27/12/2024
A bit of a controversial subject.
You’ll get a lot of conflicting information about geldings dropping during positive reinforcement training.
But in my experience with training geldings and with my own gelding, in a R+ training session context, it’s most often related to anxiety and conflict. It’s similar to approach avoidance conflict.
People starting out training with food sometimes struggle a little with shaping, ie. how to get behaviour without using aversive stimulation, they also struggle with thin slicing behaviour, small approximations, the type of food they’re using can be problematic (too high value or using “treats) and also their rate of reinforcement (how often they click and feed). This is extremely common and that’s why it's good to get experienced help and a second pair of eyes to check these things.
A gelding who’s perhaps already got some food anxiety and/or resource guarding issues can get anxious quickly or struggle to figure out how to get the food, which is what causes the conflict.
There can also be some conflict related to prior aversive training history and proximity to people, which may mean there is some fear and trepidation mingled in there as well.
It can be further complicated by things like ulcers, undiagnosed pain or pain memories becoming involved or associated with food.
Basically they want the food, but are not sure how to get it or figure out what we are asking and then add on top of that some food anxiety, resource guarding, fear of the human, pain memories and they will drop in a session.
If you’re getting some coaching, have them check out his body language and facial expressions as well as your RoR, criteria and timing, to rule out anxiety as a cause. I’m happy to look at video, you’re welcome to post in my group, which is strictly for force free training.
A good test is if you see them drop, think about what happened prior and then just feed them continuously and watch to see if they pull it back up. Some people suggest cueing movement, but it depends on whether that’s a liked behaviour, otherwise it can cause more anxiety. But feeding continuously no matter what he does and if he then pulls it back up, can point us towards anxiety or conflict.
I usually recommend giving the horse a short break and reviewing the training session and criteria and RoR. ALWAYS have a really good end of session routine, where the horse is left with food, has alternative food at their feet and is not left hanging (pardon the pun) with no food and no idea why the training session has stopped.
I’ve not seen relaxed geldings drop during a R+ training session, as it’s usually still stimulating, they are eating and thinking and problem solving, enjoying themselves, and are quite alert, as opposed to having an afternoon snooze or some “happy dreams”.
Unfortunately there’s no actual research on this phenomenon specifically relating to R+ training at this stage.
Be aware that it has become normalised a little, because a lot of people starting out with R+ have a low RoR and high criteria and so it happens frequently and has become normalised unfortunately. A lot of people seem to think; “oh, he’s just relaxed”, or “he’s just excited to train”, but that’s not the case.
It can also happen when people are using R- to get behaviour, such as using a whip and then adding food on top. They usually have an extremely low rate of reinforcement and often withhold food for extremely large hunks of behaviour. It causes the same kind of anxiety and conflict in the horse. Are they they stick or the carrot person, or they're a bit of an unpredictable mix.
We all like predictability, including horses.
What can also happen is that although dropping is not an operant behaviour, ie. it’s an unconscious reflexive type behaviour, it is driven by the environment and how he feels. Therefore if you were to keep training while he’s dropping, the dropping can become part of the “picture” of the behaviour you’re training, it is captured.
OR it can be because whatever caused it to happen in the first place, as mentioned above, is still happening. It can be a bit of a chicken before the egg scenario.
It’s also to do with their emotions. When we train, an emotion becomes associated with the training or a specific behaviour, so that means an emotional association has been made with the training/ behaviour. If the emotion is one of confusion, anxiety, conflict, frustration mingled perhaps with a pinch of fear, this can cause continued dropping.
I personally don’t believe it’s relaxation from my experience as many people suggest. R+ training is interesting and fun and it engages their brain and it’s stimulating, it’s not a context I would expect them to drop out of relaxation and certainly not out of sexual arousal.
Strategies I recommend is always having some hay right at his feet when you are training and even giving a small hard feed, or a portion of his dinner prior to training or letting him eat a goodly amount of hay right before. This can help if it is related to food anxiety. Having other horses and all animals well away from the training area can help tremendously if it's related to resource guarding and they often go together; the anxiety and guarding. I cover all these scenarios in my upcoming course about using food in training.
I have a video of my gelding dropping briefly during a training session. In the video, my criteria was too high. He was in close proximity to my mare Mercedes, who is a strong resource guarder herself sometimes and there was no barrier between them for his safety. It was asking a lot of him and I hadn’t done this type of training in a while, so they were a little rusty and very keen, which means their duration was not as good as it normally is for this type of training and it created a lot of anxiety and conflict for him.
Do not try this type of training unless you and your horses are experienced with this type of R+ training and have a strong foundation of basic behaviours already trained.
** Video in the comments.
** this is during the context of a training session using food.
