Traditional training is based on negative reinforcement (R-). Taking away an aversive to strengthen a behaviour.
R- has only 2 phases in the training process, while R+ has 5 (!) phases before a behaviour is trained solidly.
You expect to reach your goal after two steps in the process. Yet, the process has five steps. This causes frustration and disappointment.
2 Phases of Negative Reinforcement (R-) Horse Training
Click here to access my previous post, in which I explain this in detail.
5 Phases of Positive Reinforcement (R+) Horse Training
Now that you're fully caught up, let's talk about phase 4.
This part of training is also often ignored.
Probably because most people don't know about it. Here's what you need to know about the second to last step in successful clicker training.
Phase 4: Fading Out Training Tools
This phase is often skipped by novice clicker trainers. Here's what you need to know about how horses learn.
Horses are really good context learners.
A target means: touch. The target becomes the trigger, the (environmental) cue for the horse. It usually means the same thing: touch lead to treat.
Halters means: clicker training (Yeey!).
Pylons mean 'touch with the nose'.
You get the drift.
Natural horsemanship trainers mean aversives.
Vets mean injections.
Farriers mean being restricted and being hold down.
Horses learn to pay attention to the environment and context. These become part of the expectation.
Training tools become part of your cue
This can be beneficial if used deliberately. If it happens unconciously, our training tool becomes a crutch.
You test your verbal cue and point, but your horse only pays attention to your feet: if they move, he must do the same.
We can't get our horse out of the pasture without a treat pouch.
Your horse won't trot if we're not holding a moving target in front of him.
The horse won't stand without his feet touching a mat.
Your horse is missing the context. His guesses go flat. He's in trouble. He needs more information! The trainer gets confused about why the horse 'isn't listening'...
Getting Stuck in Phase 4
When we skip phase 3: only reinforcing the behaviour after we cued it, we create Good Guessers. The horse will keep touching the target, because the trainer is inconsistent.
Intermittent reinforcement schedule
Some days the horse will get reinforced for touching the target with out a cue. "Oh, so cute..." Or, we laugh (positive attention!!) and we don't realize that we are reinforcing spontaneously offered behaviour!
Other days it's irritating that our horse tries to toucht the target! We didn't ask for it! We ignore the behaviour...
We don't see that we just used an intermittent reinforcement schedule and... thus strengthened the "touch target' behaviour without a cue.
Tools become crutches instead of 'information'
The other common pitfall is that our training tools become crutches. the horse doesn't pay attention to the trainer's cue. The horse is either guessing what to do, or only pays attention to the training tool (clicks, treat pouch, target stick etc).
Without the training tool, the horse is lost. He gets frustrated or opts out. That's when we get frustrated. We see the problem, but can't find a solution because we're missing an important piece.
How horses learn. The Principles of Learning & MOtivation. With that piece in hand, we can solve all struggles in training.
Phase 5: the final phase in clicker training behaviours
Stay tuned for tomorrow's post. I will give you the final phase of training with positive reinforcement. If you enjoyed this, you'll love tomorrows solution!