You know by now that when you gently squeeze your horse’s side with your leg, they will move away, or that you may be able to entice a horse to walk towards a suspicious trailer ramp with the aid of a treat – but did you know that when you use these tools to change your horse’s behavior, you are using operant conditioning?
You’ve likely heard of classical conditioning, which is a learning process made famous by Ivan Pavlov and his dog. Classical conditioning pairs a potent stimulus like a treat with a neutral stimulus like a bell to create an automated, biological response – like a dog learning that a ringing bell is often accompanied by a treat, and then automatically salivating when hearing the bell.
Operant conditioning is a way of shaping voluntary behavior, and it’s used to describe training (or “conditioning”) in a variety of animal species. The types of operant conditioning fall into four quadrants, based on whether you are adding or removing something for your horse, or whether you're encouraging or discouraging a specific behavior your horse has just demonstrated. Positive reinforcement adds something pleasant like a wither scratch or a treat to encourage the horse to repeat something they’ve just done. Negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant like pressure from a leg or rein to let the horse know they’ve provided the right answer to a question. Positive punishment adds something undesired, like contact with a whip, which is intended to reduce a particular behavior. Negative punishment removes something the horse desires in order to discourage a behavior, such as denying interaction or attention when the horse paws or demands a treat.
Helena Harris, MSc, equine behavior clinician and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine, says that what we know about equine neuroscience and behavior can help guide us to make the right choices about what kind of training strategies are both effective and humane. For example, we know that as a species, horses respond better to reinforcement – both positive and negative – than punishment. Negative punishment is probably used the least among equestrians, which is a good thing, since existing research suggests that horses probably aren’t good at connecting the removal or absence of something they like with something they did earlier.
For Harris, the most productive training program for horses relies primarily on positive reinforcement, especially for teaching new behaviors and skill development. There is some research that suggests negative reinforcement can be conducive to equine learning, but it is highly dependent upon the individual horse’s temperament, the context of the training exercise, and the precise timing of the trainer. The goal should be to clearly communicate what you want from the horse, keeping their stress levels low so they can learn effectively.
“We know a lot about a horse’s neurological function, and we’re currently researching and documenting their emotional states,” said Harris. “What we do know is that there are two kinds of stress: eustress and distress. Eustress is the kind of good arousal in an animal that can facilitate learning. Distress is trickier, and it often interrupts learning, making anything we teach a horse less likely to be retained.
“Horses are emotional processors. Without a prefrontal cortex like humans, they respond emotionally before they have a chance to think anything through. That’s survival. We can manage their automatic responses by hacking their brain chemistry a bit by doing things that release dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin.”
Harris said the greatest challenge with any of the types of operant conditioning is timing – any type of reinforcement or response to a horse’s behavior has to follow immediately to encourage the horse to make the connection between what they’re doing and your response. She points to the pressure/release concept of a bit; when applied and released in a timely way, it’s a form of negative reinforcement. But if the pressure isn’t released in appropriate timing with the horse’s activity, it can veer into punishment, which may be more stressful and less effective for horses.
“No matter what type of activity you and your horse are doing together or what breed you’re working with, it’s helpful for you to think about the learning theory behind what you’re doing,” said US Equestrian Chief of Sport David O’Connor. “We’re all using components of operant conditioning styles all the time as we break down complicated tasks into smaller pieces for our horses to understand.”
O’Connor uses a lot of groundwork in his training programs with horses and people because he says it’s often an easy setting to perfect that timing.
“As you learn and develop as a horse person, you get better at timing your responses to your horse,” said O’Connor. “Over time, it becomes intuitive for really skilled athletes to release or reward not at the moment the horse does something, but when he makes up his mind to do something.”
As we all know, horses are individuals with different needs and preferences in the learning process. Keeping an eye out for signs of distress and considering whether the form of conditioning you’re using is effective for the horse and the situation can get both of you to your learning destination in a positive headspace.
The USEF’s Horse Welfare Guidelines use the green/yellow/red zones of a stoplight to help you recognize whether horses are comfortable in an interaction with humans and are based on equine body language. Learn more about the guidelines here.