25/01/2025
𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐎𝐧𝐞:
𝐌𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐲…
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to do the ‘best’ by my horses, passionately pursuing the most ethical, and idealistic ways to care for, train, and ride them. As my knowledge and experience has expanded, my approach to horses has evolved over time…
More recently, I had been contemplating the idea of diving deeper into a more ‘pure’ approach to positive reinforcement (R+) training for the following reasons:
• I had already seen the power of using food rewards in my training, (albeit my application is not as polished and textbook as what a pure R+ trainer would recommend).
• I had been growing increasingly uncomfortable using negative reinforcement (pressure/release) with my own horses but especially with with student’s horses- in particular with those who had already learnt to push through pressure…
• I had already done a lot of reading and exploring into the science behind positive reinforcement- and I think it’s important to adopt an evidence- based approach where possible.
• I anticipate that the equestrian world will eventually be compelled to adopt more ethical practices to sustain the future of riding and training horses, and I want to stay ahead of that shift.
• When you look into training practices of other species- especially exotic animals- positive reinforcement is much more widely practised and accepted as the primary approach to teaching behaviours successfully and, most importantly, with a willing happy animal. For example, if you can train a sea lion to perform complicated sequences of movements without any ropes/pressure and they love to do it….then training a horse to do what we ask seems comparatively quite simple!
I honestly thought I might have to completely abandon my ‘old ways’, and re-learn everything from the beginning all over again…(kind of like how I felt when I first started learning ‘natural horsemanship’).
Because of this evolution, I felt I couldn't continue teaching (humans and their horses) with congruency if I were questioning the very techniques I was demonstrating. Plus, I believe that the horses could feel this conflict I was experiencing anyway…
When I teach, I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the wellbeing and experience of both the horse and the human, and I take that quite seriously.
And so in order to proceed, I felt I needed to pause teaching AND do a deep dive into positive reinforcement training.
➤ Stay tuned for part 2 where I will share my experience and breakthroughs from my R+ deep dive!
Let me know if you have any questions for part 2!
