To Treat or Not to Treat? That is the Question!

Do horses really become rude if you give them too many treats? How do you know when the right time to give a treat is? Does your horse make you feel like a carrot dispenser?

After watching Luca Maria Moneta's interview with Horse and Country TV, following his success at the 2013 Puissance at Olympia, it struck me that the use of treats in horse training is something that is often not fully understood. Click here to watch Luca's video.

I've met trainers that say that they never feed their horse from their hand and met many more people that dish out the horse candy like it's going out of fashion. So who which way is right?

The answer is neither!

A common issue with using treats without understanding the psychology behind them is that people soon find themselves in situations where their horse will not do things unless he is given a treat. I know horses that will check you out and if you don't have a treat they won't let you catch them. The horse has become the trainer and knows that next time the human will make sure they have plenty of treats. Conversely, if you make a rule of never using treats you lose a very useful training tool.

When do treats not work?

There are situations when the use of treats is completely pointless and ineffective. Dealing with a horse that has a fear or comfort issue is one. How often have you seen people using treats to coax a horse into a trailer? Most people have tried it, I know I have, but it comes from not understanding what is important to a horse. When a horse is afraid for its life, or even just doesn't trust you, the last thing they are thinking about it their stomach. An example in the human world would be how people often lose their appetite when they are under great stress, such us facing an important exam or interview. If you are walking alone in a forest in the dark, with strange sounds coming closer behind you would you really think "hmmm? I'm hungry right now!". There is a simple biological explanation for this phenomenon. Eating slows you down, a full belly weighs you down and it takes energy for the body to digest. When you brain is picking up environmental cues that signal danger it begins preparing you for "fight or flight", and that means emptying the digestive system, not filling it up. That's the reason people that have a sudden fright may mess themselves! There's a lot more science to it but you get the principle.

Even if you manage to get your horse to take a treat, if he is stressed and his mind is on the stressful thing, eating is unlikely to help him make a meaningful mental connection. Some horses start grass munching when they feel pressure. It's a quick "grabby" kind of munch, as if they need to get as much as they can in their mouth. Sometimes food literally falls out of their mouths where they eat so fast. This could be compared to comfort eating in humans. The sensation of eating gives them a temporary release from their stress but it does not help them really feel any better about what is causing their stress. Eating your weight in ice-cream after an argument with your boyfriend (or girlfriend) might make you feel a bit better whilst you're eating but it doesn't address the reason for the argument and the problems in your relationship. This is why it is often better for people that do not know how to use treats to not use them at all. You can cause a horse to go farther with a treat than it would without but when the treats stop the stress is sill there and then the horse is much further past it's threshold and you have a very upset horse on your hands, or worse, you think the problem is gone but next time it is only worse.

So why bother giving treats at all then? Because when a horse is calm and confident he will start to ask for reasons to do things, the "why should I?"s and "what's in it for me?"s start coming out. It's much easier to remain friends with someone that makes you feel great and knows the things you like. We tend to ask horses to do the same things over again. Their lives don't tend to have as much variety as our own, and horses are quick to become bored. Showing a little appreciation can go a long way toward making them feel better about yet another course of jumps or putting effort into transitions.

If your horse starts to become rude about getting treats it is a sign that you are giving too many for too little effort. Treats should be used as rewards for the horse putting more effort than normal into something. If you keep giving the same reward for the same amount of effort soon the horse will start to make less effort in order to find out how little he can do to get the same treat. It's a sign of their intelligence but ironically people accuse these horses of being stupid because they seem to be going backwards in their training.

Personally, I advise against showing the horse the treat before he has made the desired effort. If your horse does something because he knows he will get a treat then it is a bribe and will not lead to the horse doing it without the treat. If you surprise your horse with a treat when he makes a big effort then he will begin to link try with treat and will have the hope of a reward. This is far more likely to lead to a bigger effort next time. Hope is a powerful motivating factor, even more than receiving a guarantee. This is the reason so many people develop gambling addictions.

I've heard people say that giving horses treats is not natural because horses do not give each other treats. I disagree with this. A mares milk is very sweet and her foal knows its life depends on her milk to survive. A mare will push her foal away if he is too rude and will not permit him to drink until he behaves in the desired way. This is natural leadership at its best. When the foal has calmed down and asks nicely the mare decides whether to allow the foal to drink. The lead mare will carry this lesson on with mature horses. She controls who gets to eat what, when and where. If she decides that she wants to share the hay pile she will. If she feels that another horse needs to be more respectful she'll keep them away.

The art to using treats, as with any form of positive reinforcement, is to do so consciously. Know when you are giving your horse a reward and why you are rewarding it. This enables you to keep the leadership role and not become the horses puppet or carrot dispenser.

And if you happen to give too many treats don't beat yourself up about it, it's a sign of your loving nature and your horse is likely to have a lot of positive association with you. Just remember that you need to balance being nice to be around with being someone worth listening to.

It doesn't have to be a complicated issue, just be conscious of using treats to reward the horse for making more effort at tasks he is confident about. Hopefully this article has given you some food for thought (pardon the pun) and you have a better idea of when is an effective time to give a treat or not.

If you enjoyed the content of this article, you can find more like this plus a community of like minded horse lovers, videos, tips, support, fun challenges, competitions and out very special "self-competition" groundwork class at From the Heart Horsemanship Community on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/890643461490209/?ref=share

Tricks - Who Do You Think You are Fooling?

"I don't need to teach my horse circus tricks!" "It's nice but I can't see the point of teaching that to my horse" "teaching that to horses is dangerous"

There is a lot of stigma in the horse world with teaching "tricks" and yet on the other hand many people are trick training all the time without even knowing it. This week's article is going to explore the thinking and attitudes regarding "tricks" and the benefits and hazards they can cause.

A simple way of defining a trick is when a horse performs a set behaviour on a specified cue. Put this simply "trick" covers most communication with our horses. The issue is that this does not cover the level of understanding that the horse has actually reached.

Horses will always look for comfort, for the release of pressure. They learn very quickly what they need to do to get us humans to stop bothering them. In order for us to communicate with our horses we invariably use some form of stimulus which the horse will perceive (to varying degrees) as pressure. This pressure motivates the horse to perform an activity. For example applying pressure to the horses's hip bone with your hand will cause his weight to shift, his balance to move and ultimately for him to step over away from you with his hindquarters.  Soon the horse will begin to realise that you stop touching him when he moves and so, if you have been effective in your timing, the horse will learn that a light pressure on the hip is the cue to move over and the pressure will go away once he does this.

Simple. So where's the problem?

The issue is that many people are not aware when they are applying pressure and when they are not. Horses learn "tricks" all the time, whether we want them to or not.

A common issue is catching. After a few times of being caught and asked to put effort into doing something that the horse perceives as pressure (often no matter how nice we think we are being) the horse will begin to cotton on to the fact that being caught is not always a good idea. Many horses will only allow you to catch them at certain times of the day. They know their routine and that there is a good chance they are being caught to go in for dinner, for example, and so perceive being caught as something they will endure in order to get what they want. But if you make a routine of catching your horse only when you intend to ride you will quickly find your horse heading in the opposite direction when you go to get him.

Horses feel our presence, our focus on them, and our intent to catch as pressure. Perfectly adapted to flight, your horse knows he can out run you any day of the week. Unless you are incredibly athletic you will likely run out of steam before your horse does if he sets his mind to not being caught. It doesn't take many failed attempts to catch your horse for this new "trick" to become a set pattern, a problem that escalates until the human is the one that is trained. Humans can be trained to leave head stalls on, provide treats (bribes), only attempt to catch at set times of the day and even give up on trying to catch their horse altogether.

So how do we fix a trick that has gone against us?

A horses behaviour is direct feedback to their perception of our own behaviour and energy. If, every time your horse runs away from you, he manages to find a way to find peace and comfort it reinforces that this is the best thing to do. We have to use our brains and our resources to ensure that the horse feels the pressure of our presence and intention all the time they are not giving us their attention. You have your horse's attention when he has two eyes and two ears on you. Now the hard part. as soon as your horse has two eyes and ears on you, you have to drop the pressure. Look away, maybe walk away, smile and breath out, sit down. Do what ever you need to do for the horse to realise that life is easier when he thinks about you and not when he thinks of everything else.

Ok, so tricks are general and can be taught deliberately or accidentally, but aren't there some things you should never teach your horse?

I have often heard people say "never teach a horse to lay down/rear - it will use it against you" . This is true when you have only actually half taught the horse something.

When we teach horses we want to reward them for doing the thing that we want. Most people start getting the desired reaction from their horse and see that as proof that the horse now knows the "trick". The problem is that horses are pattern animals, puzzle solving is not their forte so when they find a solution to one problem they will often test it out to see if it works as the answer to other problems. We see this when teaching a horse to go backward through a gateway. Pretty soon the horse will be offering to go backwards when you don't want and it seems like the only thing the horse can do is go backwards. I have seen many people give up saying "I should never have taught my horse to do X because now it is doing it all the time". The real reason is that the horse has not really finished the lesson.

Once your horse starts responding on cue fairly consistently you need to immediately set about installing an "off switch". When your horse starts offering an unwanted "trick" you need to think "oh great, now I can really help my horse understand!" Your horse is offering and should never be made to feel wrong for offering you something, unless it is creating an unsafe situation.

I have heard some say that tricks are bad because they are performed without understanding. Certainly when horses start to perform set behaviours by rote, without reading the human or the situation, dangerous situations can quickly arise. True teaching, as opposed to this definition of trick training, is when your horse connects with your energy, reads your intention, puts effort into searching for the right response and responds to a change in cue indicating that the behaviour is no longer needed.

Ultimately I believe that teaching tricks is essential for a human to learn to understand their horse's learning process, which will also help the human to ensure their horse does not learn unwanted behaviour, or be able to address it if it does. There are certain behaviours that should not be taught to the horse until the human has become an effective teacher through all stages of the horse's understanding process. I certainly would not encourage anyone to teach their horse to rear, lay down or perform a dominant behaviour until they have the skill level to be able to address this behaviour when it occurs when it is not desired and can teach the horse to differentiate between when a behaviour is appropriate and when it is not.

In summary a trick is a set response to a set cue. A true lesson is when the horse understands when to perform a set response and when that set response is not expected. This concept is broad and generalised because it applies to every aspect of our interaction with the horse. We need to learn to recognise that teaching horses comes in stages and it is our responsibility to see it through to the end.

It is up to you to decide what you want your horse to learn, and also what you want it not to learn. Teaching desired behaviours not only enable you to overcome unwanted behaviours but will help your horse see the importance of connecting to you, view you as a leader and form a bond strong enough to overcome the prey predator barrier.

So next time you hear someone say "oh it's just a trick" or "I don't see the point of tricks" remember that communication builds in layers and levels and many people miss this golden opportunity to develop their communication with their horse.

Are tricks really a waste of time? Sure, if all you do is teach your horse to assume it is expected to perform a task by rote without actually communicating with you. The greatest trick is when the horse is so connected and tuned in no one can see the cues from you, all they see is the magic of your horse wanting to be with you. Now that's a "trick" worth learning!