Horse Training Tips

Free Horse Training Tips


THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD TIMING IN HORSE TRAINING

With a person, it is possible to tell them afterwards, what a reward or punishment is for.
They can then relate their behavior with the consequences you provided even if the consequences are delayed, because you are able to explain to them that their behavior resulted in these consequences.

With a horse, you do not have that liberty. Consequences have to IMMEDIATELY follow the behavior. Otherwise the horse will not associate the behavior with the consequences at all.
In fact to be most effective, the consequences should occur DURING the behavior.
This allows the horses brain to make the connection between behavior and consequences.
In fact it has been scientifically proven that horses have a short term memory of only 3 seconds.
Which clearly explains why many training methods are not effective. For example, your horse bucks you off one day when you are riding it.... so you think "I'll teach this horse a lesson, I won't give him any dinner tonight". Unfortunately, this will not solve the problem at all, because the horses brain will not make any connection between the behavior (bucking) and the consequences (no dinner), because the events are separated possibly by several hours.
So no matter how much you shake your finger and tell the horse he is naughty and that is why he is not getting any dinner, it will not have the desired effect, of teaching the horse not to buck.
In fact the horse has already been rewarded for his behavior. The moment he bucked, you fell off. This means that the physical and emotional pressure of carrying a rider was removed the instant the horse bucked, so the horse becomes even more likely to buck next time you ride him.

Timing is so critical in horse training, that it can make the difference between the horses behavior improving or deteriorating.

Many people have naturally good timing, they are quick to reward the horse when the horse does something good, by either releasing pressure or giving thehorse something it wants, and they are quick to correct the horse when it does something they don't want.

These people are said to be natural's with animals, but in reality they just have good timing.

On the other hand some people have very poor timing, and they are slow to correct the horse, or reward any try the horse makes. Consequently the horse either becomes totally dull and desensitized or it's behavior deteriorates.

Clicker Training is a good way to improve your timing. The clicker is used as a marker signal to mark good behavior. So the clicker needs to be pressed at the exact moment the good behavior is occuring. To take a photo of a horse doing a particular movement the photographer has to press the button at the moment of the behavior, while it is occuring.
The clicker needs to be pressed at the same moment, while the behavior is occuring.
The animal is then given a food reward. So it learns to repeat the behavior it was doing when it heard the click.

Clicker Training makes people more observant, they have to watch the animal all the time, looking for something good to reward, rather than looking for something bad to punish.
A trainer with good timing will have well trained horses.

How good is your timing???

By Georgia Bruce