PATH Equestrian

02/13/2025

Actual footage of me this morning 🤪

02/09/2025

It’s not often to see Asher being goofy so seeing him play made my heart glow 🥺

02/08/2025

At this point, the horses exercise themselves 🤣

02/02/2025

Watching Wicked and spotted a continuity error:

Horse can talk
Make conscious decisions,
Still needs a bit

1/ 5 stars 🤣

01/29/2025

📣 Introducing the PATH Endorsed Foundation Trainer Program 🐴✨

Over the years, I’ve worked with many dedicated students who have put in significant time and effort to develop their skills in Positive Reinforcement (R+) training. To uphold the integrity of PATH Equestrian’s methods and ethical standards—and to highlight students who have embraced a learning mindset and have put in a significant amount of time mastering their craft both with and without my direct guidance—I am introducing the PATH Endorsed Foundation Trainer Program.

This endorsement signifies that a student has met my standards for foundational R+ training, demonstrating:

✅ A strong understanding of equine welfare, behaviour, and ethical training practices

✅ The ability to create structured training plans and break behaviours down into appropriate approximations

✅ Proficiency in problem-solving using R+ methods

✅ The skills to independently train horses in groundwork while prioritizing their well-being

🔹 Why This Matters:

This program highlights the dedication and commitment required to develop a solid foundation in R+ training. It serves as a way to distinguish those who have put in the time to build their skills and knowledge, ensuring that those carrying my endorsement have demonstrated the ability to train responsibly and effectively.

🌟 Verification & Future Advancement
Students who receive this endorsement will not only receive a certificate but, to ensure transparency will also be listed on my website so that clients can verify who has been officially endorsed and find information on these students.

Additionally, all students will have the opportunity to continue their education and work toward Farrier & Vet Behaviours and Ridden endorsements.

If you’re interested in learning more about this program or working toward an endorsement, feel free to reach out! Let’s continue raising the standard for compassionate, science-based training together.
💚

01/26/2025

You know you are a clicker trainer when...

You always have treats. All pockets. All spaces. Literally everywhere.

You have considered stealing construction cones off the side of the road.

You LOVE the household items section because of all the items you can convert to a target stick.

You have repeated “it’s not bribery” more times than you can count.

You have way too many enrichment items and still want to buy more.

You have considered clicking and treating a human for good behaviour.

You have a large collection of treat pouches and training tools in MULTIPLE colours.

Would love to see more added in the comments 😁

01/23/2025

Friends, Forage and Freedom makes a spicy Peekaboo 🌶️

01/19/2025

Since a few people asked with the polar vortex.

My horses are still naked.

Now this doesn’t mean I am anti-blanket by any means as 1/2 of our horses on the property NEED blankets. But my 3 children currently (!) don’t.

When I say my horses are fluffy - that is a understatement. When their hair is puffed up it can be up to half a inch long and it’s almost a inch long at Pale’s chest. They have access to 5 shelters and have 24/7 EASY access forage when the temps drop below -20.

So when WOULD I blanket?

The year Peekaboo had his accident, he was blanketed for turn-out while he was recovering. He didn’t grow a coat because he was on stall rest and even when he was allowed turned out he still had to be stalled at night. He did not grow an adequate coat so he needed a blanket.

When Asher was younger and my first year owning him, he did not produce a fluffy enough coat so when the templates dropped below -10 he was blanketed.

If my horses were sick or when they get older they will most likely need to be blanketed.

This always goes back to the point that everything similar to this welfare wise is on a case by case basis. What works for one horse does not work for all. Each horse is different and the horse as a individual needs to be looked at.

My guys get checked over daily to ensure they are comfortable in the cold and if they needed the extra support with a blanket - they would get it.

In fact with I made the mistake 2 years ago of blanketing Asher doing one of our last polar vortex’s and he quickly became sweaty under the blanket which was a very dangerous situation and I’m lucky I caught it very early into the temp change.

Mad Barn has a good article about the subject:

https://madbarn.ca/blanketing-your-horse

Best of luck staying warm everyone ❄️

01/18/2025

Written in 2020: and happy to see more progression in the equine world! Looking forward to seeing how much more we advance between now and 2030 ❤️

Let’s talk about positive reinforcement in the horse training world vs. The dog training world.

Positive reinforcement training / clicker training is a wildly accepted form of training for dogs and most animals. All animals learn using the same laws, yet we see a lot of reluctance to this type of training in the horse training world. Why is it that the horse training world seems years behind the dog training world?

Let’s dive in a little:

B.F. Skinner identified and described the principals of operant conditioning in 1948. This resulted in the promotion of positive reinforcement training in the 1940’s-1950’s, mostly done in marine animal training. In 1984 Karen Pryor published “Don’t Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training”, this book became an international bestseller and outlined the laws and essentials of operant conditioning. In the early 1990’s Karen Pryor and Gary Wilkes began giving positive reinforcement seminars to dog owners, using box clickers, which resulted in what is now called “Clicker training”.

Now in the year 2020, clicker training is very well known in the dog community. Even the dog trainers who choose to train with a combination of reinforcement and punishment will still use positive reinforcement. Although, this may not always be done with a clicker and they may not advertise or refer to it as positive reinforcement. But, regardless of whether someone is aware of the science behind these techniques, the laws will still apply. Simply put with positive reinforcement training; the dog is given something they find reinforcing, after performing the behaviour, to make that behaviour more likely to happen again. This is not to be confused with bribery, where you give the dog the reinforcement BEFORE the behaviour. If you own a dog, chances are you’ve used positive reinforcement at some point or another. But these laws still apply regardless of the animal.

In 1998 Alexandra Kurland published “Clicker Training for Your Horse”. Still, it is uncommon to see people training horses with positive reinforcement. While there are some amazing trainers out there promoting using positive reinforcement training with horses, we don’t tend to see it in the high levels of training and competing. From a dietary perspective one could even argue that training horses with positive reinforcement makes more sense then dogs as horses naturally eat for 16 hours a day so, providing food as a primary reinforcer, is a lot easier with horses. While we see at least some positive reinforcement training with majority of other animals, including most zoo animals, most of our horses are only trained with negative reinforcement also known as pressure and release training, natural horsemanship, or traditional horse training.

I would like to believe that the horse training world is heading in the direction that will allow us to catch up to the dog training world. But this movement must start with education vs indoctrination. It requires us to use critical thinking and questioning our long-held traditions. Ultimately, we owe it to our horses to at least entertain the idea of a more positive type of training.

01/18/2025

Every morning without fail Asher does his stretches, it’s a pretty cute routine 🥺

01/07/2025

Very well written!

01/05/2025

Yesterday we lost Karen Pryor,
one of the cornerstones of the animal training community.

Very few people leave such a positive lasting impact on the world. She was a key player in advancing animal behaviour as we know it today. Her work will continue to be an inspiration.

“Don’t Shoot the Dog” and “Reaching the Animal Mind” are resources I often look back on. To those who haven’t picked them up - I would highly recommend them.

RIP Karen Pryor we are all very grateful to you.

01/02/2025

Let’s have a healthy conversation here, I’ve had a few of my peers send me this post, let’s talk!

Whenever this trainer has seen horses trained with R+ her opinion is that these horses are deregulated which could be true and also anecdotal evidence towards her stance.

It is very possible for a horse that is trained with R+ to be deregulated when it is done INCORRECTLY. I have seen it first hand myself and the fix is easy when the science is applied correctly. When there are clean rules and boundaries around food and the food is not high enough value to create obsession..

However comparing R+ trainers to a narcissistic, toxic and abusive partners is a narrative I STRONGLY disagree with. And it’s frankly uncalled for.

The argument goes on the other hand, would you rather your horse fear the risk of an aversive in order to get desired behaviour?

Perhaps we should look into the other studies she’s not included from the R- side of the quadrants .. which are quite “shocking” (literally ⚡️)

Posts like this are literally meant to scare people away from seeking kinder methods while also justifying that their specific relationship with horses is somehow less toxic.

This is not how we should be discussing things and sharing scientific evidence. Cherry picking things to prove our argument while not looking at the full picture.

And for those who are coming from the original post feel free to look through my page and many of my other R+ professional pages, including zoologists around the world, who don’t have deregulated food obsessed animals.

There are many incredible animal trainers that have successfully changed the lives of many different species using R+ in a “non-toxic” way.

Please feel free to use this post as a safe way to discuss (I will be moderating)

The dark side of positive reinforcement training, 🏴 and The Skinner Box. 🐦‍⬛
BF Skinner did a lot of experiments with pigeons and food rewards.

(For the purpose of this post, I’m going to distill it down to the parts that we need to understand about reward systems.)

Some pigeons push a paddle, and every time they are rewarded with a small amount of food. Once this behavior was consistent, he took one group of pigeons, and instead of consistent food rewards, they received intermittent food rewards…. Meaning they had to press the paddle a random number of times (1-5) to receive the food reward.

The pigeons with intermittent rewards became absolutely obsessed. They showed clear signs of addictive behavior, and would just continue constantly pressing the paddle. 

Even more concerning is that once they disconnected all the paddles, the birds with consistent rewards very quickly stopped pressing the paddle, but the birds that received intermittent rewards with continuously press the pedal over and over to the point of complete exhaustion.

Whenever I’ve seen, Horses trained primarily through clicker training, and other similar positive-based reinforcement methods, I’ve never been a fan of the outcome. Sure the horses were eager to play, and but in my opinion, they looked totally dysregulated, and seemed so obsessed with the food that I just never felt good about the whole process.

 Now I understand- these horses WERE dysregulated, and absolutely showing signs of addiction. It’s the same tactic used by casinos. Even more, it’s something we see in toxic relationships. 

If you’ve ever heard of narcissistic breadcrumbing, it’s when one partner, intermittently gives attention and fulfills the needs of the other- typically JUST enough to make the partner stay, which overtime becomes less and less and less. The partner who is being breadcrumbed start excepting less and less out of the relationship while desperately trying harder and harder. It results in toxic codependency, where the victim becomes absolutely obsessed with the toxic partner.

Is that really what we want with our horses?

 And what really gets me is that the people who claim the positive reinforcement is the only acceptable method or usually the ones who are also spewing the phrase “science based training”… because these animals are absolutely eager to please! But so is the victim in a codependent trauma bond.

Anyways, I’m not saying don’t use treats!  Rewards do create eagerness, and used in a smart way, that can be a fabulous thing. 
But if you are hell-bent on using purist positive reinforcement-based training,  because it sounds like the most ethical, and you see behaviors in your horse, that maybe are not totally ideal, read up on BF Skinner and trauma bonding, and you might find that pressure and release really doesn’t sound so bad after all! 

01/01/2025

Happy New Years from our small slice of paradise 🎉

Photos do not do justice on how quiet, peaceful and magical the farm looked this morning.

Great sign for what 2025 has to offer ❤️

12/26/2024

Tried to take a family photo..

12/25/2024

Merry Christmas 🎄Here is a video of Peekaboo being adorable as I have no idea what else I’d use this video for - it’s just too cute not to post