Mystic Equine

Mystic Equine Equine Rehabilitation and Education
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Podiatry Consultations Professional conscientious hoof care

Severe neglect cases now under the care of Volunteer Equine Advocates. I’m so glad I could help these angels start their...
07/03/2025

Severe neglect cases now under the care of Volunteer Equine Advocates. I’m so glad I could help these angels start their recovery journeys on the right foot! If you can please donate to help with general care costs. These babys need alot of good groceries.
https://www.veatn.org/

“Scientific Horse Shoeing”circa 1890’s, written by Prof. William Russell“There is no use in mincing matters for the more...
07/03/2025

“Scientific Horse Shoeing”
circa 1890’s, written by Prof. William Russell

“There is no use in mincing matters for the more one knows
about shoeing, the more he knows the common mode of
doing the work is so frequently destructive that we seldom
meet with a horse whose feet have not in some degree lost
their natural form and this deviation from their original
shape is generally proportioned to the length of time he has
worn shoes”.

06/25/2025
Some before and afters from this morning.
06/19/2025

Some before and afters from this morning.

06/16/2025

🍭 From Treats to Trust: How Positive Reinforcement Grows Beyond the Transaction

When people first encounter positive reinforcement (R+) training, it often looks and feels very mechanical: click, treat, repeat.

There may be a sense of disconnect—a feeling that the relationship is reduced to a transaction. People worry that the horse is "just doing it for the food."

But here’s the truth: all training starts off as a kind of transaction. Whether you're using positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement (pressure and release training), the early stages involve a straightforward exchange. The horse performs a behavior, and something happens in return.

In R+ training, that "something" is typically a reward like a click followed by a treat. Do your work and get a paycheck.

In R- training, it's the removal of some sort of pressure. Do your work or else.

🧰👩‍🔧Why It Feels Mechanical at First

In the beginning, positive reinforcement relies heavily on clear, repeatable patterns. The horse learns, through consistent pairing, that a specific behavior results in a reward.

Initially we can only use rewards that are inherently enjoyable to the horse, things like food or sometimes scratches, to reinforce our training.

Yes, it can look robotic at first. But this phase is important because it builds understanding and trust. The horse starts to recognize that their choices influence their environment in a reliable, safe way.

In addition to shaping behaviors, this pairing with food is classically conditioning the trained behaviors every step of the way. The consistent pairing of a behavior with a reward starts to change pathways in the brain.

The behavior starts to feel enjoyable in and of itself and the happy chemicals in the brain get released before the reinforcer even arrives.

💃🦄From Extrinsic to Intrinsic: A Natural Shift

With time and thoughtful application, that external motivator (the treat, the scratch, the praise) starts to give way to internal motivation. The horse becomes more confident, engaged, and even enthusiastic. Why?

Because the training itself becomes enjoyable. The predictability, clarity, and choice embedded in R+ create a safe space for learning. The horse begins to seek out the interaction not just for the treat, but because the process is empowering and enriching.

✨Trust replaces tension✨

You may notice your horse offering behaviors freely, showing curiosity, and participating with softness rather than resistance.

That’s intrinsic motivation blossoming.

This is also where the Premack Principle comes in: more probable behaviors (behaviors with a strong history of pairing with things the horse loves, like food) can reinforce less probable behaviors (newer things with a lower history of reinforcement).

This principle is key to building motivation and decreasing the long-term reliance on food.

This isn’t to suggest that we ever “get rid of the food.” But the premack principle explains how we can start to use behaviors with a strong reinforcement history to reinforce new behaviors, instead of having to use food at every step.

🤔What About R- Training? Isn't That Natural Too?

Negative reinforcement also starts off as a transaction. The horse moves away from pressure, and the pressure is released. Done well, it can be subtle and fair. But it still relies on an initial aversive (however mild) to produce the behavior.

Novice R- trainers also look and feel quite robotic as well as they navigate the phases of escalating pressure.

Over time, cues become more fluid and subtle and a horse may respond with precision and speed, but it is rooted in the avoidance of something unpleasant and comes from a place of compliance rather than engagement.

This doesn’t mean R- can’t be ethical or skillfully applied. Many experienced trainers use R- with care. But it’s important to acknowledge that R- remains primarily extrinsic in motivation. The horse performs the behavior to avoid or escape something, rather than to pursue something pleasurable.

💕🥰Positive Reinforcement: A Foundation for Relationship

What makes R+ special is not just the treats. It’s the way it invites the horse to be an active participant. As the training matures, so does the relationship. Your horse begins to look forward to your sessions, not because they have to, but because they want to.

And that shift—from "what's in it for me?" to "I'm here because I know this is going to be fun"—is where the magic happens.

So, if you're feeling a bit mechanical at the start of your R+ journey, don’t stress. You're not doing it wrong. You're building the scaffolding.

With consistency, kindness, and clarity, those simple transactions evolve into a richer, deeper connection.

🩵🦄And that’s something worth every click🦄🩵

Thank you Blue PAGE Farm for having me out to demonstrate for your campers! I would love to demonstrate for any other ho...
06/03/2025

Thank you Blue PAGE Farm for having me out to demonstrate for your campers! I would love to demonstrate for any other horse camps this summer, if you want to have me out shoot me a message!

One of my favorite tools, my calf caddy, has been in need of repair. I finally got around to fixing the bottom flap so i...
04/25/2025

One of my favorite tools, my calf caddy, has been in need of repair. I finally got around to fixing the bottom flap so it will hold my rasp again! Can’t wait to put it back to work!

04/04/2025

A recent study in Applied Animal Behaviour Science (Lesimple et al., 2025) investigated object permanence in horses, a key cognitive ability related to understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of sight.

The experiment, involving 63 horses, revealed that horses can locate a hidden treat even when the hiding process is not visible to them.

This suggests they reach at least Piaget's stage 4 of object permanence (where infants begin to understand that objects continue to exist even when hidden, and they will actively search for them.)

The researchers used a simple task where horses had to find a carrot hidden under a bucket and control groups were used to ensure that the horses weren't simply relying on their sense of smell to find the treat.

The experimental group achieved a success rate of 93.1%, while a control group that also familiarised with the task, but with no treat, had a 100% success rate in uncovering the location where the treat would theoretically be.

Another control group that did not go through familiarisation had a success rate of 60%, suggesting the bucket itself did not intrinsically drive exploration.

This study adds to the limited body of research on equine cognition, an area that has significant gaps, especially when compared to research on other species like primates or even domestic animals like dogs.

Brubaker and Udell (2016) pointed out that rat cognition studies outnumber those of horses by a factor of seven.

Study: To see or not to see: Horses’ ability to find the hidden treat: Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 285, 2025.

Such a cool job I get to do every week!
03/13/2025

Such a cool job I get to do every week!

03/08/2025
02/25/2025
This case study video may be long but it’s very detailed. It’s a substantial example of how the DDFT is not perpetuating...
02/20/2025

This case study video may be long but it’s very detailed. It’s a substantial example of how the DDFT is not perpetuating or worsening laminitis in most cases. And that a deep digital flexor tendonectomy is a viable last resort treatment for club foot, because we know there is contraction in those cases. But for laminitis with no tendon contraction cutting the tendon just doubles the injury.

This is the case study of Daisy-Pony, taken in by Noble Hill Rescue for much needed rehabilitation!

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