a Feldenkrais Practitioner. Lucy manages the River Haven Animal Sanctuary in Rhode Island. Both have been frequent guests on this podcast.
This is an unusual podcast. I’m going to be sharing a video with you. Now I know it’s odd to share a video on an audio format but this is no ordinary video. We’re going to be looking at a remarkable change in a horse. The horse is owned by one of the participants in my on-line clinics, Muna Clough. I won’t spoil the ending of the story by telling you much more about her horse. What I will say is this episode includes a detailed description of the runway lesson. I use the runway lesson to teach horses to step onto mats so it is part of the core foundation lessons.The runway lesson is a fascinating lesson. A beginner can succeed with it. And later when that same handler has become more finessed in her handling skills, she can use the runway lesson to transform a horse’s balance. It is one of my favorite patterned exercises, so I’m delighted we’re turning the spotlight on it in this episode.
This is part three of a conversation Dominique and I had at the end of January 2025. Part 1 was a tribute to Karen Pryor. Part 2 was a celebration of Robin’s 30th birthday. I don’t know his exact birthday so I am celebrating all year long. For me, 30 seems like such an important milestone for a horse to reach. It’s like a person reaching their 90th birthday - it’s quite an accomplishment, especially if they are still in good health.Robin has played an important role in the development of equine clicker training. In the previous episode I shared some of the many ways in which he showed us what is possible.Thirty years is a long time. When your horses reach their senior years that raises the question of what comes next. That’s what we’re going to talk about in this episode. Even if you are the one in your twenties and you’ve just gotten a young horse to start out with, this is something to think about. Horses live a long time. The full arc of their years not only takes us through many changes in our own lives, they help to shape those changes.
Last week we celebrated the life of Karen Pryor. My horses have lived a much better life because of Karen's work. That includes my young horse, Robin. I suppose I should stop referring to him as my young horse because this year he has reached an important milestone. Robin is thirty years old. That's like a person reaching their 90th birthday. It’s an achievement that needs to be celebrated which is what I am doing in this episode.I don’t know Robin’s actual birthday so I will be celebrating his 30th Birthday all year long. Robin has had an enormous impact on equine clicker training. He showed us what is possible. So in this episode I am going to share Robin stories. We’ll be talking about trick training, the “pose”, default behaviors and of course, balance, balance and more balance.
Episode 312 Remembering Karen PryorAt the end of January 2025 Dominique and I got together for an afternoon's conversation. This is part 1 of that conversation.I primarily wanted to talk about Karen Pryor. Karen died on January 5 2025. This episode celebrates her life.
This is Part 3 of our conversation with Lucy Butler. With her fiancee Lucy founded the River Haven Sanctuary in Rhode Island. The sanctuary is home to about fifty animals - pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, goats, donkeys, and three horses. The Sanctuary gives forever homes to animals that were in crisis. Lucy and her fiancee Jeff have plans for developing the sanctuary into an educational center,.In Part 1 Lucy introduced us to the sanctuaries three horses, Pearl, River, and Nieve. Initially, clicker training was used to help the horses settle and to fill in the huge gaps in their basic education. It’s been a healing process for them physically as well as emotionally. In Part 2 we talked about the effect that lateral work is having on the horses. We began with Nieve and the remarkable changes lateral work is making in her emotional stability. Nieve is confirming that in horses physical balance is very much related to emotional well-being. In Part 3 we continue on with the changes that Lucy is seeing in River, a standardbred who was raced for five years and was then a harness horse for the Amish, and in Pearl, a mini who came to River Haven Sanctuary via another horse rescue.These “throw-away” horses show us how important training is to their overall well-being. Lucy is learning how to weave strong safety nets under her three very different horses.
This is Part 2 of our conversation with Lucy Butler. With her fiancé Lucy founded the River Haven Sanctuary in Rhode Island. The sanctuary is home to about fifty animals, pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, goats, donkeys, and three horses. The Sanctuary gives forever homes to animals that were in crisis. Lucy and her fiancé Jeff have plans for developing the sanctuary into an educational center,.In Part 1 Lucy introduced us to the sanctuaries three horses, Pearl, River, and Nieve. Initially, clicker training was used to help the horses settle and to fill in the huge gaps in their basic education. It’s been a healing process for them physically as well as emotionally. In Part 2 we talk about the effect that lateral work is having on the horses. We begin with Nieve and the remarkable effect that teaching her lateral work is having for her emotionally. Nieve is confirming that in horses physical balance is very much related to emotional well-being. We talk about constructional design and what shaping on a point of contact means for the horses.
This is Part 1 of our conversation with Lucy Butler. With her fiancé Lucy founded the River Haven Sanctuary in Rhode Island. The sanctuary is home to about fifty animals, pigs, geese, ducks, chickens, goats, donkeys, and three horses. The Sanctuary gives forever homes to animals that were in crisis. Lucy and her fiancé Jeff have plans for developing the sanctuary into an educational center.In Part 1 Lucy introduces us to the Sanctuary’s three horses, Pearl, River, and Nieve. Initially, clicker training was used to help the horses settle and to fill in the huge gaps in their basic education. It’s been a healing process for them physically as well as emotionally. This sets the stage for the main purpose of our conversation - which is to talk about lateral work. Lucy is in the early stages of introducing her horses to lateral work. The discoveries she’s making and the changes she’s seeing in her horses are well worth sharing.For me central to all performance work is the horse’s balance. The training helps the horse find his optimal balance and use of his body. Whatever your performance goals are for your horse, a central, fundamental focus on balance will help you get there. And it will get you there without compromising your horse. Balance matters for the lifetime of your horse.Lucy has been an active participant in my on-line clinics so I’ve been watching her horses’ training develop over time. All three have reached the point where lateral work is beginning to pop out. In the last coaching session Lucy talked about the exciting changes she’s seeing in her horses. The changes in all three horses have been so remarkable, we had to share. Normally when someone is invited to talk about lateral work, it is because they are an expert in this type of training. In Lucy’s case it is because this work is so new to her that I wanted her to join us. The changes she’s seeing in her horses are very much worth sharing. I always add something at the end of each episode. This week I have included a tribute to Karen Pryor who died on January 4, 2025 at the age of 92. Do please join me in honoring her work.
This is Part 4 of a 4 part conversation. In November Dominique and I spent a delightful afternoon going through a list of topics Dominique has been accumulating. We talked the afternoon away, so I’ve split our conversation into four episodes.In Part 1 we talked about trailer loading, the microshaping strategy and what criteria we use to decide when to end a training session.In part 2 I described a procedure for teaching a horse to lift his feet that uses body part targeting. This lesson helps develop skills in the handler that are needed for teaching lateral work. I also described a fun lesson where instead of round penning horses, we round pen people. The lesson teaches handlers the choreography of ground work. In part 3 we consider another critical handler skill and that’s fast decision making. Often we look at training progressions with the focus on what the horse is learning. Of course the question that interests people is: What am I going to be teaching my horse? In order to teach well, there are skills the handler needs to learn. Many of these are obvious physical skills such as learning good rope handling techniques. What is less obvious are some of the “invisible” skills such as fast decision making. These invisible skills are the “grease” that makes all the physical skills work smoothly.So in this episode we focused on flexible thinking and fast decision making. We review the progression of lessons that develops this skill for the handler and we consider why this is such an important skill.We also look at shaping on either side of the click and more details about teaching foot care, especially related to handling the hind feet of potential kickers.In Part 4 we continue this discussion of teaching horses good foot care manners. We share some farrier stories and then consider if, when, and how to fade the click and treat out of the foot care process. Our discussion takes us to listening to horses and how that phrase is interpreted by different trainers. What gets normalized in our training expectations? When trainers talk about relaxed horses, what does that mean? We make a distinction between relaxation and learned helplessness. Do we recognize the difference? This brings us back to the earlier conversation about round pens where the end result in many styles of round pen training is learned helplessness. We want to keep the sparkle in the eye and that’s what we see with clicker training.
This is Part 3 of a 4 part conversation. In November Dominique and I spent a delightful afternoon going through a list of topics Dominique had been accumulating. We talked the afternoon away, so I’ve split our conversation into four episodes.In Part 1 we talked about trailer loading, the Microshaping Strategy, and what criteria we use to decide when to end a training session.In part 2 I described a procedure for teaching a horse to lift his feet that uses body part targeting. This lesson helps develop skills in the handler that are needed for teaching lateral work. I also described a fun lesson where instead of round penning horses, we round pen people. The lesson teaches handlers the choreography of ground work. Now in part 3 we consider another critical handler skill and that’s fast decision making. Often we look at training progressions with the focus on what the horse is learning. Of course, the question that interests people is: What am I going to be teaching my horse? In order to teach well, there are skills the handler needs to learn. Many of these are obvious physical skills such as learning good rope handling techniques. What is less obvious are some of the “invisible” skills such as fast decision making. These invisible skills are the “grease” that makes all the physical skills work smoothly.So in this episode we focus on flexible thinking and fast decision making. We review the progression of lessons that develops this skill for the handler and we consider why this is such an important skill.We also look at shaping on either side of the click and more details about teaching foot care, especially related to handling the hind feet of potential kickers.
This is a fun episode. We begin with foot care and the connection to lateral work. The lesson I describe is especially useful if you have a horse who struggles to pick up his feet for you. Instead of trying to fix a broken behavior, I share with you a different way of teaching your horse to pick up his feet, one that uses body part targeting.I’ll let you listen to the episode to find out what the connection to teaching lateral work is.The discussion of lateral work connects us to something I don’t think we’ve talked about before in this podcast and that’s round penning people. Again, I’ll send you to this week’s episode to find out what that’s about.
In November Dominique and I spent an afternoon catching up and talking about a wide range of topics. We talked together for over four hours so obviously that conversation is going to be divided up over several episodes.In Part 1 Dominique gets us started with a question about breaks. We talk about trailer loading, familiarizing horses to new environments, the Microshaping strategy and the criteria we us for knowing when to end a training session.
This is Part 3 of a three part conversation with Michaela Hempen and Carmen Heritier. In the spring of 2024 Carmen sent her three year old quarter horse mare, Malu, to Michaela for three months of training. Malu was like a sponge. She soaked up all the lessons. In this episode we contrast what it was like to work with a well prepared young horse who likes people with that of restarting Michaela’s mare Blondie. In Parts 1 and 2 we reviewed Blondie’s training background. In this episode Michaela shares more of the details of her training. She describes the long-term impact of the physical and emotional compression that Blondie endured in her early training before coming to Michaela. Blondie’s training background is a common one. The contrast between the two horses highlights what a gift it is to give a horse a good start to their training.
This is part 2 of a three part conversation with Michaela Hempen and Carmen Heritier. In the spring of 2024 Carmen sent her three year old quarter horse mare, Malu, to Michaela for three months of training. In Part 1 we introduced Carmen and Malu, and then Michaela talked about the early steps in her training. Malu was a well-prepared horse, so the training flowed along. Part 1 ended with a question about adding leg speed and that’s where we begin in this episode. How do you get transitions into trot and canter?We also talk about the squashed road kill lesson, but you will have to listen to the episode top find out what that is.
Michaela Hempen has been a guest many times on this podcast. We began in Episode 27 with single-subject design and then Michaela introduced us to Blondie, the mare who was the subject of the research project she did on cribbing.We’re returning to Blondie again in this conversation. Michaela will be contrasting her experience restarting Blondie under saddle with that of Malu, a three year old quarter horse mare. Malu belongs to Carmen, a dog trainer and now horse owner. She sent Malu to Michaela to get her started under saddle.In this episode Carmen describes her own training background which includes an interest in canine fitness and balance. She introduces us to Malu and shares her reasons for choosing Michaela to help her get Malu started under saddle.We talk about shaping with both positive and negative reinforcement, and the beginning lessons Michaela covered with Malu.
In this episode Christa shares effective strategies for bringing horses and children together. She reminds us, among other things, to play.So many riding programs normalize brutality by teaching children you have to “make your pony mind”. They are told to hit their pony to make him go. In this episode we describe alternatives. We imagine what children growing up with clicker training represents will do as adults. They can be world changers because they will see the world in a new way. They will have the skills to show that there are alternatives.Everything is connected - children’s books, clicker training, teaching children and horses, training well, wanting the best for our horses. It’s part of every one of our 301 episodes.Train well and join us in celebrating Modern Horse Training and all that that means.
This episode is filled with Celebrations. We’re celebrating our 300th Episode. That’s quite a milestone. And we’re celebrating the publication of “Kenyon Bear’s Christmas”, Book 4 of the Kenyon Bear children’s books.What better way to celebrate than to talk with Christa Culbert. Christa created the illustrations for Kenyon Bear’s Christmas. She is also a horse person and a creative teacher. So many riding programs are centered around riding. On the surface that makes sense. Christa has developed a very different kind of program that is centered around the horse. Five and six year old children set up preference tests to discover what kinds of treats their horses really like. They learn about so much more than how to make their pony go. They are learning how to help their pony WANT to go WITH them.Everything is connected - children’s books, clicker training, teaching children and horses, training well, wanting the best for our horses. It’s part of every one of our 300 episodes.
I’ve just published the newest book in the Kenyon Bear series of children’s book, Kenyon Bear’s Christmas. This week we’re talking with the illustrator, Christa Culbert. In case you’re wondering what this has to do with horses, the answer is everything! In this week’s podcast we talk with Christa about art, animals, imagination, clicker training, and teaching children about horses. Christa starts us off by saying art is about perceiving the world in a new way. Isn’t that what we are doing with clicker training? We are perceiving training and our relationships with horses in new ways. Christa talks about the programs she has developed to bring horses and children together. It is about so much more than simply teaching them to ride. So join us in the celebration of the new book, Kenyon Bear’s Christmas, and enjoy a wide ranging conversation about horses, imagination, working with children, entitlement, boundaries, and the convergence between what we’re discovering through science and what we knew as children about our animal friends.
We’re talking about advanced training. What makes something an advanced behavior, or an advanced topic or concept? When people say they want to attend an advanced seminar, what do they mean? What are they looking for?In part 1 we looked at this question from the perspective of the lessons we are teaching our horses. I made a case for advanced training is just the basics done very, very well. We agreed that identifying advanced skills is very much in the eye of the beholder. If you don’t have the needed underlying components, the task you’re trying to take on will seem like a very advanced skill. So what is an advanced skill for one individual will be just the next doable step for another.In part 2 we then considered if there is a difference in how we view advanced skills when we’re thinking about teaching our horses versus what we ourselves need to master in order to be effective teachers. Teaching well requires many skills. In Part 2 we began our list of what we would consider to be advanced skills. In Part three we added to this list beginning with a discussion of agency.One of the reasons I wanted to talk about what advanced means is I hope this helps all of us to be clearer about what we are looking for when we ask for advanced topics. If I want to advance my horse’s training, I need to be patient and recognize that moving on may mean reviewing previous steps in the training first. You’ll begin by polishing and refining the underlying components. That’s what produces the readiness for the next steps in the training.If my focus is on advancing my training skills, I’ll be looking over a wider range of topics. What do I need to develop? Is it my handling skills? Is it my own body awareness? Is it my understanding of biomechanics, or behavior analysis? What is keeping me from progressing? Our growing list of skills that we would look for in a skilled trainer may help you to identify some areas that are worth exploring.
We’re talking about what how we would define an advanced skill or topic. What makes something advanced? In Part 1 the focus was on our horses and the lessons we teach them. We explored what it means when we say advanced training is just the basics done really well. Is that indeed the case, or is there something more to advanced training?In this week’s episode we turn the spotlight onto the handler. Is there a difference in how we view advanced skills when we’re thinking about the skills our horses are learning versus what is involved in teaching those skills?As the teachers of these behaviors it seems to me that we have the more complex task. Teaching well requires many skills. Would we consider these to be advanced skills? That’s the question we’ll be exploring in this episode. We’ll consider some of the skills that we think are needed to be an effective teacher. We have our list. I’m sure you have your own. Listen to the podcast to see how well they match up.
In this three part series we’re considering what makes something an advanced behavior, or an advanced topic or concept. When people say they want to attend an advanced seminar, what do they mean? What are they looking for?In Part 1 we explore this question from the perspective of what are we teaching our horses. I make the case that advanced training is just the basics done very, very well. Added to that is anything is an advanced skill or topic at the point where you don’t have the underlying components. So what is an advanced skill for one individual will be just the next doable step for another.We consider if there is a difference in how we view advanced skills when we’re thinking about teaching our horses versus what we ourselves need to learn.As the teachers of these behaviors it seems to me that we have the more complex task. Teaching well requires many skills. Would we consider these to be advanced skills?
Breaks are good for learning is something we hear a lot. Certainly we all know that no matter how much you are enjoying an activity there comes a point where you need to stop. You need to refresh mentally and physically. But what constitutes a break? Think about for yourself. When you need a break from work, what does that look like? Sometimes we might see you collapsed in a heap on your couch watching mindless television. Other times we might see you going out for a jog, or pulling out a challenging crossword puzzle. These can all be breaks. What constitutes a break for our horses? In Part 1 we began with the early steps of introducing a horse to clicker training. The handler is working in protective contact so it’s easy for the handler to give the type of break where the session comes to a full stop and the handler steps away. We talked about using the twenty treat strategy as a way to ensure that these breaks actually occur.As training progresses, the behaviors you teach become opportunities to give your horse a break. A break is no longer a full stop to the training, but a change to a different activity. The loopy training teaching strategy helps to structure breaks into your training.That’s what we talked about in Part 1. In part 2 we talk about different strategies for working with multiple horses; the importance of giving complete information and how that plays out in training; and what playing the card game twenty-one has to do with training.
This week we’re talking about breaks. We’ll be talking about what breaks are and how you teach them. We’re also talking about the many uses breaks serve - including some very important ones for the handler. Breaks aren’t just for our horse’s benefit. We’ll go back to the very first steps in the training where the handler is using protective contact. The barrier makes it easy to give breaks. So horses are learning that the training stops and then starts up again. Frequent breaks can help a new learner settle. They aren’t frustrated when the handler stops the training, and they aren’t anxiously waiting for it to start up again. That same environmental set up helps handlers develop the skill of assessing and adjusting their training. So breaks not only serve many functions, they are important for both horse and handler.Before we begin our discussion of breaks we take a detour into equine dentistry.
This is Part 2 of a Two Part Conversation. Last week we followed up on our previous conversation with Michaela Hempen on horse welfare. Dominique shared some useful resources and I shared a goat story.The goat story leads to a discussion of when and how to step in should you encounter rough handling. It’s never a comfortable situation, or an easy decision. To provide a counterbalance to what can be a difficult subject, we switched gears to talk about training principles, rope handling and the t’ai chi wall.
For this conversation Dominique and I both wanted to follow up on our previous conversation with Michaela Hempen. We were talking about horse welfare. Dominique shared some useful resources that you can use to assess your horse’s physical welfare. These included Anja Beran’s Train Your Eye DVD, the horse grimace scale, and the equine discomfort ethogram. It can be uncomfortable to stand up for our animals. In the second half of the episode I share a goat story in which I had to do exactly that. In the podcast with Michaela, we talked about being good guardians for animals. Days after we recorded the podcast, I got to practice putting those words into action.
This conversation was prompted by an event that occurred just before the opening of the 2024 Paris Olympics. One of the top dressage riders had to withdraw because of a video that showed her whipping a horse during a training session.The video came out just as Dominique and I were planning our next podcast recording. Dominique said her social media feed was filled with posts discussing the video. Should we talk about it. Generally we shy away from talking directly about training that disturbs us. But horse welfare is an important topic and one we need to be talking about. So I invited Michaela Hempen to join us. We’ve just finished the conversation with Michaela on the connection between riding and the Feldenkrais work. Normally we wouldn’t have a guest do back to back conversations, but Michaela was the perfect person to ask to join us. In her day job with the European Food Safety Authority she is currently involved in providing scientific assessments that inform the European Commission and other EU member states to formulate legislation to protect animals. This has primarily meant animals produced for food, but the mandate has broadened out to include equine welfare in general. In Part 1 Michaela described what they will be considering under these new mandates. In Part 2 we consider the role each of us can play in moving the horse community as a whole forward towards more horse-friendly training.
This conversation was prompted by an event that occurred just before the opening of the 2024 Paris Olympics. One of the top dressage riders had to withdraw because of a video that showed her whipping a horse during a training session.The video came out just as Dominique and I were planning our next podcast recording. Dominique said her social media feed was filled with posts discussing the video. Should we talk about it. Generally we shy away from talking directly about training that disturbs us. But horse welfare is an important topic and one we need to be talking about. So I invited Michaela Hempen to join us. We’ve just finished the conversation with Michaela on the connection between riding and the Feldenkrais work. Normally we wouldn’t have a guest do back to back conversations, but Michaela was the perfect person to ask to join us. In her day job with the European Food Safety Authority she is currently involved in providing scientific assessments that inform the European Commission and other EU member states to formulate legislation to protect animals. This has primarily meant animals produced for food, but the mandate has broadened out to include equine welfare in general. We begin with Michaela describing what they will be considering under these new mandates. Some of the practices that are currently done to horses are horrific. I was not aware, for example, of the blood farms. But this conversation is not intended to shock or depress you. Even when we move on to consider the video that sparked this conversation we are focusing on solutions and the role each of us can play in moving the horse community as a whole forward towards more horse-friendly training.
Episode 289 Michaela Hempen and Anita Schnee Feldenkrais Work Pt 3: The Role of Visualization in Riding Instruction For the past ten years Michaela has been studying with a Feldenkrais Practitioner, Nathalie Van Cauwenberghe. In the previous episodes Michaela described some of the riding challenges which the Feldenkrais work has helped her to solve. Nathalie does not speak English well enough to participate in the podcast, so I invited Anita Schnee to join us. Anita is also a Feldenkrais Practitioner so we will be drawing on her expertise as we continue with this conversation. In this episode we begin with a discussion of visualizations and the use of metaphors. Riding and the Feldenkrais™ work are both kinesthetic experiences. Translating what you feel into words can be a struggle, especially when you want those words to function as instructions. The use of visualizations helps to create translations.
This week we’re continuing our conversation with Anita Schnee and Michaela Hempen. Michaela has been our guest on this podcast many times. She’s talked to us about the research project she did on cribbing, about single subject design, and more recently about how animal welfare is assessed.When it comes to horses Michaela and I share a love of beautiful movement, so she also joined us when we talked with Anja Beran, the classical rider whose work inspires both of us. For the past ten years Michaela has been studying with a Feldenkrais™ Practitioner, Nathalie Van Cauwenberghe. In last week’s episode Michaela described the riding challenge Anja’s work poses. Anja has told her that in order to ride well you need to stabilize your torso while remaining loose in the rest of your body. With Nathalie’s help, Michaela has been figuring out how to turn these words into a meaningful reality. Nathalie does not speak English well enough to participate in the podcast, so I invited Anita Schnee to join us. Anita is also a Feldenkrais™ Practitioner so we will be drawing on her expertise as we continue with this conversation. The goal is to ride well. Last week I ended with a description of the changes I see in horse handler teams when the handler learns to lift through their sternum. I left you with that image to enjoy. We’ll pick up again at that point in the conversation.
Michaela Hempen has been a frequent guest on this podcast. She has talked about her cribbing research, single subject design, and more recently about how animal welfare is assessed. When it comes to horses Michaela and I share a love of beautiful movement, so she has also joined us when we talked with Anja Beran, the classical rider whose work inspires both of us.For the past ten years Michaela has been studying with a Feldenkrais™ practitioner, Nathalie Van Cauwenbergghe. In this episode Michaela is talks about the challenges riding presents and recent breakthroughs she has made.We are also joined by Anita Schnee, a Feldenkrais™ practitioner. Anita helps us to understand the patterns Michaela has been exploring.
This week we’re continuing our conversation with Dr Susan Friedman and Rick Hester. In this episode we begin with a question to Susan: Is the teaching standard known as Lima the same as the hierarchy of behavior change procedures that Susan has written about? Susan provides an historical perspective for the LIMA acronym, and for many of the other labels people have attached to training.
This week we’re continuing our conversation with Dr Susan Friedman and Rick Hester. Dr Friedman has been a frequent guest on this podcast. She is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University. She is pioneer in the use of Applied Behavior Analysis in the handling of captive and companion animals. Her interest in developing scientifically sound, ethical standards for animal care and training prompted our this current conversation.We are also joined by Rick Hester. Rick is the curator of behavioral Husbandry for the Cheyenne Mountain zoo. Rick overseas the zoo’s training program for husbandry, medical and public show behaviors. In this episode we consider many important questions, including what does it mean to be a positive reinforcement trainer? How do we operationalize that? How do we evaluate new ideas? We don’t want to move too quickly but nor do we want to get stuck in old ideas. Why does novelty have such a draw for us? We also consider why Susan has chosen to keep punishment in the hierarchy of behavior change strategies. This opens the door to a discussion of negative reinforcement as well as punishment. Do we need new words to describe the procedures we use?
This is Part 1 of a three part conversation with Dr. Susan Friedman and Rick Hester. Dr. Friedman has been a frequent guest on this podcast. Most of you I’m sure already know Susan. But just as a reminder, Susan is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University. She is a pioneer in the use of Applied Behavior Analysis in the handling of captive and companion animals. Her interest in developing scientifically sound, ethical standards for animal care and training prompted our this current conversation.We are also joined by Rick Hester. Rick is the curator of behavioral Husbandry for the Cheyenne Mountain zoo. Rick overseas the zoo’s training program for husbandry, medical and public show behaviors. I value the perspective he brings to training. When you work with horses it all too easy to think you have to rely on force-based methods for some medical and husbandry behaviors - and then you see what’s being done in zoos. We begin by talking about why it matters to have ethical standards guiding the training choices we make. We are talking about training goals and strategies that provide our learners with choice and a lifestyle of control.
This is part 3 of our conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter from the University of West Virginia and one of her graduate students, Abbie Cooper.Abbie has been comparing behaviors that were trained with either positive or negative reinforcement when they are placed under conditions of extinction. What happens to behavior when training goes sideways and the individual is no longer getting reinforced for actions that had been producing consistent, desired results? In Part 1 she described her study and the results she has been getting, In Part 2 we considered the emotional fallout that was observed and we connected it to real world experiences both in animal training and the classroom. In Part 3 Claire raises the question why do people adopt the teaching procedures that use negative reinforcement and punishment based approaches. Why are these approaches so prevalent, not just in animal training, but in the classroom as well? Why don’t people gravitate towards using alternative reinforcement strategies that are based more in a positive reinforcement framing? This is the launching point for this week’s conversation in which we explore connections. We consider how the results of Abbie’s study relate to what people experience both with horses and in the classroom. What can be learned? What role does microshaping play in creating teaching strategies that do not rely on aversive control to get results?
This week we’re continuing our conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter and one of her phd candidate students Abbie Cooper.Last week Abbie looked at a study in which she compared positive and negative reinforcement - what happens to behavior when training goes sideways and the individual is no longer getting reinforced for actions that had been producing consistent, desired results. This week we’re going to consider the emotional fallout that was observed and we’ll connect it to training experiences and to other studies.
This is part one of a three part conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter, the chair of the Department of Behavior Analysis at West Virginia University, and one of her graduate students, Abbie Cooper. Abbey is reporting on a study she has just completed for her Masters Thesis. In part 1 she is describing the study. Undergrads were presented with a computer screen that had six similar circles on it. In the initial set up, under one set of conditions if the students clicked on the correct circle, they gained points. These points could be exchanged for money at the end of the experiment. In a different context, if they failed to click on the circle, they lost points. Abbey then observed their behavior during an extinction process. The study produced some interesting results that seem very relevant to horse training.
I’m always delighted when I get to talk about balance and why it matters. At this year’s Expo I had both a presentation and a Balance matters lab. We talk about both of these in this week’s episode. We end with a discussion of equipment - what halters and leads do I favor and why.
This week we’re talking about the April Clicker Expo which was held in Portland Oregon. We start by talking about a panel discussion on working with aggressive animals. Then we move on to a presentation given by Ken Ramirez on the training terms which have emerged over time. Which of these terms have staying power and why. This was the perfect lead in to my own presentation on constructional training which I talk about in detail in this episode. At the very end, just for fun Dominique shares her experience of the solar eclipse on April 8.
This is Part 3 of a three part conversation Dominique and I had in March, 2024. In part 1 we talked about puzzle solving and this led to a great real life experience using back chaining that Dominique shared with us. e between forward chaining and back chaining. In Part 2 the spotlight was on rope handling. This week we are changing topics yet again. Dominique wanted to talk about agility. I begin this episode with an overview of clicker training. Clicker training has three phases. These phases don’t have clear distinct lines separating one from the other. You aren’t in phase one, and then you come to a demarcation line and you’re in phase 2. Instead they merge one into the other.The first phase introduces the horse and the handler to clicker training. I use the six foundation lessons for this. Horse and handler learn are introduced to the use of marker signals; food as a reinforcer; loopy training; cues; chaining, and many other important concepts, principles, and teaching strategies. In phase 2 you use the foundation lessons to help teach the universals. We’ve talked about this in many of the podcasts. The universals are those activities which horses need to understand and be comfortable with regardless of the performance goals a handler may have. It doesn’t matter if you ride English or western, or you don’t ride at all, we all need to take care of our horse’s feet. So foot care is an obvious universal. It’s easy to think of other universals, activities we want our horses to be comfortable with - such as grooming haltering, and other husbandry activities. The foundation lessons make it much easier to teach these skills. Phase Two merges seamlessly into Phase Three. Phase Three begins to look at performance goals. What do you want to do with your horse? For some people what they want is a great relationship. Just being around their horse and taking care of him, is what they want. Using clicker training to create cooperative care is the main goal of training. Basic ordinary grooming becomes elevated to the level of performance. Medical care isn’t something the horse tolerates. He becomes a consenting partner in whatever needs to be done. The goal is deep friendship. The training transform everyday tasks into Grand Prix level performance. In Phase Three we’re also looking at skills needed for specific performance-related goals. One person may be interested in jumping, another dressage, a third person may like reining. All three riders need to know the basics of riding walk trot canter. And there may be many overlapping skills as you begin to explore your chosen sport, but if you are interested in jumping you may want to go to someone who specializes in this sport to help you set up gymnastic grid patterns that can teach a horse how to jump well. That’s true for all the different sports.My area of interest is balance. If someone is starting into my work with an interest in classical dressage, they will find that our interests and goals are very much aligned. But that doesn’t mean that you have to be interested in dressage to work with me. Those first two phases are designed to prepare you for your long term training goals. By the time you have taught your horse the universals that are important to you, you will know how to teach your horse new skills. You will know how to approach your performance goals constructionally. My role is not to direct you to a specific performance goal, but to support you as you explore a wide range of activities. Some of these may require specialized knowledge so you will need to seek out trainers who can help you with these goals. You may also discover that clicker training has already given you the teaching skills you need to succeed. That’s what this week’s conversation is about. Dominique wants to talk about agility. Let’s see how that fits into this overall view of the three phases of clicker training.
Toward the end of March Dominique and I met for an afternoon’s conversation which I’ve divided up into three episodes. Last week we talked about puzzle solving. This week rope handling is in the spotlight. Dominique is going through my on-line rope handling course. She’s just reached a section which describes what it means to turn a lead rope on and off. This is involves what can seem like a very fussy rope handling skill but the horses have shown us this use of the lead makes a difference to them. That’s especially true when you’re working with nervous horses.This detail emerged through the in-person clinics. We were looking for differences that made a difference and helped horses to settle. That’s when I spotted this little turn of the hand that I was doing when I shifted from an active use of the lead to a more passive use during an at ease version of grown-ups. The lead signaled to the horse that he didn’t need to pay close attention or try to offer behavior. The lead was switched off which meant he could switch off as well.Once we spotted this simple turn of the hand that turned leads on and off, we could test it with A/B reversals. What happens when we use this signal? How does the horse respond when it is not used? The horses all told us they preferred the clarity that activating and deactivating the lead provided.Okay the horses liked it. The handlers didn’t. That’s because this simple turn of the hand was anything but. It’s only simple once you have the pattern in your hands. Otherwise, it can become a head spinning puzzle that could easily put someone completely off rope handling - especially since turning a lead on is a first step in whatever you are about to ask.I’m not going to try to teach you via this podcast how to turn a lead on and off. What we are going to talk about is reversibility because that’s the teaching strategy that you’ll use to learn this finger twisting puzzle.
Toward the end of March Dominique and I met for an afternoon’s conversation. I’ve divided up into three episodes. In part 1 we talk about puzzles. So much of training success revolves around a handler’s ability to set puzzles which engage the learner. You want to make the puzzles easy to start out with to build the learner’s confidence that this is a puzzle he can solve. Then you gradually add elements so the training progresses. In this episode we talk about treasure hunts and why some people grow up loving puzzles and others want nothing to do with them. We explore strategies for developing both eager, confident puzzle setters and eager, confident puzzle solvers.Dominique talks about how she is realizing that many of the strategies that she uses to teach her horses she’s also using on herself. She shares a story about back chaining which I think will help many people understand the difference between back chaining and forward chaining. We begin a discussion of rope handling which will continue into Part 2 of the conversation.
This is Part 4 of a 4 part conversation with Svenja Sawinski. Svenja has a horse who has been giving her a master class in teaching stillness and relaxation.In Part 1, Svenja introduced us to Daryan her Arab barb cross. When Svenja began with a very young Daryan, she was still using traditional, pressure-based training methods. That worked fine with her older horse because he would always back down from escalating pressure. But not Daryan. In Part 1 Svenja described her discovery that you could teach a horse to stand still using clicker training. For both Daryan and Svenja that was a transforming experience.In Part 2 Svenja shared how she taught Daryan not just to stand still, but to settle into relaxation. We ended with stillness becoming a default behavior. In part 3 Svenja expanded on the usefulness of default behaviors. She described how she used Daryan’s standing in stillness to clarify cues for him. Instead of guessing what she wanted or trying to throw behaviors at her in the hope that something would work, the default of stillness gave him the clarity he needed to avoid frustration. I’m sure Svenja’s description of the process made many of you sit up and take notice. It is a very useful strategy. You were probably hitting the replay button so you could listen again to her description.Part 4 is packed with moments like that where you will want to hit the replay button to listen again. We’ll be covering a lot of ground - who knew that there was so much to be said about standing still!So enjoy!
This is Part 3 of a 4 part conversation with Svenja Sawinski. Svenja’s horse, Daryan, has been giving her a master class in teaching stillness and relaxation.In Part 1, Svenja introduced us to Daryan her Arab barb cross. She described the early steps she used to teach Daryan to stand still. That was just the beginning. Daryan was a challenging horse to work with. He needed more than foundation level standing still. In Part 2 Svenja shared how she taught Daryan how to settle and relax into stillness. We ended with stillness becoming a default behavior. In part 3 Svenja expands this to show you how you can use default behaviors to clarify your cues and further reduce frustration in your learners.We’ll begin with a question Dominique asked at the end of part 2 about how does a horse know if he’s supposed to default into stillness or try to offer behaviors in an attempt to get you to click?
This is Part 2 of a 4 part conversation with Svenja Sawinski. If you are a regular listener to the podcast, you know Dominique and I talk frequently about topics that come from the coaching sessions that are part of my on-line clinics. That’s very much what led to this series with Svenja. Svenja is one of the regular attendees at these coaching sessions. Last fall we were looking at some video Svenja had sent in in which she was doing some body work with her horse Daryan. Dominique was fascinated by how long Daryan could go between clicks while remaining seemingly very settled and relaxed. He wasn’t anxiously searching for "what is it that you want me to do?". This sparked a long discussion over whether or not to use a marker signal during body work sessions. In this four part series Svenja is describing the process she used to very systematically teach Daryan how to do more than stand still. She taught him to stand in deep relaxation.Last week I had Svenja introduce Daryan. I wanted you to understand that he did not start out as a straight forward, easy-going horse. Daryan is very much the kind of horse that can so easily frustrate and overwhelm a handler. In other words, he’s a very good teacher. And Svenja has been a very good student, so together they have a lot to share. When you’re working with an animal that is as large and powerful as a horse being able to ask for calm and get it reliably is a huge piece of the training puzzle.Last week we ended with how Svenja began to expand the duration of standing in stillness to "Grand Prix level" waiting. We all know you can be waiting but not be relaxed. Think about how anxious you can get when you’re late for work and you’re stuck in traffic. You're sitting behind the steering wheel, but you're looking at your watch every few seconds. You’re anything but relaxed. That’s not Daryan's form of stillness. He knows how to settle and deeply relax. In this episode Svenja describes the systematic teaching process that taught him how to settle and relax.
We all know there are many forms of standing still. There’s standing at full attention like a soldier on parade. There’s standing at ease watching the world drift by. There’s standing still ready to spring into action like a sprinter at the starting line. Often people get to four on the floor with their animals and stop at that point. As long as the feet are still, they consider they have taught stillness. But what happens if that horse or that dog is quivering with expectation, trying to figure out what to do to get you to click? You may have four on the floor, but you’re a long way from a relaxed learner.We’re starting a four part series in which we explore standing not just with four on the floor, but standing in stillness so your learner is truly relaxed. This doesn’t happen by chance. It is the result of a systematic training process. Svenja Sawinski is our guide in this series as she shares what her Arab/barb cross has been teaching her about stillness. In this episode Svenja introduces us to Daryan and explains why getting to this “Grand Prix” level of relaxation was so important for this horse. She shares her early attempts at teaching stillness, and the lesson that finally made a difference for Daryan.
This is Part 3 of a conversation that was sparked by the on-line coaching session that I host once a month for people in my on-line clinics. In Part 1 we talked about resets - what they are and how they can be used to help horses rebalance so they are more in sync with their handlers.In Part 2 this led to a discussion of shaping on a point of contact, the WWYLM lesson and visualizing your horse as a marching band.In part 3 explore some useful metaphors that help in understanding lateral work. We’ll begin with Merry-Go-Rounds and then move on to railroad tracks. Dominique has been discovering how useful these images to help her understand lateral work.At the very end of the podcast I talk about the connection between the horse training and my children’s books. Everything is connected to everything else. I hope you listen all the way to the end to understand the connections. Clicker training really is Modern Horse Training. It represents a shift in attitude towards horses. When I’m thinking about Modern Horse training I’m thinking about the contrast between today and that time when horses were beasts of burden. Our relationship with horses is different today. The reason why we have horses has changed. Our horses are our companions and our friends. They aren’t pit ponies down in the coal mines forced to haul coal out of the mines. They aren’t the London cab horses that were written about in Black Beauty. Thankfully, those days are behind us. We have the luxury to really examine our training and to update it to make sure that it really does work in the best interest of our horses. When I’m sharing clicker training, I want to touch more than the lead rope you hold in your hands. I want to touch your heart because that’s how we truly, deeply connect to one another and change forever how people train horses.The children’s books for me are part of that. So thank you for indulging me as I continue to talk about the Kenyon Bear Books. I encourage you to order them to see what they are about. Everything is connected to everything else. Train well and have fun with clicker training.
This is Part 2 of a three part conversation that was sparked by the on-line coaching sessions that I host once a month for people in my on-line clinics. We were talking about balance, which is no surprise. We’re always talking about balance. Embedded in that conversation was a discussion of resets. In part 1 we defined resets, discussed their importance, described how they are taught and used. In this episode we begin with the “Why Would You Leave Me?” Lesson. I describe what this lesson is, how it is taught and the relation to resets. We discuss how to help horses that tend to overflex and horses that are very crooked. I use the metaphor of a marching band to help visualize the process of teaching horses how to become better balanced.
This is Part 1 of a three part conversation that was inspired by the coaching sessions that are part of my on-line clinics. We are talking about resets and lateral work. Resets give you do-overs so they are a key element of teaching good balance. If your horse starts to step forward out of balance, instead of letting him continue on so the balance issue just continues and becomes more and more of a mess, you reset him back to the beginning so he can try again.Resets can become corrections. If the only time you ask for a reset is when things are going wrong, the focus will be on behavior you want to stop. A better way to think of resets is they are part of the dance. You cha cha forward and then you cha cha back. You teach resets so your horse is familiar with the dance steps and has been reinforced well for all the elements of the dance. When resets become dance steps, they become a useful tool for building great balance.
This is part 2 of a conversation Dominique and I recorded on December 28 2023. We were in a year end mood which meant we began our conversation by looking back over a year of podcasts. We had just finished up several head spinning topics with conversations with Anita Schnee about Feldenkrais work, with Joe Layng on public and private events, and then with Michaela Hempen on assessing animal welfare. We were both feeling the need for a topic about more practical training applications. Dominique chose the trick training chapter from my book “Modern Horse Training” as a good focus for a lively conversation.In part 1 we began with a discussion of the many benefits of trick training. We talked about why even “serious” trainers should consider trick training. I would say I fall into this category. I don’t teach tricks to amuse other people. I teach them to amuse my horses, so I tend to think of trick training as part of an overall enrichment program. In this episode we talk about a sneaky way to introduce a wide variety of tricks that easily morph into very practical husbandry training.
We’ve just finished a series of head spinning topics, so we’re changing gears to talk about trick training. Our discussion is based on the trick training chapter from my book, “Modern Horse Training”. We begin by talking about the many benefits of trick training. If you’re a “serious” trainer and you don’t think tricks are for you, change the name to enrichment and you may see many uses for teaching tricks. What makes one behavior a trick and another serious training? When you teach your horse to paint is that trick training, enrichment, a useful step towards teaching a horse to accept a dose syringe or all of the above? Horses learn a lot from trick training and so do handlers. Tricks are easy to teach. What isn’t so easy is bringing the trick into balance so it doesn’t turn into a nuisance behavior. Learning about stimulus control is one of the many benefits of good trick training.
This is Part 3 of a conversation with Dr Michaela Hempen in which we consider the question: What is consciousness? What is the mind? Each person’s answer will very much effect their level of concern over animal welfare. Positive animal welfare assessments seek to provide animals not only with the conditions that they need to survive, but also with what they need to thrive and to enjoy their lives. The more you move towards positive animal welfare the more complicated the assessment becomes. How do you measure such abstract qualities contained in the phrase: enjoy a good life? How do you assess this? In Part 3 Michaela reviews the current welfare assessments and asks what are they actually measuring? It’s often not what is intended. We begin with the question: how do you assess emotions? In the five freedoms model how do you assess if animals are free from fear and stress? In the positive welfare model how do you assess if an animal is happy?
This is Part 2 of a conversation with Dr Michaela Hempen in which we consider the question: What is consciousness? What is the mind? And how do our answers effect how we assess animal welfare, or even should we bother to consider welfare issues for the animals under human care? In this episode Michaela continues a discussion of different ways in which to categorize or define consciousness. “Phenomenal consciousness” along with sentience is defined. This form of consciousness is most relevant to a discussion of the ethics of animal care. Self consciousness, while interesting, is less so. We discuss various tests which appeared to demonstrate self awareness or insight, but experiments done by behavior analysts showed that there were other explanations. That brings us again to the great divide between the cognitive ethologists and the behaviorists. The question again is: “What is the mind?”. These two schools of thought bring us to very different answers.Michaela argues that the discussions about animal consciousness are not relevant in the assessment of animal welfare. What you need to ask is: can they suffer? Can they enjoy? You only need to establish that which is contained in the term “sentience” to have a moral obligation of treating animals well.So included in this episode is a discussion of the five freedoms model. But it is freedom from: freedom from hunger, etc. so this is all about avoiding unpleasant consequences. Welfare assessments are moving towards a more positive model.We want to provide animals not only with the conditions that they need to survive, but we also want them to thrive and enjoy their lives. Which is, of course, why all this discussion of “what is the mind?” is relevant because what does that mean and how do you assess it?This is the very complex topic that Michaela is helping us to understand better.In this episode we begin with a discussion of sentience and animal welfare assessments.For a list of the references discussed visit equiosity.com for the full show notes for this episode.
We’re beginning a three part series with Dr Michaela Hempen. The overall topic explores the question: What is the “Mind?” And how is that relevant to assessing animal welfare? This conversation grew out of our previous discussion with Dr Joe Layng on public and private events. I suggest you listen to those episodes as an introduction to this discussion.Why are these philosophical discussions relevant to horse training? Michaela begins with a historical perspective. What are the cultural influences that have shaped our attitude towards animals? Why do we have this cultural bias that has created a hierarchy of animals? Primates are high on the evolutionary scale, other animals are lower, and non-vertebrates are lower still. How does this influence our training and management choices? Michaela is a scientific officer at the European Food Safety Authority. Part of her work focuses on animal welfare. She’s part of a team that is preparing reports for the European Commission, which, hopefully, will be the basis for updating the European animal welfare regulations. To prepare for this project Michaela did considerable background reading. She wanted to understand the “great divide”. This refers to a philosophical split between behaviorism and cognitive ethology. So join us as Michaela guides us through a historical look back on the evolution of these very different ways of viewing behavior.For a list of references visit Equiosity.com and refer to the show notes for this episode.
This is Part 3 of a Three part series on public and private events with our guest Dr Joe Layng. In part 1 Joe talked about Helen Keller who became blind and deaf after an illness when she was 19 months old. Without language she had no sense of self. It is through language Joe argues that we become aware that we are aware. Without language animals lack consciousness. In Part 2 Joe began by holding up his coffee mug and describing it for us. “It’s a black cup. It's got a handle. I can tell you a whole bunch of stuff about it,” No one listening to the podcast can see the mug. You have to imagine it. We can’t see what you’re seeing as you imagine Joe’s mug. But we couldn’t see what you’re seeing it even if the mug was sitting in front of you. I assume that you’re seeing the same mug I’m seeing, but even something as simple as color is something we assume but can’t determine.Joe asks: “What makes one a public event and the other one private? For answer he says: "There is no difference, except in how that seeing comes to be . . . The seeing isn't in the stimulus, it's in the relation of the organism to its environment.”At the end of Part 2 Dominique brought us back to the statement Joe made in Part 1 that animals do not have consciousness. She asks again: what is consciousness? That’s where the conversation picks up as we begin Part 3.
This is Part Two of a Three part series on public and private events with our guest Dr Joe Layng. Joe is a behavior analyst. He's been our guest before. We’ve talked about contingency adduction, non linear analysis, the effect of schedules on social behavior, and degrees of freedom among many other topics. Most recently we did a series with Joe on Schedules of Reinforcement. Last week Joe talked about Helen Keller. Most of us know who she was through the movie “The Miracle Worker”. Helen Keller was born in 1880. When she was just 19 months old, an illness left her blind and deaf. Until she was seven years old she lived in a world without language. If you’ve watched “The Miracle Worker” you know the scene where her teacher Anne Sullivan spelled out water on Helen’s hand while holding her hand under a hand pump. The connection was made. These odd hand movements meant water. She could communicate!In the clicker training world we often refer to this event as a Helen Keller moment. That’s the excitement you see in some animals when they suddenly understand what the click means. They can communicate! We call the sudden surge in activity, excitement. And we refer to these emotions as private events and we make a distinction between emotions and emotional behavior. One is a private event which we can’t see and the other is an observable public event. Just when you think you’ve got this sorted, Joe throws a monkey wrench into our understanding by arguing that there is no difference between public and private events. In this episode he’ll give us another intriguing way of thinking about what we think is our reality.
This is Part 1 of a three part conversation about public and private events with Dr Joe Layng. We’ve just finished up a four part series on Feldenkrais work. I think it is perfect that we’re following this series with Joe’s discussion of public and private events. In episode 259 Anita shared an ATM lesson with all of us. What you experienced from this lesson is what you experienced, but I have no way of knowing if that is anything even remotely related to what I experienced. This is relevant and important especially when it comes to riding lessons where we are trying to translate into words a kinesthetic experience. Joe’s discussion of public and private events begins there and then carries us into a discussion of what is consciousness. He then asks: are animals aware? Dr Layng has been our guest before. We’ve talked about contingency adduction, non linear analysis, the effect of schedules on social behavior, and degrees of freedom among many other topics. Most recently we did a series with Joe on Schedules of Reinforcement. Those are episodes 239 through 242. I suggest that you listen to episode 239 as well as this current series. That episode was a teaser for the conversation we are having on public and private events.In this episode Joe talks about Helen Keller. Most of us know who she was through the movie “The Miracle Worker”. Helen Keller was born in 1880. When she was just 19 months old, an illness left her blind and deaf. Until she was seven years old she lived in a world without language. If you’ve watched “The Miracle Worker” you know the scene where her teacher Anne Sullivan spelled out water on Helen’s hand while holding her hand under a hand pump. The connection was made. These odd hand movements meant water. She could communicate!In the clicker training world we often refer to this event as a Helen Keller moment. That’s the excitement you see in some animals when they suddenly understand what the click means. They can communicate! We call the sudden surge in activity, excitement. And we refer to these emotions as private events and we make a distinction between emotions and emotional behavior. One is a private event which we can’t see and the other is an observable public event. Just when you think you’ve got this sorted, Joe throws a monkey wrench into our understanding by arguing that there is no difference between public and private events. In this episode he he begins a conversation that offers us an intriguing way of thinking about what we think is our reality.
This is Part 4 of a 4 part series on the Feldenkrais method. In Part 1 I shared some personal history in which I looked back to two innovators in the horse world, Sally Swift and Linda Tellington-Jones. In Part 2 Anita Schnee, a Feldenkrais Practitioner who is familiar with my work, introduced us to the Feldenkrais Work. In Part 3 she shared an Awareness Through Movement lesson. And now in Part 4 Dominique and I share our impressions of that lesson and the questions that emerged from it.Dominique is new to the Feldenkrais work so she asked questions I am sure many of you must have. So before Anita and I could get too carried away into the poetry of this work, Dominique kept us grounded in some practical questions that I think contribute very much to a basic understanding of the method.
This is part three of a four part series on the Feldenkrais Method. In part 1 I took us on a look back at the pioneering work of two very innovative individuals - Sally Swift the developer of Centered Riding and LTJ the creator of TTEAM training. Sally’s work introduced the horse world to the Alexander technique and helped to modernize the way riding is taught. And Linda introduced the horse world to Feldenkrais™ work.In Part 2 Anita Schnee joined us to introduce more fully the Feldenkrais™ work. In a way we have danced around saying what the Feldenkrais™ work is. In Behavior Analysis we talk about a study of one. That’s true for the Feldenkrais™ work as well. What you take from the lesson we’re sharing in this episode will be unique to you.So this week Anita is sharing an Awareness Through Movement Feldenkrais™ lesson which she designed for this podcast episode. It is yours to enjoy.
This is the second of a four part series on the Feldenkrais™ Work. This week we’re joined by Anita Schnee. Anita Schnee is a Feldenkrais™ Practitioner who is very familiar with my work. The Feldenkrais™ Work can be difficult to define because it is experienced differently by each person who uses it. I relate to the Feldenkrais™ work through my work with horses. Anita has a very different relationship with the work. In this episode we talk about some of the many ways in which an Awareness Through Movement Lesson can be experienced. Next week Anita will share an ATM lesson she designed for this podcast.
If you have ever taken a riding lesson, you’ve probably experienced how confusing the instructions can be. You’re being told to: “fill your back, push with your seat - no not like that, bear down, lift up, lean forward, lean back!” You can be forgiven if you feel like shouting back: “Make up your mind! I can’t do both at the same time!”Riding instruction is a challenge because we are attempting to translate into words physical actions. And my starting point, what works well for me probably isn’t your starting point. Generalities are useful, but at the end of the day, instruction needs to be a study of one. It works best when it is tailored to each individual. My clinics almost always include opportunities to explore handling and riding details without the horses being present. You slide down lead ropes that are being held by “human horses”. Another rider gives you direct feedback which means your horse is spared some of your learning curve. Various body awareness lessons let handlers make discoveries about how best to organize their own balance. Through this process we can create verbal translations for desired physical changes. Now when the instructor tells you to “fill your back”, you aren’t left thinking: “fill it with what!?” Instead you know how to translate this phrase into a meaningful physical response.I originally saw this style of teaching being used in the 1980s by two innovators who helped bring riding instruction and horse training into the modern world. I’m talking about Sally Swift, the developer of Centered Riding and Linda Tellington-Jones, the founder of TTEAM (the Tellington-Jones Equine Awareness Method). In this week’s episode we’re going to use a look back at their work to introduce a new series on the Feldenkrais™ work. Next week we’ll be joined by Anita Schnee. Anita is a Feldenkrais™ Practitioner who is very familiar with my work. She’ll be sharing a Feldenkrais™ Awareness Through Movement lesson with us so you will have an opportunity to experience the Feldenkrais™ work directly. This look back at the work of two great innovators gives us a starting point for the conversation that we’ll begin in next week’s episode.
This is part 2 of a conversation in which Dominique and I were talking about various topics that emerged during a recent on-line coaching session. Last week we talked about what it means to disengage the hips and how to think about this from the perspective of a positive reinforcement trainer.From there Dominique changed gears to talk about an enchanting image that we both liked, that of a tiny elf sitting directly behind your horse’s ears while you ride. The elf is there to help you identify when your horse is in a good, clickable balance.Another new image Dominique liked was that of a screaming alarm clock. This relates to starter-button version constant-on cues and the contact trap. We also talked about the value of breaks. Teaching a horse to back provided us with a useful way of visualizing the concepts we discuss. We finish with loopy training as it relates to our recent podcasts on schedules of reinforcement.
In this episode we discuss what it means to disengage a horse’s hip. That phrase doesn’t sound as though it is something a positive reinforcement trainer would want to do to a horse. And that’s true. We don’t want to do it to a horse. That would put us into force-based training, but it is something you need to teach a horse so you can ask for the “dance step” when it is needed. You need it for such everyday tasks as taking a horse through a gate and then turning with your horse so you can close the gate. You need it at other times for safety when your horse is startled or gets excited, and you need to direct him out of your space. And you need it to teach the balance needed for advanced performance. So you need to be able to ask a horse to yield his hips. The question is not are you going to ask him for this maneuver, but how are you going to teach it? This is what we explore in this episode. We define what is meant by disengaging the hips. We look at how it is typically described and taught in the horse world, and then we look at this behavior from our perspective of positive reinforcement teachers.
This is the fifth and final part of our conversation with Dr Claire St Peter. Claire is a behavior analyst. She teachers At West Virginia University where she has recently taken on a new role. She is now Chair of the department of behavior analysis. We have been down in the weeds considering the definitions of words both trainers and behavior analysts use on a regular basis. We started in episode 248 by asking what is shaping. Last week we asked: what is behavior? And now we are asking how do you define environment. The answer begins with a surprise.
This is part 4 of a five part conversation with Dr Claire St Peter. Claire is a behavior analyst. She teachers At West Virginia University where she has recently taken on a new role. She is now Chair of the Department of Behavior Analysis. This week we are down in the weeds considering the definitions of words both trainers and behavior analysts use on a regular basis. We started in episode 248 by asking what is shaping? In this episode we ask what is behavior? The nuances form the basis for a great conversation that takes us in some surprising directions beginning with do plants behave? What do you think? Find out what we think as we try to find an answer to the question: what is behavior? The answers we consider have useful implications for working with our horses.
Language matters. I know what I mean by the words I use. But do my meanings match your understanding of the same words? And what nuances are there in the definition that I may never have considered? I may be okay when I am speaking to someone in my own community who understand the terms I use in much the same way that I do, but what happens when we move outside of our community? What happens when animal trainers talk to behavior analysts? Do we understand one another? Or do we sow confusion every time we try to converse. This sits at the heart of today’s episode. We begin by considering what criterion means. And because we’ve been talking about behavior analysis, in the second half of the episode I ask Claire what behavior analysts do. What types of careers does a degree in behavior analysis prepare you for? The answer was a long and very useful.
Last week we reached the milestone of our 250th episode. To celebrate that event we invited three of the regular attendees from the coaching sessions for my on-line clinics to join us for an afternoon’s conversation. We’re talking with Svenja Sawinksi and Sonya Bode, both from Germany and Lucy Butler. You may remember the podcasts we did with Lucy where we talked about using a constructional training approach with her high school students. Lucy got our conversation going with a question that arose during the last coaching session that boiled down to what is the difference between the science and the art of training? When we focus on how our horses use their bodies so we can help them to be better balanced, we often bring in references to the Feldenkrais training for people. How to we translate that to working with our horses.We ended last week with a great summary from Svenja and a wonderful closing statement from Sonja. This week we continue on with a discussion of how training lets us help horses who may have long standing heath issues that effect their mobility and general comfort. Our guests describe what the process of going micro means for their training. They share how they use the feedback their horses provide to structure training plans that meet their individual needs.
We’ve reached an astounding milestone, our 250th episode. We celebrated this event by inviting three of the regular attendees of the coaching sessions for my on-line clinics to join us in a panel discussion. You’ve met them before when we did our first panel discussion with the coaching session attendees. We’re talking with Svenja Sawinksi and Sonya Bode, both from Germany, and Lucy Butler. You may remember the podcasts we did with Lucy where we talked about using a constructional training approach with her high school students.
Lucy gets our conversation going with a question that arose during the last coaching session. We were looking at leg flexions. In the coaching session I had suggested to Lucy that she think of the responses her horses were giving her more in terms of a Feldenkrais lesson rather than strict stimulus control. So on the one hand there is the art of training and on the other the science of training. What does that mean? That’s what we explore in this conversation with three talented trainers.
Episode 149 Dr Claire St Peter Pt 2 Requirements and Schedules of ReinforcementThis is part 2 of a five part series with Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire is the chair of the department of Behavior Analysis at West Virginia University. And she is also a horse owner so I always enjoy our conversations. We’re able to go deep into the weeds of both behavior analysis and horse training. In this episode we begin by exploring the difference between requirements and schedules. When we ask a horse for three steps of backing before we click, is three steps the unit of behavior and that’s the criterion that must be met? Or is the unit one step which is repeated three times to meet the requirement of the schedule? What are the implications in terms of real world training? That took us to a discussion of concurrent schedules and to an important question you want to be asking yourself as you set up your training environment. Learners of all kinds are gonna allocate their behavior to the richest source of reinforcement in their environment at the moment. So are you a rich source of reinforcement for your horses?We end this episode with a discussion of degrees of freedom, but this time we’re looking at degrees of freedom in terms of how many options are available to the handler.
This is episode number 248. You would think after so many episodes we would know what shaping is. In this episode we’re going to see if that is indeed the case.
Language matters and it can definitely trip us up. Does shaping mean the same thing to me as it does to you? In this conversation we are joined by Dr Claire St Peter. Claire has been a frequent guest on this podcast. She is a behavior analysts who teaches at West Virginia University. Our recent conversation with Dr Joe Layng on schedules of reinforcement generated many questions. Good conversations will do that. So we invited Claire to join us so we could continue our exploration of schedules. Our beginning point was this question: what is shaping? And how does our definition of shaping help us understand schedules of reinforcement?
I have a fun announcement to make. I'll let you listen to the podcast to find out what it is.
Dominique and I took turns this week with the topics we wanted to discuss. Dominique began with a fun surprise. She wanted to talk about the body awareness explorations that are part of my teaching. Dominique has never liked these awareness explorations. They just didn’t resonate with her. So she started out as a “no, this isn’t for me.” In clinics she was always polite and went along with the session even though she wanted to be doing something else.
In this episode she has shared how over time she has shifted from a “no” to a maybe, and then to: actually this is starting to make sense to me. She talks about what created that shift. And I share how I view these awareness explorations,I talk about some of the many reasons I value them, and why they have such a prominent role in the way I teach.
In the second half of the episode we talk about a multiple mat lesson and bend. What is bend? And what happens when a horse is over bent?
We end with a tease of a surprise that will be coming next week.
Dominique and I spent an afternoon catching up and going through topics she’s been collecting from my new book, Modern Horse Training, and the on-line clinics. In Part 1 the focus was on working both sides of your horse.
In part two we shifted topics to talk about piaffe, managing energy, cues, and base behaviors. What we're looking for in this work is we want a deep, deep feeling of all is well within the horse. You can ask for added energy and then immediately go back to calm because the horse is feeling deeply safe in his being. Base behaviors give you a middle ground to return to as you ask for different behaviors. Base behaviors give you the calm center.
This discussion brought us to the metaphor of tap root behaviors and different strategies for teaching and using base behaviors. Base behaviors help you slow everything down. They give you time to think so you can remain organized. Base behaviors help you develop for your horse the kind of consistent, reliable good manners you would be proud to share with others.
Dominique and I spent an afternoon catching up and going through topics she’s been collecting from my new book, Modern Horse Training, and the on-line clinics. In Part 1 the focus was on working both sides of your horse.
In part two we shifted topics to talk about piaffe, managing energy, cues, and base behaviors. What we're looking for in this work is we want a deep, deep feeling of all is well within the horse. You can ask for added energy and then immediately go back to calm because the horse is feeling deeply safe in his being. Base behaviors give you a middle ground to return to as you ask for different behaviors. Base behaviors give you the calm center.
This discussion brought us to the metaphor of tap root behaviors and different strategies for teaching and using base behaviors. Base behaviors help you slow everything down. They give you time to think so you can remain organized. Base behaviors help you develop for your horse the kind of consistent, reliable good manners you would be proud to share with others.
Dominique and I spent an afternoon catching up and going through topics she’s been collecting from my new book, Modern Horse Training, and the on-line clinics. In Part 1 the focus was on working both sides of your horse. We’re often told that we have to work both sides equally during a training session. As always, it is go to people for opinions and horses for answers. What answers have the horses given us? And what strategies can we use to help a horse become comfortable and well balanced on both sides. That was the focus of Part 1. We stopped as Dominique changed the topic to piaffe.
This is a world divides topic. Some people will be perking up, eager to learn more, others will be groaning thinking this episode won’t have anything in it for them. But wait. Before you turn us off, consider this. Maybe you don’t think of yourself as a dressage rider. You don’t dream of teaching your horse to piaffe. In fact, if you’re a trail rider, to you piaffe may mean a horse who jigs all the way back to the barn. And that’s really the point. What we’re going to be talking about is changing energy levels and emotional states. In this podcast we’re going to be exploring the transition from being settled and calm to full of the kind of energy that can be channeled into performance.
We’ll be talking about the role that cues, behavior chains and base behaviors play in developing a horse who can remain deeply settled and relaxed even while he is performing at a very high level.
Periodically Dominique get together for a catch up conversation. Dominique has been going through my new book, Modern Horse Training, and my on-line clinics. From those resources she’s been collecting topics that are interesting to explore.
But first we begin with a short follow up to the episodes we did with Joe Layng on reinforcement schedules. We talk about the role clean loops play in developing behavior. What is the difference between clean and fully developed?
Then we move on and talk about strategies for working both sides of your horse. We begin by examining the premise of is it necessary to work both sides when you train. What does that mean? And how do you get to the point where your horse is comfortable and capable being worked on both the left and right side.
This is the fourth installment of our conversation with Dr. Joe Layng about schedules of reinforcement. In this episode we begin with the distinction Joe is making between contingencies and dependencies, and a program versus a schedule. This takes us to this question: Given this distinction between shaping and maintaining, at what point does an exploration of schedules become relevant? As you stabilize behaviors, how much variability do you need to maintain? How does all of this relate to the loopy training teaching strategy? One of the main takeaways from the conversation is how sensitive all organisms are to their environment. Their environment includes changes to the schedules of reinforcement.
This is the third installment of our conversation with Dr. Joe Layng about schedules of reinforcement. In this episode we’ll be talking more directly about shaping. Joe introduces some more terms into the discussion, including ratio strain. He makes distinctions between a program and a schedule, and between contingencies and dependencies. And he highlights the role that extinction plays in shaping.
This is part 2 of our conversation with Dr Joe Layng about schedules of reinforcement. Last week Joe got us started by describing the four basic types of schedules you are likely to encounter.
Fixed Interval schedules and variable Interval schedules are both time based.
Fix ratio and variable ratio schedules refer to the number of responses.
In this episode Joe moves beyond the basics of schedules to show us how complex the application and interpretation of schedules can become. He looks at how drugs interact with different schedules to either increase or decrease responses. The teaser is the effect may not be what you would expect.
Joe talks about the effect of schedules on social behavior - how you can change an animal’s behavior from cooperative to aggressive depending upon the schedule the animal is on.
It’s a head spinning conversation in part because there are so many ways to manipulate schedules. One of the main takeaways is how sensitive behavior is to the environment.
As Joe says in the episode: “What the study of schedules under controlled conditions shows us is how precisely the environment comes to control behavior. They show us how sensitive behavior is to these different environmental arrangements. The behavior you get depends on how you set it up the environment. You can get almost anything you want. It depends upon how you set it up. “
That’s an extraordinarily hopeful statement. So instead of feeling stuck with behavior you don’t like, Joe is offering us a different way of thinking about behavior. It isn’t fixed in the genes. It isn’t even fixed in previous history. Change the environment and rats that are social may become aggressive and aggressive rats may suddenly lend a helping paw pressing a lever. It’s all in the schedules. That can be either very frightening or very hopeful depending upon your perspective.
We’re beginning a four part series on schedules of reinforcement with Dr Joe Layng. Dr. Layng is a behavior analyst with over fifty years of experience in the experimental and applied analysis of behavior. His most recent book is “Nonlinear Contingency Analysis: Going Beyond Cognition and Behavior in Clinical Practice. I could go on with a long list of Joe’s professional credentials, but instead I’ll say that Joe was one of the regular presenters at the Art and Science of Animal Training conference. That’s where I first met him. Joe’s talks were always for me the highlight of the conference in part because he prompted me to look at familiar concepts through a different lens.
I always think of Joe as better than google. During any conversation he’ll rattle off at least half a dozen references that need to be explored. You’ll discover very quickly what I mean by that in the first part of this episode. Joe has our guest before. We’ve talked about contingency adduction, the effect of schedules on social behavior, and one of my favorite topics to discuss with Joe, degrees of freedom. If those topics sound too academic for your tastes, don’t worry. Joe is a wonderful story teller.
In every conversation Joe has left us with a teaser. In this case he begins with a teaser. Our plan was to talk about reinforcement schedules, but Joe jumped in chatting about a topic he’s been exploring recently - that of private experiences.
Typically, I edit out the conversations we have when we first sign into zoom and we’re getting ourselves organized. In this case Joe’s comments were too much fun not to share. So yes, we are going to talk about schedules of reinforcement in this episode, but first we’re going to indulge in a journey down a couple of interesting rabbit holes.
We’re starting a new conversation. Dominique has been collecting some topics to discuss from the coaching sessions that are part of my on-line clinics, from the new book, Modern Horse Training, and from conversations she’s seen on the internet. We cover four or five big topics so I have divided the conversation into two parts. We’ll begin with a discussion of tying. On the internet Dominique ran across what turned into a very heated discussion about whether or not you should tie your horse. From there we look at leading and the importance of signaling your intent so you don’t end up playing a game of red light-green light with your horse.
In part 2 we’ll be looking at another useful metaphor, that of filmstrips and how they can be used to teach patterns both on the ground and under saddle. Then we’ll talk about working with injured horses, and we’ll finish up with how you can use the snap on your lead rope like a toggle switch to create very nuanced tactile cues. We’ll look in particular how to ask your horse to back up so you aren’t pushing into your horse.
This is part 3 of a conversation about my new book: Modern Horse Training. In our previous conversation, Dominique started at the end of the book to talk about riding. Now we’re back at the beginning of the book. Dominique picked out three elements that stood out for her that contribute to what is meant by modern horse training. In Part 1 we talked about constructional training - what that means and the clarity it brings to training. A second element is of course loopy training. In Part 2 we talked about what it means to flip the funnel. Another element that stood out for Dominique was the inclusion of extinction in discussions of the four quadrants of operant conditioning. That brought us to it is okay for our horses to say NO. In this episode we consider more of the elements that contribute to our use today of positive reinforcement training. What it brings us to is one of the great benefits of this work - it is so accessible. That’s true for both the horse and the handler. It doesn’t matter what skill level you bring to the work, there’s a starting point that will work for you. It doesn’t matter what training puzzles your horse presents, there is a starting point for that horse, as well. Accessibility is a hugely important element of this work. We share stories that illustrate what this means.
In this conversation about “Modern Horse Training” we’re back at the beginning of the book. Dominique has been thinking about what has been added to our understanding of clicker training since she first began to look at it 15 years ago. The answer is a lot.For Dominique three elements stood out in the beginning of the book. The first was the addition of constructional training. That was the focus of Part 1 of our conversation. Now we’re looking at shaping and what happens when you flip the funnel.
Surprise, surprise, of course, we are talking about the new book. In Episodes 232-233 Dominique took our discussion to the end of the book to the section on riding. In this conversation we’re back at the beginning of the book. Dominique has been thinking about what has been added to our understanding of clicker training since she first began to look at it 15 years ago. The answer is a lot.For Dominique three elements stood out in the beginning of the book. The first was the addition of constructional training. In this episode we talk about the overall concept of constructional training and the enormous clarity that the constructional training language adds to our training choices. (We also begin by talking about print on demand and the incredible changes that are happening in the publishing world. Everything is everything else so I am sure there’s a connection to horse training in there somewhere. Modern publishing for modern training - it all fits together.)
Episode 233 Modern Horse Training - Riding Pt 2This is the second half of our conversation about riding. It is inspired by my new book, Modern Horse Training. In this conversation Dominique jumped straight to the last part of the book to the section on riding. Last week Dominique got us started with the chapter on Riding Safety. We talked about teaching a go forward cue. Now we’re going to talk about teaching whoah. And that’s going to take us to some important elements that are part of advanced training.Because we are heading into spring grass season here in the Northeast, we also offer a few reminders about introducing your horse to spring grass. We include the instructions for teaching polite manners for hand grazing and working your horse on grass.To order the new book, “Modern Horse Training” go to my web site: theclickercenter.com or order it from Amazon.
The new book has been out for just a week so of course we want to talk about it! In this conversation Dominique jumped straight to the last part of the book to the chapters on riding. We begin with the first of the riding chapters which is focused on safety. Dominique was excited to see how the lessons that were taught first one the ground can be used to create a great start to riding. This is a chapter (and an episode) for people who are starting young horses under saddle, or who are getting back into riding after taking a break, or who are restarting an older horse who has been difficult to ride in the past. Safety always comes first so this section of the book focuses on how to use the component skills that are taught first on the ground and then transferred to riding to create solid riding basics.In every clinic that I teach it seems there are always riders who are afraid to ride. They’ve had bad falls so their fear is very understandable, but they still want to ride. In the first part of this episode we talk about rebuilding confidence both for both the rider and the horse. In the second part we talk about teaching go forward cues that can transfer from the ground to riding.To order the new book, “Modern Horse Training” go to my web site: theclickercenter.com or order it from Amazon.
It’s here! Finally! I am delighted to announce that my new book, “Modern Horse Training: A Constructional Guide to Becoming Your Horse’s Best Friend”, is now available. You can order it through Amazon and through my web site: theclickercenter.com as well as from other booksellers.It is available in hardcover, paperback and as an ebook.Earlier in the month I surprised Dominique with an advanced copy, so in this episode Dominique is giving the book its very first review. Spoiler alert - she loves it!Woven into our discussion of the book are some interesting training discussions beginning with what does the phrase “modern horse training” mean to me.So enjoy this episode. Jon us as we celebrate the publication of the new book.
This is Part 3 of our conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter. In addition to being a horse person, Claire is a behavior analyst. She teaches at West Virginia University. Her research focuses on improving outcomes for children who struggle in school. One of her areas of interest is extinction and in particular the generative effects of extinction.Extinction is our general topic. In Part 1 Claire got us started by defining extinction. She thought that would take just a couple of minutes, but of course it didn’t. That seems as though that should take just a couple of minutes. Of course it didn’t. In Part 2 we began with macro extinction, the generative effects of extinction, and extinction bursts. Claire offered an interesting connection between loopy training and extinction bursts.Part 3 explores the role that extinction plays in shaping. This includes a description of the 300 peck pigeon exercise that I created for Robin when he was a very young horse.
This is Part 2 of our conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter. In addition to being a horse person, Claire is a behavior analyst. She teaches at West Virginia University. Her research focuses on improving outcomes for children who struggle in school. One of her areas of interest is extinction and in particular the generative effects of extinction.Extinction is our general topic. Last week Claire got us started by defining extinction. She thought that would take just a couple of minutes, but of course it didn’t. Claire brought some fascinating, head spinning nuance to the general definitions of extinction that sent us down some fun rabbit holes. Our discussion brought us to the distinction between macro and micro extinction, so that’s where we pick up as we head back into Part 2.
This week we’re beginning a three part series on Extinction with Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire has been our guest several times before. Most recently she was one of our panelists in the previous three episodes where we were talking with participants in my on-line clinics. In addition to being a horse person, Claire is a behavior analyst. She teaches at West Virginia University. Her research focuses on improving outcomes for children who struggle in school. One of her areas of interest is extinction and in particular the generative effects of extinction. I had the very great pleasure last year of collaborating with Claire on an article on Loopy Training that was published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. It was tremendous fun collaborating with Claire. I’ve been eager to have her join us for another podcast conversation. Claire picked the topic. We’re going to be talking about extinction. In part 1 Claire gets us started by defining extinction. That seems as though that should take just a couple of minutes. It didn’t. Claire described some situations that we don’t normally think of in terms of extinction. Her perspective brings some valuable nuance to our training choices.
The sad reality is many of you are dealing with lameness issues. In this episode we talk about recognizing signs of lameness. Many times what people label as behavior issues turn out to have underlying physical causes. Several of the people in our panel have horses with chronic physical issues, so we talk about how training can help to manage these horses. And then at the end of the podcast I share an exciting announcement, but I won’t tell you what it is here. I’ll let you listen to the podcast first.
This is part two of our celebration of the one year anniversary of my on-line clinics. We’re marking the occasion by getting together with some of the people who are regulars in the clinic coaching sessions. Last week you met Connie Dwyer, Taylor Culbert, Dr Claire St Peter, Amy Stevenson, Muna Clough, Jennifer Koning, Marcy Ingram, and Svenja Sawinski. This group represents a wide range of experience both with clicker training and with horses. But everyone is an expert in their own experience and as you heard last week they have a lot of great training wisdom to share.We ended last time with Svenja posing a question about the puzzles that clicker training presents when you first begin to explore it. When you’re coming from a traditional training background, the lessons you see clicker trainers working on may not make a lot of sense. Why would you want a horse to touch a target? And how do you get your horse to do what you want? How in the world do you get a horse to go forward without applying pressure? That was one of the questions that Svenja had early on. We begin with this question - When you first got started, what puzzled you about clicker training? Our conversation eventually takes us to a discussion of labels, including how labels that seem to be supporting the horse can actually lead to the wrong training choices.
We’re celebrating the 1 year Anniversary of my on-line clinic series with a three part panel discussion. We’re joined by some of the regular attendees of the on-line coaching sessions. The group represents a wide range of experience both with horses and with clicker training. They bring a fresh perspective to our training discussions. At the in-person clinics the training discussions continue over dinner. That’s a part of the day that I very much enjoy. We talk about what we did with the horses and the training questions they reveal. I was hoping that’s the kind of conversation we would have over the zoom platform. That’s exactly what happened. This wasn’t Dominique and I talking while a group of people listened in the background. Everyone jumped in to create a fresh, wonderful podcast conversation.In part 1 we begin with a question from a participant who is asking the others what changed for them when they began to clicker train? For her so much of what she had learned previously didn’t seem to apply. The goals of the training seemed very different. Did others experience this? What did they have to change as they transitioned to positive reinforcement training? This question expanded into what are some of the key elements that helped them to be successful with their horses? We talk about working with aggressive behavior and horses that feel overwhelming. And we celebrate the successes people are having with their horses.
This is Part 3 of a part conversation in which the topics were inspired by the discussions in my on-line clinics. In this episode we return to a subject we have explored before - reinforcement strategies. We talk about management solutions when training is not yet in place. And then a big topic: what does "feed for position" mean? This is a big topic because it takes us straight into our ability to influence a horse's balance. We also talk about the conversation that emerges between handler and learner when “No” becomes an acceptable answer.
We begin this episode by talking about lots of ideas for activities you can work on during mud season. When space is restricted, you can still move forward in your training. In fact, sometimes those restrictions actually work to your advantage.We move from mud season to “Happy Faces”. When you’re trying to interpret what a horse’s ears are telling you, context matters. In this episode we share several stories that highlight why “Happy Faces” is a foundation lesson.
This is Part 1 of a three part conversation. Dominique is once again choosing topics from my on-line clinics. We begin with a question from an individual is doing a wonderful job with her very tall horse. A year ago he was scaring her by rearing and striking out. Now they are a fun team to watch. I love how soft his expression has become. Grown-ups and head lowering have played an important role in creating this change. She was asking about what she should do when her horse offered head lowering at times when she wasn’t intentionally cueing it. We explore this question by talking about building duration, inadvertent chains, and the meaning of the phrase - walking off casually.
Lucy Butler is a special education teacher in a high school. In the 2021-2022 school year Lucy was given the task of working with all the students who were repeating their freshmen year of high school. Lucy has been a guest on our podcast several times before. She’s been sharing her classroom experiences with us. This year Lucy has another cohort of freshman class repeaters and she’s also co-teaching math classes. During the Christmas break she gave us a progress report. In Part 1 she described how she used thin slicing, loopy training and the constructional design principles to help her students succeed in math class. She is looking at the basics of how new skills are taught. This is universal. Whether you are working with human students or horses, teaching skills using a mastery-based structure leads to successful learners.We begin Part 2 of our conversation with Lucy by asking her if she could design a school what would she create. Lucy’s thoughtful answer provides a blueprint for meaningful - and doable change that is as relevant for the teaching we do with our horses as it is for schools.
Lucy Butler is a special education teacher in a high school. In the 2021-2022 school year Lucy was given the task of working with all the students who were repeating their freshmen year of high school. Lucy has been a guest on our podcast several times before. She’s been sharing her classroom experiences with us. This year Lucy has another cohort of freshman class repeaters and she’s also co-teaching math classes. During the Christmas break she gave us a progress report. In the math class she has opportunities to work with all the students, not just the ones are struggling with math. She describes how she uses thin slicing, loopy training and the constructional design principles to help all the students succeed in math class. She is looking at the basics of how new skills are taught. This is universal. Whether you are working with human students or horses, teaching skills using a mastery-based structure leads to successful learners.In this episode we talk about how to teach and also how to spread ideas to create system-wide change.
In Part 3 of our conversation with Dr Joe Layng he describes symbolic aggression in pigeons and the “prisoner’s dilemma” solution that leads to the development of cooperation between two birds. The social interactions were not trained by the experimenter. They emerged from the non-social components that the birds were taught. These studies have many implications for those of us who work with multiple learners. Joe’s descriptions of these studies also gives us the basis for understanding non-linear contingency analysis. This translates to an understanding that we are better off teaching the components that are part of complex behavior, rather than trying to teach the complex behavior directly.Articles cited in this three part conversation:THE SPONTANEOUS USE OF A TOOL BY A PIGEON ROBERT EPSTEIN and SAMUEL D. MEDALIE Behavior Analysis Letters, 3 (1983) 241-247Contingency Adduction of "Symbolic Aggression" by Pigeons Paul Thomas Andronis Northern Michigan University, T.V. Joe Layng The New School for the Learning Sciences, and Israel Goldiamond The University of Chicago The Verbal Analysis of Behavior. 1997, 14 5-17Spontaneous cooperation between pigeons: S o c i a l behavior selected by ontogenic consequences in the Prisoner's Dilemma P. T. AndronisON PIGEONS AND PEOPLE: A PRELIMINARY LOOK AT THE COLUMBAN SIMULATION PROJECT Robert Epstein The Behavior Analyst 1981,4, 43-55 No. 1 (Spring) The Role of Contingency Adduction in the Creative Act Nolan Williams The Psychological Record https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-020-00440-z
I am delighted that we are starting out the New Year with a conversation with Dr Joe Layng. Dr Layng is a behavior analyst who has over 40 years' experience in the experimental and applied analysis of behavior, with a particular focus on the design of teaching/learning environments. In Part 1 of our conversation Joe defined contingency adduction and shared several fascinating experiments that were done with pigeons. Pigeons showed self awareness by passing the mirror test. They demonstrated tool use and they left themselves notes so they would know which color key to peck after a long delay. These experiments show that it is not a genetically based cognitive ability that determines whether or not an individual can solve a particular puzzle, but the component skills that are in repertoire. This is true for pigeons, people and horses.In Part two Joe describes a series of experiments showing how the manipulation of schedules of reinforcement changes social behavior. In a very clever series of experiments Dr Paul Andronis demonstrated that pigeons showed perspective taking, theory of mind and symbolic aggression. These studies take us to a whole new appreciation of what animals are capable of. As you listen to this episode, if you’re wondering how all these experiments with pigeons relate to horses, that’s one of the big ones.
I am delighted that we are starting out the New Year with a conversation with Dr Joe Layng. Dr Layng is a behavior analyst who has over 40 years' experience in the experimental and applied analysis of behavior, with a particular focus on the design of teaching/learning environments. In Part 1 of our conversation Joe starts out by defining what contingency adduction is. He uses several studies that were done with pigeons to help us understand this concept, beginning with a study using the mirror test to show that it’s not just humans who are self-aware. Pigeons are, as well. In another study adduction was used to demonstrate tool use in pigeons. These experiments show that it is not a genetically based cognitive ability that determines whether or not an individual can solve a particular puzzle, but the component skills that are in repertoire. This is true for pigeons, people and horses.In this episode we are going to be talking primarily about pigeons. So if you are wanting to hear how to teach your horse to pick up his feet for cleaning, this particular episode won’t satisfy that need. But if you want to be a better teacher for your horse, then this episode is very relevant.Joe is taking us to a whole new level of appreciation of what animals are capable of. As you listen to this episode, if you’re wondering how all these experiments with pigeons relate to horses, that’s one of the big ones. Articles cited in this episode:THE SPONTANEOUS USE OF A TOOL BY A PIGEON ROBERT EPSTEIN and SAMUEL D. MEDALIE Behavior Analysis Letters, 3 (1983) 241-247Contingency Adduction of "Symbolic Aggression" by Pigeons Paul Thomas Andronis Northern Michigan University, T.V. Joe Layng The New School for the Learning Sciences, and Israel Goldiamond The University of Chicago The Verbal Analysis of Behavior. 1997, 14 5-17Spontaneous cooperation between pigeons: S o c i a l behavior selected by ontogenic consequences in the Prisoner's Dilemma P. T. AndronisON PIGEONS AND PEOPLE: A PRELIMINARY LOOK AT THE COLUMBAN SIMULATION PROJECT Robert Epstein The Behavior Analyst 1981,4, 43-55 No. 1 (Spring) The Role of Contingency Adduction in the Creative Act Nolan Williams The Psychological Record https://doi.org/10.1007/s40732-020-00440-z
This is the second half of a conversation Dominique and I had recently that was centered topics that emerged during a recent live coaching session that’s part of my on-line clinics. Last week we talked about how you can use the food delivery process to increase your awareness of your horse’s balance. That awareness then leads to subtle suggestions that kindly, gently help your horse to release tension and find his own functional good balance.In this episode we talk about feedback. So many of us who ride have experienced lessons where the instructor is yelling. Even when you do something right, what you take away from the lesson is the yelling and the criticism. The ride was all about avoiding criticism. This shouldn’t be the gauntlet you have to pass through in order to learn how to ride. We treat our horses with kindness. We should want to treat each other with kindness as well. So how does this relate to feedback? In this episode we talk instruction and feedback - how to be kind and effective.
This week begins a two part conversation with Dominique. Dominique is asking about topics that emerged during a recent live coaching session that’s part of my on-line clinics. She was struck by a comment I made about using the food delivery to feel in your hand how a horse is balanced. This was an idea that was new to her. She was very aware of how you can use the food delivery to monitor a horse’s emotional behavior, but she wasn’t tuning into using the food delivery to evaluate a horse’s physical balance.We talk about how this works, how you can develop your own awareness of balance, and then how you can use the food delivery to influence a horse’s balance. In a very subtle and clever way we can offer a suggestion. While the horse is taking his treat, he will respond to that suggestion by releasing tension in his poll, and shifting his balance. Think of this as a very subtle body work session that can profoundly and yet so very gently alter how a horse is using his spine.This tactile awareness is a great preparation for riding. You’re learning to tune into the the same kind of finessed feel that you look for when you are communicating via a lead or rein.
Part 3 of our conversation with Dr. Joe Layng explores the societal consequences that occur when degrees of freedom are restricted. If you have ever found yourself wondering what leads people to join extremists groups and to commit acts of violence, Joe’s discussion of degrees of freedom will give you great insights on the dynamics involved. You might be thinking this topic doesn’t belong in a podcast about horses, but consider the experience so many in the positive reinforcement training community have experienced. In boarding barns and on line people are frequently criticized and ostracized when they begin exploring alternative training methods. I’ve wondered at this hostility. What does it matter to others in the barn that someone is feeding treats to their horse? But apparently it matters very much. Joe’s discussion of the societal consequences related to degrees of freedom gives us a way to understand the causes behind some of the horrific headlines in the news. It also helps us understand the bullying behavior many encounter in boarding barns and on social media. Joe doesn’t just describe the problem. He also offers solutions. This is an important discussion. Joe’s insights into the concept of degrees of freedom can help us all to become part of the solution. Our horses give us practice in using behavior that can break the cycle of isolation and anger that all too often these days leads to aggression. Please share this podcast with others. In this Holiday season we can all begin to make a difference.Happy Holidays Everyone!
This is part 2 of our conversation with Dr Joe Layng. Dr Layng has over 40 years' experience in the experimental and applied analysis of behavior, with a particular focus on the design of teaching/learning environments. In part 1 we began our discussion of degrees of freedom with a description of an experiment that was done with pigeons. The pigeons were given an electric shock every time they pecked a key, but instead of avoiding the key, they continued to press it. And in fact, if they were blocked from pressing the key, they became upset. We could easily look at this and think this is crazy. Why are these birds engaging in such a costly and unpleasant behavior? The answer was not that mysterious. The key presses were on a schedule. Keep pressing the key and you get food. Don’t press the key and go hungry. This study opened our discussion of degrees of freedom. In Part 2 Joe helps us understand more clearly the concept of critical consequences and he shows how expanding the degrees of freedom can help handlers understand more clearly the factors that are effecting the behavior we see. This is critical if we want to understand our horse’s preferences. When a horse says “No” to cues you know he understands well, why is he making this choice? And what can you do to turn a “No” response into a “yes” answer?Degrees of freedom are one side of a coin. Degrees of coercion is the other side. The degrees of freedom is inversely related to degrees of coercion. The more degrees of freedom you have, the less coercion you have. Joe unpacks this statement with some interesting examples of human behavior. It’s an important reminder that a handler can be using positive reinforcement procedures and still be coercing behavior by limiting choice.
This is part 1 of a three part conversation with Dr Joe Layng. To begin I should say that Dr Layng is not a horse person. This conversation is going to cover a lot of important concepts, but for the most part we won’t be talking specifically about horses. I asked Joe to talk to us about degrees of freedom. This is a topic that I have heard Joe talk about several times and every time I have the same reaction. This is something we need to understand more clearly. It is relevant not just to our horses but to so many of the choices we make for ourselves. Whenever I hear Joe present on this topic, I want to share what he’s saying, and that is of course what equiosity is all about. Dominique and I get to share ideas that make us sit up and take notice.So first, a little background. Dr Layng has over 40 years' experience in the experimental and applied analysis of behavior, with a particular focus on the design of teaching/learning environments. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, where he collaborated with Paul Andronis and Israel Goldiamond.He is the co-founder of Headsprout and was its senior scientist. At Headsprout, Dr. Layng and his colleagues designed, tested, and implemented highly successful Early Reading and Reading Comprehension programs. Over 4 million children have learned to read through the Head Sprout program.Dr. Layng has held a number of positions in schools, universities, and other public institutions related to instructional design, educational technology, large-scale performance improvement, and clinical behavior analysis. I met Joe at the Art and Science of Animal Training conference. His presentations have always been for me one of the highlights of that conference. I could easily go down any number of rabbit holes with him, but where we are going to begin is with degrees of freedom, what this means and what the implications are for our animals and for ourselves. In the bigger picture, this discussion will help you understand the origins of some of the divisions and the violence that fills the news headlines every day. It will also help us find solutions. It’s an important topic on many levels, and one I hope you will share with others.
We’re continuing our conversation with Ann Edie. Many of you will know Ann already. She’s Panda’s person. Panda is the mini I trained to be a guide for Ann. In this episode we talk about Ann’s full size horses. We meet Ann’s Arabian Magnat. I always referred to Magnat as a one in ten million horse. In Part 1 Ann described what it was like to ride him and the training that created these magic carpet rides. The link between ground work and riding is highlighted. Positive reinforcement isn’t just a description of processes. The process you choose to teach a particular lesson sits on the surface of your training. What underlies these choices is the mindset, your core ethics, your long-standing habits of thought. For most of us riding is where we have received the most instruction. It’s where the influences from others run the deepest. So jumping straight into riding with the clicker may mean that you run head first into those old habit patterns and that’s one reason why some people may struggle to use clicker training when they ride. We ended Part One with a story from a clinic that I gave many years ago that illustrated this. It confirmed for me the importance of beginning on the ground and then transferring your training to riding. In Part 2 of this conversation we continue to weave together the ground work lessons and riding with the clicker. Ann continues to share her experiences partnering a clicker-trained horse. We talk about single-rein riding, teaching horses to ride in pairs, guide work and intelligent disobedience, dealing with spooks and much more.
I was asked recently: “Do clicker trainers ride?” This question confused me at first. Of course, we ride! I wrote a book about riding, and I have produced DVD lessons, on-line clinics and other resources that look directly at riding. But then this person went on to say that the clicker trainers in her area don’t seem to ride. She was wondering if it was just too complicated to ride with positive reinforcement.Hmm. I know that these days there are many variations on the theme in terms of what people mean when they talk about clicker training, but for me there has always been a direct connection between ground work and riding. The expression I use is: Riding is just ground work where you get to sit down and ground work is riding where you get to stand up. I have always seen the connection between the two, so, of course, I carried clicker training with me when I rode.But this question made me think that we should do a podcast that was specifically on riding. To help with this I invited Ann Edie to join us. Many of you will know Ann already. She’s Panda’s person. Panda is the mini I trained to be a guide for Ann. In this episode we talk about Ann’s big horses, her Arabian Magnat and her Icelandics. I always referred to Magnat as a one in ten million horse. Ann describes what this means to her. She shares what it was like to ride him and the training that created what many times felt like magic carpet rides.I was asked recently: “Do clicker trainers ride?” This question confused me at first. Of course, we ride! I wrote a book about riding, and I have produced DVD lessons, on-line clinics and other resources that look directly at riding. But then this person went on to say that the clicker trainers in her area don’t seem to ride. She was wondering if it was just too complicated to ride with positive reinforcement.Hmm. I know that these days there are many variations on the theme in terms of what people mean when they talk about clicker training, but for me there has always been a direct connection between ground work and riding. The expression I use is: Riding is just ground work where you get to sit down and ground work is riding where you get to stand up. I have always seen the connection between the two, so, of course, I carried clicker training with me when I rode.But this question made me think that we should do a podcast that was specifically on riding. To help with this I invited Ann Edie to join us. Many of you will know Ann already. She’s Panda’s person. Panda is the mini I trained to be a guide for Ann. In this episode we talk about Ann’s big horses, her Arabian Magnat and her Icelandics. I always referred to Magnat as a one in ten million horse. Ann describes what this means to her. She shares what it was like to ride him and the training that created what many times felt like magic carpet rides.
We continue to explore the connection between tickling rates and playing with horses in Part 2 of our conversation with Raven Hickson. Raven is a behavioral neuroscientist. She’s just finishing her PhD. She’s been studying social play behavior in a rat model of neuro-development disorder.Raven comes from an applied animal background. Her bachelor’s degree is in Animal Science from Cornell. Her focus was on neurobiology and behavior and psychology courses. She interned over two summers as a zookeeper at the Cleveland Zoo which is how she learned about husbandry training and the idea of species-appropriate enrichment.After graduating, she spent time working in zoos, and as a high school animal science teacher, and then as the manager of a small boarding barn before she moved to Scotland in 2017 for a Master’s in Applied Animal Behavior and Animal Welfare at the University of Edinburgh.Her master’s dissertation led directly into her PhD project which has focused on social play behavior in rat models of neurodevelopment disorder, paying particular attention to refining methods to improve welfare.She has two Icelandics who live at home with her. She’s been attending both my in-person clinics and now the on-line clinics.In this conversation play is front and center. We begin by looking at five criteria that can be used to recognize play. We also talk about our experiences with fear. The traditional horse world teaches riders to suppress their fear which often has a negative effect on training. I know many people struggle with their own fear. The irony is they are often afraid to talk about it. The "get back on the horse after you've fallen off" mentality influences their training choices and reduces their ability to play with their horses.
What is the connection between tickling rates and playing with horses? Find out in the conversation with Raven Hickson. Raven is aa behavioral neuroscientist. She’s just finishing her PhD. She’s been studying social play behavior in a rat model of neuro-development disorder. Raven comes from an applied animal background. Her bachelor’s degree is in Animal Science from Cornell. Her focus was on neurobiology and behavior and psychology courses. She interned over two summers as a zookeeper at the Cleveland Zoo which is how she learned about husbandry training and the idea of species-appropriate enrichment. After graduating, she spent time working in zoos, and as a high school animal science teacher, and then as the manager of a small boarding barn before she moved to Scotland in 2017 for a Master’s in Applied Animal Behavior and Animal Welfare at the University of Edinburgh. Her master’s dissertation led directly into her PhD project which has focused on social play behavior in rat models of neurodevelopment disorder, paying particular attention to refining methods to improve welfare.She has two Icelandics who live at home with her. She’s been attending both my in-person clinics and now the on-line clinics. In this conversation we begin by having Raven describe the research she’s involved in. She shared with us some of the developmental deficits in rats that are seen when individuals don’t play. That took us to the importance bringing play into our training.
This is part two of an afternoon’s conversation with Taylor Culbert. Taylor is a PhD candidate in Theatre and Performance at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. She is writing her dissertation on 17th century animal performances in Europe, looking specifically at how cultural narratives about animals shaped the ways that humans and animals responded to one another. In Part 1 we began with stag hunts and some surprising revelations about animal intelligence. It was a conversation with many interesting twists and turns. Taylor described the challenge of finding accounts from the 17th century about the relationship performers developed with the animals they worked with. I invited Dominique to share what she had observed in the artists and trainers who performed in the Cavalia shows. It’s been a few years since that show was on tour, so Dominique began by describing the show. Cavalia is like Cirque du Soleil only with horses. In traditional circuses, horses are worked in the round always within reach of a long whip. In Cavalia they wanted to break away from this traditional image of superiority of humans over animals to portray a relationship built around friendship.Part 2 begins with Dominique sharing some stories from the show describing the relationship that developed between the artists and their equine performing partners. From there we circled back into the 17th century to Taylor’s research and that brought us back around to the importance of positive reinforcement training and the role it plays in creating safety nets under horses.
Taylor Culbert is a PhD candidate in Theatre and Performance at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). She is writing her dissertation on 17th century animal performances in Europe, looking specifically at how cultural narratives about animals shaped the ways that humans and animals responded to one another. When she isn't writing, Taylor works part-time training horses at a rescue in upstate NY. Taylor is enrolled in my on-line clinics so I’ve been getting to know her. I asked recently what her PhD dissertation is on and was so intrigued by her answer, I knew I wanted to learn more, so I invited her to join us for an afternoon’s conversation. We began with stag hunts and some surprising revelations about animal intelligence. It’s a conversation with interesting twists and turns. We enter a time warp between 17th century Europe and our current time which prompts Dominique to share stories about Cavalia, the theater company she co-founded that brought horses, acrobats, and other artists together in performance. Taylor mentions several references during our conversation. Below are the references:"Horse and Man in Early Modern England" by Peter Edwards"The Accommodated Animal" by Laurie Shannon (talks about "birds and beasts and fish" vs human/animal binary)"Birds and Other Creatures in Renaissance Literature" by Rebecca Ann Back (talks about animals having morality/emotions and the role that Descartes played - or didn't - in early modern understandings of animals)La Vénerie de Jacques Du Fouilloux This is a digital copy of an early edition of one of the hunting manuals that Taylor is writing about.
This is the second half of our conversation with Christa Culbert. Christa is an artist, a horse trainer, and an educator. She is pursing a career in the horse world, and dreams of starting a classical dressage clicker training horse rescue someday. Christa has been participating in my on-line clinics so I’ve been watching her progress with her two older horses. In this episode she introduces us to Huck, a horse she rescued when he was so lame he could barely walk. We talk about the choices she made for him, including the role that training has had in his recovery. We also talk about Christa’s experiences living with her horses in their pasture. That’s a life style I know many people would love to have with their own horses. Other topics include using clicker training to teach young children. Christa asks an important question: What kind of leaders do we need? Her answer: “We need people who are creative, who look to science, who are good listeners, and when something is not going their way, they break things down or try a different way - all things that clicker training teaches. We don’t need more leaders who kick harder when they don’t get what the want.”
In the recent Dressage Camp one of the standouts for me during the introductions were how many of the participants were working with older horses. It was so good to hear how many people were choosing to rescue older and often unsound horses. They wanted to know how they could help their horses, so clearly this was a great topic for the podcast. I invited one of the Dressage Camp participants, Christa Culbert, to spend the afternoon with us in conversation.
Christa is an artist, a horse trainer, and an educator. She is pursing a career in the horse world, and dreams of starting a classical dressage clicker training horse rescue someday. Christa has been participating in my on-line clinics so I’ve been watching her progress with her two older horses. Both came from a horse rescue.
In this episode we talk about Christa’s background both in the horse world and her search for a way of working with horses that feels morally right. That search brought her to clicker training. In so many of the podcasts we talk about what we can learn from the science of behavior analysis. In this conversation Christa shares how her training as an artist has informed her horse training.
This is part two of an afternoon’s conversation in which Dominique used posts from my on-line clinics to select topics for us to discuss.
Last week our conversation about the connection that emerges with our horses led to a discussion about colic, and then to lighten things up, we talked about treats vests and pouches. Our next topic is video. A post from a course participation gave Dominique some ideas about how she could use the video from her training sessions to help spot clean loops.
From there we moved on to several other topics, including the use of chains to develop back and forth communication between the handler and the horse, and a creative way to use the training game. So first I describe the original version of the training game and then I look at a variation that can create beautifully seamless training.
I was worried about putting colic in the title of this episode. I thought that might scare some people off. It can be such a sad subject. So many of us have either lost horses to colic or known friends who have. Colic can come on so fast and it is so very painful. It isn’t like a long illness where there is time to prepare and time to say good-bye. When a horse survives a bout of colic, there is always a fear that there will be another one. So this is a heavy topic.
We didn’t start off wanting to talk about colic. Originally Dominique and I thought we needed to shift gears a bit after so many podcasts that drew on academic research to talk about lighter subjects. The best laid plans and all that.
Dominique had a list of topics that she wanted to talk about that came from discussions in my new on-line clinics.
We began by talking about the connections that emerge with our horses through this training. They don’t want to leave us. They stay engaged with us in the training game. That’s where we began and suddenly we were talking about colic. It was one of those conversations where I had to stop and think - how did we get here? There is a connection with connection.
So we are talking about colic in this episode, and then to lighten things up, we talk about an essential piece of our clicker training equipment - treat pouches and vests.
This is Part 2 of our conversation with Dr Sarah Memmi on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Sarah brings a great perspective to this question. She’s an assistant professor of Marketing at the College of Business at the University of Louisville. She’s also a lifelong horse person which makes her a perfect fit for also teaching in the University of Lousiville’s equine business program.
Last week Sarah made the following distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation occurs when the reinforcer is bundled with the action such that it’s not easily separable from the action. The reward is in the doing.
Extrinsic motivation occurs when the reinforcement is separable from the action itself.
An activity can acquire intrinsic reinforcement value through the pairing of the activity with reinforcement. There are four qualities that are important to this process. We covered two of them in Part 1: The first was there’s a unique link between the behavior and the extrinsic reinforcer. The second is repeated pairing between the behavior and a desired outcome. This is something that is very familiar to all of us who clicker train.
Part 1 ended just as Sarah was getting to the third factor so that’s where we pick up as we resume the conversation.
We’re reached another podcasting milestone. This is episode number 200! Pretty staggering, especially when I think about the number both of listening hours and editing hours that represents.
In many of those episodes we’ve talked about constructional training. This concept draws on the work of Dr. Israel Goldiamond. Goldiamond poses four questions which form a very useful framework for structuring your training.
The first question asks what do you want? What are your goals? And the recommendation is to dream big.
The second question gives you your baseline. Where are you now? What skills are in repertoire? What component skills are missing?
The third question takes you to your training steps. How are you going to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
The fourth question asks what will keep you going? What will keep you motivated.
It’s this fourth question that we want to focus on in this conversation. Our guest is Dr Sarah Memmi.
Sarah joined us a year ago for a fabulous conversation about choice, control and goal setting, so in a way we were looking at the first question in that conversation. And now we’re going to jump to the fourth.
Sarah brings a great perspective to this question. She’s an assistant professor of Marketing at the College of Business at the University of Louisville. She’s also a lifelong horse person which makes her a perfect fit for also teaching in the University of Lousiville’s equine business program.
Our subject is going to be intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In this podcast we have talked mainly to behavior analysts. As a behavioral scientist Sarah is drawing on a different body of research, so I was very interested to hear her perspective on this subject. Sarah was trying not to overwhelm us with research references related to how humans behave, and instead in this conversation she is extracting what she thinks is most relevant to those of us who are interested in training.
We are continuing our conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire is a Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University. She is the Director of Graduate Training, and the Coordinator of the Behavior Analysis program area at the University - and she is also a horse person.
We’re celebrating the publication of an article we wrote together for the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior on Loopy Training. This was in response to a call for papers that the Journal put out last fall that asking for articles that explored the connections between the applied animal behavior community and the broader behavior analytic community.
In part 2 we ended in the middle of a discussion on the consistency of handling. Whether we refer to handlers working with animals or teachers working with people, how much of an impact does the consistency of the handler matter? We continue this discussion by looking at microshaping, and a training exercise called “the line of trash” which is intended to encourage the trainer’s creativity.
Last week we began a conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire is a Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University. She is the Director of Graduate Training, and the Coordinator of the Behavior Analysis program area at the University - and she is also a horse person.
We’re celebrating the publication of an article we wrote together for the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior on Loopy Training. This was in response to a call for papers that the Journal put out last fall that asking for articles that explored the connections between the applied animal behavior community and the broader behavior analytic community.
Claire asked if I would like to write a paper with her. The result is our article entitled “Connecting Animal Trainers and Behavior Analysts Through Loopy Training.” We celebrated the on-line publication of the article by recording this podcast. Towards the end of Part 1, we talked about what is was like to write an article together, then we started down rabbit holes. In this episode we focus in on the effect that consistency - or the lack of consistency - in the handler has on the learner. We look at chains, stimulus control and procedural integrity.
Here's the link to the Loopy training article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/HEMGM6YMDQF7UNJEYTCZ?target=10.1002/jeab.779
We are beginning a conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire is currently a Professor of Psychology, the Director of Graduate Training, and the Coordinator of the Behavior Analysis program area at West Virginia University. We’re celebrating the publication of an article we wrote together for the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior on Loopy Training.
In this podcast we talk about what it was like to write the article and what is involved in getting an article published in a peer reviewed journal. Then we take you down some of the many rabbit holes we explored as we developed the article. Some of them made it into the final version and some were just fun to explore.
Here's the link to the Loopy training article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/HEMGM6YMDQF7UNJEYTCZ?target=10.1002/jeab.779
This is part 3 of our conversation with Lucy Butler. Lucy is a special ed teacher who at the start of the 2021-2022 school year was given the assignment of working with all the students in her high school who had failed ninth grade the previous year. Last week Lucy talked about empowering her students by giving them more choice. She taught them how to write SMART goals for themselves. It was inevitable that the subject of gun violence in schools came up during our conversation.
“How insane it is,” Lucy says, “that part of my job as a teacher is thinking about how to protect my students against a gunman.”
But then Lucy found a way to transform the discussion into a hopeful message.
“What I’m doing is the very best strategy,” she said, “is helping people to feel successful, to feel that they have choice and to feel that they belong. I’m inoculating these kids against violence. I’m giving them the support of belonging and of feeling success. We’re inoculating them against a dysfunctional future. They are developing the skills to create their own success.”
We do bring the conversation around to horses. The links are important. No matter who your learners are, Lucy is sharing a hopeful message.
If you have friends with school-age children, I hope you’ll share this conversation.
Lucy Butler is a special ed teacher who at the start of the 2021-2022 school year was given the assignment of working with all the students in her high school who had failed ninth grade the previous year. Lucy had been attending my on-line clinics through the summer and over Labor Day weekend she attended our Science Camp, so she was very excited to apply the concepts of constructional training to her classroom students. With the help of Dr Claire St Peter and two of Claire’s former graduate students, Lucy began the process of changing the lives of her students.
In Part 1 Lucy reviewed some of the major lessons from the first half of the year. In Part Two we move into the second half of the year with a discussion of SMART goals. The students were learning that felt good to improve, so now they were further empowered by being asked to develop their own goals. What did they want to improve? Learn about SMART goals and how to use a Ruleg matrix to teach complex concepts.
It’s mid-July. School is out which means it is a great time to have a return visit with Lucy Butler. Lucy is a special ed teacher who at the start of the 2021-2022 school year was given the assignment of working with all the students in her high school who had failed ninth grade the previous year. Lucy is also a horse owner. She attended my on-line clinics through the summer of 2021. Over Labor Day weekend she also attended our Science Camp, so she was very excited to apply the concepts of constructional training to her classroom students. We did an interview with Lucy just as she was finishing up the first half of the school year. She was learning how to celebrate success and her students were thriving. You can listen to that interview in Episode 172 through 174.
At the half way point through the school year some of the students were reassigned to other teachers so a natural experiment was taking place. Some of the students would be going through the whole year with Lucy, others would have her part time, others would not be working with her at all in the second half of the year.
Of course we wanted to hear how the year turned out for her students. In part 1 of our conversation we review with Lucy some of the major lessons from the first half of the year and we learn how her students did through the full arc of the school year. If you have a child in school, you will very much want to listen to this podcast. (And yes, we do manage to connect the dots to horses.)
Last week we began a conversation that was centered around the on-line clinics. Even though the clinics are on-line and you go through them at your own pace, they are designed to be interactive. There are many places in them where people can respond to questions that I use to get a conversation going. And we’ve been having some wonderful exchanges that have created a rich resource for everyone in the courses to enjoy. Dominique has chosen a handful of these conversations to highlight. We talk about practical solutions as well as general principles.
This week’s topics include the use of the grown-ups-are-talking lesson to help develop emotional stability; starter button versus constant on cues; how to use the “yes” of the click in combination with the “yes” from the lead to build greater communication; and what does “No” look like and what do you do when your horse says, “No”?
We are beginning a conversation that is centered around the on-line clinics. Even though the clinics are on-line and you go through them at your own pace, they are designed to be interactive. There are many places in them where people can respond to questions that I use to get a conversation going. And we’ve been having some wonderful exchanges that have created a rich resource for everyone in the courses to enjoy.
Dominique has chosen a handful of these conversations to highlight. We begin with a comment from one of my posts: the conversation is not a burden. What does that mean? Then we look at the magnetic attraction of mats and how to keep that in balance with other behaviors you may want. Keeping behaviors in balance takes us to backing. And backing takes us to us to everything. To find out what that means listen to this week’s episode.
Episode 191 Michaela Hempen Part 2: Animal Welfare: Behavior Analysts Wanted!
In part 1 Dr Michaela Hempen introduced us to her day job. Michaela works for the European Food Safety Agency. This is a scientific agency provides risk assessments to give the European Commission or European member states the scientific basis for legislation. The EFSA looks at anything related to food safety, that includes animal health. The European Parliament has requested a scientific assessment of what the risks are for farm animals. These assessments will be the basis for legislation. The European Commission will be revising all farm animal welfare legislation, and part of this will be based on scientific assessments of their welfare. Michaela has become involved in this project which means she has been on a steep learning curve to familiarize herself with the field of animal welfare.
In part 1 we talked about preference tests. How do you measure what animals want? Part 2 begins with a discussion of stress and then Michaela talks about an important call for tender which her agency has put out. They want welfare scientists to design the road map for future risk assessments of animal welfare. They are looking for new ways of assessing welfare. The teams must include a behavior analyst, so we’re hoping this podcast will help get this information out to people in that field.
The links to all the references Michaela cited as well as the link to information about the call to tender are in the show notes at equiosity.com
We are joined again by Dr. Michaela Hempen, but this time, Michaela is not talking about Blondie and the cribbing project, but about her day job. Michaela works for the European Food Safety Agency. The EFSA looks at anything related to food safety, including animal health. It provides risk assessments which give the European Commission or European member states the scientific basis for legislation. The European Commission will be revising all farm animal welfare legislation, and part of this will be based on scientific assessments of their welfare. Michaela has become involved in this project which means she has been on a steep learning curve to familiarize herself with the field of animal welfare.
In this podcast we talk about preference tests. Whether it’s a laying hen or a horse how do you measure what animals want?
For a list of the references Michaela refers to in the podcast go to the show notes at equiosity.com.
We begin Part 3 with a discussion my favorite of Mary Hunter’s recent StaleCheerios posts: “Are you clicking for your own behavior or your animal’s behavior?” To find out what that means listen to the podcast.
This is part 2 of our conversation with Mary Hunter. We are continuing to use Mary’s recent StaleCheerios blog posts as the launching point for a series of interesting discussions. Mary’s April post: “Assess your Reinforcement Delivery” gave us a lot to talk about. I especially liked this topic because it let us talk about how much we can influence our horse’s balance through the thoughtful use of food delivery.
We’ve talked about this a lot for horses. In this episode we consider how the details that we focus on for horses might also be relevant to dog training.
We’re beginning a three part conversation with Mary Hunter. Mary has a masters degree in Behavior Analysis from the University of North Texas. She is the president of the Art and Science of Animal Training, the non-profit organization that puts on the Art and Science of Animal Training conference. Together with Dr. Jesus Rosales Ruiz she is the co-author of the PORTL manual. She is the presenter in our Listen and Learn audio course on Applied Behavior Analysis. And she is the author of the Stale Cheerios blog.
The blog went into a temporary hiatus while Mary worked on other projects, including the PORTAL manual. At the start of the year she brought the blog back and her posts have been such gems, I wanted to spend an afternoon talking to her about them. We begin our conversation not with the blog posts but with her masters thesis which was on desperation clicks and the effect they may have on training.
What do you do when your horse or your dog gives you a “no” answer to a request but you really do need a “yes answer” response? That question begins our conversation.
We also talk about piggy backing positive reinforcement training onto the skills and techniques a handler may know from other training methods.
Maple syrup buckets prompt the start of our conversation about environmental changes and the effect they can have on training. We talk about the way in which the a bad scare can begin to contract the conditions in which you feel safe working with your horse. We also describe how you can expand the conditions out again.
This is part 3 of a conversation that began with a question about picking your starting criteria. Once your training session is underway, how do you change criteria? What happens to the rhythm of your training during the transition? Is it a smooth flow, or is it more stop and go? Always the conversation prompts us to see new details in the training.
Our conversation finishes with a discussion of core training beliefs. In the new on-line clinics I ask people to introduce themselves and their horses. One of the discussion threads asks about training goals. What do people want for their horses. The answers very much reflect a change in emphasis as people shift into cue-based training. Dominique reflects on her own journey through the horse world.
We begin this week’s conversation with degrees of freedom. What does that mean and how does that help us to choose our starting criteria? In the course of our conversation, Dominique and I discover that we have very different ways of thinking about the start of a training session.
How do you choose your starting criterion? That’s the question that launches this week’s podcast. It takes us to the image of a funnel. Do you start at the broad end of the funnel and narrow down or do you flip the funnel and begin at the narrow end?
We’ve been talking about my new Stay-at-Home, Learn-from-Home clinics, but as always that’s taken us down some great rabbit holes. This week Dominique starts us off with some questions about Spanish Walk. That takes us to a discussion of puzzle solving. When is it okay to “Let the horse figure it out”? It’s a common phrase in the training world. When is that a good strategy, and when are you eroding the confidence of your learner that he can figure out the puzzles you set for him?
Puzzles take us to observation skills and balance - central topics that are part of all of the Stay-at-Home, Learn-from-Home clinics. The clinics are now open. You can learn more about them and register for them at my web site: theclickercenter.com. There you’ll find detailed descriptions of all eight clinics and the overall concept behind these on-line clinics.
Geography doesn’t matter. Wherever you live, you can join in. You don’t need to put your horse on a trailer. Save the gas and join us on line instead.
My goal for these clinics is a simple one. I want use the advantages that teaching on line creates to develop skilled positive reinforcement trainers. I want you to become balance obsessed the way I am, and I want to help you develop a deep connection with your horse through kind, thoughtful constructive training. Again visit theclickercenter.com to learn more.
We are talking about my new Stay-at-Home, Learn-from-Home clinics, That’s taking us down some fun rabbit holes. Last week we stopped just as we were getting to constructional training and Goldiamond’s four questions. That’s where we begin in this episode. We’ll be talking about pigeons as well as horses.
At long last, I have opened my 2022 Stay at Home - Learn at Home Clinics for enrollment. I have been getting daily inquiries about the clinics and now I am delighted to say you can now register in Course #1.
In this episode don't just talk about the clinics. Most of the conversation centers around the value of video taping your session. This episode will give you lots of great reasons to get out your camera and begin the habit of recording your training.
Dominique was intrigued by several of the panel discussions at the recent Clicker Expo. It sent her off into an exploration of the much debated nature versus nurture question. She wasn’t trying to solve the puzzle. Her question was how does the interplay between genes and the environment influence the training choices we make?
Dominique is a good researcher. She did her homework and that’s what she is sharing in this episode.
In part 3 of our conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter we cover a lot of ground, including what fills the space between the larger steps we typically focus on. Claire shares some research studies beginning with Skinner that look at how superstitious behaviors develop and what you can do to change those patterns. What happens when new people begin positive reinforcement training and there are many inconsistencies in their training? What does inconsistency do to training outcomes? And how do you set up ethical studies when you think the effect may be negative.
When you use reinforcement inconsistently, Claire shares some studies that indicate that you do indeed get behavior going, but in ways you might not expect. The superstitious patterns that emerged were very hard to change. It shows the importance of training in clean loops. Claire shows us how these patterns emerge - and also how to change them.
In addition to this we also talk about some creative ideas for training multiple animals.
This week we continue our conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire received her PhD in Psychology with an emphasis in Behavior Analysis from the University of Florida in 2006. She is currently a Professor of Psychology, the Director of Graduate Training, and the Coordinator of the Behavior Analysis program area at West Virginia University. She is also a horse enthusiast so in this conversation we get to explore all her interests.
In Part 1 we began with mastery-based learning and then Claire introduced us to the concept of super resurgence. In Part 2 we begin with the reasons why behavior relapses. That will take us to quadratic equations, philosophical answers contrasted with ethical ones, loopy training and the constructional approach, variable and continuous reinforcement schedules, and collaborations between trainers and researchers. It’s a fun, wide-ranging conversation that takes us down some unexpected but fun rabbit holes.
This week we continue to explore the connection between teaching programs that have been developed for classrooms and the work we do with our horses. We are joined by Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire received her PhD in Psychology with an emphasis in Behavior Analysis from the University of Florida in 2006. She is currently a Professor of Psychology, the Director of Graduate Training, and the Coordinator of the Behavior Analysis program area at West Virginia University.
She serves as the current Editor-in-Chief for the journal Education and Treatment of Children. Her research focuses on improving outcomes for children who struggle in school, identifying generative effects of extinction, determining how well reinforcement-based teaching procedures work in application by novice implementers, and teaching others to use behavioral approaches.
That’s the academic bio. Claire is also a horse person. In 2021 she saw my Clicker Expo presentations and decided to take a deeper look at my work. She attended my virtual clinics and Science Camp. One of the things Claire enjoys are collaborations that let her blend her research interests with her passion for horses.
I enjoy collaborations as well, so I was delighted when Claire started attending my virtual clinics. That’s given us many opportunities to have some fascinating conversations. And now it’s clearly time to share some of those conversations in this podcast. In this episode we begin with mastery based learning - what is it and why is it relevant to our horses? Claire ends by introducing us to super resurgence. You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out what that means and what it has to do with horses.
Lucy is a horse owner and a clicker trainer, and as you know by now she is also a special ed teacher. At the start of this school year she was assigned all the repeaters for freshman year, that is all the students who had failed ninth grade. Through her horse Lucy connected first with me and then through Science Camp with Dr Claire St Peter. Claire has been helping her develop a mastery-based system in which her students can thrive.
In this part of the conversation we move from the classroom back to the barn to find out what Lucy what she has learned from her students that she is taking back to her horse.
Lucy Butler is a horse owner and a clicker trainer. Lucy is also a special ed teacher at a high school. At the start of this school year she was assigned all the repeaters for freshman year, that is all the students who had failed ninth grade.
Lucy is going to take us into her classroom to see how her students are learning how to celebrate success. Some of you may be thinking - what has this got to do with horse training? I will answer with: everything is everything else.
Horses influence every part of our lives and the connections are worth celebrating. It’s a loop that goes in both directions. Lucy explored positive reinforcement teaching and constructional design first with her dogs and her horse. She took the principles to her classroom. She’s working with a challenging group of learners, and they are thriving. In this podcast Lucy shares the discoveries she’s been making. What she’s learning from her students can help us all be better teachers for our own learners, no matter the species.
Enjoy
We are literally off to school in this conversation with Lucy Butler.
Lucy is also a horse owner and a clicker trainer. She is also a special ed teacher in a high school. At the start of this year she was assigned all the repeaters for freshman year, that is all the students who had failed ninth grade.
I met her last summer via my virtual clinics. In the clinic and then in Science Camp Lucy was introduced to the constructional approach to training. She has taken the concepts and run with them - both with her horse and with her students. She describes her classroom as a bubble of joy. Her students are seeing themselves as individuals who can do well, more than that - they want to do well.
There are so many stories in the news these days about the problems in schools. It’s a bleak picture, so it’s a refreshing change to be able to talk to a teacher who is excited to be in school.
What Lucy is learning is definitely relevant to our horses. So bringing her work from the classroom back to horses via this podcast is a fun loop to explore. I suspect there will be many ripples going out from this conversation.
Enjoy!
Dominique has been intrigued by the incredibly subtle discriminations animals are able to make. That took us to a discussion of cues, rules, teaching processes, procedures and principles. What is the distinction and how does this help you get past a sticky point in your training? A discussion of core principles brought us to the importance of teaching wait. Wait is a behavior. Animals can’t “do nothing”. Waiting is not an absence of behaving. An animal is actively doing something, even if that something is standing still. Teaching a solid understanding of “wait” helps to bring stability to training. So thinking about the distinction between rules and principles brought us to a practical training solution for a training hiccup.
Dominique has been intrigued by the incredibly subtle discriminations animals are able to make. In this episode she wanted to talk about cues and the rules that trainers create around them to bring some consistency to their training. I wasn’t sure of the context in which she was using the term so her starting point for the conversation raised some questions for me. The rabbit hole we plunged into was a discussion of cues, rules, teaching processes, procedures and principles. What is the distinction?
This week we are shifting gears completely. Michaela is going to tell us about the stallion project that she and Anja Beran are working on. The stallion project refers to work that Anja and Michaela are spearheading to bring about changes in Germany in the stallion testing process. In this episode Michaela describes the stallion tests and the damage that results to the horses that go through them. Anja was saddened by the number of beautiful young stallions people wanted to send to her to “fix” after going through the stallion testing. She and Michaela are working to get changes instituted.
The web site for the stallion project is: https://karrierestart-mit-respekt-hengste.de/.
The site is in German, but it is it very much worth visiting. Anja and Michaela have included some of the images from Anja’s new book. The example/non-example contrast is very powerful. And you can use google translate to give you a reasonable approximation for what is being said.
The stallion project is actually very related to the work Michaela is doing with Blondie. Blondie was originally trained to be a reining horse. She would have been started young and pushed through the training fast. When Michaela took over her training, the hard push was revealed in the many loud “no” answers Blondie gave to even simple requests such as haltering.
Many of us take on horses like Blondie and these stallions. The good news is the constructional approach that we’ve been talking about can go a long way towards creating a good life for these horses. The even better news would be that horses are seen as the individuals that they are, that they are no longer treated as expendable livestock.
In Part 1 I introduced Michaela by saying our conversation was a present to all of you. Her work offers such valuable insights on how to use the training for the benefit of our horses. The Holiday season seems like a good time to be sharing this work because it’s a time when the presents we most want to unwrap are those that create positive changes in the world.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
This is part 2 of our conversation with Dr Michaela Hempen. I began this series by saying that this is our Holiday present to all of you. In Part 1 Michaela shared the details of the research project she’s been conducting on cribbing. The subject of that study is a quarter horse mare named Blondie.
Just when Michaela was reaching a critical stage in the study, Blondie’s owner decided he wanted to sell her. Through the generosity of many in the clicker training community Michaela was able to buy Blonde and continue on with her study.
It was a good investment because Michaela has been taking what she learned from the cribbing project and applying it to other aspects of Blondie’s training. You may not be dealing with a cribber, but you could well have a horse that came to you with a lot of unwanted baggage. That was certainly the case with Blondie. Michaela was discovering some huge-crater sized holes in her training.
Blondie said no to just about everything. She said no to haltering, to leading, to saddling, to bridling. Michaela could have done what her previous owner had done - just ignore the pinned ears, the swishing tail, the snapping teeth. He could ride Blondie. He could make her “behave”. We’ve all heard it - “Oh she’s just being a mare, she’s just testing you. You just need to show her whose boss.”
But that’s not the relationship Michaela was looking for, nor does it produce the kind of ride she enjoys. So she took Blondie out of the command-based world. She’s been offering her a very different training connection. How you go about doing that is what we’ll be exploring in Part 2 of our conversation with Michaela. This second present that you’re about to open: the details of the saddling project.
This episode is the first of several Holiday presents we have created for you. Our guest is Dr Michaela Hempen. She will be sharing the work she’s been doing with her quarter horse mare, Blondie. Blondie is a cribber. If you aren’t familiar with that term, cribbing, or crib biting as it is also called, refers to a stereotypic behavior in which the horse closes its teeth around a surface such a fence board or a feed bucket and then arches its neck so it can suck in air.
Cribbing has been viewed as a pathology. People try to prevent horses from cribbing by putting cribbing collars on them. The collars make it uncomfortable to crib, but most horses end up cribbing anyway.
Michaela decided to look at cribbing through a different lens. With the help of Dr Jesús Rosales Ruiz she was able to show that cribbing responds to changes in the environment. It’s not something pathological in the animal. It’s a habit you can change. In this episode Michaela describes the procedure she used to teach Blondie a new repertoire of behaviors to replace her cribbing habit.
Her work is exciting not just for owners of cribbers, but for anyone who has habits they’d like to change. That refers to their horse’s habits and even potentially to their own. So when the calendar clicks over into 2022 and you’re thinking about your New year’s resolutions, think about Blondie and the work Michaela is describing in this podcast.
I started out calling this episode “Come on in the water’s fine”. But I think ‘Creating Our Own Mainstream” is really more to the point. You’ll understand why as you listen to this episode.
This is part 3 of our conversation with Dr Sarah Memmi. Sarah is a behavioral scientist. She teaches at the University of Louisville in Kentucky where she’s an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business. Her main area of research is how people pursue goals; how they handle conflicts between multiple goals, and how they manage their personal resources (time, money). She also teaches in the University of Louisville’s unique equine business program.
In Part 1 of this conversation we talked about control and choice. In Part two we talked about two paradoxes - the paradox of choice and the paradox of control. This led us to the consider how ideas are spread through a community and that in turn brought us to marketing. Since Sarah teaches marketing at the University of Louisville, of course we needed to head in that direction. So that’s what we’re going to do in Part 3 of our conversation.
I think you’ll find that this is a very different kind of conversation than what you might expect given the subject. The definition Sarah gives us for marketing - a value exchange relationship has so many parallels with training. So yes, we are talking about marketing, but we are also talking about constructional training. We explore a powerful metaphor - what it means to create our own mainstream.
This is Part 2 of our conversation with Dr Sarah Memmi. Sarah is a behavioral scientist. She teaches at the University of Louisville in Kentucky where she’s an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business. Her main area of research is how people pursue goals; how they handle conflicts between multiple goals, and how they manage their personal resources (time, money). She also teaches in the University of Louisville’s unique equine business program.
In Part 1 of this conversation we introduced the topic of control and choice. Now in Part 2 Sarah will explore with us the paradoxes these concepts create for us.
Dr Sarah Memmi is a behavioral scientist. She teaches at the University of Louisville in Kentucky where she’s an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business. Her main area of research is how people pursue goals; how they handle conflicts between multiple goals, and how they manage their personal resources (time, money). She also teaches in the University of Louisville’s unique equine business program.
Sarah is a lifelong horse person. In September 2021 we had a long conversation with Sarah about that part of her life. In this second round we are focusing more on her research. In Part 1 of a three part conversation we are talking about control and choices.
In the positive reinforcement community we talk about control being reinforcing and we are drawn to training strategies that give our animal learners choice. The challenge is finding the right balance for choice. No choice is restricting, but too much choice can be paralyzing. So how do you find the balance, and how do you learn how to make good choices? That’s what we explore in this podcast.
This is part 3 of our conversation with Dr. Susan Friedman. We began in part 1 with a discussion of crucial conversations - what do you do when the stakes are high and emotions are becoming heated? How do you keep the dialog going and maintain a relationship? And what is a relationship? That’s what we explored in Part 2. We often think emotions get in the way, but Susan reminded us that emotions are diagnostic. They track contingencies. All of this brought us to a discussion of the hierarchy of behavior change procedures.
The hierarchy has been a great guideline for many trainers. When Susan first wrote about it in her article: “What’s Wrong with this Picture? Effectiveness in Not Enough”, it was common for trainers and educators to go straight to punishment to solve behavior problems. The hierarchy offered an alternative, one that is now in wide use in the training community. But there were critics of the hierarchy. Many questioned where negative reinforcement was placed in the hierarchy. Some thought it was too low, some too high. In this episode we explore the complexity of negative reinforcement and consider why both may be right.
This is part 2 of our conversation with Dr. Susan Friedman. When Susan presents at the Clicker Expo, I always make a point of sitting in on her presentations. But more than that, I like spending time with Susan in between talks. I learn a lot watching how generously and kindly she handles every situation. I have developed a mantra as a result - what would Susan do? I’m in a restaurant with slow service and frazzled staff - what would Susan do? I’m in a long line that isn’t moving, behind a young family with cranky children - what would Susan do? I’m in a conversation on the internet that’s becoming heated - what would Susan do?
Susan is never one to shy away from difficult situations. And that’s what prompted this current conversation. What do you do when the stakes are high and emotions are becoming heated? How do you keep the dialog going and maintain a relationship? And what is a relationship? That’s what we explore in Part 2. We often think emotions get in the way, but Susan reminds us that emotions are diagnostic. They track contingencies. If you think we are just at the mercy of our emotions, Susan offers us a very different perspective.
What a treat we have for you. Once again we are in conversation with Dr. Susan Friedman. Dr. Friedman is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University. She has pioneered the application of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) to captive and companion animals. ABA, with its roots in human learning, offers a scientifically sound teaching technology and ethical standard that can improve the lives of all learners. Susan runs an on-line course - Living and Learning with Animals for Professionals. She has written chapters on learning and behavior for five veterinary texts, and she’s a frequent contributor to popular magazines. Her articles appear around the world in 15 languages. Susan has presented seminars for a wide variety of professional organizations around the world, and she is a member of the faculty of the clicker expo which is how I first met her.
When Susan is with us we forget about time. We just keep going until our animals shout out a collective Enough! Thankfully on this afternoon they were all content to let us talk, and talk we did! We have a great three parter for you. We’ll start with Crucial Conversations. We’ve all been there. It might be someone is criticizing how you’re training your horse, or maybe they’ve attacked something you’ve posted on the internet. How do you handle the situation? That’s the start for a complex, multi-layered conversation.
This week we’re talking about changes we have both made in how we care for our horses. The important message here is our ideas can evolve and change. Whether we are talking about training strategies or questions about turnout our horses are our teachers. We need to stay open to the possibility that what we have learned from others, what we have always done, doesn’t need to be set in stone.
This week we’re joined by Dr. Steve Naile. Dr Naile was my vet for over thirty years. He retired in 2020 just as the lockdowns began for the corona virus. When he was at the barn, Steve would often take time to talk about training, and about new updates in veterinary medicine. We’ve both missed those conversations so this podcast gave us a great excuse for a visit.
In parts 1 and 2 we talked about deworming, foot care, all the fancy new imaging technology that are available now for diagnosing lameness, vaccinations. In part 3 we were about to dive into a discussion of the horse’s digestive system when we had a little interruption. Dr Naile’s cat was doing what cat’s are so very good at. She was training Dr. Naile to give her attention, and she wasn’t at all shy about using more than a little negative reinforcement. So we took a quick short cut into the world of behavior analysis.
But Steve got us back on track with a discussion of feeding practices. We also talk about colics and laminitis and even the use of marijuana for horses. We end with the end - meaning we talk about the veterinarian’s role in end of life decisions. It’s a James Herriot ending to a wonderful conversation.
This week we’re joined by Dr. Steve Naile. Dr Naile was my vet for over thirty years. He retired in 2020 just as the lockdowns began for the corona virus. When Steve came to the barn, he would make extra time to talk about training, and about new updates in veterinary medicine. I’ve missed those conversations so I thought this podcast gave us the perfect opportunity for a visit.
It was fun to swap stories about my horses, but that’s not really what this conversation is about. I wanted to look back with Steve over the changes that have occurred in veterinary medicine over the past thirty to forty years. It’s interesting to think about procedures that were common when Peregrine was a foal that Dominique has never even heard about never mind seen.
So last week we talked about deworming practices and the impact they have had on our horse’s health. This week we’ll look back at another procedure, one that always seemed like to me to be straight out of the dark ages. That takes us to a discussion of the advancement in x-rays and other imagining technology that help in the diagnosis of lameness. That of course took us straight to feet, what makes a good trim, and the relationship between vets and farriers. We end with a discussion of vaccines for horses.
This week we’re joined by Dr. Steve Naile. Dr Naile was my vet for over thirty years. He retired in 2020 just as the lockdowns began for the corona virus. Whenever he was at the barn for our horses, Steve always made extra time to talk about training, and about new updates in veterinary medicine. I’ve missed those conversations. This podcast created an opportunity for an especially interesting conversation. I wanted to ask Steve to look back over the changes he’s seen in veterinary care over the fifty years he was in practice.
One of the things that makes this conversation with Steve especially interesting is he met Peregrine well before I started clicker training. He knew him as a young horse when Peregrine’s locking stifles were a major problem. And he saw the changes that occurred as I began to explore clicker training. He even learned a little clicker training - enough to help with horses who were afraid of injections.
It was fun to swap stories about my horses, but that’s not really what this conversation is about. I wanted to look back over some of the changes in veterinary medicine that have occurred over the past thirty to forty years. In many ways Peregrine was born in what I think of the as the dark ages in terms of some of the practices that were part of routine care. Dominique is newer to the horse world so she had never even heard of some of the things I wanted to talk about. It really is remarkable the changes that have occurred during the lifetime of my horses. We begin with worming - then and now.
This is Part 3 of our conversation with Sarah Memmi. Sarah is a behavioral scientist. She teaches at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, where she’s an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the College of Business.
Sarah’s main area of research is how people pursue goals, handle conflict between multiple goals, and manage their personal resources (time, money). So in this episode we take a deep dive into goals. We revisit the marshmallow test and look at what self control really is. And then we explore the way that habits can either assist in achieving our long term goals or undermine them completely.
This is Part 2 of our conversation with Sarah Memmi. Sarah is a behavioral scientist. She’s an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business at the University of Louisville. Sarah’s main area of research is how people pursue goals, handle conflict between multiple goals, and manage their personal resources (time, money). She also teaches in the University of Louisville’s unique equine business program.
There are so many rabbit holes we could go down relating to Sarah’s professional work, but last week we began with Sarah’s lifelong love of horses. I met Sarah twenty years ago when she was feeling in over her head with her young trakehner/TB homebred. We began there. Sarah’s situation at that time was one many people share. She kept her horses at home. She had to figure out clicker training on her own. I wanted Sarah to talk to us about that part of her horse journey. Her youngster became a super partner, but sadly she lost him when he was just eleven. So this opened another chapter in her life. Sarah has been wonderfully successful staying connected to the horse world.
She not only had horses to ride, but people have even invited her to clicker train the horses she works with. So many people get the door slammed in their faces when they try to talk about clicker training. Instead Sarah has been in invited to clicker train the horses she’s riding. She’s been a successful ambassador for the work. So it’s an important question that we’re exploring. How does she introduce clicker training to the owners of the horses she’s riding? What is she doing that facilitates being accepted by them?
That’s the question we explore in part 2 of our conversation.
Sarah Memmi is a behavioral scientist. She teaches at the University of Louisville in Kentucky where she’s an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business. Her main area of research is how people pursue goals; how they handle conflicts between multiple goals, and how they manage their personal resources (time, money). She also teaches in the University of Louisville’s unique equine business program.
There are so many rabbit holes we could go down relating to Sarah’s professional work, but I am beginning with Sarah’s lifelong love of horses. I met Sarah twenty years ago when she was feeling in over her head with her young trakehner/TB homebred. We began there. Sarah’s situation at that time was one many people share. She kept her horses at home. She didn’t have a trailer so she couldn’t take her horse to a trainer for help. She had to figure out how to work with him on her own. We began with that part of her horse journey because it’s a situation many people find themselves in.
Her young horse became a super riding partner, but sadly Sarah lost him to colic when he was just eleven. So this opened another chapter in her life. She was in graduate school. She didn’t have the time or the resources to take on a new horse, but she wanted to stay connected to the horse world. I know from clinics that many people struggle to find situations where they feel that they fit in. Sarah has been wonderfully successful finding trainers she enjoys learning from. And she has had lots of opportunities not just to ride other people’s horses, but also to clicker train them. So clearly she’s doing a lot right and this is what I wanted to explore.
So many people get the door slammed in their faces when they try to talk about clicker training. Instead Sarah has been in invited to clicker train the horses she’s riding. Before we dive into questions centered around her research on goals, I wanted to begin here: what is she doing right that has brought her so many riding and training opportunities? This question is a great way to introduce you to Sarah and her work. The title of this episode refers to our discussion of three principles Sarah has come up with that will help you to be a good guest in someone else’s barn.
In part 4 of our conversation with Susan Friedman we begin by looking at transactional training. “I have what you want. If you do what I want, I’ll give you what I have.” How has this very blunt way of looking at training changed as we bring in more of an emphasis on good antecedent arrangements? This takes us to an important discussion of core values and control.
We are celebrating the milestone of our 150th episode with our good friend Dr. Susan Friedman. Our conversation lasted the better part of an afternoon so our celebration is continuing on over several weeks.
Last week Susan shared with us three simple questions that help her clients solve their animal training puzzles. This week we’re going to have a change of topic. We’re going to take a very deep dive into the ABCs of training. We discuss some head spinning topics including nonlinear analysis and this quote from Dr. Hank Schlinger: Reinforcers don’t strengthen behavior, they strengthen cues. You can find out what that’s about in this week’s podcast.
Enjoy!
We are celebrating the milestone of our 150th episode with our good friend Dr. Susan Friedman. Our conversation lasted the better part of an afternoon so our celebration will be spilling out over several weeks.
We ended last week with the question: if you got a new animal, what would you do differently? Susan starts us off by talking about her parrots. She looks back at the way in which she was originally taught to handle her African grey. She compares his behavior with her other birds who don't share his early training history. You could easily substitute horses for parrots. The training approach sounds very similar.
The conversation then shifted to a question about expectations and Susan shares with us three simple questions that help her clients solve their animal training puzzles.
Enjoy!
We made it! Or really I should say we made them. This is our 150th episode.
That’s a milestone that is worth celebrating so we invited Dr. Susan Friedman to join us. She suggested that she turn the tables on us meaning she would interview us. Susan began with a look back. What were our initial goals for the podcast? That question launched many others and we talked away the afternoon.
Three hours is too long for any podcast, especially one that contains so many gems, so I have divided our conversation up. This episode is Part 1 of a four part series. A whole month with Susan! Fun!
Enjoy!
In Part 3 of our conversation about riding we examine the connection between the release of the rein and the “yes answer” of the click. They work together to create incredible clarity for the horse. Clarity leads to confidence for both horse and rider. It also helps to create beautiful balance.
We also talk about the effect that desperation clicks, missed clicks, and unintended clicks have on your horse’s response.
This is Part 2 of a three part conversation about riding with the clicker. We began in Part 1 with a description of single-rein riding.
In Part 2 we explore the connection between the “yes answer” information the rein provides and the “yes” of the click. Understand that and he doors to performance excellence are wide open. Putting these two systems together lets you communicate great nuance. The horses really own the changes you’re asking for. They know how to organize their own bodies. This truly is self carriage. You benefit from it under saddle and you will see it when they are moving at liberty.
This is the start of a three part conversation about riding with the clicker. In Part 1 we jump straight in with a description of single-rein riding. We’ll take you back to what it was like to be a youngster again going out to get your pony. It was a lot more fun to hop onto your pony bareback and ride to the barn rather than walk all the way back.
You had only a halter and lead rope for control, but you learned that was all you needed. And then you took lessons and you forgot those early learning-to-ride experiences. Or maybe you never had the opportunity growing up to experience that kind of freedom. All you’ve known is conventional riding so single-rein riding seems very mysterious.
I want to take the mystery out of it. In this three part conversation I’ll be describing that it really isn’t something other, different from what you already know, but part of a teaching continuum that creates beautiful balance and a great connection between horse and rider.
We begin this week’s episode by talking about an up-coming Getting Started clinic that is scheduled for July 2021. This takes us down many fun rabbit holes - expectation, conditioned reinforcers, learning from stories, trailering nightmares, the leggo blocks of training, giraffe preferences, and finally to riding.
In Part One of our conversation with Anita Schnee we promised you an Awareness Through Movement session. That’s how we begin this week’s episode. There’s no better way to learn about the Feldenkrais Method® than to experience it directly.
So this week instead of listening to the podcast while you are driving, instead find a quiet time when you can lie down on your back. Relax, listen and enjoy an ATM lesson. Then join us for a further discussion of the Feldenkrais Method® as it relates to working with horses.
Horses know how to reinforce us. When we get ourselves organized and well balanced, they reward us with glorious rides. This is one of the many reasons the Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons are so useful for anyone who handles horses.
Our guest this week, Anita Schnee, is a Feldenkrais practitioner who has been attending my clinics since 2016. She's the perfect ambassador to explain the Feldenkrais Method® and to relate it to training.
Should I make you wait until you listen to the podcast to find out what the great news is? I think not. I’m delighted to finally be able to announce that the first lesson in my DVD series is now available on line. “Lesson One: Getting Started with the Clicker” is available as an on-line mini course.
I’ve been working on this project for several years. I’ve had it mostly done for a while, but there were other things that kept pushing it onto the back burner, including getting the Equiosity podcasts out every week. One of the advantages to not traveling for clinics is I have time for more projects, including getting “Lesson One” up on line.
The original lesson was produced in 1999. It was updated in 2006. So it was more than time for an update. Rather than remake the entire lesson, I have built the course around the original material. Every bit of the original has been broken down into small, bite sized pieces. I introduce you more fully to the horses who were featured in that lesson. Why did they stand out amongst the equine clicker pioneers? What did they teach us about clicker training. Their stories will inspire.
I’ve added so many details to the teaching. But again rather than replace the original video, I’ve added to it. Some of the video expands the lessons. And some of it points out details we didn’t yet realize were important. In these sections I am coaching an earlier version of myself as I point out the changes in handling details. It’s a good way to learn. You see the reminders. We did it this way originally, but this is better, and what’s more, this is why it’s better.
So if you are just getting started in clicker training, this is a great resource for you. It’s an easy way to learn great clicker training basics. And if you’ve been following my work for a while, I think you’ll also enjoy this course. For you it’s a look back. You’ll see the evolution of the training, and you’ll get to meet the many horses and their handlers that I have talked about in these Equiosity podcast and my clinics.
(And I should just add, this podcast includes not just the announcement about the course, but a discussion of how to teach backing in a square. That lesson is in second DVD lesson: Ground Manners, but Dominique had a question about how it is taught so we jumped into that discussion as well.)
To learn more about the new Lesson One On-line course go to: https://www.theclickercenter.com/dvd-lesson-1
And to order go to: https://the-clicker-store.myshopify.com/products/lesson-one-getting-started-with-the-clicker-on-line-lesson
I know many of us head to our horses to get away from the news, but sometimes the news intrudes and our horses can help us make sense of what we see in the headlines. Dominique turned both to her horses and to Murray Sidman’s book, “Coercion and It’s Fallout” to bring some clarity to events that were occurring in Montreal.
The metaphors work in both directions. Our horses can help us understand these larger events. And the “real world” can provide insights that bring clarity to the puzzles our horses present. In this case we are looking at control and counter-control.
We’ve talked a lot about constructional training in these podcasts. This week we’re exploring two related topics.
The first asks how do you look at the world? Are you a glass half empty sort of person where you get mired down in the problem? Or is the glass half full where you have a clear vision of what you want and you go about learning how to get there? You could be using a positive reinforcement procedure to try and stop an unwanted behavior. Or you could be using what can look like a very similar procedure to teach your learner a set of desired behaviors. It can sound like a difference that makes no difference, but when the root is different so too is the plant that grows from it.
So in this podcast we’re looking at constructional training. My interest is not just how does this effect the training strategies we use with our horses, but also what is the ripple effect into the rest of our lives? Our horses can teach us so much that carries over into our interactions with other people.
When Dominique and I get together to record a podcast we usually don’t have a subject mapped out in advance. These are truly conversations, not planned lectures. When we connected via zoom, Dominique said she had something she wanted to talk about, but she wasn’t going to tell me in advance what it was.
That always makes for the best conversation. Dominique has been wanting to talk about emotions and emotional behavior for a long time. Now finally she was bringing this “cat” out of the bag. It is a fascinating subject. Looking at emotions through the lens of behavior analysis, prompts many changes in our thinking - and our training.
This is part 3 of our conversation with Kyle Hetzel. Kyle is a zoo keeper. He used to work with big cats, sea lions, giraffes, wolves and other wild animals. But he is currently working in the children’s zoo section of a large west coast zoo. Kyle wants to bring what he has been learning from the wild animals to the handling of domestic animals.
In Part 1 Kyle introduced us to some of the exotic animals who were his early teachers. In Part 2 we shifted the conversation to barnyard animals - goats, mini horses and a very large steer named slider. As we continue on with the conversation, the focus is very much on cooperative care.
It’s easy to get stuck in a training rut. Kyle’s work with the zoo animals helps us all to be more creative in our training plans. And he shares with us an effective team training approach that includes the farrier and veterinarian.
I was tempted to call this episode: “Just Because People Tell You Something Can’t Be Done, Doesn’t Mean It Can’t Be Done”. But I thought that might be a little long so I called it instead: “Cow CAN Stand on Three Feet.”
This is part 2 of our conversation with Kyle Hetzel. Kyle is a zoo keeper. In this episode he shares his experiences working with barnyard animals. Kyle started out working with big cats, sea lions, giraffes, wolves and other wild animals. But he is currently working in the children’s zoo section of a large west coast zoo. Kyle wants to bring what he has been learning from the wild animals to the handling of domestic animals.
I met Kyle through my clinics and Science Camp. Kyle shared video of the work he’s been doing with the barnyard animals in the children’s zoo. It was so inspiring. There’s so much “just get it done” handling with horses and other hoofed animals. To see Kyle training the goats and horses under his care for voluntary medical procedures was inspiring. It’s good training. It’s caring training. There’s a lot here that needs to be shared, so that’s what we’re doing in this podcast.
In this episode we talk about cooperative care in handling horses and other barnyard animals. What does cooperative care really mean? Kyle describes in detail the control his animals have throughout the training sessions. Learn about foot care for a steer named Slider, plus the goats, even the giraffes. I ask the question - how do you trim the hind feet of a giraffe? You can find out in this fascinating conversation with Kyle.
There are many paths that bring us to horses. Kyle Hetzel has taken one of the more unusual ones. Kyle is a zoo keeper. He has worked with big cats, wolves, marine mammals, giraffes, but these days he is working with domestic animals in the children’s zoo section of a large west coast zoo.
Working with wild animals has taught Kyle the importance of team work and cooperative care. He wants to bring what he has been learning from the wild animals to the handling of domestic animals. In part one Kyle introduces us to the animals who have been his teachers.
There’s Wyatt the wolf pup who developed cataracts and needed eye drops. There’s Maggie the sea lion. At 33 she was the oldest sea lion in a US zoo. She was rescued from a facility where she had had minimal handling. She now needed specialized care to see her comfortably through her geriatric years. And Rosie a giraffe who was injured as a young animal, who very much made her preferences known to the handlers involved in her on-going rehab. And Kie, another sea lion who taught Kyle to listen carefully to the animals in his care.
In this episode Kyle introduces us to his animal teachers and shares some of the important lessons they taught him.
There were so many titles I could have given this episode. Another good one would have been: “We Haven’t Known What We’ve Known”. That’s a quote from Dr. Jesús Rosales Ruiz. It refers to this huge jig saw puzzle we’ve all been working on that’s called animal training.
But in the end I decided to call the episode “Happy Alligator Toes” because how often do you get to use a title like that? You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out what it means. What would you guess? I wonder if you are anywhere close. To find out, listen to the podcast.
Science Camp was held over the weekend of Feb 19-21. Dominique and I didn’t want it to end so we invited one of the participants, Lisa Clifton Bumpass to come share an afternoon’s conversation with us. Lisa is a dog trainer turned zoo consultant. She’s been a regular attendee at the horse clinics I give in Half Moon Bay CA. What Lisa learns from the horses she takes back to the teams she works with in zoos. It is so much fun to think that the work we’re doing with horses is helping giraffes and alligators and other exotic animals to live more comfortable lives.
In Part 1 of our conversation we talked about constructional training. This week we begin with the difference between extinguishing and abolishing a behavior. From there I ask Lisa to describe the team building she does in her consulting work. We got to watch a beautiful example of this at the beginning of Science Camp. One of the participants, Kyle Ketzel, works at the San Francisco zoo. He shared with us a video of one of the animals in his care.
Since it’s a zoo, you might expect that it would be a video of a giraffe or an elephant, but no. The animal Kyle wanted us to see is Slider, a steer who lives in the children’s zoo. After the fall Science Camp Kyle learned he had only two weeks to prepare Slider for foot care. If the procedure couldn’t be done safely with Slider cooperating calmly throughout, he would need to be sedated.
Kyle described Slider’s previous history with having his feet trimmed as a wrestling match, so Slider’s association with foot care was anything but positive. But what we saw was a relaxed animal who put his own foot up on the trimming block and who stood calmly participating in the procedure.
Three people were involved in the foot trim. Kyle was at Slider’s head so he was the one in charge of reinforcing Slider. A second keeper was kneeling by Slider’s bent knee. She was helping to steady his leg, but even more than that, she was monitoring Slider’s pulse. A third person was trimming his hooves. They were all communicating with one another and with Slider. It was a beautiful example of great team work and great training. I wanted to Lisa to describe the team building work that she does so that is primarily what we talked about in this week’s episode.
Science Camp was held over the weekend of Feb 19-21. What a wonderful, head spinner of an event that was! Dominique and I didn’t want it to end so we invited one of the participants, Lisa Clifton Bumpass to come share an afternoon’s conversation with us. Lisa is a dog trainer turned zoo consultant. She’s been a regular attendee at the horse clinics I give in Half Moon Bay CA. What Lisa learns from the horses she takes back to the teams she works with in zoos. It is so much fun to think that the work we’re doing with horses is helping giraffes and alligators and other exotic animals to live more comfortable lives.
Our conversation with Lisa began with a discussion of constructional; training - one of the main topics of Science Camp. That developed into a consideration of whose needs are being met in a training plan. Just because we are using positive reinforcement doesn’t mean the needs of the learner are being met. The overall training goals may still revolve around meeting our needs.
Or we can swing the pendulum the other way so everything is centered around meeting our learner’s needs - often at the expense of our own well being.
Or we can be truly constructional and meet the needs of everyone. As always, balance is everything. Good constructional training helps us to consider what each member of a training partnership needs to get from the interaction.
Just when you think you’ve said all you need to say about food delivery, you discover you’ve only begun to scratch the surface. The reinforcement patterns play an important role in teaching and maintaining behavior. So when Dominique said she wanted to talk about food deliver, we were off and running into an interesting afternoon’s conversation.
Last year I switched all my clinics over to a virtual format. This year I will be doing the same. Normally, we would never take an entire podcast to talk about these events, but these are not normal times we are living in. The virtual format has opened up so many more opportunities to reach out to people, I wanted to make sure you understand the format and the content of these clinics.
In a sense they are an online course that unfolds through the year. The format means that it doesn’t matter where you live. Geography doesn’t matter. Time zones don’t matter. You can sign up and participate with your horse. You don’t have the stress of travel for either one of you which is one of the many advantages of the virtual clinics.
If you have questions about the clinics, if you want to learn more about what each one covers, this is a great resource for you.
We’ll also be talking about the up-coming clicker expo and the demos I’ll be doing for that event.
To learn even more about the clinics or to register visit my web site: theclickercenter.com and check out the events section for more details.
We recorded this podcast on January 13, a week after the attack on the Capital and the day the House of Representatives was debating the Articles of Impeachment. We’re publishing it on the Martin Luther King Day Holiday, just two days before the Inauguration in what hopefully will be a peaceful transfer of power. We know many people reading this will be wanting to run away at this point. They’re thinking - enough! I listen to these podcasts to get away from the news. I don’t want to run into it here!
We absolutely understand that. This is an episode about training horses. But we were both really shaken by the events of last week. We don’t want to pretend that nothing has happened, that these events are not going on. We need to be paying attention, and so what we chose to talk about in this podcast was what to do with unwanted behavior.
This is a training subject. It seems like the most appropriate topic that we could pick at a time like this. It doesn’t matter which side of the political divide you’re on, the other side is presenting behavior you don’t want. As clicker trainers we’ve been trying to figure out what do you do when you’re presented with behavior you don’t want. That’s what we’ll be exploring in this podcast. The conversation is very much focused on our animal learners, but who knows, through them we may be learning skills that will ripple into our interactions with family, friends, work colleagues, and on into the broader community. Let’s hope so. These skills are very much needed to help calm these very turbulent times we are living through.
We’re in the middle of a fun conversation with Helene Lawler. Helene is a professional dog trainer. If you have listened to the previous episodes you know that she has become balance obsessed. Last week we ended with a question about loopy listening. If you’re familiar with my work, you have heard about loopy training. Helene has used this teaching strategy to develop what she refers to as loopy listening.
Loopy Listening adds more details to the Loopy Training cycle. It reminds you to make note of the small blips in your training. Those moments when your dog or your horse breaks the flow of the training to stare off to the side are significant. Why did the environment suddenly become so distracting? What was going on in your training? When your learner is with you, distractions fall away. Loopy Listening helps us to “listen” to our animal learners so we can respond better to their needs.
Do please listen all the way to the end of this podcast. I’ve added some information about the format of this year’s clinics. I’ve changed the format of the clinics to meet the constraints the virus imposes. But it turns out some good thing can come from a bad situation. The new clinic format, schedule and topics are going to make it so much easier for you to attend the clinics with your horse - no matter where you live. So do check out the clinics at my web site: theclickercenter.com
We’re in the middle of a fun conversation with Helene Lawler. Helene is a professional dog trainer. If you have listened to the previous episodes you know that she has become balance obsessed. It’s so exciting. Once that genie pops out of the bottle, there’s no shoving it back in. Everything changes when you see your training and your learners through the balance lens.
I love talking about balance. Good balance - physical and emotional - sits at the core of everything that I teach. One of my central training beliefs is good balance doesn’t just feel good to us. It feels good to our equine training partners as well. Helene Lawler would say that applies to the dogs she works with as well. Balance matters.
This week we continue our conversation about how she has been applying the work that I’ve been developing for horses to her dog training. We share some fun stories, including one involving stilts and horses. You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out what that’s about.
Helene Lawler is a dog trainer who has become fascinated by balance, so of course we had to have a conversation. What has she been learning from horses that applies to her dog training?
In this week’s episode Dominique asks the question “What is Balance?” Before you listen to the podcast, think about what would you say. Now listen to the podcast to find out how Helene and Alexandra answered her question.
Helene Lawler is a professional dog trainer. She shares her house with 14 herding dogs so to say that she loves dogs is an understatement.
Helene has been a regular listener to these podcasts. That’s what prompted her to attend our first virtual Science Camp which was held in Sept 2020. What ignited Helene’s imagination was the work we did on balance and rope handling.
The day after Science Camp one of her clients presented her with what she thought was a poisoned cue issue. The situation could well have become a poisoned cue if it had continued much longer. But Helene was looking at all of her training with fresh eyes. Her client saw poisoned cues. Helene saw a balance issue - not in the dog, but in the handler. A few changes later and the dog was performing beautifully.
Helene has continued to explore what equine balance has to offer the canine community, so of course we wanted her share what she has been discovering. We had a lively - and lengthy conversation - so this is Part One of a wonderful afternoon’s conversation about balance - what that means for horses, dogs and humans.
This is part three of our conversation with Mary Hunter. Just before Thanksgiving we spent a delightful afternoon catching up with Mary. We started out talking about gardening and the growing of cilantro. That led us to extinction and then to shaping and finding approximations that create early success.
We talked about Carol Dweck’s work on growth versus fixed mindsets. We described several strategies for becoming more creative in finding constructional approaches to training, We even talked about Dr Doug Tallamy’s backyard national parks and my other podcast - Horses for Future.
We came to a lovely stopping place. At this point we had talked already for a couple of hours. We needed to stop. But then I asked Mary if there were any other topics she had wanted to explore - possibly for another recording session.
Mary hesitated for a moment. Should she even bring this up? We had been talking for a very long time. It was the middle of the afternoon when we started and now it was getting dark. She’d just share this one idea - for later. But that didn’t work because the subject was helmets.
Helmets! Why helmets? What was that about? We needed to know more. We were too impatient to record it at another time, so here it is as part of this current conversation.
What is the connection between riding helmets, recycling and horse training? You’re about to find out.
Mary Hunter is a behavior analyst. She coaches people with their horse and dog training. She was our guide through the Listen and Learn Audio course on Applied Behavior Analysis.
Our conversation with Mary Hunter began not with horses, but with gardening. When Mary shares a story whether it is about gardens or horses, there is always a point it. She uses her stories to illustrate important training concepts. So our conversation about growing plants - and sometimes failing at growing plants - took us to a discussion of extinction, finding the right approximations to build success early on, and constructional training.
Dominique asked an important question - how do you become skilled at finding the right approximations for your horse? Her question led us to several useful strategies for developing creative training skills. They are described in detail in this week’s podcast.
Episode 124: Mary Hunter Pt 1: Growing Cilantro - Yes It Is About Training!
This week begins a series with Mary Hunter. Mary is a horse owner, a training coach for both horses and dogs, and an applied behavior analyst. She has a great blog: StaleCheerios.com. She organizes the annual Art and Science of Animal Training conference, and she together with Dr. Jesús Rosales Ruiz, she has written the PORTL Manual. She was also our guide for the Listen and Learn Audio course on Applied Behavior Analysis.
Just before Thanksgiving we spent a delightful afternoon catching up with Mary. We started out talking about gardening and the growing of cilantro. That led us to extinction and then to shaping and finding approximations that create early success.
A windy day was the spark behind a conversation about managing horses when their energy is up. That led in turn to stimulus control and remembering how powerful small changes in the environment can be. And that led us to a favorite subject - using the training to ask questions so our horses have a real say in what we do together. What we are really talking about is listening well.
This week Dominique launched us into an interesting conversation about reinforcers. If you don’t want to use food, or you want to use food creatively, what are some of your options with horses.
With dogs there can be so many fun ways to reinforce behavior besides using a food reward. You can toss a ball, play tug, give a belly scratch. With horses because feeding treats is such an easy reinforcer to use, we seem to get into more of a rut in our thinking. So this week we explore different options.
We begin by talking about how grazing can be used as a reinforcer. It’s still using food, but often people fight against grass instead of using it. Just like any treat delivery process, if you want to use the opportunity to graze, you have to go through a teaching process with your horse.
Many people close their pastures at this time of the year to keep their horses from churning them into mud. Especially if you board your horse, you may be doing a lot of hand grazing. That means his is a great time of the year to work on this lesson. You’ll be turning grass into a powerful reinforcer you can use in your training. And your horse will be learning a lot about polite manners and emotional control.
We talk about non-food reinforcers, as well. It all helps to make the training more interesting for your horse.
The rest of this sentence is find a look that pleases your eye. When you look at a horse what do you like? If you’re looking at ten pictures of your beloved horse, what characteristics make you choose this photo over that one? This is the question we explore in this week’s podcast. What pleases your eye, and why is this important to think about when you train, and especially when you feed your horse?
This week’s episode explores the stimulus control quadrants developed by Dr. Jesús Rosales Ruiz. When I say stimulus control many of you are probably thinking about the four criteria that are used to judge if a cue is under full stimulus control. This is not what Jesús is talking about.
He’s looking instead at the conditions under which learning occurs. It’s a fascinating discussion. Don’t fight extinction is an important part of the stimulus control quadrants. You can find out what this means in this week’s episode.
This week's podcast was prompted by a question a listener sent in. She had a terrifying escape with her two horses from one of the California fires. Her experience prompted a question about choice. Her question led us to a discussion of the work of Dr. Jesús Rosales Ruiz on stimulus control. This is a short episode. We decided to introduce the topic this week and then to dive in more deeply in our next podcast.
You’ve been reinforcing your horse for the good behavior you want, and now suddenly that process stops. You’ve just thrown your horse into an extinction process. You’re about to experience the emotional fallout that creates.
Stopping positive reinforcement is how we normally describe the extinction process, but what happens when someone stops punishing a behavior? This is another way in which a horse can experience extinction. What does this process create? And does this help us to understand some of the extreme behavior horses sometimes show early on in their introduction to clicker training? That’s the twist on extinction that this podcast explores.
A wrap up of the recent Science Camp sparked a lively conversation centered around choice. We end the podcast with a story that illustrates what choice looks like. We get there by talking about zoo programs, trailering, keystone behaviors, and errorless learning.
Dominique loves to learn. She is forever finding interesting articles and scientific studies for us to discuss. This week we consider one that looks at machine learning and the 85% rule. This doesn’t sound as though it could possibly be related to equine hugs, but it is.
You can learn anything from the internet. Google any subject and you will get a long list of links. But having access doesn’t always help you to know where to start or how to proceed. In this week’s podcast Dr. Susan Friedman lays out a road map to help you in your exploration of any question you want to explore in depth.
Dr Susan Friedman is our guest for this conversation about her recent article: “Why Animals Need Trainers Who Adhere to the Least Intrusive Principle: Improving Animal Welfare and Honing Trainers’ Skills”
This is an update of her 2004 article: “What’s Wrong With This Picture? Effectiveness Is Not Enough”.
When Susan began consulting at zoos and other animal care facilities, effectiveness was often the first and only consideration. Does the procedure get the job done? Does it get the animal moved from one enclosure to another? The answer might be yes, but at what cost? If you use a water hose, what is the fallout? What opportunities for improved welfare have you given up?
Effectiveness is not enough. The hierarchy of strategies for humane intervention puts the individual’s welfare front and center.
We explore the role that ethics plays in our training choices. How do you balance ethical considerations with scientific inquiry?
Susan is revisiting this subject in her new article. We’re asking her what has changed? What are the updates or the elements that she wants to highlight as she revisits the hierarchy of procedural interventions.
Dr. Susan Friedman joins us for a discussion of the hierarchy of least intrusive, most affective (LIMA) intervention strategies. She has just written an update of her 2004 article: “What’s wrong with this picture? Effectiveness is not enough.”
In Part 1 of this conversation we begin where just about every conversation begins these days - with the corona virus. The wearing of masks - whether it should be voluntary or mandated led us into a discussion of control which gave us the perfect segue into a discussion of Susan’s two articles and why she felt it was important to revisit this subject by writing a new article.
Last week we began a two part conversation with Suzanne Kernek. Suzanne is a horse owner and a professional dog trainer. She’s also a regular attendee of my Half Moon Bay CA clinics.
At the clinics I always love our evening conversations where we talk about the connections that Suzanne has found between the work that I teach and the dog training that is her everyday life.
At the end of last week’s episode Suzanne had just commented on the connection between physical and emotional balance. We’ll pick up there as Suzanne explores the question: is this link as clear in dogs as it is in horses?
We’ll be talking about the many ways in which the rope handling that I developed for the horses can be used with dogs. I don’t have a dog, so I rely on my friends who train dogs to test this out for me. When we look at the rope handling from the perspective of using it with dogs, I always find details that make the work even clearer for horses.
We introduce these Equiosity podcasts by saying that they are about all things equine with a special emphasis on the horse human bond. So why this week are we talking to a dog trainer? It’s not just that many horse people have dogs which makes these crossover conversations of interest to many listeners. More than that, with Suzanne Kernek we’re going to be revisiting the rope handling that I teach, but we’re going to be looking at it from a different perspective.
Suzanne is a horse owner and a professional dog trainer. She’s a regular participant at my Half Moon Bay CA clinics. I always enjoy our evening conversations where we talk the connections that Suzanne has found between the work that I teach and the dog training that is her everyday life. I have wanted to have her on the podcast for a very long time to talk about how she has translated the rope handling that was developed for horses to the dogs she works with. This shift in perspective I think helps us to be better teachers no matter the species or the size of the animals we work with.
Suzanne runs a puppy day care and training program. We started this conversation just as Suzanne had settled ten puppies down for their nap. It speaks well of her management techniques that we were able to talk for over an hour and a half without interruption. We covered many topics beginning with the new Stay at Home clinics, and then we shifted to the topic of rope handling.
Many trainers think in terms of formal training sessions. Others think more in terms of a flow that simply shifts location and emphasis. In this episode we explore both approaches.
In Part 3 Michele Pouliot describes how she assembles a freestyle routine using back chaining. In Parts 1 and 2 of our conversation with Michele we learned how she uses platforms to teach the foundation behavior that she uses in her freestyle routines. Now in this episode she describes how she links these behaviors together to create a consistent performance.
We make the connection to dressage tests and other patterns that we ride. So even if you can't see yourself ever teaching a liberty freestyle routine, there's a lot here for horse people.
We have a long wish list of things we wanted to talk to Michele Pouliot about. Michele is a canine trainer. Many of you will know her through the Clicker Expo where she is a member of the faculty. Michele wears several “hats”. She was the driving force behind converting the training program at Guide Dogs for the Blind completely over to clicker training. One of her other “hats” is canine freestyle. In this week’s podcast Michele talks about how platforms can be used to teach the behaviors that have made her dogs standout performers in the freestyle world. The work she describes applies wonderfully to horses.
Canine trainer, Michele Pouliot joins us for a discussion of platform training: what, why and how.
In May Dominique needed to move her three horses to a new barn. Over the years two of her horses had become non-loaders so Dominique was dreading the move. She knew she couldn’t wait until the last minute and hope for the best. Instead she began in March teaching her horses to load willingly, happily, voluntarily onto a trailer. Her takeaway - she loved every minute of it. Her horses all load voluntarily onto the trailer. On moving day it took less that five minutes to load all three horses. In this episode she describes what she did.
We begin by sharing some of our takeaways from Dr. Susan Friedman's fabulous interview. If you've listened to her podcast (episode 104), you can see how yours compare with ours. This discussion led us to more "Easter eggs" and to trailer loading.
Dr Susan Friedman is our guest for this very special 2 hour podcast. Normally we would divide up such a long conversation into many parts and spread them out over several weeks so they fit better into the rush of your life. But this conversation is perfect for binge listening. We didn’t want to make you wait, especially given the topic.
For this podcast we’ve shifted away from horse training, and we’re looking at how the corona virus is impacting our lives. The question I wanted Susan to help me with is how do we find our power? How do we reframe what is happening to us so our actions are not so fear driven?
The corona virus has shown us how fast our behavior can be changed by negative reinforcement. We are staying home, staying six feet apart, washing our hands, wearing masks - all to avoid becoming sick. My question to Susan was: I can certainly see how powerful negative reinforcement is, but for so many reasons it isn’t sustainable. Apart from the emotional toll it puts on us, there’s the paradox of avoidance. The more effective it is at changing behavior, the more ineffective it becomes at sustaining that change. That’s especially relevant when it comes to eliminating a virus.
The conversation begins with a discussion of escape and avoidance behavior. Then we make the pivot with this wonderful quote from Susan: “positive reinforcement is such a pervasive actor in our lives.” That’s a gem and Susan gives us many more. We begin with a discussion that’s centered around fear and end with hope.
This podcast is over two hours long. Don’t let that keep you from listening. We have divided it into segments so you can listen in small units. Or you can binge listen to the whole conversation. Whichever way you choose, this podcast will give you a lot to think about.
Enjoy!
In part 2 of our conversation with Cindy Martin and Mary Hunter we talk about PORTL. (Portable Operant Research and Teaching Lab)
Cindy Martin hosts a clinic for me at her farm in Arkansas.
Mary Hunter is our co-presenter in our new Listen and Learn audio course on applied behavior analysis. During a morning’s conversation after the 2019 clinic, the discussion turned to PORTL.
Mary truly is our PORTL master. When she was working on her master’s degree at the University of North Texas, every week the graduate students in the behavior analysis department would get together to play PORTL. Actually, originally it would have been Kay Laurence’s table game, Genabacab.
Under Jesús’ direction the game gradually morphed into PORTL: the portable operant research and teaching lab. Table games had been used to help handlers improve their teaching skills. Now they could also be used to conduct research.
Mary’s Master’s degree used PORTL to investigate the effects of what are commonly referred to as desperation clicks. What effect, if any, does one bad click have on the rest of your training? Rather than frustrate lab rats, Mary used her fellow students to explore this question. Her research was published in the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior.
In 2019 she and Dr. Jesus Rosales Ruiz also published the Portal manual. The manual shares lessons that were developed over seven years in undergraduate and graduate courses and also in professional workshops.
I’ve had the very great treat of playing PORTL with Mary. That’s what we’ll be describing as we pick up again with this week’s podcast.
Equiosity Episode 102: Emotions and Emotional Behavior - Cindy Martin and Mary Hunter In a conversation with Cindy Martin and Mary Hunter we discuss the “split in the church”. You’ll have to listen to the podcast to learn what that metaphor means in relation to training. It opened up a conversation about using different markers for different behaviors, jackpots, reinforcement is a process not a thing, reliable loops, treatless clicks, and changing behavior cycles one element at a time. All of this led us to a discussion of emotions and emotional behavior.
The corona virus has forced the cancellation of all my spring 2020 clinics. I can’t get to my clinics, but at least I can share this conversation that was recorded last year at the spring Arkansas clinic.
At the end of the clinic, several regular attendees stayed on for a relaxed evening visit. After dinner, I set up my computer, got out my microphone and we recorded a clinic wrap up. Joining me were our clinic host, Cindy Martin, and Anita Schnee, Karen Quirk, and Mary Hunter.
Mary is our presenter in our new “Listen and Learn Audio Course: An Introduction to Behavior Analysis”. So this podcast is a great way to introduce her to you. To learn more about the audio course visit: equiosity.com
The topic we jumped into was a discussion of the difference between movement cycles and loopy training. What is the relationship between these two terms and how does that help us design better training plans?
We have reached a major milestone - our 100th Episode. to celebrate we are announcing the publication of a project we have been working on for this past year. We are delighted to introduce our Listen and Learn Audio Course - An Introduction to Applied Behavior Analysis.
Mary Hunter (Stalecheerios, The Art and Science of Animal Training Conference, PORTL, Behavior Explorer) is our guide through this course. To learn more visit: equiosity.com
This isn't all we talk about in this episode. Dominique will be moving her horses soon to a new boarding barn. She's been preparing her horses for the move by focusing on trailer loading lessons. We talk about several strategies to help her with two of her horses who are reluctant loaders.
We conclude this four part series with a discussion of choice as it relates to concept training.
Last week we described some fun games that make use of concept training. In this episode we begin with the question - how do you teach concept training?
Last week we began a conversation with Vidyha Karthekiyan. If you want to learn more about her training, you can visit her web site and facebook page - the unlikelytricksters.com. There you will meet Beanie, her site hound and her two cats. From that you can correctly infer that the animals in Vidyha’s life are not horses.
If you listened to last week’s podcast, you will know we are very much on the same wavelength when it comes to our animals. She works with dogs and cats, we work with horses. The difference in species doesn’t matter. Concept training can be taught to them all.
In this episode we define what concept training means, and then Vidyha describes some of the games she plays with Beanie. She uses match to sample to play card games we remember from childhood - Go Fish and War. Intrigued? So were we, so of course we invited Vidyha to join us for a conversation on concept training. What does that mean and how do you teach it? Have fun!
Concept training really lets our animals show us how smart they are. It is tremendous fun and it widens out the repertoire of behaviors you can ask for. Many of us have been introduced to concept training via Ken Ramirez and his many presentation at the Clicker Expo. He has inspired us to explore match to sample and other forms of concept training. One of the many people who has been inspired by Ken's work is Vidhya Karthikeyan. I met Vidhya at the January 2020 Clicker Expo. Her use of concept training is so creative I wanted to share what she's been doing. So this conversation is about concept training, but it began with a detour into husbandry care so that's where we'll begin.
This is a very different kind of podcast. Dominique and I were at the Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. We had just come from the Saturday night dinner where I was given a very special award. After the presentation I was joined by Mary Hunter, Caeli Collins, Suzanne Kernek, Katie Bartlett, Natalie Zielinski, Michaela Hempen and Cindy Martin to celebrate. This is the recording of that celebration.
This concludes our three part conversation with Lindsay Wood on counter conditioning. In Part 1 we began with the basics of counter conditioning which means we began with classical conditioning. In her work at shelters, that’s where Lindsay had begun, but she has been expanding her understanding of those protocols by looking at them more through an operant lens.
In Part 3 we continue this exploration of counter conditioning by exploring a series of related subjects. Following these threads takes us to a deeper, more robust understanding of counter conditioning.
Last week we began a conversation with Lindsay Wood Brown. Lindsay is a member of the Clicker Expo faculty. She is a board-certified applied animal behaviorist (ACAAB) with a master's degree in animal behavior. She is a Karen Pryor Academy (KPA) course developer and has served as a KPA faculty member since 2012.
Lindsay consults for animal shelters across the country. She previously served as the Director of Operations for Lynchburg Humane Society in Virginia and as the Director of Animal Training and Behavior for the Humane Society of Boulder Valley in Boulder, Colorado. The shelter work means for certain protocols Lindsay has seen hundreds of case histories. That’s the experience we wanted to draw on in this discussion of counter conditioning. At the end of part one we were stressing how important it is to adapt any of the protocols you read about to the individual you are working with. We pick up there as we look at counter conditioning from an operant perspective.
Lindsay Wood Brown joins us for a conversation on counter conditioning. Dominique starts us off by describing the situation she has with her easily distracted dog. The behavior she’s dealing with is something many of us have to contend with - whether it is a dog or a horse who is exhibiting the behavior.
In this conversation we begin with the basics - what is counter conditioning? Lindsay describes how she would have talked about it earlier in her career. She then brings us forward to her current understanding of these procedures. The shift takes her from classical conditioning to operant. The change helps her to refine the procedures and gives her a systematic strategy to progress with an animal.
In this podcast Dominique describes how she uses video analysis in her training. She adds details and some wonderful surprises in how video can be used to improve your training.
This can sound like a dry topic, but it is anything but.
The January Clicker Expo was the starting point to our conversation. We talk about what is new in Loopy Training and other concepts. One thing leads to another and we ended up talking about training pop outs, note taking, habit formation and the advantage of video records.
Clicker trained horses want to play with us. That's a good thing, but there are places where a little less "Pick me! Pick me!" enthusiasm would make life easier.
When you have more than one horse and you are trying to get just one out of the pasture gate, how do you deal with all this eagerness to be with you? That's the question we focus on in this continuation of our conversation with Cindy Martin. What are some strategies for managing multiple horses so the situation remains safe and pleasant for both horses and handlers.
Cushings disease is something more and more horses owners are dealing with in part because we are keeping our horses into their old age. Cindy Martin provides a comprehensive starting point for understanding this disease - what are the early symptoms, how do you test for it, manage it, what is the difference between cushings disease and insulin resistance, what on-line resources can help you?
Cindy Martin joins us for Part 1 of a three hour conversation. Cindy is a treasure. Anyone who has been on line in the clicker training community will have met Cindy. She is always there, generously stepping in to help people with their training and health care questions.
In this episode Cindy shares the many resources she's found to help people manage their horses' feet.
The publication of the new, revised edition of "The Click That Teaches: A Step By Step Guide in Pictures" created an opportunity to look back over the past twenty years of clicker training. What changes have we seen in the training community? The conversation took us to errorless learning and the spring Clicker Science Camp. Check out the show notes at equioisty.com for a great PORTL example of errorless learning.
We use the occasion of the publication of the new revised edition of "The Click That Teaches: A Step By Step Guide in Pictures" as the launching point for a discussion of some of the changes we've seen in over the years in positive reinforcement training.
Dominique wants to transition two of her horses over to being barefoot. She's gathered a good team around her, and she's been learning about boots and other options that can help her horses make a successful transition. This week we're interviewing a member of that team, Miriam Braun. Miriam is a barefoot trimmer who is skilled in selecting and fitting hoof boots.
Every week I introduce the podcast by saying it is about all things equine. For the most part the conversation has focused on training. This week we’re going to broaden our focus to include a discussion of foot care.
Two weeks ago we did a podcast on the training of good foot care manners. This week we are joined by foot care specialist and anatomy specialist, Paige Poss. The conversation centers around a project that Dominique is exploring with two of her horses. She wants to transition her horses to barefoot. She has lots of questions. She’s been doing a lot of research, so of course we want to share with you what she’s been learning.
We need your help!
In our first season we did two podcasts with Dr. Michaela Hempen. In the first she explained how single-subject design studies work. In the second she described a research project she is conducting that is exploring a behavioral approach to reducing cribbing. This is much more than an update on that project. This is a request for help.
Please listen to this podcast to find out what is needed.
Susan Kayne, founder of the thoroughbred rescue Unbridled Thoroughbreds, begins by talking about what can be done to help ex-race horses and other unwanted horses. She goes on to describe the initial training involved in re-homing off-the-track-thoroughbreds.
Susan Kayne, the founder of Unbridled Thoroughbreds, an organization that rescues off-the-track thoroughbreds talks about her work. This interview is a bit of a change from usual focus on training theory, but as you’ll hear in part 2 of this interview, an understanding of horses, behavior, and training is a must when you are working with many of the horses that end up in horse rescues. In Part 1 Susan outlines the problem, and in Part 2 we will pivot away from the grim statistics to consider the solutions.
As we continue our discussion with Manda Scott, the podcast begins with the question - what do you do with your manure pile? It isn't just how do you get rid of unsightly piles around your barn. How do you use it to regenerate your fields? It's a win-win situation. Healthier pastures are good for your horses and for the planet.
Manda Scott takes us through the basics of maintaining healthy, sustainable pastures. We can not only grow healthier pastures for our horses, we can sequester carbon to help the planet. It's a win-win.
Horses are grazing animals. But for far too many horses the grass they are eating is making them sick. Why? What can we do about it? And how is this related to the climate change crisis? Find out in this interview with Manda Scott, veterinarian, author, and climate crisis activist.
Then join us on facebook at Horses for Future and learn more about how you can make a difference for the health of your horse and the planet. Horse people can make a difference!
We conclude our conversation with Anja Beran with a discussion of the current system in Germany for performance testing young warmbloods and the problems that creates.
Sound horses - that's what we all want. The question is does your riding contribute to keeping your horses sound? That means so much more than fit. It means are you riding in such a way that your horse will be stay sound well into his twenties? Anja talks about classical dressage and the role that it plays in developing a horse's balance for the good of the horse. This is followed by a discussion of her work between Alexandra and Dominique.
This episode begins a very special series. In July I attended Anja Beran’s Annual International Workshop. I was accompanied by eight other clicker trainers. At the end of the week Anja sat down with us for an evening of questions. I began by asking Anja for her definition of classical dressage. From there the conversation ranged over a variety of questions, including one from Heather Binns on the use of bits, spurs, and whips.
I know many in the clicker training community are unequivocally opposed to the use of these tools. But when you hear Anja’s explanation of how she uses these tools it, it may not change your mind for your own practice, but it may help you to understand why others choose to use them.
This is a double decker episode. Dominique was not able to join us for the interview, but I wanted her reaction to Anja’s interview. When she first heard Anja talking about bits and spurs, she sent me a distressed email. Why are we presenting this interview? She had heard similar words from other trainers. Everyone says whips are arm extenders, but what she has seen is at some point they aren’t used to just point, they are used to hit.
The words she was hearing at first made her very uncomfortable. She was not at the Workshop so she had not watched Anja Beran’s training as I have done now over three years. She has not seen the horses nor has she experienced what I also know - you can ride horses into soundness. But after listening to Parts 2 and 3 of the interview, Dominique came to understand that Anja Beran very much shares our ethical foundation. The welfare of the horse sits first and foremost at the center of her training.
This is an important interview. I feel very privileged that Anja spent so much time with our group. It was a great pleasure to spend the week watching her beautiful horses. It is important to preserve classical dressage. It is part of our riding heritage and there is much that can be learned from the old masters that is of benefit to our horses. I hope you enjoy this interview series with Anja Beran.
We've been visiting with Becky Chapman, a classical dressage riding instructor, biomechanics coach, and clicker trainer. Last week Becky shared with you the story of Mack. We should have warned you in advance that tissues would be needed. From triumphs to tragedy our horses take us on quite the journey. But as Becky said so beautifully, better to feel the sorrow than never to have known our beloved horses.
We also met Philly, her daughter’s pony, the horse Becky rode through classical dressage master, Philippe Karl’s teacher instructor program.
And now in this final installment of our conversation with Becky we are meeting the newest addition to her equine family, Rosie, an off the track thoroughbred.
We conclude our interview with Becky Chapman with a discussion of the key components that are central to the training programs we have each developed.
Becky Chapman is a biomechanics coach and classical dressage trainer. She runs a training facility in Suffolk, in the UK. All the horses in her yard are clicker trained. Last week you heard about Becky’s simulator.
It’s a wonderful machine. I remember during one of my visits Becky and I spent a morning exploring the single-rein riding techniques that I teach. It was fascinating to see what the computer was telling us as we made small changes in the way the rider used the reins. It was so much fun to see the details of the single-rein riding confirmed by the simulator.
The simulator veered us off into Becky’s current coaching. My next question brought us back to horses and the story of Mack, the horse that took Becky to the prestigious Horse of the Year show.
This is Part Three of our conversation with Becky Chapman. Becky is a classical dressage riding instructor and biomechanics coach. She is also a clicker trainer. Becky has been sharing the journey which brought her to clicker training. Last week you heard the story of Gazelle, a mare who introduced herself to Becky by rearing up and falling over sideways. Becky still bought her and tried to turn her into a riding horse.
She had two major falls from her that resulted in serious injuries that required long recovery times. In an odd way these injuries turned out to be a good thing. The long recovery gave Becky time to study subjects that were outside the normal British Horse Society teaching curriculum that had been her original formation.
After she recovered from the second fall, she began riding with Mary Wanless. Becky described Mary as a very experienced biomechanics coach who approaches horse instructing with a physicist’s brain.
Becky’s interpretation of Mary’s work is that most riders are part of the problem. So the question is how do we help riders to become part of the solution? That’s the question we’ll be exploring as we rejoin the conversation.
In June Alexandra Kurland was visiting with Becky Chapman. Becky runs a training facility in Suffolk, in the UK. One evening they sat down together for what turned into a long and fascinating conversation. In Episode 1 Becky shared her early steps into the horse world. We stopped just as she was about to introduce us to Gazelle, and the drama that came with her. This episode jumps back in where we left off.
Becky Chapman is a classical riding instructor and biomechanics coach. And she is also a clicker trainer. In June she joined us for a three hour conversation that ranged over many topics. We've divided it into five episodes. In Episode 1 Becky shares with us how she got started with horses. Becky is a great story teller. Her background is one that is shared by many of us who have always loved horses and who know about the drama that horses often bring with them.
We’re continuing on with our conversation with Ann Edie. Ann is blind. She uses a miniature horse named Panda as her guide. Last week we stopped at a point where we were asking Ann about the transition from command based to cue based training. This isn’t something that is unique to using a guide horse. If you have come to clicker training from traditional training where you have been told you have to get tougher with your horse so he’ll respect you, this question will resonate with you.
We’re continuing on with our conversation with Ann Edie. Ann is blind. She uses a miniature horse named Panda as her guide. Last week Ann and I talked about why we were interested in training a guide horse. Panda’s training has turned her into a super "tour guide". She's so good at her job Ann is learning much more about the neighborhood she lives in. That’s where we stopped, so that’s where we’ll pick up in this week’s conversation.
Last week we began a conversation with Ann Edie. Ann is blind. Instead of a dog, she uses a miniature horse named.
We’ve been talking a lot about cues in the recent podcasts. There is no better way to illustrate the concepts we’ve been exploring than to talk about Panda’s training and the job she does for Ann.
As we normally do, we’ve divided our conversation up into smaller segments. This is part two of that larger conversation. We began last week with the contrast between command and cue based training. We’ll begin here with a question Dominique asked about why Ann chose Panda as her guide.
Panda is a miniature horse with an unusual job. She's a guide for her blind owner. We’ve been talking a lot about cues in the recent podcasts. I can think of no better way to illustrate the concepts we’ve been exploring than to talk about Panda’s training and the job she does for her owner, Ann Edie. This is part one of our conversation with Ann. We begin with some history and the contrast between commands and cues.
This week’s episode focuses on antecedents. What are some of the factors that influence the behavior you are seeing? How can you set your learners up for success? Whether you are trying to solve a behavior problem, or you’re teaching a new skill, what comes before offers a lot of fertile ground for behavior change.
In the second half of this conversation we continue with the theme of cues evolve. Cues should evolve because the behaviors they are associated with are also evolving. What does that mean? Is anticipation a problem or is it a good thing? How do we stabilize cues? What is the "What Happens If . . . " game? Find out in this week's episode.
After our recent podcasts with Sarah Owings, Dominique and I had another long conversation about cues. Dominique was particularly interested in some comments I made at the end of the last podcast with Sarah about anticipation and the get ready, get set, go way in which cues evolve. We began by talking about how you can either push against some natural tendencies or learn to use them. An example was transforming grass from what is to us a distraction into a reinforcer that we can use effectively. This led us on to a discussion of rope handling.
We’ve come to the last installment of our conversation with Sarah Owings. In the previous episodes we looked at two different ways of thinking about building cues. In one the handler works hard to remove any body language hints. In the other the handler acknowledges that animals are super observant so she lets the cues evolve out of the shaping process.
We ended the previous episode with this statement: "Our conversation has brought us to a milestone. We have reached this recognition that our animals are communicating to us and we can allow their behavior to modify ours."
So now it’s time to see where these two different models for teaching cues takes us.
Part Three of our conversation with Sarah Owings continues our discussion of cues - how our ideas have changed over time in how we teach them.
This is Part Two of our conversation with Sarah Owings. Sarah is a dog trainer. It may seem odd that in a podcast about all things equine, we are talking about dogs, but there is a lot of value in looking at what people are doing with other species. I learned a long time ago that the way to expand a field is not from within, but by bringing in fresh ideas from outside. So I love going to the Clicker Expo and sitting in on the presentations of other members of the faculty.
Sarah is on the Clicker Expo faculty as well. One of the characteristics all the faculty have in common is we are all life long learners. When we aren’t presenting, we are sitting in on each other’s talks. So this year when I gave my talk on “Cues evolve out of the shaping process” Sarah was sitting in the audience. We chatted afterwards about the presentation but there wasn’t enough time to really have the conversation we both wanted. Not at the Expo. We both had other presentations to get to. But not to worry. It just gave us the perfect excuse to record a podcast together. That has two great advantages. The first is Dominique got to join us for the conversation, and the second is you get to listen in.
So in this week’s episode Sarah describes for us the process she uses for teaching cues. Sarah says at the beginning what she teaches is evolving. To understand what she means by this, we describe the process for teaching cues that we both encountered when we first started to explore clicker training. For both my horses and Sarah’s dogs we very quickly decided this procedure wasn’t for us. It’s interesting to see the convergence of ideas as we work with two very different species. Sarah then describes her current procedure for introducing cues which leads to many more questions.
Sarah Owings joins us for a conversation about cues, but first we begin with a discussion about progressive education and puzzle solving. Before she became a professional dog trainer Sarah taught kindergarten in a progressive school that valued "brave learners". We talk about what that means for both children and our animal learners.
After four weeks listening to our panel discussion on duration, you may think it’s time to move on to another topic. But you would be wrong! The panel discussion prompted a revisiting of one of the strategies we talked about - the 300 Peck Pigeon lesson. We could easily have called this episode “Teaching Better”. Twenty years on from the original development of this lesson, what have we learned? What has changed? The answer is we are loopy!
Equiosity Podcast - Episode 55: A Celebration! Panel on Duration: Part 4
This is Part Four of our panel discussion on duration. We invited our guests from our first year of podcasts to join us. So we have Hannah Brannigan, Nancy Kelly, Michaela Hempen, Cindy Martin, Mary Concannon, and Jane Jackson. With such a great group of panelists we had a lot to talk about!
Our celebration of a year of podcasting continues on with our panel discussion on duration. We invited Hannah Brannigan, Nancy Kelly, Michaela Hempen, Cindy Martin, Mary Concannon and Jane Jackson to join us. This week Nancy talks about the CIA cats, and by CIA she is not referring to the Culinary Institute of America.
As we talk about strategies for building duration, we focus on the importance of establishing clear criteria, building the base unit well, alternating between different types of behavior, and taking breaks to prevent fatigue.
Enjoy!
This is episode 53 which means we’re starting our second year of podcasting! We’re continuing to celebrate this milestone with a panel discussion. As you’ll recall from last week, we invited all the guests from our 2018 podcasts to gather with us around a virtual kitchen table, or if you prefer the image of us all sitting together near a blazing fire, that works too. We invited Hannah Brannigan, Nancy Kelly, Michaela Hempen, Cindy Martin, Mary Concannon and Jane Jackson to join us in a discussion centered around one of Dominique's favorite topics - and that’s how do you build duration?
In Part One Michaela and I had just finished describing a process for extending duration by cueing units of behavior. This technique comes to us from another great trainer, Kay Laurence. We were shifting from “how-to” questions to another equally important topic. It’s not so much do you know how to extend the duration of a behavior, but are you comfortable asking for more?
Cindy Martin was about to jump into the conversation to answer that question when I cued the music. I made you wait until this week to find out what our panelists had to say on this topic.
So this episode picks up again where we left off.
Enjoy!
We’re celebrating! Episode 52 marks the end of one very full year of podcasting. We’re celebrating this milestone with a special event. We’ve invited all of the guests who joined us in this first year of podcasting to come back and join us for a special panel discussion on duration.
So we’re joined in this podcast by Hannah Brannigan, Nancy Kelly, Michaela Hempen, Cindy Martin, Mary Concannon, and Jane Jackson. Through the marvels of technology we gathered around a virtual kitchen table and had a great discussion about training. It is always a treat to have that many skilled trainers joining the conversation. And the best part is you get to listen in!
Enjoy!
Last week, as you’ll recall, we had a special guest - a surprise visit from Dr. Jesus Rosales Ruiz. Dominique and I were discussing some reading she’s been doing in Paul Chance’s book, Learning and Behavior. We were stumbling over the differences between schedules of reinforcement, rates of reinforcement, and variable reinforcement. Each one is describing different aspect of reinforcement, but it’s easy to get them tangled up so you forget which definition goes where.
They remind me of all the power cords that wrap around the top of my desk. As much as I try to keep them tidy and separate, they seem to twist themselves together into a confusing knot. At the beginning of last week’s episode Dominique and I were getting ourselves twisted into our own version of a knot as we began a discussion of these terms. So I enlisted the help of Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz to help sort us out.
On the last night of the Art and Science of Animal training Conference in Dallas Texas, we found a semi quiet room in which to record. My intent was to send Dominique just a ten or fifteen minute quick audio postcard, but once we got started, it was hard to stop! So here is the second half of my conversation with Jesús.
Enjoy!
Schedules of reinforcement, rates of reinforcement, variable reinforcement - these terms can become very confusing. They remind me of all the power cords that wrap around the top of my desk. As much as I try to keep them tidy and separate, they seem to twist themselves together into a confusing knot. We were certainly getting twisted into a confusing knot as we began a discussion of these terms. So I enlisted the help of Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz to help sort out them out. He is sending us all a postcard from the annual Art and Science of Animal Training conference. Enjoy!
What have you been reading recently? Dominique has just started Paul Chance’s “Learning and Behavior”. She jumped straight to a chapter on reinforcement schedules. It sparked an interesting conversation centered around the question of how to build duration into the behaviors you’re teaching without creating frustration. In this week’s episode I describe a teaching strategy years that I developed years ago that I refer to as “the 300 peck pigeon” lesson.
Episode 48 Jane Jackson: Part 4: Something New!
This week concludes our conversation with Jane Jackson - and what an ending it is! Jane shares with us another great procedure she used with her horses in which she introduced something new into their environment every day.
In this week’s episode Jane Jackson describes a procedure she used to help her very sensitive, very vigilant horse become comfortable walking with her out away from the barn. Jane followed a five day pattern. Day One was exploration day. Day two was foundation lessons day. On day three she built short chains using the foundation behaviors. On day four she introduced a relatively new behavior. And on day five she combined that new behavior with the foundation lessons to produce even longer chains. On day six she moved to a new location and began the process all over again. She describes in detail what she did on each of these days - and even more important - why.
Our conversation with Jane Jackson continues as she introduces us to her horse, Percy. Percy is a sensitive, athletic, smart thoroughbred cross who sits on the fringes of any bell shaped curve you might want to fit him into. He's presented Jane with many training puzzles. In this week's podcast she shares how she started him under saddle - and the monkey wrench he threw into that process, along with many other stories. We're heading towards a description of a procedure Jane developed to help Percy feel more comfortable leaving the barnyard and his familiar paddocks. But first we wanted to introduce you to Percy so you would have a better appreciation of the challenges this kind of horse presents.
This week’s podcasting launches a long conversation with Jane Jackson, one of my Click That Teaches coaches. In Part 1 we talk about ponies, eventing and what drew Jane to clicker training. We’re heading towards a tremendous teaching strategy Jane has developed for helping a super vigilant, very reactive horse to be able to cope with new environments and distracting conditions. We’re beginning by first letting you meet Jane as she shares her early background with horses.
What goes into a great relationship? We explore one of the key ingredients. The conversation is led by Patience, one of my young goats who is learning how to “get dressed”, how to put on her collar and harness.
The click ends a unit of behavior. When you click, your horse breaks off what he was just doing to get his treat. From the outside looking in this can seem like a huge nuisance. How are you ever going to get anything done with all this stopping? But when you start clicker training, all that stopping begins to make sense. You discover that it’s the keys to the kingdom for creating outstanding performance. In this podcast we’ll explore how this works.
Outstanders is the first a of two part conversation that we recorded on Dec. 31, 2018. A look back over our year of podcast began as we began the very first Equiosity podcast with a goat story. Three of last spring’s babies, Patience, Felicity and Verity, are growing up at The Clicker Center. Patience is excelling noticeably beyond the performance of the other two. Why? What would your guess be?
To find out if you’re right, listen to the podcast.
We’ve finished out this conversation with Mary Concannon with a longer than usual podcast. We cover two main topics.
We start out with a request to Mary Concannon to wear her “other hat”. Mary is a microbiologist. I ask her how she helps her students learn how to read and evaluate scientific literature.
For many years Mary had the care of her own horses plus her daughter’s competition horses. I asked Mary how she navigated the tricky waters of managing multiple horses when not everyone was on the same training page. How do you keep peace both at home and in the barn? Mary offers some great tips on working with multiple horses, especially so they are safe at feeding time.
What do you do with a grumpy horse? You scritch him! Find out what that means in this week's Equiosity podcast in which we continue our conversation with Mary Concannon.
The question we ended with in last week’s podcast was “how did you shape that?” This week we find out. The answer takes us to a sharing of stories about our creative horses. Clicker training means you can take a supporting role. You don’t have to direct and control everything. You can let your horse “lead the dance”. When you do, you often find that the behaviors that pop out from their good ideas are much better than anything you had in mind at the start of the session.
This episode begins a conversation with Click That Teaches coach, Mary Concannon. Mary is from Ireland, but she is currently based in the UK. In Part 1 of our conversation Mary introduces her thoroughbred, Newby. She tells the story of how Newby came into her life and the hour long bucking fit he surprised her with the first time he was saddled.
Newby is a hard luck horse. He's one of those horses who always seemed to have one health issue after another. It was through these various ailments that Mary learned to listen to her horse.
Part 3 of our conversation with Cindy Martin shifts to a focus on emotional behavior. Our conversation centers around a thoroughbred mare participating in the fall 2018 clinic at Cindy’s place. Targeting quickly shifted her out of a state of extreme anxiety. This raises the question: what are we reinforcing when we click? Why don’t we get more anxiety instead of less?
One of the many reasons I so appreciate the contributions Cindy Martin makes to our understanding of clicker training is the very clear way in which she explains things. She transforms what are often very complex and seemingly incomprehensible concepts into very understandable terms.
In this second part of our conversation with her, she tackles a concept that has gained a lot of traction in the training world - dominance. And then she uses MP3 players to help us to understand why training a large repertoire of behaviors can help us get along better with our animals.
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.
In our previous podcast we talked about Ken Ramirez’s suggestion to do it differently. He was referring to the training of husbandry procedures, especially as they relate to medical care. In this podcast we’re going to see how that phrase applies to performance work.
We interrupted the conversation just as Dominique was about to talk about patterns. She had been talking one trial quitters. Dr. Jesús Rosales Ruiz introduced that phrase to us in the July webinar. He went on to talk about the ABCs of training, but in a way Dominique hadn’t thought about before. So we’ll pick up again where we left off. Our conversation is going to take us to patterns and the microshaping strategy, to techniques for building duration, and to a discussion that’s centered around what to do when your animal says “no I don’t want to.”
We’ll jump back in at the point where Dominique is talking about several wow moments from the webinar with Jesús.
We all know clicker training works great for horses, but what about cows? In Episode 21, A Postcard from Germany, we shared the story of Snickers, the cow. Dominique saw a video of Snickers and wanted to share how amazed she was. She had never seen such a joyful cow. Snickers' enthusiasm was a delight to watch, but her size can certainly be intimidating, especially if you aren’t familiar with cows. This led to a discussion of the importance of building a calm solid foundation into your training. That took us straight to husbandry behaviors.
Everyone hopes their horse lives a long and healthy life. We don’t want to think about the potential accidents and health crises that we may have to deal with. But life has a way of throwing us curve balls, especially where horses are concerned. So how do you prepare your horse so any future medical care is not only doable, but relatively stress free? How do you train for something when you don’t know exactly what you are preparing your horses for? That was one of the discussion points in the recent webinar we had with Ken Ramirez. In this podcast we revisit the topic and discuss Ken’s approach as it relates to our own horses.
We also talk about desperation clicks and one-trial quitters. For fun I throw in a goat update and Dominique talks about a great training day she had with her horses.
In the library section of the Equiosity.com web site we’ve added some photos and a great video of Snickers, the cow. It’s an inspiring video. Snickers clearly not only loves clicker training, she loves her person.
Nancy Kelly and Spybird Productions are doing a documentary on operant conditioning. She recently spent four days at the barn filming the horses. When she was done interviewing me, Dominique and I interviewed her for this podcast.
Spybird productions is a small company. It’s Nancy, her videographer, and Bob Bailey. Nancy has known Bob since 2003 so this was a perfect opportunity to learn about the history of operant conditioning - who were the giants whose shoulders we are all now standing on?
Nancy had just spent several days in Boston interviewing B.F. Skinner’s daughter, Julie Vargas, so she had some intriguing stories to share. Our questions about Skinner led us to the Brelands and then on to Bob Bailey.
This is a history lesson, but don’t let that put you off. There are no dates to memorize or tests to pass. We’re talking about animal training and the work that was begun by B.F. Skinner and then carried forward by the Brelands, Bob Bailey, and many others to create modern, positive reinforcement animal training.
Episode 22: A Postcard From Italy
Alexandra Kurland’s European adventure continues. In this podcast she is joined by two of her traveling companions, Michaela Hempen and Rebekka Schulze. Together in this "audio postcard” they describe the second half of Anja Beran’s International Workshop. On the drive south to Italy, they take you through the Austrian Alps, share a tour of Verona with archaeologist and tag teacher Luce Canever, and then arrive in Parma for the second half of the adventure - a clicker training workshop.
That workshop was filled with many treats, including a session each day with a Feldenkrais instructor. You’ll learn about the Feldenkrais work and why it is so linked to clicker training. Through the podcast the direct links between clicker training and classical dressage are made much clearer. We may be taking you on a journey through Germany and Italy, but this podcast is really a "connect the dots" tour of clicker training and classical dressage.
Alexandra Kurland recently traveled to Germany to attend Anja Beran’s annual International Workshop. She is joined in this podcast by Michaela Hempen, one of her Click That Teaches coaches. Together they are sending back an audio postcard describing the workshop and their other adventures in Germany.
Our conversation with Hannah continues with a discussion of reinforcement variety and what do you do when your training goes off the rails?
We then head off in a new direction. The focus on good balance seems to help our horses and dogs remain healthy and active into their senior years. What can we learn from this training that we could make use of for ourselves? Hannah’s answer provides clarity for teaching good movement whether you are working with horses, dogs or people. This loops us back to task analysis, the concept we were discussing in Part 1 of our conversation.
Last week in our Equiosity podcast we greeted our first guest, Hannah Brannigan. Our conversation with Hannah continues. In the previous episode we stopped just as Hannah made the very intriguing statement that in the past many of the things that we would have thought were fixed, such as an animal's structure, can be changed through good training. We pick up with a discussion of what that means and why should we bother? What are the benefits that we have observed in our own animals?
As always, it is good to begin at the beginning, which in Hannah’s case means talking about her new puppy. Where do you start? That was the question that was posed. Hannah is teaching her puppy reinforcement strategies. So that’s where the conversation took us. What does that look like? How do you teach a variety of reinforcement strategies? Hannah wants to be able to switch back and forth between activities in which the animal is very calm and still, and activities in which there is more movement and arousal.
Hannah’s new puppy was very play motivated, but not that interested in food. So Hannah described the process for teaching a dog that isn’t interested in the type of reinforcer you are offering (food or toy) to become more interested in that reinforcer. The same procedure could be used for horses who aren’t that interested in taking treats.
We end with a question about reinforcement variety. With dogs there are lots of ways you can reinforce them. With horses it seems we use mostly food treats. What are some of the ways we can expand our reinforcement variety?
This week we welcome our first guest to our equiosity podcast. We’re joined by Hannah Brannigan. Many of you will already be familiar with Hannah’s work. She’s a member of the Clicker Expo faculty, and she also has her own, very popular podcast - Drinking from the toilet.
Hannah is both a professional dog trainer and a horse owner so it’s easy to make the connections back and forth between training dogs and training horses. We both enjoy her podcast, so it was easy to get carried away in our conversation. We ended up talking for about two hours. We covered so many different topics we decided it was too much for one podcast so we split it into three much more digestible units.
This week in Part One we talk about balance as it relates to both horses and dogs. We begin by asking Hannah why she became balance obsessed? Why does this attention to the minute details of how her dogs move matter. Hannah defines task analysis for us as we explore the question: how do you know what to look for to improve your animal’s balance?
Hannah talks about her terrier Rugby and the huge change in his movement that good training has helped to create. In the podcast Hannah talks about a video that shows Rugby moving in a big, floating trot (big that is for a little terrier). We have put the links to that video, plus some still shots of his movement up in the members library.
If you don’t yet have the password for the library, just fill out the subscription form in the member’s section. We’ll send you the password. If you don’t see it in your in-box, remember to check your junk mail. It may end up there.
Once you have the password, you can access all the bonus articles we’ve posted in the Members Library.
This week’s podcast begins with an update on the goats. They lead us to an understanding of why we train - and that takes us to a discussion of the "Art of Training". Dominique questions what is meant by that expression. What does it mean? Should we be drawn into the lyricism of this phrase or is it better to look at the science of training?
Heads are spinning in the best way possible after the June 30th webinar with Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz. We taped this podcast the following day so naturally we couldn’t help but begin with a review of some of the key concepts Jesús covered. He gave us a packed webinar which gave us a great launching point for a discussion that began with the use of jargon when describing different training techniques and led on to loopy training, the difference between emotions and emotional responses, and macro versus micro training.
One thing leads to another. In this case a discussion of the function that a behavior serves takes us to an examination of “polite" behavior. How can we teach our horses how to safely co-exist in the environments we have chosen? There are obvious constraints limits on the freedom that we give our horses. Fences and closed stall doors limit their movements. But when we teach our horses behaviors that we refer to as “polite manners”, we are expanding opportunities to gain access to environments and activities they enjoy. Good manners don’t just benefit us. Good training creates more freedom for our horses.
In this week’s episode our long afternoon conversation continues. Last week we focused on cue communication. If cues open up the possibility of a two way conversation, this brings us to the question of how do you respond when your animal says no? You’ve asked for something, and he says: “I’d rather not." How do you respond? Do you let his behavior modify yours? What does it mean to truly listen to another individual - horse or human? What does it mean to “test the waters”?
This episode is part of a long conversation Dominique Day and I were having one afternoon in late May. Dominique had been rewatching the Loopy Training DVD. So our conversation began with a discussion of movement cycles and poisoned cues. Last week we focused in on Loopy Training - what it means and how it brings emotional balance into our training. That discussion brought us to cue communication - the main focus of this week’s podcast.
Cues are contrasted with commands. Command-based training is the norm in the horse world. It is: "I tell - you, horse, respond (or else)." Cues, in contrast, are an invitation. There are no threats backing them up. Commands-based training shuts down communication. Cue-based communication opens it up. We explore the difference these two mindsets create for our training choices and outcomes.
It was Dr. Jesús Rosales Ruiz who gave us the name “Loopy Training”. That’s a name that seems on first glance to be silly and frivolous but it's really grounded in the very sophisticated concept of movement cycles. This week’s podcast is part of a long conversation Dominique Day and I were having one afternoon in late May. In this podcast we continue on with the discussion of poisoned cues. We explore how loopy training can help retrain behaviors that have poisoned cues attached to them.
That takes us into a discussion of what it means to have clean loops and how to use loopy training to create a balance between calm energy and enthusiasm in your animal learners. Not surprisingly food delivery becomes part of the conversation. We end with cue communication - an important topic which will be the main focus of podcast #13.
Karen Pryor coined the term “poisoned cue”. She commented that behavior analysts can easily set up experiments that look at pure positive or pure negative reinforcement. But Karen said that’s not the real world. The real world is filled with mixed consequences. What happens when a cue can lead to good things happening or to bad things happening but you don’t know which it is going to be? That’s the poisoned cue. Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz explored this question in a study he conducted with one of his graduate students at the University of North Texas. In this podcast Dominique Day and Alexandra Kurland describe his findings and discuss how this relates to horse training.
Movement cycles give us the beginning kernel, the beginning small step in our training out of which we can grow great changes. In this podcast movement cycles are first defined, then we describe how they can be used with the foundation lessons to create dramatic changes in a horse’s balance.
So how do you learn to recognize good balance? How do you know what you’re clicking for? This leads us to a discussion of kindness.
Goblins and Ghosts - Oh My Oh My! What do you do when your horse spooks? That’s the opening question of this podcast. We explore what it means to be a constructional trainer. You want to build the skills you’re going to need BEFORE you need them. A great skill building exercise is the creativity game: “101 Things a Handler Can Do While A Horse Stands on a Mat.” We describe how you can use this to prepare your horse for a world filled with novelty.
It’s spring here in the Northeast which means the Siren’s call of the grass is pulling at our horses. In this podcast we talk about how to turn the grass from a distraction into a reinforcer. That takes us to the general training principle of “Train where you can, not where you can’t.” We define Loopy Training and look at how that teaching strategy can help create clean training.
Be sure to listen all the way to the end. We’re including a bonus article with this week’s podcast.
How well does your horse adjust to change? When you take your horse on a weekend outing or you move him to a new barn, how well does he settle in? Do you recognize his signs of stress and do you adjust your expectations based on his needs? These are just a few of the threads we follow in this week’s conversation. We wind our way around to the homecoming many of us find when we begin to explore clicker training.
Have you ever gone on a treasure hunt? A good treasure hunt should follow the Goldilock’s principle. If the clues are too hard, you’ll become frustrated and quit. If the clues are too easy, there’s no pleasure in solving them. When the clues are just right, at first they puzzle you. What does this clue mean? What is the answer? And then you get it. That little feeling of frustration turns to pleasure. You got it!
Over time that feeling of being puzzled is welcomed. You have become a confident puzzle solver. You KNOW you can solve the puzzle and you welcome each new challenge.
When we’re teaching rope handling we are setting puzzles. If we make them too easy, our learners won’t become smart puzzle solvers. If we make them too hard, our learners will become frustrated. But get them just right and our learners will dance with us! Good rope handling is connected to choice, to communication, to connection.
Part 2 of this podcast on Rope Handling follows several threads that take us to creating eager puzzle solvers.
Clicker training lets us work so effectively at liberty should we even put leads on our horses? If we do, how do we use them? How do we turn rope handling into a clicker-compatible tool?
These are some of the many questions we explore in Part One of a two part series on rope handling. In this podcast we talk about the "dance" that evolves out of good rope handling. Used well, the lead becomes an incredibly light and tactful communication tool. The "dance" of good rope handling is both beautiful to watch and a delight to use.
This episode is packed! It's as though we used an over-sized suitcase and had three people sitting on it to get the lid to close! It is stuffed full of good things. In this episode we talk about each of the six foundation lessons of clicker training. I won’t list them here. You’ll be learning about each one in the podcast. The foundation lessons let us respond to the emotional needs of our animals. They always tell us what they need to work on. They let us know when they’re confused or frustrated. And they tell us when they’ve GOT IT!! Getting behavior is the easy part of training. It’s fun. It’s exciting. Managing the enthusiasm is another whole layer:
• What do you do with the animal that is just throwing behavior at you hoping you’ll reinforce something? • How do you manage the food when it’s still a distraction? • How do you teach the basic manners that let horses and humans work safely and cooperatively together? • Why are the first behaviors you teach with the clicker so precious?
These are just a few of the general themes we’ll be discussing as we go through the foundation lessons.
Always the conversation is wrapped around stories and our own enthusiasm for training. At the end of the podcast I share with Dominique a fun video of the goats. Laughter is such a great reinforcer, and these goats will definitely make you smile! Their joy is so very clear.
After taping episodes 1 and 2, we took a short break from our conversation and went for a walk with Dominique’s dogs. When we came back, I asked Dominique to share a story she had just told me about how she solved the dilemma of getting her dogs to come in at night. This relates to all of us who have eager clicker learners who don’t want the training sessions to end. Several more stories follow all illustrating how important it is to set up your environment for success. Whether you are training goats, dog, horses, or guinea pigs this principle very much applies. Ending well means we end with a reinforcer for you, so be certain to listen all the way to the end of the podcast to learn how to receive your bonus material.
This podcast is packed! We start off by talking about the bonds horses form with one another and how important it is to support and protect the friendships horses form. Then we move on to a discussion of smart learners, enthusiasm and the need to develop calm, settled behaviors to create emotional balance. That leads us to a discussion of mats: how to train them, how to use them. Still with the overall focus on emotional balance we move on to food delivery. We share several stories that show how much a horse’s behavior can be influenced by how you deliver the treats. Enthusiasm and joy are always cherished. I end with a favorite story about my horse, Robin. Be certain to listen all the way to the end. We have some wonderful “reinforcers" for you to thank you for listening to our podcasts. We’ll be telling you about them at the end of the episode.
This first podcast focuses on the importance of building a relationship with the animals you train. That seems a very appropriate topic for our first episode. Come get to know us as we introduce you to Pellias and Elyan, my two cashmere goats.
We’ll also be talking about horses, relationship building, control and choice. These are topics that are getting serious scientific attention these days, and with good reason. Always it is go to people for opinions and our animal learners for answers. Our horses tell us that choice is indeed a powerful reinforcer.
Be certain to listen all the way to the end. We have some wonderful “reinforcers" for you to thank you for listening to our first podcast. We’ll be telling you about them at the end of the episode.