The Head Collar

In an equestrian world filled with gadgets and gizmos, it can sometimes be confusing as to what sort of equipment we should use for our horses. There is one piece of equipment that we use more than any other, the simplest gadget in our tack room... Or is it? It seems to me that most people opt for a traditional headcollar, while the 'natural horsemanship folk' tend to opt for rope/pressure halters. Then of course there's Monty Robert's own line of Dually halters... So what's the difference and what's the significance? 

There is only one principle to do with head collars that I would call an absolute and that is the fitting of the noseband. Anyone who fits a headcollar to a horse needs to understand that toward the end of the horse's nose, the bone structure becomes very thin and then non-existent, leaving only cartilage. It wouldn't take a vast amount of pressure to damage the cartilage or fracture the end of the nasal bone. For this reason, the noseband of any headcollar (or bridle) should sit high on the nose; the general rule is two fingers' width below the protruding cheek bone. 

The horse's skull - notice the thin nasal bone

Another commonly known 'rule' when it comes to head collars is that if horses must wear one when travelling in a horse box or when loose in a field, it should be made of leather. This is because leather head collars are much more breakable than synthetic ones; a point that could prove life saving, or at least help prevent some serious injuries/traumatic experiences.  

A horsewoman I greatly respect once told me I should always know why I'm doing what I'm doing with horses. When I first learned about natural horsemanship, I thought rope halters were great! But when I began to think about why, I started having second thoughts. Here's a short picture gallery: 

Diagram of a rope halter 

Rope halter on a horse 

Traditional head collar 

Monty Robert's Dually - notice how the rope attachment works 

Horse's facial nerves 

The rope or 'pressure' halter is designed to do exactly that - apply pressure through points around the horses face, particularly via the two knots either side of the horse's nose. It is designed with narrow strips of rope as opposed to the traditional head collar which is has a wider, flatter surface area which allows for a more even distribution of pressure. 

The Dually halter is similar to a traditional head collar, but has a rope attachment beneath the noseband which works in a pressure-and-release manner. If the horse was pulling forwards, for instance, the rope piece would tighten round his nose. As soon as the horse slows back down, the rope piece would give a little, so rewarding the horse and encouraging that behaviour. It utilises the principle of negative reinforcement and makes it easy to apply. Some people simply put the lead rope around the horse's nose whilst leading for the same effect (it's a lot cheaper than spending £40 on a Dually I suppose), although the release isn't quite as smooth. 

After some thought about 'reasons', I decided to just use a traditional head collar. It turns out I don't need a pressure halter because I trained my horses to respond to the lighter pressure of their head collars. And I don't need a Dually because I was able to use timing instead of a sliding rope piece to utilise the pressure-and 

-release principle. I don't disagree with rope halters or Dually's by any means, but I do wonder if a lot of people really know why they use them and whether they actually need to, that's all. (And also, if I were a horse, I think my preference would be a comfy head collar and an understanding handler.) 

I try to make it my aim to use as little pressure as possible to get the response I want with my horses; a supposed common aim of many people in the 'natural horsemanship' world. If I'm honest, I can't quite understand why so many folk see the need to use pressure halters when half the time they are working 'at liberty' (with no halter at all). I've seen some people grimace at the use of thin bits which exert more pressure in the mouth and yet they feel the need to use thin ropes that exert more pressure around the nose. Again, I don't disagree with bits and I don't disagree with pressure halters; I just disagree with using them the wrong way and question whether their use is really necessary.  

Pressure halters have pros and cons. They are nice and light and don't seem to jangle around the horse's head the way most traditional head collars do, but then that depends how either are fitted. They can also be very useful in that they give the horse a more pronounced and accurate signal when used correctly. In the wrong hands, however, they could cause the horse significant discomfort and I wouldn't feel comfortable letting anyone with limited experience handle my horses in one. 

At the end of the day, I think it all comes down to the hands that are using the tools, not the tools themselves. This principle applies to bridles too (not to stray too far off topic) in that a bitless bridle (often seen as 'humane') used the wrong way will probably cause the horse a lot of discomfort, whilst a bridle with, say, a French link snaffle, fitted and used the right way will not cause the horse any discomfort whatsoever. I personally use a bitless bridle which has a rope noseband with a slight pulley action, but the noseband and head piece are both sheep-skin lined and my boys have learned to stop from only a slight signal. I'm considering changing to a bridle with no pulley action, especially since I'd like to be able to ride them bridle-less at some point. 

So does it matter what kind of head collar we use? Not necessarily... What matters most is surely our knowledge, our skills and our attitude toward the horse. 

Shaping Horse Behaviour and Using Subtle Signals

Finally, some dry weather! The field that the boys live in has been quite a muddy scene for the past few months thanks to our overly-generous English skies, but the ground is starting to become a little more manageable now. I did some filming recently of some work I was doing with Roux. My aim throughout was to be able to consistently move into a walk on the same foot (eg I leave on my right foot, he leaves on his front right) without any contact. It was one of the tasks called for in the coursework I am currently working on and although it now seems simple, it was quite a challenge for me at first. 

At first, my starting point was moving my right or left foot over to the side and then moving straight into a walk and hoping he would copy my movement. This proved very confusing for us both and you can watch the footage in the video below (sorry about the quality, the 'result' videos are much easier to watch). I think watching Roux's expressions in this video is so interesting because you can see how very confused he is as I am giving all the wrong signals at all the wrong times.  

'Confused'

After my first few attempts I began to become frustrated because the stepping-in-sync didn’t seem to be working, at least not consistently. Then something happened… In my reflective log I described it like this: ‘Roux gave me something today. I shifted my weight onto the other foot and he did too. He was that in-tune with me. It was only very slight and will need working on, but now I understand it because I felt it’. For me, this was a eureka moment. I had never simply stood still and shifted my weight and had a horse copy me before (or at least not that I had noticed) and before I felt it happen, I didn't really believe that it would. I caught it on camera and if you watch carefully you'll see it here:

'Eureka'

As I looked back over the footage I had taken I realised I hadn't been subtle enough or even given Roux a chance to respond to my balance shifts. Another part in my reflective log says, ‘The times when we are most successful is when he has a chance to start off on the same foot as me. He can only do this if I allow him enough time to see what foot I am going to start off on instead of just pushing him this way or that way.’ I then wrote to myself to slow it all down and just practice. I decided to break it down and use my own weight shift as a cue for which foot we were going to leave on. It took a lot of mistakes and a while to get used to this. I started to use the following sequence of cues. I would work through each step until Roux responded and then keep retrying until he responded to just the first one. The sequence went like this: 

1. Shift my own weight to one side
2. Gently encourage him to shift his weight (either by tugging on the leadrope slightly or by waving the stick at him/pushing into him gently)
3.  Lift my foot and use my stick to direct energy behind as a clear signal to move forwards into a walk. (I think moving straight into a walk at first helps clarify the balance shift in the horse’s mind.) (I had to learn to apply this signal at the appropriate time. If I applied it when Roux was leaning on the wrong side, for instance, he would end up leaving on the wrong foot and I would be reinforcing an undesired behaviour).

Using this pattern helped me develop more consistency. At first we would move into a walk as soon as Roux shifted his balance as this helped to ‘complete’ the movement as it were. However, by the end of the session shown in the next video, Roux was responding to my first cue at a standstill.

Along the way I also learned that Roux needed to be in a square halt next to me if I was to accurately record him responding to my signal. I also had to time my releases correctly. My method of releasing pressure was by stopping altogether and giving him time to think (negative reinforcement). 

Another point I noted in my diary was that, although generally a useful method of positive reinforcement, my use of treats was actually having a negative effect overall. This was firstly because Roux was becoming too intent on eating and it was becoming a major distraction and also because he would constantly lean over to my ‘treat pocket’ which wasn’t proving helpful when I wanted him to lean on the opposite foot! Since then, he has had more focus during our sessions and the ‘release’ has been enough of a reward to help him learn.

The following video demonstrates the process I used to shape Roux’s behaviour. In the video, I've marked the moments where I am applying a signal and marked the signal as step 1, 2, or 3 respective to the sequence above. I have also marked the moments where I am releasing the pressure to reward the response with an ‘R’.

‘Using Reinforcement by Release to Shape a Desired Behaviour’

In hindsight, I can see places where I went wrong and there is definitely still room for improvement. Sometimes I think I put more pressure on when he was already going to change his balance and all I needed to do was wait another second, and sometimes I think I skip to the third phase of the sequence too fast, when he might have shifted his weight just from step 2. At one point, I also stopped him too soon so that he wasn’t standing square next to me, and then I started forward again without correcting that which wasn’t really ‘setting him up for success’, (but he still left on the same foot as me which was very obliging of him).

After I had trained Roux to prepare for walk by responding to my balance shifts, we were able to leave on a specified foot much more consistently, as can be seen in the following video… (Excuse the part where he’s having a scratch, it was far too cute to edit out!). 

‘Affecting the Horse’s Balance, Moving Specified Feet at the Right Time’

I think we could progress by making the signal more subtle, so instead of ‘hip popping’, (as one of my friend’s described it!) I could try to shift my weight more and more slightly and see how small a cue he can respond to... But all in all, I am so happy with our progress here and have learned another valuable lesson in how sensitive and responsive horses really can be to us when we give them the chance to be. 

The Science of Horse-Human Interaction

A month or so ago, I did some reading up on long words like neurocardio synchronisation, electromagnetic energy fields, emotional resonance and coherent heart states. I wanted to know how all these concepts intertwined concerning our relationship with horses and each other and how they could be relevant to equine facilitated learning or therapeutic practices. I came across many interesting articles and videos. To relay all what I found here would be impractical, but I came across bombshell after bombshell of mind-bogglingly explosive information. For that reason, I thought 'best make it simple'. I will simply use this post to share and glorify two particular articles (which I thought about trying to put in my own words, but they have already been written too perfectly) which are perhaps the most user-friendly and yet at the same time in-depth and enlightening. I think the implications of what has been written here are not only fascinating, but could also have an extremely powerful and relevant influence on the way we view our interactions with horses.

• Heart to Heart - A quantitive approach to measuring the bond between horses and humans 

• Horses, Humans and the Frequencies of Connection 

Lifestyle of the Domesticated Horse in Light of Our Circumstances, Priorities and Perspective

A few years ago, a wrote a somewhat biased post on the various side effects of stabling horses and having recently re-read it, I would now like to re-write it. I'll put it out there, I still don't believe stabling horses for more than a few hours a day is ideal for their mental welfare. However, it would seem that instead of there being a right or wrong in these situations, circumstance, priorities and perspective tend to be the defining factors when it comes to how our horses live. 

Circumstances 

I could write all day about the effects of circumstance, for a lot of people, how they keep their horses is down to financial circumstance and what they can afford. In these cases they may ask themselves, 'Should we even own a horse if we don't have the money to provide everything we'd like him to have? But then would he be worse off if I had left him with that owner or if I sold him on to those owners?' etc. Health is a huge one too, our own and the horse's. A leg injury in a horse could lead on to months of box rest, or laminitis to restricted grazing or illness to the necessity of various medications. Finance and health are only a few, also think about time limitations, location and other commitments. This leads on to priorities... 

Priorities 

When people ask me whether or not I approve of racing, I can't give a flat yes or no because there are so many considerations. Racing is not just for horse people, in fact it is the second most attended sport after football which means it generates more money than any other equestrian sport. This in turn helps pump more money into the equestrian industry, funding research etc. which in the long run benefits horses around the world, including yours and mine. On the other hand, the individual horses involved in racing are often broken very young (while their bones are still developing), run hard and retired early because their bodies can no longer cope with the strain or they just didn't make the cut. They are either put to sleep or taken on by other owners or charities who may retrain them, but in a country already overloaded with horses and not enough owners, which of these is the kinder option is, in itself, another controversial topic. 

If our priority was to buy a horse who we could ride 5 times a week and take competing, it could just be plain impractical to have him living in a out in a muddy field 24/7, acquiring injuries from the other horses which will later turn into point-reducing scars in the show ring, getting so dirty that he takes a good hour to clean and dry and get ready, an hour which perhaps you can't afford within your schedule or with another 5 horses with whom you will have to repeat the process... Let's face it, there is a lot of money in the equestrian industry. We sometimes buy a horse to do a job and whether his lifestyle factors contribute toward his 'ideal' mental state may, within reason, not be our highest priority, in the same way that we personally work hard to achieve our goals often forfeiting that perfect diet or fitness regime in favour of other resources. Additionally, there are always comparisons to consider. The high-drive competition horse may not be living the 'ideal natural lifestyle', but he is obviously far better off than those hundreds of horses living in neglect, emaciated, permanently confined or in pain and this leads me on to perspective... 

Perspective 

At the end of the day, the horse in an animal whose fate is at the discretion of his owner and he could not be more helpless as to decide where or with whom he ends up. Everything is comparable and everyone has opinions as to what standard is 'correct'. Horses who are kept at grass 24/7 are still usually surrounded by an electric fence, however wide it may be. If we believed in horses living a truly natural life then surely we shouldn't really even be riding them? Instead, we should be appealing for the conservation of feral mustangs or for no interventions in the lives of the native herds we have running free in the UK, but of course, even here, there are too many impracticalities for us not to interfere. They would eventually over-populate the space allotted to them, which is in neither their nor our interest. Perhaps intervention in this case could be referred to as the lesser of two evils, and as so with the lifestyles of many domesticated horses today. 

Here are two perspectives of a single situation: 

1. My two ponies live a natural lifestyle because they are never stabled, but live at grass in a 2.5 acre field. I don't compete them, but only hack them out occasionally and practice natural horsemanship with them on the ground. I use body language and a good knowledge of their instincts instead of numerous gadgets so that I can communicate with them in a more natural way. I use them for equine assisted learning activities so all they have to do is be themselves! 
2. My two ponies live in a muddy 2.5 acre field surrounded by electric tape which prevents them from seeking dry ground. I expect them to allow me to ride them wherever I choose, including through unnatural surroundings (roads, bikes, trains etc.). They will submit to the training techniques I use and learn to perform unnatural movements in response to whatever aids I have taught them to respond to. I also expect them to behave quietly with any visitors I bring to meet or work with them. The visitors can give the ponies various commands in order to practice horsemanship, but because they are not very experienced, they could end up confusing the ponies. 

There are truths in each, but they sound like they were written by different people with very different opinions because they are written from two different perspectives. There is never harm in stepping back and looking at a situation through your horse's perspective as well as your own. 

Lifestyle of the Domesticated Horse 

With the principles of circumstance, priorities and perspective in the back of my mind I can now re-write what I was trying to construe two years ago when I wrote about the effects of the lifestyle of typically domesticated horses in the UK and around the world today. Having established that the ideal lifestyle for a horse is to be wild and free with his herd, roaming on an everlasting stretch of grassland and having also established that this is impossible, my aim is to provide the best lifestyle for my two ponies that I can, given my circumstances, priorities and perspective and hopefully to encourage others to do the same for their horses, by increasing awareness of some of the possible effects of stabling (one of the most impactive factors of equine domestication) on the horse's mental welfare. 

Many horses are kept in stables (usually a 12x12' box) for the majority of their day, particularly through winter. They have little to occupy themselves with for most of the time spent confined other than eating and in most cases have very limited social interaction. Horses are very sociable creatures and can form strong attachments to other horses in the herd. It is key to their survival in the wild that they constantly to maintain their social structure within the herd to ensure a safe and reliable communication system should they need to flee from danger.  Horses have a strong 'fight or flight instinct' and are naturally claustrophobic because to them, a small space means they can't run away from danger if they need to. Being confined to a stable inhibits a horse's opportunities to socialise and flee from danger. 

Horses who spend most of their time confined to a stable are reported to be more prone to developing what equestrian folk term as 'stable vices', otherwise known as stereotypical behaviours. These may include crib-biting, box-walking, door-kicking and weaving (to name a few). That is not to say these occur in every stabled horse, but it is important for each horse to get the balance that he personally needs. Through my own experience, I would say that the horses most likely to develop these habits are those who spend extended periods of times in the stable and do not get enough mental stimulation or exercise. When exercised properly, they can use more time to rest, but if not exercised enough, they will have an overload of forcibly contained energy, and this often results in what most people call 'bad behaviour', although I would refer to as 'totally-undesirable-but-understandable-given-the-circumstances-behaviour'.  When deprived of their natural habitat and lifestyle, horses develop these habits (they don't copy other horses) as an 'outlet', a way to channel their stress or energy into an activity. Denied the stimulation of their natural surroundings, horses look to these habits for stimulations because they often result in the release of endorphins. 

Above: Horse 'crib-biting' and Right: Cribbing collar

Instead of identifying and resolving the cause of the problem, many horse owners simply try to prevent the behaviour through such means as a cribbing collar (pictured above) or anti-weave bars. It is understandable the owners try to inhibit or prevent the growth of these habits, since they can damage the horse's health (eg, wind-sucking and cribbing can cause stomach ulcers and damage teeth) as well as become very annoying (noisy door-kicking). These habits should certainly try to be prevented, but putting a cribbing collar on a horse to stop him from acquiring the stress-release he needs (which he isn't able to acquire any other way) through a habit which he has already developed isn't going to benefit the horse's mental health.  

I believe more horse owners could think about how to get to the root of the problem and how to resolve that, instead of problems stemming from that problem. By checking the horse's lifestyle and time management in light of 'the ideal', giving him the opportunity to behave as naturally as possible and keeping him mentally engaged by allowing him to socialise and use his intelligence, they should be able to hugely benefit his mental health and consequently have a happier, healthier horse. 

How To Catch Your Horse

When Roux first came to me, he couldn't be caught. Now there's a funny phrase right there, 'can't catch my horse', as though we are fishing for them with bait or chasing after them with a net. I don't know about you, but I think of my horses as my children (and now I am thinking of the child catcher from 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'!... goodness, what if our horses saw us like that?!), but if I had two actual children, I wouldn't run around after them trying to 'catch' them. 'Catching your horse' can mean several different things, and ideally I would rather not have to go to the inconvenience of chasing, sneaking up on or coaxing him, I'd rather he willingly came to me or at least allowed me to simply walk up to him and put on his headcollar, but for the sake of convenience I will stick to the term 'catch'.

I came to the realisation some time ago that if I can't catch my horse, it is because he neither trusts nor respects me (and when I say respect I don't mean fear, because hmm, if he feared me then he probably wouldn't trust me!). Personally, I believe being able to catch your horse in from the field is one of the most basic/important foundational steps in working with that horse. To the extent that I see no point continuing the training of a horse who I cannot catch in from the field safely and calmly until we have overcome that first step. Your journey with a horse is a bit like a staircase made up of many small, individual steps... if you skip building the important steps, you are likely to have a pretty wobbly staircase later on. Isn't it worth taking more time earlier to save a lot of time later?

I keep both my boys at pasture 24/7 and one of the first things I naively did with Roux the day he first arrived was attempt to remove his headcollar. Being as touchy as he is, he panicked as soon as he felt pressure on his poll and he bolted away from me. From that moment on, he associated me with that one instance and wouldn't come near me (unless I had a feed-bucket and even then, tentatively). Roux was a conundrum to me for a little while. I was working every day with Alfie, who is a happy-go-lucky sort of chap (irresistible bit of anthropomorphism there), and while we were making great progress together, I always felt a frustration in the back of my mind about Roux. I had tried coaxing him with food and had managed to clip a long line to his headcollar on a couple of occasions. I'd been very excited that I'd finally caught him and had done some work with him, but after the second time I realised that he was only responding out of fear and it broke my heart a little because that wasn't how I wanted him to see me. I decided that if he was to work willingly with me, it would have to be on both our terms; he would have to choose to accept being caught. I disposed of all ropes and resolved to use only myself and what knowledge I had.

I know I'm making this sound like a huge deal but it really was for me (and here's a shout out to all those who have the same problem, I know how frustrating it can be!)... And it wasn't just me; anyone who tried to approach him, he wouldn't let within 5 feet of him most of the time. I decided to use one consistent method and stick to it daily in the hope that he would come around.

So I began by looking at him. And then walking slowly and non-threateningly toward him. Non-threatening in this case meant head down, hands in pockets, shoulders slumped and walking sideways or backwards toward him with no equipment in hand, and pausing for a minute every two steps I took. Even this apparently posed too much of a threat for Roux however, which he confirmed by walking away in the opposite direction as soon as I entered his comfort zone. I had no round pen or arena and was working with Roux in an open acre of pasture. When he walked away, I immediately changed my body language and actively asked him to walk away from me. The reasoning behind this is that it would allow me to clearly incorporate negative reinforcement (see my last post) when he eventually turned in my direction because then I could reward and encourage that exact action by lowering my energy at the same moment. This was NOT chasing my horse around a field until he was so exhausted that he submitted. Neither was it a punishment for walking away. It was just a simple training principle being put to use in a big, spacious field. In simple terms, I was giving Roux a choice between two options: 1) allowing me to approach (slowly - it is only fair to make it as manageable an option as possible for him) or 2) moving away from me (not stopping to eat or relax).

He walked away from me and then he trotted away and he didn't stop for a long while, but there was a moment where he looked toward me. THAT was the moment I stopped. I stopped and transformed my body language back to that of the moody teenager (excuse the analogy), hands in pockets, head down, slumped shoulders. This was my use of negative reinforcement - rewarding his desired behaviour (looking toward me) by removing the unpleasant stimulus (my advance toward him). Of course, then he stopped too. I would like to say it was happily ever after from there, but there is rarely a 'quick fix' with horses and I was going to have to continue this process for a few weeks. I remember Roux high-tailing it away from me as I got too close sometimes, cantering around and around the field, taking Alfie with him, and I would calmly chase him away in accordance until he thought about changing his mind, in which case so would I. Gradually, his escapades became slower and less frequent. He would allow me to come nearer before he moved away and his circles around me became smaller and smaller. He learned that each time he looked toward me I stopped and before long he was looking in at me and we were stopping instantaneously. It became a bit like a dance, both reacting to each other in a predictable way. I believe that is one of the keys to good horsemanship - consistency. Roux learned that I was consistent and began to trust that if he was looking toward me, I would become non-intrusive, simple as that. The breakthrough came when he allowed me to walk calmly up to him and stroke his neck. For that, I was grateful and I showed this by simply walking away, satisfied. I wanted him to know that just because I went up to him and stroked him didn't mean I expected anything of him. He started showing signs of relaxation while I was near him, such as sighing and the 'licking and chewing' motion, which showed me he was beginning to truly accept my presence, such a difference from the tense and frightened manner he'd had previously. Eventually my walking toward him was no longer an 'unpleasant stimulus' and I began to instead use positive reinforcement to encourage him in his training.

These tiny little steps created the foundation of our journey's 'staircase'. We have never stopped building and now Roux comes over to me when I call his name. I don't know if you'd call that catching ... to me, it feels more like we've captured each other's hearts.

BACK TO BASICS - Conditioning and Reinforcement

Bear with me a while for I must write this post... I just want to revisit the very most basic of basic training principles as it is so easy to become lost in a world of various 'horse training techniques', be they to do  with dressage or happy hacking, desensitising him to this, or training her that... Do we actually understand why and how what we are doing is having an effect on our horses?

In my last post, I mentioned the importance of understanding learning theories when training horses. There are all sorts of different techniques and training methods out there, but to train the horse correctly we must understand how those techniques work and how they all stem back to the basics of classical or operant conditioning. If you don't know what those are, here are diagrams and links to help explain...

{ www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html }

{ www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html } 

So essentially, all learned behaviour (anything that is not instinctive) in horses is learned either through simple association or through this process: stimulus > response > reinforcement. In my experience, punishment as a form of reinforcement is not a constructive way to train a horse anything apart from, perhaps, teaching him not to do something (e.g. tapping his muzzle if he nips), because horses are creatures that are easily scared. When they are pushed too far out of their comfort zone, and further toward their 'fight/flight' zone (natural instinct as a prey animal), their concentration on learning a new concept is overrun by an alarm bell instilled in them literally for the sake of their own survival... so we can hardly blame them when they struggle to listen to us because they are scared by some other external factor. I try to not ever instill any kind of punishment when training a horse to do something as this 1) is pushing him further out of his comfort zone, 2) possibly marring his trust in me as his handler, 3) can easily be misconstrued if the timing is wrong and 4) is making him associate the whole situation with fear. That's a lot of reasons not to use punishment. Training horses in ways that encourage them to remain in a relaxed state (positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement) I have found to be the most constructive. Of course, it is not always possible for the horse to remain entirely relaxed and there is a place for the method of 'flooding', but generally I try to use a combination of positive and negative reinforcement, as do many people.  If I were asking a horse to move his hind quarters over, I might apply a slight pressure to them with my fingertips. As soon as he moves them, the 'uncomfortable pressure' from my fingertips is released (negative reinforcement) and I feed him a treat for performing the correct movement (positive reinforcement). The correct timing of reinforcement is key to successful training. 

When Roux first came to me, he wouldn't allow me to catch him in the field. I keep him and Alfie at grass 24/7, so this was far from ideal. Sure, I could slip the rope onto his head collar when he approached me for his feed bucket, but this was also, in my mind, far from ideal. Instead, I used negative reinforcement through a technique where I would increase pressure when he gave an undesired response (when he walked away, I walked toward him) so that I could decrease/release that pressure when he gave the desired response (when he looked/walked in my direction, I would look/walk away). Of course, there are all sorts of methods out there to catch horses, but they all boil down to conditioning and reinforcement and how you are going about using these principles. And the better you understand these principles (along with the horse's natural instincts), the better you can understand, choose and justify the training techniques you come across to use. 

I went on to train Roux to accept being caught through negative reinforcement (his reward was essentially me giving him time and space). His next issue was picking his feet up and having them picked out and for that, I used both negative and positive reinforcement, depending on the stage we were at (and it was a long process!). I've learned so much through all of this, but I just think it's so important to understand how these simple principles of conditioning and reinforcement form the backbone of all horse training and to remember them throughout. 

Meet Me...

Name: Aviva Stafford

Where I'm based: Cheshire, UK

Horsemanship/method of training practised and a brief description of application or principles: I certainly try to use a non-aggressive approach, but also a non-domineering one as much as I can help it. In horse herds there is often a ‘boss’ horse who will bully the other horses and some trainers try to emulate this behaviour so that they can be the ‘boss horse’. But I prefer to be like the horse whom the others follow because he has their trust and not because they are intimidated by him.

Whether I’m training a horse to actively DO something or desensitising him to an object/situation he finds scary, I try to break it all down into steps that he finds more manageable. Some need a process broken down into tiny steps while others will progress in leaps and bounds, but they are all different!

I think it’s quite important to understand some of the theories behind behaviour. A proper understanding of the theories behind ‘classical conditioning’ (Pavlov’s dogs, 1889) and ‘operant conditioning’ (Skinner’s rats, 1938) have had a huge impact on the way I understand horse training. I also think it’s important to understand the horse’s nature because then we can transfer all these theories in a way that will be constructive for him. Understanding how he thinks and his perception of the world generally, helps me understand why he behaves the way he does and so, needless to say, helps me figure out training solutions.

Summary of Previous Experience: I started riding when I was 11 and it wasn’t long before I was helping at local yards so I could spend more time with the horses. When I was 15 I met Pat and Linda Parelli at their 2010 summit and started getting interested in natural horsemanship. When I was 16 I went to study equine management at Reaseheath College. In those same two years I also listened to Andrew McLean at one his demos, took my Stage 1 and 2 BHS exams, attended a 5-day training course with Kelly Marks, undertook work experience on a polo yard (near Cowdray) and an equine-assisted learning facility (Hampshire) and I took on my first ‘loan pony’ as a project. After college I became a full-time volunteer for a charity and spent a lot of time on their equestrian side which they used to help vulnerable and disabled adults. By that time, I had discovered the healing power of horses and decided my goal was to become an equine-assisted learning facilitator as well as a horse trainer. I then went to Spain for 3 weeks, met Clare at Time and Space Horse Riding and experienced horses in a wonderful way there. And then I went for a year without horses and without riding (which was very difficult). BUT August of this year was worth the wait because all at once I attended an intensive 9-day facilitator training course with Tricia Day of EAQ and then took on Alfie and Roux, my two 6-year-old New Forest Ponies.

What I'm doing now: Backing and training my two young ponies (we love learning tricks!) and steadily building my portfolio toward becoming a qualified equine-assisted learning facilitator.

Idols and influences: Emma Massingale, Mark Rashid, Alexander Nevzorov

             

 Top left: Alfie making me laugh out loud Top right: Roux ready to ride (I currently use a bitless bridle and a bareback pad) Bottom: Alfie practising his bow