In a herd, baby bites mom, mom bites back. Low horse trys to get to food first, head horse runs at him and attacks .Young stallions try to steal mares, old stallion beats the heck out of them. Head horse lays ears back, stimulus, cue, desired behavior. I call "dinner" horse run down to stalls and wait. I say "graze" every time I let him eat on trail; I then say "graze and he heads for the nearest green stuff, I tap on mares hip till she takes one step, I stop when she does. After many repetitions if I tap on hip she moves forward, No longer have to scare her to get her to move or hit, just touch her hip. She won't move under saddle , reach over and say "walk" as I touch her hip, now she goes with walk, then legs added etc. ). Baby scout tries to nibble on me, I rub his nose to bug him, (ooppps,he loves me to rub his nose, now he has trained me to rub his nose by "nibbling " on me) :0( My arabians are faster and smarter then my dogs (at least the two lab carpets)
They will train, with cues, for "comfort" or "carrots", or pecking order. But then trust and willingness and curiosity play a part. I don't know about dumber horses.I always hear people say how dumb horses are. I haven't seen that with mine. (Laurie and Rascal, who knows that pointing means direction to go ) ----- Original Message ----- From: Jennifer Judkins Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 9:16 AM To: walkergirl@xxxxxxxxxx; ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [RC] "[Horses] don't understand reward and punishment" I'm talking about how they think and behave in a herd. If you think your horse thinks like your dog go right ahead and treat them that way. Todays horses do all kinds of unnatural things, why should operant conditioning be so hard to learn. I just don't see it happening naturally in a herd. I'll keep looking though;-) Jennifer. "A. Perez" <walkergirl@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Ok, it's a boring day at work, so I am probably responding to
too many RC posts, so ignore this if you like - I won't be
offended ;-)
I have to beg to differ. Operant conditioning has been used
successfully on animals as lowly as earthworms and jellyfish.
If an animal experiences a positive stimulus (aka "reward")
while doing something, it is more likely to repeat doing that
soimething. If the reward is repeated on a variable schedule,
it behavior is more likely to be repeated, and persist, even
when the rewards are stopped. Conversly, if an animal
experiences a negative stimulous ("punishment") when doing
something, it is less likely do do it again. Timing is
everything, however: the pos/neg stimulous must immediately
accompany the behavior being reinforced/dsicouraged. You can't
tell the horse "I'm beating you now because you ate your
blanket last night" - it will have no idea what the punishment
is for, and probably will associate the pushment with whatever
it was doing at the time the beating commenced.
Read Karen Pryor's "Don't Beat The Dog" for an excellent
introduction to operant conditioning (yes, I know I have
recommended this book 100 times before, but it really is good,
and is an easy read, and it is NOT a dog training book, despite
the title).
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