You're an inspiration. You were there to help me. You just saw the need and said, Can I help you? We learn a lot from watching other horses and watching other riders. I'm Julie. Goodnight and thanks for listening to my podcast about horse training and equestrian sports. It's time for Ride On with Julie.
Goodnight Since the last time we recorded, I've been enjoying a break from a pretty hectic travel season this spring after traveling coast to Coast numerous times and being a presenter at a bunch of different horse expos. I'm actually ready for a break. I've enjoyed being home more recently, riding with my friends and working in my garden. I've got some big plans this summer. I hope to do a little more boating and fishing and some more mountain biking in addition to my horse. Fun, of course.
But lately we've been dealing with some late season snowstorms I can't complain too much because it is husband badly needed moisture and we'll take what we can get. But it has made it rather hard to believe that summer's almost here. When you look outside and see four or five inches of snow on the ground in May. But summer is coming. It's just around the corner. I have just one more public event coming up before my summer break begins in earnest. That's in June at the Harmony Equine Center.
This is a fundraising horse expo, and I'm super happy to be donating my time to support the excellent work done there by the Denver Dome Friends League to support law enforcement and their effort to protect at risk horses in our state. My husband Reg is campaigning his horse this summer. So in addition to all my other fun, I hope to be attending a few of those events with him.
He's doing a series of ranch horse competitions here in Colorado, and conveniently there's one of his competitions is going on nearby the same weekend as the Horse Expo, Harmony Equine. So I will be able to travel with him, get dropped off to do my thing, and then I'll be able to join him and I will join him and hang out at the competition. And I get to play groom and coach for the weekend, so that'll be fun.
This fall, I have three more clinics at the renowned Steel ICU ranch in Granby, Colorado, and the last time I checked, they still had openings in all three clinics I have the popular Ranch Riding Adventure in September and October. That's a four day very active riding program for adults only Also in October is the five day horsemanship immersion program. This is the ideal program for people that want a learning vacation.
We will study all aspects of horses and riding with seminars and hands on workshops, plus trail riding in the Rocky Mountains, luxurious accommodations and gourmet meals. I'll also be leading two writing trips in Ireland this fall with Connemara equestrian tours At last count, both of those tours were booked solid. But it never hurts to get on the waiting list. So for more information on my clinics, the horse expos that I'll be doing and the riding vacations I'm offering, please visit Julie.
Good. Dicom Slash Events. And while you're there, check out my online training resources, curriculums and personalized coaching programs. Plus, we've got innovative grooming tools, tech bits, training equipment, and videos at sharp dot. Julie Good night dot com Today's topic is understanding the difference in reward reinforcement and punishment. You know, a horse is always learning for better or for worse.
And the more you understand how horses learn, how they perceive reward or reinforcement or punishment and what those respective roles of these training tools are in shaping your horses behavior, the more you know, the more effective you will be as a trainer and the more cohesive and responsive your horse will be. Let's talk first about how horses learn. First of all, it's important to understand the nature of horses is that they are extremely fast learning animals.
This is sort of a factor of being a prey animal and a flight animal Their first instinct, of course, is to flee from danger. But they can't stay in a constant state of flight. So they need to be able to learn about their environment rapidly in order to make decisions on how to stay safe. So horses and because they're also extremely sensitive animals, they detect changes in their environment, changes and pressure changes in everything immediately because of their sensitivity level.
So all of these kind of factors come together to make them really rapidly learning animals. And for better or worse, I mean that sometimes they learn things we wish they hadn't learned. So horses primarily learn by making associations between one thing and another. For instance, when we're training a horse to be written and one of the first cues that we have to teach them is to move forward off our seat and legs.
And so we inhale, shift our center of gravity slightly forward and start maybe fluttering your legs to add soft leg pressure. And then the horse starts thinking, you know, what is that leg pressure? What does it mean? What do I do one or what I have to do to make it stop. And eventually he'll he'll guess a number of things. And eventually one of those things will be to move forward. And the instant he moves forward, you stop moving your legs.
You take away the pressure, and he instantly learns that the way he makes that pressure go away is to go forward. So he makes an association between the movement of your legs and the movement of his legs. So horses learn by making associations between one thing and another. And this is where our unintended consequences come in, because sometimes horses make intended associations like the one I just described, but sometimes they make unintended associations.
Let's say the first time I asked a horse to canter under saddle, and he thought that felt a little funny and he didn't like doing it, so he got a little squeamish and maybe he a crow hopped a little bit or threw a little buck. And in an abundance of caution, I immediately stopped the horse. Now, my reason for stopping was to gain more control of the horse before I tried that again.
But the horse could have and almost certainly did make an association between his crow hopping and the rider stopping him. So he learned that if he didn't like the feel of that, all he had to do was crow hop and then he could stop. So that would have been an unintended association. And we don't always get to know when horses have made associations. Sometimes they're totally accidental and unintended. And not even known.
I jokingly use the example of if you were walking by a mailbox at the moment, your horse got stung by a bee and he happened to be looking at the mailbox. He might forever be afraid of mailboxes because he thinks he's going to get stung by a bee every time he looks at a mailbox. So that could be an association that a horse made that we never really understood or knew or or realized.
And so as we train a horse, we try to create these associations between a cue and the horse's actions but we don't always get to know what associations the horse has made. And sometimes because we give inadvertent rewards to the horse when we didn't mean to. Sometimes we actually are responsible for creating unintended associations by taking away the pressure or otherwise rewarding the horse for the wrong response.
So horses are very fast learners, and this means that they're both easy to train and untrained. You you really can't teach something to a horse, but you can unravel what he's previously learned. If if a horse had previously learned really good fundamentals and had a very strong work ethic and was very responsive and obedient to the age of the rider.
But then after, let's say, a month of being written by a rider who was passive, who did not reinforce cues or inappropriately reinforce cues and gave inappropriate rewards like stopping the horse or quitting on the horse when the horse was not responding properly, then the horse is learning the wrong things. He's on learning or on training or you're you're unraveling his training.
So another interesting factor about horses in terms of their training and how quickly they learn and how quickly their training can unravel is that horses are very relationship oriented animals. They therefore, their responses are likely to be quite different from one person to another.
So horses, particularly horses that I have had experience with all different types of riders, meaning they have been ridden both by very expert riders and very beginner riders They start learning that different riders have different parameters and different riders have different expectations. Levels of attention, levels of confidence, levels of determination. And so a horse can learn over time that not all riders are the same.
And they learn that with a certain type of passive rider, they might be able to get away with things that they wouldn't even think of trying with a more experienced, more adept rider. So horses are kind of funny animals in that way. Also, they're very attuned to the emotionality of the animals around them. Again, this is a natural horse behavior. Is so it's a part of being a herd animal. It's a part of being a prey animal and a flight animal.
So horses are biologically programed to be very aware of and in fact to mimic the emotionality of the animals around them. But they're also because they're herd animals and they're very focused on herd hierarchy and leadership and the control and the deference that needs to occur due to the hierarchy of the various individuals in the herd.
Horses are also extremely aware of the confidence level of the animals around them, the level of intention, the level of determination, the level of aggression, the level of passive ness of the animals around them. And this includes humans. So as a rider, you and your horse or a herd of two or a team of two, and your horse is extremely attuned to your emotionality, including your level of intention and your level of determination.
So because horses are fast learners and they're very aware and they treat each individual differently, these things all factor into how horses learn, how they create associations and how they respond to various individuals. When horses have experience with different types of riders, they learn to test the rider. They learn to explore and probe boundaries. They learn to explore how quick a rider is to use reinforcement.
And also they learn and are very attuned to how much pressure a rider is willing to use. And in that reinforcement. Horses are very very keen on this stuff and is it's interesting that when you reach a level of confidence in your riding and a skill level where your reinforcements to cues are precise and with the perfect amount of pressure to motivate change and the release of pressure, it's instantaneous and complete Horses learn that about you really fast, and then they never question.
And again, they never question your cue. They never they never question whether reinforcement is going to come because they know it will. And so the funny thing about that is once a horse learns that about you as a rider, that you are willing to use reinforcement and you will use it in a timely and consistent manner and you will always use an adequate amount of pressure to motivate change, then you will never have to use that pressure again because the horse knows that he learns that about you.
And once the lessons learned, it doesn't generally come up again. So horses are really funny this way. They're very fast, fast learners. Now, let's talk for a minute about what horses perceive as reward. It's not always what people think it is. It's certainly not food Horses love treats, and they could certainly associate it with a certain action or behavior or response. And that's what we call positive reinforcement. I'll get into that more, more later.
But because horses are highly sensitive animals that feel all sorts of pressure, very, very keenly, what horses perceive most and greatest as a reward is a complete cessation of pressure. This is mental pressure physical pressure, environmental pressure, all types of pressure. They they seek out zero pressure. They also, along the same lines, value, rest as a reward.
So a flight animal highly values his rest and he is sort of programed to want to conserve his energy in case it's needed for flight. Horses perceive praise as a reward, just a stroke on the neck, a kind word, a soft whisper I would say a cessation of pressure and rest always comes before praise. But the main reason that horses love praise is because horses as herd animals always seek acceptance.
You've seen that again and again and again any time you've tried to introduce a new horse into an existing herd of horses, you know that that new horse is instinctively driven to be accepted into the herd. He equates acceptance into the herd with survival. So horses always seek acceptance and praise. Your praise is an indication of your acceptance. If your horse thinks of you as the leader of the herd. And I like for my horses to think of me as the supreme leader of the entire universe.
And that way they for sure think of me as the leader of the herd. And if they think of you as the leader, then they are constantly seeking your acceptance and approval. So praise is very meaningful to them in that circumstance. Praise is, of course, only meaningful when it's earned And horses know the difference. So, you know, just lavishing love and kisses on a horse that's done nothing to earn it.
Or doesn't even look up to you as the leader gets you nothing, because you know that that doesn't mean anything to him. But if he looks up to you as the leader and if he knows you to be a benevolent leader and to always recognize and reward and take good care of him, keep him safe and let him rest when he deserves it, then he is seeking your acceptance always. So praise becomes very meaningful. As I mentioned just a moment ago, we want to always be careful of food based rewards for horses.
It really doesn't have much place in the training of a riding horse or two or three. It really has very little place in the training of horses at all. The only time I would I would routinely use a food based reward for a horse would be after a horse is loaded into a trailer. I would never use food as a bribe for any kind of behavior. But after a horse has gotten in a trailer, it's a nice little reinforcement, positive reinforcement, and makes them think of the trailer as a happy place.
But other than that, I would be very cautious of using any kind of food based reward in the training of horses. And keep in mind that a horse works first and foremost for a cessation of all pressure. That means from the pit. That means from your legs. That means from your seat. That means the mental pressure that you put on the horse. He always seeks to rest. So that is almost always going to be perceived as a reward for a horse. And then your praise and acceptance.
The next thing I'd like to talk about, it's really important for you to have success in training a horse both on the ground and under saddle. And this is the difference between reinforcement and punishment. I notice as I do clinics around the country, this is something I've noticed for a very long time that people have, particularly people that are new to horses, have a a lot of confusion between reinforcement and punishment.
A lot of people are reluctant to reinforce a cue because they think of it as punishment. They're confusing it with punishment, and they don't want to enter into a kind of relationship with the horse where or things where it involves punishment and in many ways that are smart.
But if you're confusing, reinforce man and punishment and then you don't want to punish, you're never going to get anywhere with a horse because a horse won't really respond to cues until he understands that there will be reinforcement if he does. So what is the difference between reinforcement of punishment? It's very simple. It's very black and white.
Reinforcement makes a response more likely to occur punishment discourages a response So in other words, if I'm trying to teach a horse a cue, let's say it's the aforementioned leg. Q When I gently flutter my legs, that means you should move your feet or move your feet faster than and as soon as you do, I will release that pressure. So if I ask my horse to move forward by, I inhale or reach forward shift my way forward and start fluttering my legs and nothing happens.
And so I then immediately clock and I maybe just bump a little bit with my legs instead of just touch my legs as reinforcement to the cue. Then the horse learns to respond to the cue. So in that case, an escalation of the pressure made the response more likely to occur.
The escalation of leg pressure and the clock and adding of that audible pressure was the reinforcement to the cue and made the response more likely to occur next time Punishment discourages a response, and it is actually punishment is an unpleasant action. Which is in retribution for an offense. Let's take, for example, Buiding, which is a horrible offense for a horse. In fact, it's deadly aggressive behavior and it's progressive behavior.
So biting behavior, aggressive behavior began a long time ago in that horse with napping, putting his lips on you, then slipping leads to nipping, nipping leads to biting, and biting is the most dominant behavior of horses. It's also the most deadly behavior of horses. So it is something that always should be met with severe punishment because biting is progressive and because it ultimately leads to deadly behavior and because incorrigible fighters often are euthanized.
It is a behavior that is definitely worthy of punishment. And punishment discourages that response from happening. And is an unpleasant action. Let's say it was a smack with your with your hand across the muzzle in and it is in retribution for an offense, an extremely offensive behavior. So there are very, very few actual behaviors of horses that warrant punishment. Biting is is really the main one. I can think of aggressive behavior in general.
But let's say, you know, the horse, you're trying to pick up a horse's hind feet and he kicks at you. You can't punish kicking cause he'll just kick the snot out of you harder. So biting or something is a punishable offense. It is an aggression. It is an invasion of your space. And it is because it is such a dangerous behavior. It has to be met with that kind of pressure. So the truth is that punishment has very little place in the training of a horse other than biting, as I mentioned.
And this is something that we have to work with young horses on, particularly stud colt, because it's a natural urge for them to want to put their mouth on everything and explore their world with their lips and biting. But punishment really should only be used in the case of extreme and dangerous behavior. Punishment is actually proven to be ineffective in the training of horses for performance since horses are fear based animals and punishment generally leads to more fear.
It doesn't really work. So imagine if I were training a horse for performance Under Saddle and I cut it to Canter for the last lead and it accidentally took the right lead and I punished it for that. I start out with an add jerking spur in it. That horse would never learn to respond properly to the cue. I'm giving it to the setup. I'm giving it for the lastly canter because a horse that is afraid can't learn. So a horse must be totally free of fear in order to learn. So think about flight.
When horses are in flight, no learning is occurring. It's only once they stop flight and they turn around, look to see what's going on in their environment, that learning will be occurring. So getting back to reinforcement then, reinforcement is is something that you add to the equation that will make a response more likely to occur next time.
The really interesting thing about horses is that once a horse understands your willingness to reinforce reinforcement, it's generally no longer needed, as I mentioned before. So when you give a cue, there needs to be the horse needs to be given about a second a second and a half at the most in order to respond. And then reinforcement should come immediately. In the case of a trained horse, that's generally going to mean just an escalation of the cue.
But you need to escalate immediately to the amount of pressure that motivates change in the horse. A gradual escalation of cue over a long period of time does nothing but train the horse and sort of train him to ignore you. Now, let's say your horse has developed a behavior that you don't like. Maybe he's learned and some naughtiness.
Maybe you have fallen down on the job in terms of reinforcing in the past and your horse has learned to ignore cues, or your horse has learned to break gait or your horse has learned to stop at the gate, cut corners, come into the middle, not cross the puddle or not go in the creek, whatever your horse has learned that he can get away with and you think to yourself, punishment is walking him up to this puddle and he won't go.
I could whip him until he goes, I suppose, but that feels uncomfortable to me. It feels like using punishment and training, and we know that punishment can create fear in a horse, and I don't want to increase a horse's fear level. So what can we do instead of punishment? So what we know about horses scientifically is that if there is a behavior that we do not like in a horse, that it's far better to use a concept called replacement training than it is to use punishment.
Replacement training means that you simply replace the undesirable behavior with another, more desirable behavior. It's far more effective than punishment and basically you can think of replacement training in this way. Horse Every time you do that, I'm going to do this and every time you do that, I'm going to do this. You can count on that. And I'm going to do it until every time you think of doing that. You prepare for me to do this, and then I've replaced one behavior with another.
Let me give you an example. Let's say I have a horse that's learned to cut the corners in the arena badly so that every time I go around the size of my arena is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. It's because he's cutting all four corners So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to ride my horse on a slightly loose rein, and I'm going to put him on the rail, go down the long side of the arena, and I'm going to sort of neutralize my reins. In other words, I'm not steering him.
I'm not holding him on the rail. And I'm going to wait until the moment that he intentionally veers off the rail towards the center in an effort to cut the corner. And then I'm going to immediately shorten my outside rein and turn him right in to the fence. I'll go a few strides down the fence and then I'll shorten my other rein and turn him in to the fence again. And then we'll go straight down the fence on a loose rein with a neutralized rein.
And I'll wait for my horse to take the action of turning unauthorized, cutting the corner towards the middle, and then I'll shorten that outside rein, turn him immediately into the fence, go down the fence a little ways, shorten the other Rein, turn him immediately into the fence again and try it again.
And so what I'm doing is allowing the horse to take the action of cutting the corner where he thinks he ought to be able to turn, which is, by the way, going against the grain of what we trained horses, which is to continue on this path until I tell you to do something different. Now, when you have horse cutting corners, you have a horse is sort of cheating. He's making his own decisions.
So if every time I sense that the horse is taking that action, I immediately shorten the reign, turn him abruptly into the fence, go back the other way, on the fence, and then shorten the other way and turn him into the fence again and start all over in very short order. If the timing is good and the pressure is adequate, every time your horse even thinks about cutting the corner, he'll pick his shoulders up and continue down the rail in preparation for you turning him into the fence.
And that's what that's a perfect example of what replaced what training is. It's very effective in retraining a horse that has learned naughty tricks in keeping with the subject of reinforcement. It's also important for you to understand the difference between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.
This is another huge area of confusion for people, and often the same people that think it's wrong to use punishment and training and that are confusing or conflating reinforcement with punishment. They often think negative reinforcement is punishment and it's not. That's a totally inaccurate view of positive and negative reinforcement.
You can think of reinforcement, positive and negative reinforcement as either adding something or taking something away So a positive reinforcement is, for example, a food based reward. So in the case of a food based reward, you have to wait for the horse to give the proper response that you wish to reward, and then you give them the food as a way of adding something to the equation as a reinforcement negative, a negative reinforcement refers to taking away something.
And in the case of training horses, what you're taking away is pressure. So because as I mentioned earlier, horses are highly, highly sensitive animals. And because they're prey animals and flight animals, they feel all sorts of pressure very, very keenly. They feel physical pressure, they feel mental pressure, they feel all sorts of environmental pressure very, very keenly. And they see a cessation of pressure. That sort of means that they're safe and in a cocoon, if you will.
So it turns out that the application of pressure and the taking away of pressure as a negative reinforcer is a highly, highly effective means of training a horse, because, number one, they feel pressure so keenly, they're so sensitive. So, in other words, they will detect the slightest, slightest movement as pressure So if I barely touch my legs or close out or if I barely flex a finger or shift my balance slightly forward or back, the horse feels it very keenly.
We always use the example of a fly landing on his hair coat and his ability to be able to shake that one little muscle that gets that fly off of that part of his hair coat. That's how sensitive horses are to pressure. And so in in terms of training a horse for performance either on the ground or under saddle because as they respond to such slight amounts of pressure, the release of pressure is is the most effective training means.
So a negative reinforcement simply means you take something away from the equation. And so in the case of negative reinforcement being the primary means that we train horses with, it is because we apply pressure such as a leg cue a light like you and the horse learns that when he moves forward in response to that pressure, the pressure will go away. And he learns that almost instantaneously. The very first time that it occurs.
So it turns out that negative reinforcement is not a bad thing and certainly not punishment in any way. But it's one of the most effective means of training horses. The release of pressure is the reward. Now, the this is a good example also of why amateur riders have such a hard time keeping a horse in a proper frame and a collective frame. Because what happens is when the horse comes into frame, the first thing that happens is they don't release the pressure when the horse comes there.
So the horse won't stay there because he doesn't find a release of pressure there. And the second thing is that when the horse comes out of frame, he he often does find a release of pressure there because he comes he lifts his head up and he puts slack in the rain. So he finds his own release of pressure. So this application of pressure and the release of pressure in the training of the horse is highly effective as long as the rider is in control.
And in command of when they are releasing the pressure and when they're adding pressure, it's important for you to understand the difference between a Q and A reinforcement. A Q is a signal or a communique from the rider using any or all of the riders aids. So the riders natural aids are the seat, legs, hands and voice, and we're constantly using all of those aids.
Your seat, legs, hands and voice in order to communicate to the horse what you want them to go, how you want to move his body, how you control all parts of his body, the direction, the speed. So a cue is a signal, and the horse learns what the proper response to that signal is. Reinforcement supports the cue and is used in order to clarify the horse's response. So let's take the example of reins. Reins in spite of what? 90% of riders think and do, reins are not a cueing device.
They're actually a reinforcement device. So less you see example of stopping for most riders. If you say, what's the cue to stop, they say pull back on the reins and that's wrong. The cue to stop is when you exhale, shift your center of gravity back and plant your seat, seatbelts into the saddle, releasing leg pressure off the horse.
If the horse does not stop, you would shorten your reins and then reapply the AIDS, this time with ring pressure as reinforcement to the cue and in that way, the cue to stop is a shift of your weight and the use of your seat. Maybe you used a exhale and a vocal cue as well, and if the horse did not stop you then use the reins. The cue comes from your seat and voice the reins are reinforcement to the cue if the horse does not respond.
So when the reins are used strictly as reinforcement and not as the cue, the horse learns to stop properly off your seat aid and he learns it really fast. Let's take the example of cueing a horse to turn. If I'm riding the horse straight forward, then my hands are reaching forward. Well, in front of the saddle reaching for the horse's mouth. I'm looking straight ahead. My shoulders are square ahead. I'm sitting squarely on my to seat bones.
And as I give the cue to turn what I do, just imagine that you're sitting on that horse going straight. And I also kind of imagine that you have a neck brace on or a body cast on. And so all you're going to do to turn that horse is turn and look, but you're going to keep your chin in alignment with your sternum. So you're going to open your shoulders in the turn. The connectivity with your arms and your torso causes your arms to shift. So let's say I'm turning right.
So I'm going to turn and open my shoulders to the right, allow my arms to come to the right, allow my outside leg to close and my inside leg to open as my hips slightly turn to the right. All of those things in my arms in my seat bones and in my legs. And then where and in the way my balance shifts, all of those things are the cue to turn if the horse ignores my cue to turn and continues going straight, then I would simply bump the inside rein.
I would take just a little touch, a brief touch, or a brief bump of the inside rein on the lip of the horse's mouth in order to reinforce that cue that I just gave with my body to turn. So again, the cue to turn came from my body the reinforcement, if the horse did not respond, came from the reins. So your reins are not a queuing device. They are for reinforcement. The cues should come before that. Horses learn that if they respond to the cue, the reinforcement won't come.
So the greatest reward to the horse comes when he feels you shift your body, he feels you slowly rotate your body into the turn and he turns with you. Therefore, reinforcement never comes and you never touch his mouth with the reins. So he now learns that all he has to do is move with you and he won't get pressure on his mouth.
So now we have a horse that turns off body cues and both the horse and the rider benefit so in summary of all this information, and I know it's a lot of information, but really when you break it down in this way, the difference between reward reinforcement between cues and reinforcement difference, brain reinforcement of punishment.
If you think about all these things and the natural qualities of horse that make these certain qualities of learning certain responses to pressure et cetera, the horse is very unique and in many, many ways. And if you take all that into consideration, the main thing I want you to consider is that when we are unclear to horses, it is unkind, unclear is unkind.
And by that, what I mean is allowing a horse to develop obnoxious or unsafe behaviors because we are reluctant to reinforce a cue, because we are inadvertently giving rewards to the horse for bad behavior, because we think that reinforcement is punishment and punishment is bad. All of these things create a lack of clarity for the horse. What horses love most is routine and consistency and clear expectations and clear ramification actions.
It's the comfort they get from knowing what's going to happen that they love. So inconsistent reinforcement to a horse allowing a horse to one time get away with something and the next time get mad at him because he does it. That kind of inconsistent reinforcement is very disconcerting to a horse and it is not kind.
This is how horses develop bad behaviors and there are many behaviors of horses that can develop to the point where the horse becomes dangerous or the horse becomes so unpleasant to be around that nobody wants that horse anymore. You can't give that horse away. He's he's learned so many bad behaviors or he's so unsafe that he just can't be trusted to be around people. And that kind of horse ends up in a rescue and and they don't always survive that trip.
So there's there's a lot of really great horses out there in the world. And if we have allowed a horse to develop very unsafe behaviors, resources are not going to be put into that horse in the future. And he could give up in a in a very tragic circumstance. So all of that is to say, being unclear to a horse is unkind. You need to understand what reinforcement is, how to use it.
And hopefully now you have a better understanding of the difference between cues and reinforcement, the difference between reinforcement and punishment when punishment is appropriate and when it's not knowing how and why horses respond and knowing how they learn how they make associations. All of that is critical to your success as a trainer, whether you like it or not. Any time you work with a horse, you're either training it or on training it.
I hope this podcast has helped you find more clarity in your training with your horse. If so, I'd love to hear your comments about this subject. If not, I'd like to hear them to how I might be able to be more clear myself and help you understand a little bit better. So please leave me a comment at really good night dot com slash podcast And now it's time for my favorite segment. What the hey Q&A. Each month we pick a few unique questions from our listeners and answer them on the air.
If you'd like to submit a written question for what the Hey, please go to my Facebook page. Julie Goodnight Horsemanship or email podcast at Julie Goodnight dot com. By the way, we keep all your questions in the queue. So even if I've not answered the question you submitted yet, I hope to get to it soon. Or maybe I'll turn your question into the main topic for a future podcast, which I've been known to do. So please stay tuned Our first question comes from Debra via Facebook Messenger.
I just found your podcast and I'm having some trouble with trailer loading. As you explained in the episode, I just listened to a young horse having repetitive bad experiences with an activity. Sets it up for having higher anxiety related to that activity. My horse has not had any positive trailer loading experiences, and she has only loaded about 12 times in her life. I chose her before birth, so I've had her her whole life OK, Debra. Well, 12 bad experiences is not uncommon.
For sure, but if you think about it as 12 to nothing. If you think about that being a soccer game, that seems a little foreboding. So one thing that has to occur is that the horse has to have at least 12 positive training experiences before you could even remotely hope to have that score. Back to zero. But sadly, the truth is, for every negative experience a horse has, you're probably going to need to have multiple positive experiences to overcome that.
So then if you think about having about 12 negative experiences, it may mean you need to have 3640, 50 positive experiences with that horse in the trailer. So I think that depending on the techniques that you use and if you just can make sure that in proceeding forward that there are no longer any negative training experiences regarding the trailer.
So you're going to have to back way up obviously and start from the beginning and first of all, I think it's important to understand that there are always going to be different steps. So the very first thing that has to occur is that you have to train the horse to load in the trailer. In that process, you're also going to be training it to unload because particularly if you use that my techniques, you're going to be loading it and unloading it many, many times before you ever take it anywhere.
And that brings up the first and most important point. You can't train a horse for trailer loading when you have to go somewhere. So this has to be dedicated training unrelated to transporting a horse anywhere. So I need a trailer, a safe trailer that's appropriately sized for the horse. I need a tow vehicle to be hooked up to it. So that it's in a secure location and I need to be able to move it strategically.
So I often recommend if if the horse particularly has had bad trailer loading experience that we try to back that trailer into a corner of solid fencing or a corner of the barn and a solid wall or a solid fence so that the horse is feeling somewhat confined between the barn or the wall and the trailer. That limits his options a lot and helps a lot. By the way, there is a ton of information on my website about trailer loading.
If you're a subscriber to my training library, there are multiple videos on the subject. I also have a training video that you can purchase called Stress Free Trailer Ring, and you can get either the DVD or the digital version, and it will take you through all these steps. And I don't have time to do talk about the specific techniques now. But first you need to train that horse to load.
Then if you use my techniques in very short order, that horse will be willingly marching straight forward into the trailer. And backing calmly out of the trailer. You'll be giving him a little reward every time he gets in, so he'll start thinking of that as fun. The next stage, once I've trained the horse to load and unload and he's doing that fine, the trailer is never moved. The next stage is to feed that horse in the trailer twice a day for a week.
So when you're in that trailer, hooked up, leaving it in the place where he knows it to be every morning at the time I show up at the barn, I love my horse in the trailer. I might hang out with him while he eats his brain and hay for the first little bit. But after two or three days of that, the horse is totally equating the trailer as an all you can eat buffet.
And so after three or four days, you're getting him out of the stall or pan and he's like dragging you towards the trailer because he's now thinks of it as an all you can eat salad bar. So that's the second stage and then the third stage is going to be to actually start moving the horse in the trailer. So we shot him and I've been shutting him in, by the way, during that whole feeding process.
The next thing we're going to do is take him, take him on some short trips, and we're going to give him lots across, lots of positive reinforcement. We're never going to bribe the horse to get into the trailer. That will never work. But you're going to have to put a lot of work into this because of all the negative training experiences the horse has had.
And by the way, when I have taken horses that have had horrible training experiences or horrible experiences, period, with a horse trailer, we generally have them loading up really, really well within a day or two, within the first day or two of working with them. And so we jump right into the feeding in the trailer twice a day, every day for a week. We're doing that within just a few days.
And it's a yeah, it's a big investment and time, but it's well worth it to get to that, even out that score to get your score more to the 12 to 50 range. So that's what I would do. It's very, very doable. People want instant fixes, and you're not going to find that particularly when it comes to trailer loading. But that's what I would do. So be sure to check out my resources online. Just go to sign in.
Dot Julie Good night dot com and you'll have access to the academy and you'll find all that information there Our second question comes from Heather. She says, Hi, Julie. I just listened to a recent podcast and would like to ask a question for what the hey Q&A. I have a Mustang. I Chantal is very smart and willing, but has a very strong personality. Maybe from being gelded so late. How do I handle it when he loses focus and gets overexcited?
What are some good exercises I can do to teach him to focus on me? He has great focus. Unless there are other horses around that are acting up, he will whinny and his attention is 95% on them. He doesn't respect my presence when he is in this mindspace. Thank you. Heather. Well, Heather these are excellent observations that you have made.
I can totally picture this scene, and I will say that although all horses are capable of acting this way, certainly some horses are more prone to this kind of behavior than others. And certainly mustangs that have run wild, they their instinctive behavior of all kinds is much stronger and much keener than domestic horses. And so obviously a a Mustang or feral horse that was running while old that then became rounded up.
And that then has experienced all different sorts of force herd situations and gelded late. All of those were certainly combined to make that horse highly, highly distractable. And the the point being that it doesn't have to be a Mustang and it doesn't even have to be a horse that was gelded late or it even a male horse. Some horses are just more easily distracted by other horses than others. They have stronger herd draw. Herd behaviors are more important and more significant to them.
So what do we do with that highly distracted horse? I like to first of all, when I have a horse is highly distracting and highly distressed by the actions of other horses. I have learned to think about that at least in part as a mental health problem. This is a stress problem, a focus problem, a distraction problem. And we need to teach the horse ways of coping with his anxiety. So I always immediately teach the horse a head down to any time that horse starts getting amped up.
I then immediately put him into the head down position. It's not physiologically possible for him to be excited or tense when he's had his down. And in very short order. Any time a horse gets excited if you cause him to put his head down, this is a good example of replacement training. In very short order, he will start doing that himself. So any time he gets excited, he will just take a deep breath and put his head down as a way of calming himself down.
So I'm going to use that as one of many tools for redirecting this horse's focus. The other other things I am going to do are through proactive training. So whenever a horse loses his focus on me, I want to immediately put him to work, whether that's on the ground or in the saddle, we're going to immediately start doing something go forward, turn right, turn left, go faster, try to circle, trot, try to circle the other way. Go over here, go over there. Stop back up turn right, turn left.
A lot of changes of direction, a lot of cues to speed up and work. So the more I am giving him cues, cues that he knows, the more he has to focus on me. And I will keep him busy and working hard until I feel like he is really running out of oxygen. And and also, most importantly, until I feel his focus come back on me. And when it does come back on me, I will allow him to rest. So when I am working with a horse, whether on the ground or in the saddle, I give the horse basically two options.
Option number one, focus on me. Option number two, focus on nothing You don't have the choice of focusing on everything else in your environment. You don't get to turn your nose. And look, it's very important that you understand having no control on your horse. I have written a lot about that. So go to sign in Dot Julie good night. Dot com. You can sign up for a free membership app and you can read until you're exhausted about establishing nose control on a horse.
That's a big part of his distractibility. So keeping the horse's nose contained, asking him to put his head down when he gets excited, keeping him busy when he's distracted giving him rapid fire cues, causing him to work hard, change directions a lot, allowing him to rest when he's focused on me or focused on nothing. And if you do those things in very short order, you will have the focus of this horse So good luck with that, Heather.
Our third and final question today comes from Jennifer via email. She says, Hello, Julie. During episode number 71 of Ride On, you said Even a dominant horse is looking for leadership. This really spoke to me. My 13 year old off the track, Standardbred gelding is a very strong leader.
Internal, dominating every herd he's with through many hours of ground work and tips I've learned from your videos and podcast I've established myself as his leader, so he has excellent ground manners and is respectful with me and others who handle him. But I often wonder why he allows my leadership when he is so strong and dominant with other horses. Can you explain that concept a little more and expand on how training a dominant horse might require different strategies and tactics?
Thank you, Jennifer. Jennifer, again, these are very astute questions, and I'm so appreciate the fact that you have gotten a handle on this horse and that you've recognized that he actually appreciates your leadership. And also, thank you for listening to my podcast. And I'm so glad to hear that you've gotten some tips that have helped you in your training. That's sort of what it's all about. So you, you you validate my purpose there. So thank you for that.
Now, listen, no matter how dominant a horse seems, any horse likes feeling secure and likes not having to think. I often say that thinking is not the best sport of a horse. He has to work really hard to problem solve. He's very quick and easy to worry about things and worry about making decisions and issues in this environment.
So not having to think and when things are the same and when a leader can be trusted to take care of you and to always have your back and to be consistent and comportment to be consistent and expectations, reinforcement, rewards that is reassuring to any horse, no matter how dominant. Also, keep in mind that sometimes when horses are acting in a dominant manner, doesn't really mean that they're a dominant horse, and it certainly doesn't mean that they're a truly alpha horse.
Remember the alpha horse is that horse that's at the top of the pecking order. But a truly alpha horse is calm and confident and doesn't really have to be the leader. But a horse can display dominant behaviors even when he's not an alpha horse, because in any relationship between horses or between horses and people, it's linear. So one of you is dominant. One of you is subordinate.
And any time the leader of a herd falls down on their leadership dies, gets struck by lightning, disappears, what have you. Another horse immediately takes over as leader because there always has to be a leader. So in the absence of leadership, another horse will take over as the leader and start displaying dominant tendencies. But that doesn't mean that by nature, that horse is truly dominant horse.
Let me give you the example of a horse I've been working with recently that belongs to my good friend and neighbor. This horse Jimmy had through a series of mishandling had become extremely dominant, was acting in very dominant ways, very pushy, refusing to do stuff he was trying to do, shouldering into slinging his head at you, dragging you around, ripping the rope and running away. And he was displaying increasingly dominant behavior in such a manner that he seemed like a dominant horse.
But once we put him into training and we started giving him regimented training, reminding him of the previous training he had creating very strict expectations of his behaviors, which were consistent with the ways that he had been trained in the past. He immediately became a docile horse, and he immediately became a very content, relaxed, subordinate horse. He didn't have to be dominated over time. He immediately capitulated in the presence of strong leadership.
And then he became very soft, very compliant, very willing, and very ingratiated to the leadership that he had So to me, that was not a dominant horse that we had to over dominate. That was a horse that had learned to act in increasingly dominant ways because of a void of leadership.
So it could be that your horse is the same way and horses will always seek leadership, even the most dominant horse, and they will always gladly accept leadership when it is true leadership that is consistent and trustworthy and confident and all those things that horses find great comfort in. So congratulations, Jennifer, you have been able to display that kind of leadership to your horse and he gladly accept your leadership. So that's excellent. And you've done a good job.
And I'm so happy to hear that I could help in any way That's all the questions we have time for today. I love sharing my horse care and training experience with you, and I appreciate all of your feedback, suggestions and questions. And I'd love to hear what topics interest you the most. So if you have questions for what the hay or podcast topics you'd like me to address, please message me on Facebook at Julie Goodnight or email podcast at Julie Good Nikon.
And here are a few tips for you if you want your question answered on the air. I would greatly appreciate it if you would keep your question concise and please proofread before hitting send. Next month on my podcast we'll cover another horsemanship topic to expand your knowledge and help make your horse life better. Remember, please subscribe so you don't miss a single episode and please invite your equestrian friends to join us. You can find this podcast on every platform.
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