Balance Point Learning Center

Always feed the spook! Feeding the spook, shrinks the spook. This seems counter intuitive, we know that we get more of what we reinforce, so why should we reinforce "bad" behavior like spooking?

Remember my last few graphics, respondent vs operant behaviors, classical vs operant conditioning, counter conditioning, stimulus stacks... this all adds up to explain exactly why we want to feed the spook.

Spooking is a respondent, reflexive, involuntary reaction to a stimulus triggered by high level emotions. We aren't going to operantly change a respondent behavior. We need to CLASSICALLY change the emotional response to the trigger. By pairing the trigger with good things we change the emotions that trigger elicits, and with it, the behavior will change too.

We don't want to just feed, but also redirect to small, simple behaviors that have a high rate of reinforcement, to help soothe the horse and help those fear hormones settle back down to baseline. So this initial trigger doesn't become as big of a part of a stimulus stack, resulting in a bigger spook. So feed the spook, then work on something easy until the horse has swung back to being truly comfortable and relaxed.

You can't reinforce fear with R+, you are only providing comfort. Also, what behavior do we want our horse to do when they are scared? We want them to check in with us, allow us to reassure them and help them calm. So, like any good mother, when our child is upset, we comfort them by filling their belly... ok maybe that's just my Italian family

There is always a lot of controversy in the groups about "purely positive" trainers, they say this like it's some sort of elitest group who look down on anyone who's not perfect. There sure are some positive trainers who make it sound like that too! But let's be clear, there is a whole lot of gray area.

We have intentional, prepared training plans - these we try to keep as R+ as possible. We set our scene to prepare our horses as best as possible to find the goal behavior, then we mark, and positively reinforce when they make the choices we were hoping for. Over time we stretch their boundaries with distance, duration, and distractions in their environment. We establish stimulus control on their behaviors and prepare them for conflict in their environment.

But sometimes life happens faster than training. Sometimes we think our horse can handle a distraction they aren't actually ready for yet (maybe that booboo hurts more than they can handle standing for treatment). Sometimes something comes up we didn't expect (like a neighbor's dog popping out of the woods). There are times we need to use clumsy, inappropriate R+, or an aversive intervention to deal with a situation when we were overfaced. There are times I stuff my horse's face and block their view and hold their head still while we quickly get a job done. There are times our riders jump off and grab the lead rope, to handle a situation from the ground. There are times we quickly and firmly drag a horse away from a situation they weren't ready for.

What's important in these situations is that we LEARN from them and don't RELY on the aversive as our go-to option. If every time I enter this situation I need to use aversives, I know I need to break this down and address the problem with positive reinforcement training. So, while I might use aversives to handle addressing an emergency, I'll want to go back back and train the skills I'd need to deal with it in the future.

The other day Chiquita had a runny eye, I couldn't do anything about it, there aren't strong enough aversives in hand to hold her head when she doesn't want to be held and she would hurt herself (she's blind) trying to get away. I was able to give her oral meds and the problem self resolved. But we would have had to use something very serious, like a twitch or sedation to have dealt with that if it were a real emergency! So what are we going to do about it? TRAIN IT! We're working on being able to touch and hold her head, her allowing us to rub her face and over her eyes, eventually with a cloth and eventually being able to use eye drops or anything else we might need.

We are a purely positive program, because we NEVER use punishment or aversives as part of our training plan. They happen sometimes by accident, they are necessary sometimes, but we know these instances damage our relationship and our training, so we need to learn from these experiences and prepare for them in the future, so the aversives aren't necessary next time.