You Can Teach Your Horse To Do Anything!

[debgibsonmt]

We just got this video by Shawna and Vinton Karrasch and watched it last night.  Over all we thought this was a very good tape for beginning clicker training. (which is where we're at)

After a section on the basic theory they start with a 4 year old horse who had never heard a clicker before, and the first thing they teach, is how to stop the horse from mugging you for the treats. Definately a good place to begin.

They go on with examples of the use of a taget stick and static targets and a practical demonstration of teaching a horse to load in a trailer. (this is one we'll be working on over the next few weeks)

An under saddle demostration was also included, useing a show jumper.  For us the content of this part was diminished by shots of said show jumper useing all manner of gadgets, curbs, matingales, flash nose bands, etc., (although not on the demo horse)  

I would have liked the tape to have gone a little deeper into slightly more advanced techniques, but as we said, over all a pretty good tape if you are just starting.  Running time 53 minutes.

Cheers, Kev/Deb

[GeneralPouchka]

Hiya

Did you get this off the internet and if so where can I get a copy?  Do you know if there is a DVD copy - I dont want to watch the video in my youngest sons room amongst the mess and teddy bears lol.

Sylina

[stranger]

Wot-even the washing up and the ironing.?? :lol:  

[debgibsonmt]

Hi Sylina,

I originally ordered it from Amazon but they kept delaying it till I got fed up and did an google search.  Can't even remember what company I bought it from.  Don't know if they have it in DVD yet either.  Sorry.  I just do an internet search if I were you.

Cheers, Deb

[GeneralPouchka]

Thanks Deb

I'll go and google it and see.  I need some 'progression' ideas and I dont think im 'getting' it from the book.  Might be easier to watch.

Sylina

[Becky holden]

I to have read this book and watched the video the only thing i didn't agree with was in the ridden demo the rider continued to click whilst the horse was still moving, i think the horse was in trot leg yeild or half pass but instead of the horse being allowed to stop for his treat after hearing the first click the click was repeated to encourage the horse to keep the movement going???  This is where the voice should be used to encourage the horse to keep trying, conditioning the words "Good boy/girl" would have that effect, no other clicker trained animal would be expected to carry on once the click is heard. A very confusing point for the horse and confusing for the person watching and learning from this video. Clicker training from the ground and under saddle is used in exactly the same way... click means stop and receive a treat. I always recommend Alexandra Kurland or Karen Pryor's books for this reason which is a shame because everything else in the book is very well done.

Becky    

[Numbat]

The Karrasches insist that they get better results by not rewarding every click. I don't get it, myself, and wonder how the horse knows which clicks are the ones to get rewarded; it seems to me the click would just become a keep-going signal and some other marker, such as that the rider "stops riding", would become the bridge. But that's what they reckon. I use "keep going" as my KGS and the click ends the behaviour and gets a treat.

[Ebyss]

Using intermittent reinforcement when the behaviour is established can be quite effective in preventing a rapid exctinction of the desired behaviour when reinforcement is discontinued. It's an established part of Conditioning, and when deciding upon a schedule of reinforcement, the trainer can decide early on whether he will use continuous or intermittent reinforcement, and what forms they will take. Intermittent reinforcement is also particularly good for when you don't want to interrupt the desired behaviour by rewarding it immediately.

Some argue that intermittent reinforcement is actually more effective at maintaining the behaviour than continuously rewarding it.

Have a look here: Reinforcement schedules

[Numbat]

Well of course, but what we're on about here is not variable reinforcement per se, but the practice of using the click itself as a reinforcer without a treat to follow. And then also using the click before a treat. Most of us one-click-gets-one-treat people use variable reinforcement, but we do so by varying the number of times the behaviour has to be performed, or the duration, or the quality, before we click and treat, not by clicking but then not treating. Obviously, this works for the Karrasches. Clearly by the time they do this with their horses there is such a solid training history that the click itself has become a powerful conditioned reinforcer, but I'm curious about what the horses' understanding of the sometimes just clicking, sometimes click + treat, really is.

[Ebyss]

Ah, I see.. yes that is slightly different. The same thing happened with Pavlov's dogs if I remember. Eventually, he stopped using the treat, and just used the bell. The salivation in anticipation of the treat was enough of a reward.

If the click is being used as a signal to let the horse know he's doing the right thing, you can click a few times as the behaviour is being performed without losing the momentum by having to treat. The horse knows it's behaving correctly if it gets a click (otherwise, why have the click at all? Why not just treat if you're going to reward after every single behaviour. The click is a bridge between the two is it not?), and by not rewarding every time you might cause the horse to "try harder" at the behaviour in an effort to get the treat... it's a long shot at a theory as to why.

It still sounds like Intermittent Reinforcement to me though, even if it is a different way of doing it. Horse hears click, knows he's done the right thing, the click itself is a reward in some ways (salivation), but he knows the at some point a treat will follow, just not when, so he continues the behaviour as long as he keeps getting clicks until eventually he gets the treats. Horse still connects clicks with treats, even though he doesn't know when the treat will "appear".

I remember Beezie Madden training Judgement (her stunning black showjumper) to overcome his fear of water jumps using clicker training. It worked too... but in the ring, she couldn't just stop after the water jump and treat the horse, he had a whole course to jump! So, going over the water jump, Beezie would "click", and as soon as the round ended, before she'd left the main arena, she'd get some carrots out of her pockets and give them to him. Needless to say, they'd done tonnes of training at home with him.
 

[Numbat]

he knows the at some point a treat will follow, just not when, so he continues the behaviour as long as he keeps getting clicks until eventually he gets the treats.

That's what I mean by the click apparently becoming a keep going signal, (or the bridge you get before the bridge you get before the treat, that says "You're on the right track"). I'm curious as to how the horse knows when to stop for a treat. I imagine the horse gets this information from  the riding, so that in practice some other markers - cues to stop, or the rider reaching for the treat - would be replacing the click in that instance. Does anyone know, do they also use the same pattern when on the ground?

[Numbat]

I went and looked in their book again, and they do mention using the same method on the ground. I wish there was more information about how the horse works out when he's getting fed and when not. They do say they get more effort from the horse this way, and they are talking about using both methods of variable reinforcement, i.e. they vary both when they'll click, and when the click will get a reward. Maybe I'll have to go try it on Oscar. I imagine after all this time of getting a treat for every click, he'll be horrified! :P .

[Ebyss]

I think that's the whole point of the Intermittent/Variable Reinforcement, the animal doesn't know when it's going to get the treat, so he just keeps going in the hope that he will. The click shouldn't mean two different things to him, it should always mean "Yes you got that right, good boy, you'll get a reward in a moment". It shouldn't mean "treat" (initially, yes it should, to get the horse to associate the two). Well.. at least to my mind that's how it should be.. I may well be wrong on this. I've never done CT, but I have done Psych, and that's where I'm coming from.

I think piccies are in order for the expression on your horses face when you switch to Intermittent RF.

Just a question, how else would you faze out the clicker? Surely that is the eventual aim in teaching a horse with CT, that you will at some point not use it for the behaviours you've established with it?

[Numbat]

As I said, I do use variable reinforcement all the time, but by delaying the click, rather than by delaying the treat. So, the animal doesn't know when he's going to get the click, but keeps going, or often, tries harder, in the hope that he will. With my horse, it has seemed useful to me to use a keep going signal as well, so he does know he's on the right track, but not everybody is keen on those. People phase out the click just by, well, phasing it out - but then they're teaching other new things, and also linking behaviors together in sequences, so the horse still gets chances to get rewarded.  I think it's not uncommon for animals to get a bit stroppy when the trainer first breaks the initial "1 trick gets 1 click gets 1 treat" pattern, but it works out.

 

[Becky holden]

I think that's the whole point of the Intermittent/Variable Reinforcement, the animal doesn't know when it's going to get the treat, so he just keeps going in the hope that he will. The click shouldn't mean two different things to him, it should always mean "Yes you got that right, good boy, you'll get a reward in a moment". It shouldn't mean "treat" (initially, yes it should, to get the horse to associate the two).

In my experience i have met many horses that would become extremely cross if i clicked and didn't treat then expected them to carry on. The click is the ultimate reward which isn't just about food it's the fact they are allowed to stop. Also "Intermittent" reinforcement would only work if, when first introduced there was an element of force involved to "make" the horse continue which go's against the grain as far as Clicker training is concerned. Putting a movement on a variable system of reinforcement is a process which enables the horse to realize he wasn't wrong if we choose not to click something but to just keep trying and this i feel is where the use of the voice comes in useful as a keep going signal .... "good, thats correct, keep going as i may click" The clicker doesn't need to be used as a keep going signal if the horse requires this to encourage the movement to keep going the way the movement has been originally shaped needs to be looked at. I just feel that this way of clicker training could easily become confusing for the novice when first starting out, i feel it could become frustrating to the horse to.
Becky