Bright Animal Training

16/09/2025

Unheard of! Much as I love living in The Lake District, the weather this week has been fecking awful, with cold, spooky & shivering ponies. I couldn't even rug Clio til today as it was winding & raining too heavily!

I'm not a big rugger - Edna has a trace clip in autumn/winter & I only rugged her last winter when I had over-clipped her and she was getting cold - and Clio wears her rug a handful of times a year. My rugs are also only 0g & 50g - enough to keep the rain off & the wind out. I prefer to use shelter & forage to keep the ponies warm most of the time.

15/09/2025

13/09/2025

Many parents feel guilty about “blocking off the dog” as if it means they’re failing. But separation tools like gates, pens, and crates are how families prevent accidents. Keeping your dog and your baby safe is not a training shortcut — it’s smart parenting.

A gate isn’t a failure, it’s a seatbelt.

09/09/2025

I sat & chilled in the field today with Little B, & she inched closer as I sat with my back to her. First time touching the target today (which I've been slowly shaping over several days). She is really enjoying our sessions & it is wonderful to see her thinking & trying, knowing she can't get it wrong. I just love the power of

08/09/2025

Two of the Bright Animal Training equine crew (Eddie was too busy noshing her haynet)

08/09/2025

That's what I call a bit of problem solving

07/09/2025

TLDR: Nuance in r+ training: the easy button/hard button game. Given the same reinforcer, same quantity, will the horse ever choose the hard task? Yes. That’s what tells me that intrinsic motivators are present (feeling of competence associated with overcoming challenges). Otherwise if the reward is the same, they’d just smash the easy button each time.
—————

What makes us choose to do hard things, even when the payoff is the same?

Why do people run marathons, or watch terrifying movies? Or hop into the passenger seat of a racecar and hold on for dear life? Why would anyone choose to do something difficult, arduous, strenuous or scary?

As my assistant trainer Tatiana so elegantly pointed out, difficult does not always mean aversive. Some things we do are challenging, difficult, time consuming, physically demanding. People even do things that are genuinely aversive (hot sauce junkies, I’m taking about you) just for the sake of conquering the challenge. What makes them so rewarding?

In addition to the basic aspects of positive reinforcement and learning theory, I also view my horse training through the lens of self determination theory. It has three components: autonomy, relatedness, and feelings of competence. These are incredibly powerful motivators, but they’re a bit more complicated to access than simple primary reinforcers like food. But once you unlock this level of motivation in conjunction with systematic positive reinforcement, it opens up a whole new world.

We have a training game we play with our horses. It’s called “easy button/hard button”. We establish two stationary targets. One predicts a cue for a simple, conflict free behavior. The other predicts a more difficult or potentially scary behavior. When I teach this technique to students, they see it as a way to give the horse a choice, or an “out” when we’re pushing too hard. I always tell them the goal of this activity is to dial in the horse’s engagement level. If they ask for the easy button over and over, the hard button is too hard. Find a more accessible version of the hard behavior where they will choose to try it more.

Often people are tempted to sway the horse into choosing the “hard” button by using bigger handfuls of rewards when they do, or using a higher value (sweeter) food reward. That defeats the purpose of this game. I want to know, with all other things held constant, are you in a state of mind to say “challenge accepted!” Will you push your own comfort zone purely for the sake of seeing how brave you can be? How difficult of a problem you can overcome? All just so you can say “ha! See that? I can do hard things!”

We all do this. Humans and animals. No one wants to stay in level I on candy crush and just win the easy level over and over. We want a challenge, otherwise what’s the point?

And when I hold up a halter because Blue pressed the hard button, even knowing she could have gotten the same quantity of the same reinforcer just for pressing the easy button, I know that she’s feeling resilient, competent, and ready to try to do hard things, without any coercion from me. And that’s the autonomy aspect of self determination theory - by offering a higher value reward or bigger handful of food, I’m putting my agenda on her. She’s still making that choice, but the most empowering choice is when you choose to push yourself for your own satisfaction, rather than an external reward. That’s creating intrinsic motivation.

The key to training horses to do hard things with strict consent is getting the horse to chose to push themselves into the hard thing in such a way that they feel good about their accomplishment, not defeated and steamrolled. It’s a very fine line sometimes. But it’s the same reason humans push themselves. They set a goal, achieve it, feel great, and look forward to hitting the next goal. When people play sports, you don’t see them stay at the entry level just so they can win all the blue ribbons. Where the feeling of accomplishment in that? It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. They want to know what the next level is so they can conquer that too. That is how you can train horses to do really intricate, challenging, physically demanding and scary things without any force. It goes way beyond a transactional understanding of “I do the thing I get paid.”

Also a lot like the difference between showing up to work flipping burgers for a living vs aggressively climbing the corporate ladder. Very different vibes of positive reinforcement. Creating intrinsic motivation and drive is a skill and a passion of mine and the difference in makes in the horse is amazing.

Our horses trained with force free r+ will walk through fire for us. Walk into a convention center with thousands of people running around and not bat an eyelash. Show up to a carnival set up next to the rock wall and be completely relaxed with kids running around screaming. Our horses are the embodiment of the “challenge accepted 😎” mindset and it makes my heart fill with pride every time.g

07/09/2025

07/09/2025

05/09/2025

I have been doing some research on the routine process of gathering, 'drifting', tagging & selling on of Dartmoor ponies. This is to help me to understand Little B's experiences, trauma around having her head touched (caused by having her ear cut for identification) & her triggers.

There is a big problem of over-breeding of Dartmoors (long & complicated story behind with no resolution or action in sight). Foals are forcibly & traumatically separated (an instant rather than gradual weaning) from their mothers. Mothers are losing their babies over and over again, year on year. As a mother, seeing this happening to them on video is deeply upsetting.

Little B not only suffered the trauma of having her ears cut - forcibly restrained & without anaesthetic, as a yearling - but the trauma of losing her mother & family,
& the trauma of being herded & running away from an inescapable danger.

Little B is now 15 years old. These traumas have lived with her for her whole life, and will continue to affect her for the rest of her life. Trauma sticks.

This is why giving her as much autonomy as possible, choices & enrichment in her life to give her things she can control, and consent-based/cooperative care & handling will be so important - and all with minimal touch.

Little B has never been able to wear a headcollar. Maybe she will recover enough to wear it one day - but if not, she'll never need to wear one.








(Pic of the Langdale mountains on the horizon, taken from the pony field)

03/09/2025

👏

02/09/2025

Confidence-building enrichment for our new Dartmoor pony, little B: novel items surrounded by chopped carrot. Little B had alternative food & I stood at a distance, to minimise any emotional conflict (feeling frightened of the items but wanting the food). Since she arrived 48 hours ago, I've noticed that B does not seem to lack confidence around anything other than humans. Currently, I am not even attempting to touch or approach her. She needs to learn to trust me by me being predictable, & that I predict good stuff (aka food!). Little B approached & sniffed my hand this morning, which I then reinforced by walking away & giving her space.