How will you guide the behaviour?

How are you going to guide the behaviour?

I think as adults this is the biggest challenge of the equestrian, especially if the only tool you have is negative reinforce/pressure release.

Why?

Because when you are using pressure/release, you are using an aversive that the horse finds uncomfortable, scary or painful that can easily escalate into positive punishment to guide the behaviour and the release of it to motivate the horse to do it again.

That means the working relationship requires the horse to be a little bit scared and uncomfortable. And we know that that is the worst place for the horse to learn from and does not build trust and confidence.

Kids, however, are really good at this. They are happy to just sit in the problem and experiment with lots of different things and aren't scared of doing it wrong. (Because they are always doing everything wrong). They come up with all sorts of ingenious ideas for non-verbal communication of how we could guide the horse into a new behaviour. And some of the ways are way better than the traditional way it is taught.

This is why I also love watching clicker trainers and r+ trainers. They come up with so many fun ways to guide behaviours that work so much better - because you can't just escalate pressure and make the horse do it.

How are you guiding your horses behaviour?

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