Fairhorsemanship: Introducing positive reinforcement

Fairhorsemanship (FH) is a humane, science-based horse training method created by French horse trainer Alizé V.Muckensturm. FH is dedicated to promote non-coercive training methods, to reduce the use of aversive tools and methods in handling and training horses, and to promote appropriate horse management. In the first of her series, Alizé introduces the theory behind positive reinforcement horse training.

Positive reinforcement is a term used in psychology, which refer to a type of learning where an individual behaviour is followed and reinforced by the addition of pleasurable things such as food or scratches. This technique is particularly popular in the dog-training world but is also used with zoos animals and services animals. For example the technique allows zookeepers to safely and humanely teach potentially dangerous animals such as lions, rhinos and hippos to give blood, climb on a scale or open their mouth for dental-care without coercion. Not only the technique makes healthcare and husbandry procedures easy but it can also saves life. By for example, teaching dogs to sniff out cancer and rats to detect out landmines and even tuberculosis.

Unfortunately the equestrian world stands quite a few years behind other animal industries and only a handful professional and amateur use positive reinforcement on a daily basis. When this technique is used however, horse and human can experience many of its benefits some of which include:

• Cooperation. The horse can choose to willingly cooperate rather than “put up with it or else”. Positive reinforcement does not rely on making the animal fearful and uncomfortable instead it uses pleasant things such as food and scratches to motivate wanted behaviour. This creates a non-fearful, happy, cooperative animal that can willingly participate in even uncomfortable healthcare procedures such as vaccination, dental checkups, blood tests and more. Because the horse is a willing participant, handler and veterinarian can easily remain safe and don’t have to expend unnecessary amount of energy to treat the animal.
• Improve and maintain human/horse relationship. Another type of learning that plays a role in animal training is classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is a type of associative learning in which a thing gains the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another thing. In practice, this means that if a human associates himself with items or events that threaten or hurt the horse such as harsh training and handling the presence of the human will provoke the same emotional response in the horse than the harsh training and handling itself. But the opposite is also true! With positive reinforcement, the human associates himself with positive things and events such as food and scratches and therefore the horse perceive the human as a bringer of good things rather than a potential threats.
• Motivation. In a 2008, a study was conducted to compare the use of negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement in retraining rescue equines. Negative reinforcement involves the removal of an unpleasant thing following a desired behaviour and is one of the main techniques used in horse training. The results showed that the horse retrained with positive reinforcement were more willing to participate in training and also displayed more explorative behaviours in novel situations in comparison to the horses retrained with negative reinforcement.
• Enrichment. Alongside specie-appropriate management, a training based on the use of positive reinforcement is a great way to stimulate and enrich your horse life by providing mental and physical exercise and it may also help reduce or eliminate abnormal behaviours such as stereotypies (crib-biting, weaving etc.).

Positive reinforcement can be used to train horses to perform a variety of behaviours including basic husbandry and health care behaviours such as accepting treatments, giving feet, trailer loading and more athletic behaviours such as lunging, jumping and riding. It can also be used to teach your horse to perform fun tricks such a picking up objects, playing with a ball and it is also used to demonstrate horses cognitive abilities in task discriminations and communicate preferences.

I hope this short introduction to positive reinforcement will have piqued your interest, and that you will join me in future articles to further explore the use of humane, science-based horse training techniques.

Alizé

Fairhorsemanship (FH) is a humane, science-based horse training method created by French horse trainer Alizé V.Muckensturm. FH is dedicated to promote non-coercive training methods, to reduce the use of aversive tools and methods in handling and training horses, and to promote appropriate horse management.

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