04/08/2025
Contrary to popular belief, training is very rarely formulaic- "apply pressure until they do the behavior and then release only once that happens" or "reward only the exact behavior you want and ignore any other aspects" are not getting us the training the horse needs as a living, breathing animal. I recently saw a wonderful dog training post, centered around the idea that many trainers focus HEAVILY on the 4 operant conditioning quadrants (pressure/release aka R-, R+, P+, P-) but if this is all that trainer is able to explain or talk about, they don't really understand the training needed to truly help animals. It explains how learning can happen, but is only the tip of the iceberg.
It did open up a lot of thoughts into a few examples of what other aspects of training we should be considering with our animals alongside quadrant understanding and learning. This, although long, is still only a brief list just of other details closely related to quadrants and I'm still very sure this post could encompass so much more especially when we consider other aspects such as emotions, details more relating to how classical conditioning plays in, etc. Alas, this is a social media post and not a novel! So enjoy some other aspects to training we should also be considering when working with our animals to improve both our skill and their welfare. While this is through a more fear-free/LIMA training lens, these aspects are details that should be included regardless of your training type.
🌱 Habit Extinction
Reducing unwanted behaviors (especially without punishment) involves identifying what reinforces the behavior and removing that reinforcement systematically. As we know, many corrections run the risk of increased fear/anxiety, evasion behaviors, and can lack the effectiveness to truly eliminate the behavior. One great example of this is a horse pawing in cross-ties: even with corrections, the horse is still pawing and has not truly stopped the behavior. At best, it stops the moment you get close enough to scold but does it out of sight or at a distance, and at worse the behavior escalates to pushiness, spookiness, or further anxiety.
🪜Shaping Behavior
This is the most connected to basic quadrant work in my personal opinion. Shaping is a stepping stone through training by allowing trainers to build complex behaviors and behavior chains step-by-step through reinforcing successive approximations. There are of course more steps even to this that you can get into - how to best set the environment up for learning and success, where the line to challenge versus reiterate is, free shaping, increasing duration, etc. This also very strongly ties into our post on confidence and engagement - remember those "easy wins" for faster learning, higher levels of confidence, and more engagement for learning rather than avoiding.
🥕 Differing Reinforcers
Using a variety of reinforcers helps match motivation to the horse’s emotional needs and context - while most of our training as R+ trainers is with low-value reinforcers, it's also important to be able to identify the level of which reinforcers work for the horse and if something else is needed in different scenarios. This also involves the amount involved (are we feeding big handfuls of hay? Is this their normal hay or something else? Did we choose to use hay pellets? What kind? What differences are there here for the horse? To go even further - how did we reinforce? In a bucket? Through default neutral? Marking and having a third party reward? Is this reinforcer helping or unintentionally making things harder and causing frustration?) A knowledge of different reinforcers and when to use them helps to enhance learning while supporting the individual in front of you.
⏱️ Reinforcement Schedules
The timing and pattern of reinforcement profoundly impacts behavior reliability but is another piece to the puzzle that I think isn't always discussed through social media. Reinforcement schedules tie in strongly to habit extinction as well, so it's important to understand differences and to have thoughtful use of reinforcement schedules from continuous reinforcement to variable reinforcement. This is key in ensuring you are able to build long-term consistency in behavior. This also very heavily relates to the question "well when do you stop using rewards?".
🌀 Counter Conditioning
Counter conditioning I'm sure is one of the most understood terms on this list. It involves helping our horse develop positive feelings to something that initially provided more negative feelings such as anxiety or fear. This can also be a slippery slope where you can unintentionally coerce or shut your horse down if done incorrectly, as it has to move at the horse's emotional pace and requires fairly observant handlers who are able to identify body language well enough to identify less-obvious signals of communication. Counter conditioning can be central to ethical care and, if done correctly, gives horses agency to learn while rewriting their emotional experience.
🚫 Incompatible Behavior
Training a behavior that can’t coexist with an undesired one (like standing with all 4 feet on the ground instead of pawing) offers a proactive, reinforcement-based way to shift behavior through choice and clarity rather than retroactive correction. This is also one of the first topics we ever teach when starting positive reinforcement, as incompatible behavior is what is used when training treat manners and default neutrals!
This week, I'm challenging us all to consciously think about these variables in our work with our horses - to identify where they're at and make a goal for where we want to work towards them being.
