Consent-based training

[paddy555]

but they are not consenting or not to being fly sprayed armed with the knowledge that it'll keep them free from flies, because horses brains don't work like that and you can't explain it to them.

I have a horse who is affected by midges. .
He rubs his mane and tail for a pastime even rugged. So he gets bite back rubbed on twice daily.

He is a stallion, not scared, not a push over and it most definitely doesn't hurt him in any way. It simply annoys him. . However he

"moans" about it and if asked would not give his consent despite any amount of clicker or other training. His choice, his preference is to spend his time rubbing against whatever door or gatepost he can find. He seems to love doing that and definitely gives his consent.
So as he is never going to consent then I suppose I leave him to become a raw and bloody mess.

"I can not sit down and have a dialogue with a horse, explaining the pros and cons, and have them give me a verbalised answer before ever having experienced it. They have to actually experience and learn to recognise the pattern of cues/stimuli that indicate what's coming next... and then learn how to opt-in or opt-out of that experience."

so he has experienced it, it has not scared or hurt him and we have had a dialogue about it. He has considered the matter in the very greatest detail, listened to all my arguments and says no. He would prefer to opt out.
Perhaps he needs to be sent for counselling. Perhaps he needs Hermosa's high heels and mini skirts. Actually I think he might quite fancy Hermosa herself.

It sound interesting and probably great fun if you only have 1 horse but I now have a queue ofhorses lined up waiting to be dealt with whilst he makes his mind up.

 

[shortstuff99]

I do think my horses do feel like they can tell me what they think and I will listen though. I have decided not to ride if the horse has made clear they're not feeling it, and sometimes one of mine doesn't want to go outside if the weather is really bad etc

 

[FieldOrnaments]

I have a horse who is affected by midges. .
He rubs his mane and tail for a pastime even rugged. So he gets bite back rubbed on twice daily.

He is a stallion, not scared, not a push over and it most definitely doesn't hurt him in any way. It simply annoys him. . However he


"moans" about it and if asked would not give his consent despite any amount of clicker or other training. His choice, his preference is to spend his time rubbing against whatever door or gatepost he can find. He seems to love doing that and definitely gives his consent.
So as he is never going to consent then I suppose I leave him to become a raw and bloody mess.


so he has experienced it, it has not scared or hurt him and we have had a dialogue about it. He has considered the matter in the very greatest detail, listened to all my arguments and says no. He would prefer to opt out.
Perhaps he needs to be sent for counselling. Perhaps he needs Hermosa's high heels and mini skirts. Actually I think he might quite fancy Hermosa herself.

It sound interesting and probably great fun if you only have 1 horse but I now have a queue ofhorses lined up waiting to be dealt with whilst he makes his mind up.

Well quite - consent based training falls down when they won't or can't consent to things that are ultimately good for them.

I've got a rabbit on daily pain meds. She hates it, I get s firm "f---k you" thump when it's done but she is miserable from arthritis without it and it takes me less than thirty seconds to administer it. Ditto sneaking meds in in horses or dogs or whatever animals feeds. They definitely don't consent to that but it's necessary.... And how for instance would you manage something like a yard move?

Similarly there was a thread on Mumsnet recently about someone who'd encountered another parent who was letting her children choose whether or not to be vaccinated. Which is just madness to me...

 

[Caol Ila]

Does she try to make you buy them again, after she’s made you send them back?

Don't. ask.

If the horse ever STOPS touching the fly spray bottle or is slower to touch the bottle, we can recognize this as a lack of consent (in other words: they are not sure or okay with what comes after touching the fly spray bottle anymore and so are no longer willing to touch the bottle). If this happens we need to adjust accordingly until we are back to a point at which the horse is comfortable. Maybe we need to slow down, start with plain water, spray away from them for longer, etc."

Or they are bored of the touch-game. My mare definitely gets bored of it. No fear or unsureness. Smart ones can find constant repetition too boring and mentally check out. Do you think the horse has the cognitive capacity to understand that fly spray = less flies landing on them? (do we? does fly spray work? different question).

Perhaps he needs to be sent for counselling. Perhaps he needs Hermosa's high heels and mini skirts. Actually I think he might quite fancy Hermosa herself.

Is it you who has the Criollo stallion who was standing at stud near the Borders? That would be a sweet baby. I think I need to get over the PTSD from my BOGOF first, plus I think my husband would divorce me.

 

[Cloball]

They way it's worded though it's not consent in any sense really it's learning and habituation through positive reinforcement. The horse isn't saying "yes I'm happy being sprayed please spray me more" it has just learned that spray results in food and repeated exposure to spray has shown it isn't going to hurt it so it's okay.

 

[maya2008]

Sure I agree with most of it but MY horse like things to be his idea, in a sense. Meaning I want to make most things I do, he choice. he was REALLY bad with picking his feet up, until I let him touch the hoof pick before hand, now 9 times out of 10 he touches the hoof pick and shift his weight/ pick up his hoof.

But I want to say, I posted the original post for WHERE I can learn consent-based training because MY horse seems to prefer it. Whether thats just basic horsemanship, I don't really care lol. I've seen people use consent-based training and it looks and sounds interesting to me and what flash would like (just like most training methods) which is why I want to learn it.

Is your horse Welsh D? Or part Welsh D?

Just because… when we got ours I had never had one before and boy was it an adjustment. Like, wow! Likes her routine, processes slowly, every new thing has to be her idea or she’ll not entertain it, and reactions can be way over the top! With us, the hoof pick touching routine would be giving warning and this time to process. I’m going to pick up your hooves. You’ll need to shift your weight. If you pick one to start with then we can start there.
Vs
Suddenly ask horse to pick up his feet (which makes him feel vulnerable as it does with all horses) with what feels to him like no warning, no time to consider how to shift his weight.

We give verbal warning and are very obvious about what we are going to do. Kind of works the same way. For loading she will pause, think about it, front feet on, think about it, hind feet on. Then you can close the doors. Always willing, just needs time to process!

I just want to add an example from The Willing Equine as it explains what I mean pretty well. Cos 'consent', to me, doesn't mean how humans would use consent. however, its based the same idea.

"Let's start with an example of a horse that does not like fly spray, or even is fine with it, but I want to make sure they know they have a choice to be fly sprayed or not.

Goal: Fly spray on the horse's body with the horse happy and standing still

Setup: In an open space where the horse is free to walk away (no ropes, tack, fences, people trapping them), and with alternative reinforcement available (grass or hay very close by so the horse can walk away to get away from you/the fly spray but very easily access this other reinforcement).

I will start with teaching the horse a behaviour that we can use later as an indicator to both the horse and to myself that what's happening next is the fly spray being spritzed onto the horse's body. This is often referred to as a "start-button behavior".

For this particular scenario, this behaviour is going to be touching the fly spray bottle in my hand that I will be using to spray fly spray. I will present the fly spray bottle and when the horse reaches their nose towards it, I will click/mark and reinforce (with food usually) that behavior. Quickly the horse will learn that if they touch the fly spray bottle that gets the click which is followed by the food reinforcer as a reward.

At this stage, the horse does not understand anything other than that touching the fly spray bottle earns the click and reinforcer.

Next, I will begin spritzing a small amount of fly spray (away from the horse for safety and to not scare them) after the horse touches the fly spray bottle, and then click and reinforce. I will repeat this process over and over and over again, gradually progressing towards spraying the actual horse after they touch the bottle, and then follow that with the click and reinforcement.

At this stage, the horse will now begin to pair the touching of the fly spray bottle with being sprayed with the fly spray.

If the horse ever STOPS touching the fly spray bottle or is slower to touch the bottle, we can recognize this as a lack of consent (in other words: they are not sure or okay with what comes after touching the fly spray bottle anymore and so are no longer willing to touch the bottle). If this happens we need to adjust accordingly until we are back to a point at which the horse is comfortable. Maybe we need to slow down, start with plain water, spray away from them for longer, etc."

"I can not sit down and have a dialogue with a horse, explaining the pros and cons, and have them give me a verbalised answer before ever having experienced it. They have to actually experience and learn to recognise the pattern of cues/stimuli that indicate what's coming next... and then learn how to opt-in or opt-out of that experience."

Ok so…
1) The process describes desensitising the horse to the fly spray in a gradual way and keeps the horse with you because they touch the bottle and get a treat. True clicker training would pair the spray to add a positive association to the spraying action (rather than positive association to touching the bottle which is what your description does). But anyway, you’re training your horse to touch the bottle when he/she sees it, while also desensitising them to fly spray. It does not, in any way, train a horse that if they touch the bottle it means they want the fly spray.

Some of mine have made the connection between fly spray and no subsequent flies (applied in summer when one minute they were being eaten, next minute spray, now not being eaten). Others allow it grudgingly (ears back), some say no (by moving away). Your choice pony, you can get eaten if you want to! Usually they change their minds after a while!

For body language: Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling Dancing with horses. Plus others if you Google. Learn to speak your horse’s language. Communicate with him. He will then open channels to you and you can meet in the middle. Mine exaggeratedly pantomime stuff to get me to understand and it is sometimes the funniest and sweetest thing ever. But it was I who had to open the channels of communication first. Then they realised they could communicate back and we were on a roll. There’s a leading exercise in that book that I have used on every pony I have had for me or kids. It’s not the learning to lead nicely part that is so important it’s the way it establishes you as worthy of following from a body language pov, the way it mimics you keeping them safe from danger and builds trust. No round pen or fancy equipment needed. I do it in an open field with headcollar and lead rope.

 

[SpeedyPony]

I think you can take their opinion into account sometimes without letting them always have their way. For instance, my youngster doesn't like having her head held still and fusses dreadfully when I try. She needed eye drops and put up a dreadful fight when I held (or rather tried to hold) her head steady with her head collar. The eye drops were non-negotiable, but I was happy to compromise on how they were administered. We settled on her holding her own head still in return for a treat. I wouldnt have called it consent though, as she didn't want to have the eye drops, she just submitted to them in order to get the treat. To my mind that's bribery rather than consent- I'm not against it in its place, as I'd rather take the route that is easiest on everyone, but she's not doing it because she wants to, she's doing it because the treat is more desirable than the eye drops are unpleasant.

 

[paddy555]

Don't. ask.

Or they are bored of the touch-game. My mare definitely gets bored of it. No fear or unsureness. Smart ones can find constant repetition too boring and mentally check out. Do you think the horse has the cognitive capacity to understand that fly spray = less flies landing on them? (do we? does fly spray work? different question).



Is it you who has the Criollo stallion who was standing at stud near the Borders? That would be a sweet baby. I think I need to get over the PTSD from my BOGOF first, plus I think my husband would divorce me.

Yeah that’s me. He would like a classy lady like Hermosa. Not sure I would have to worry about asking his consent

 

[smiggy]

Surely with domestication and us keeping these animals for whatever reason, comes responsibility to make informed choices for their well being, that they cannot possibly make for themselves as they do not have the foresight and reasoning to do so.
Mine might not want rugs on or vaccines or feet picking out but if I know that it is in their best interests , then surely it’s my responsibility, as a responsible owner, to see that it gets done ?
All I can envisage in that fly spray scenario is someone getting kicked at some point !
One of mine hates sprays, so she gets it wiped on with a cloth, I’m not a complete tyrant , just need to get the job done as calmly and effectively as possible, for example.

 

[sarcasm_queen]

I just want to add an example from The Willing Equine as it explains what I mean pretty well. Cos 'consent', to me, doesn't mean how humans would use consent. however, its based the same idea.

"Let's start with an example of a horse that does not like fly spray, or even is fine with it, but I want to make sure they know they have a choice to be fly sprayed or not.

Goal: Fly spray on the horse's body with the horse happy and standing still

Setup: In an open space where the horse is free to walk away (no ropes, tack, fences, people trapping them), and with alternative reinforcement available (grass or hay very close by so the horse can walk away to get away from you/the fly spray but very easily access this other reinforcement).

I will start with teaching the horse a behaviour that we can use later as an indicator to both the horse and to myself that what's happening next is the fly spray being spritzed onto the horse's body. This is often referred to as a "start-button behavior".

For this particular scenario, this behaviour is going to be touching the fly spray bottle in my hand that I will be using to spray fly spray. I will present the fly spray bottle and when the horse reaches their nose towards it, I will click/mark and reinforce (with food usually) that behavior. Quickly the horse will learn that if they touch the fly spray bottle that gets the click which is followed by the food reinforcer as a reward.

At this stage, the horse does not understand anything other than that touching the fly spray bottle earns the click and reinforcer.

Next, I will begin spritzing a small amount of fly spray (away from the horse for safety and to not scare them) after the horse touches the fly spray bottle, and then click and reinforce. I will repeat this process over and over and over again, gradually progressing towards spraying the actual horse after they touch the bottle, and then follow that with the click and reinforcement.

At this stage, the horse will now begin to pair the touching of the fly spray bottle with being sprayed with the fly spray.

If the horse ever STOPS touching the fly spray bottle or is slower to touch the bottle, we can recognize this as a lack of consent (in other words: they are not sure or okay with what comes after touching the fly spray bottle anymore and so are no longer willing to touch the bottle). If this happens we need to adjust accordingly until we are back to a point at which the horse is comfortable. Maybe we need to slow down, start with plain water, spray away from them for longer, etc."

"I can not sit down and have a dialogue with a horse, explaining the pros and cons, and have them give me a verbalised answer before ever having experienced it. They have to actually experience and learn to recognise the pattern of cues/stimuli that indicate what's coming next... and then learn how to opt-in or opt-out of that experience."

My horse doesn’t like fly spray. But he gets absolutely swarmed by flies, even with a fly rug on. So guess what, he’s getting sprayed, whether he likes it or not.

 

[spookypony]

It’s like anything isn’t it - done badly, it will produce a difficult and potentially dangerous horse, done well, it won’t. The trouble is people who lack the timing, tact and skill for training don’t usually know it.

I think this is a very good point. Training using positive reinforcement (with or without a marker signal, i.e. "click") requires really good timing and observation, and careful thinking e.g. about how to break down the task. I have a friend whom I introduced to clicker training, and in retrospect I wish I hadn't, because this friend somehow never grasped (despite repetition) that this requires a lot of discipline and consistency, even just in the body language of how the treat is delivered to the horse. So the horse became nippy and greedy with the friend (though not with me, as she's not stupid and figured out fast that shaking the vending machine, as it were, was not going to lead to the desired result...).

Isn't that just good horsemanship? Is this just another way of putting horsemanship in a cute dress and giving it a different name?

Yeah, this frustrates me sometimes. People selling "methods" with a name attached and a fancy colourfur piece of equipment. In this case, it sounds like another word for "positive reinforcement", with a dash of "feel better because you convince yourself the horse actively wants to do what you want from it". I sympathise (also to an extent with the marketing aspect, because a trainer also has to pay the rent), but caution is advised. "Old wine in new bottles" springs to mind.

"Consent" is a heavy word with a lot of connotations, which may or may not be helpful when it comes to animals who learn primarily via habituation and conditioning. [...]

"Consent-based training" implies having no or very few boundaries. "He didn't feel like being caught today," which might be a valid lifestyle choice you can make if they are at your own property. Less so at a livery yard where there are rules about turnout times and staff have to handle them. However, after a quick Google, it just seems to be another way to dress up approaches to training that have been around for a very long time.

As an aside, in the video Stangs posted, the pony has a feed bucket in front of him. It's not particularly reactive to the rug, but it's focused on the feed. I know that movie. I can get rugs on Fin if I stick some pony nuts in front of him. The question is, what happens when it's not distracted by feed?

I think this is also important. It is currently fashionable to attach a lot of importance to the concepts of "consent" and "autonomy", in a way that I think is anthropomorphising when applied to other animals, and that is a bit out of balance, because some people think they must be doing the "right thing", even when the "necessary thing" would override this autonomy. Just as in the case of the small child "not consenting" to vaccinations (as a PP has mentioned), a horse doesn't have the capacity to consent to a jab, because it can't understand the full consequences of either getting the jab, or not getting the jab. What I want, however, is a horse that will tolerate getting the jab with a minimum of stress.

In Caol Ila's example of Fin and the rug, I would say that since rugs can happen quite often to a horse, it's certainly worth the time to train acceptance of the rug, without food! Last week, my mare got a bib clip, for the first time in many years. To say she wasn't keen to begin with was an understatement, but it wasn't me doing the clipping, or my clippers, so I didn't have much choice about the timing. I could have made the decision that she was inadequately prepared to tolerate them, and turned her out and rearranged (and some people would have), but fortunately, two minutes with clicker training and a Likit meant that the clip (and subsequent exercise) could happen. She wasn't massively impressed, but doesn't appear especially traumatised either, and I'll know for next time and do some work beforehand to make sure she's much more desensitised to the clippers.

I also have to be honest with myself: clipping her right then was for my convenience. Working on lateral work in the school when she'd rather stuff her face with her BFF at the hayfeeder may be good for her, but it happens when it does because I want it to (I work, and can't hang about the yard waiting until my mare decides that she'd rather not be eating just now. It would take several years, tbh, because she has an appetite second to none.). I watch a trainer that emphasises setting up schooling exercises in such a way that the horse preferably offers the desired movement at the right moment, because it seems easiest/most convenient to the horse at the time, or feels good, but that's not really the same as asking her for her opinions on half-pass in the abstract!

I don’t think horses can, or should make the decision about whether they should be rugged. They haven’t seen the forecast, for one thing!

You may be interested in this study, in which horses are not only trained to use abstract symbols to communicate rugging preferences, but they also demonstrate a consistency in their choices that suggests that they are aware of a connection between rugging and weather:

Cecilie M. Mejdell, Turid Buvik, Grete H.M. Jørgensen, Knut E. Bøe. "Horses can learn to use symbols to communicate their preferences". Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 184, 2016, Pages 66-73. ISSN 0168-1591, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2016.07.014.

I think you can take their opinion into account sometimes without letting them always have their way. For instance, my youngster doesn't like having her head held still and fusses dreadfully when I try. She needed eye drops and put up a dreadful fight when I held (or rather tried to hold) her head steady with her head collar. The eye drops were non-negotiable, but I was happy to compromise on how they were administered. We settled on her holding her own head still in return for a treat. I wouldnt have called it consent though, as she didn't want to have the eye drops, she just submitted to them in order to get the treat. To my mind that's bribery rather than consent- I'm not against it in its place, as I'd rather take the route that is easiest on everyone, but she's not doing it because she wants to, she's doing it because the treat is more desirable than the eye drops are unpleasant.

Bribery greases the gears of life...as others have said, positive reinforcement runs into a barrier when the reinforcer is less desirable to the horse than the required behaviour is undesirable, and a situation has arisen where the required behaviour is mandatory. Some circumstances are so sudden, rare, or unpredictable, that it's unlikely one has prepared for that specific instance, and then, it's super helpful if the horse in general thinks, "I should do what this person says". It's best if that's because the horse trusts the person, but there are also circumstances where that might not be the case and where the behaviour is mandatory anyway. And sometimes, like in my clipper situation, the circumstance was entirely predictable, knowing my mare, and I could have prepared better, but didn't. In that case, the treats were enough to overcome the aversion, and a harsher method would have seemed really unfair, because nothing bad, other than her getting a bit sweaty, would have resulted from not getting clipped. (And now, I have a few weeks to remedy my error.)

 

[JFTDWS]

You may be interested in this study, in which horses are not only trained to use abstract symbols to communicate rugging preferences, but they also demonstrate a consistency in their choices that suggests that they are aware of a connection between rugging and weather:

Cecilie M. Mejdell, Turid Buvik, Grete H.M. Jørgensen, Knut E. Bøe. "Horses can learn to use symbols to communicate their preferences". Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Volume 184, 2016, Pages 66-73. ISSN 0168-1591, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2016.07.014.

I’m aware that horses are capable of making a decision in the here and now - it’s an old study that’s done the rounds a lot. My point was that they don’t have the capacity to read a forecast, or comprehend that the weather at 2am might require the rug they refuse at 8pm.

I was being flippant though.

 

[Tiddlypom]

I do allow my horses to express a mild opinion on being rugged or not in ‘iffy’ weather, and have been known to let their views influence my choice of rugging or nor rugging.

However, I call the shots and if I know that bad weather is imminent then they get rugged, like it or not. Bit like getting a reluctant toddler to put their wellies on.

 

[FieldOrnaments]

There's too many variables involved in modern horse care that they will never understand to give them choices over lots of things. They live in the present - they don't know it's going get down to 2C at night so yes, they do need a rug on. They don't know nasty tasting wormer will keep them parasite free. Undoubtedly (if you had too much time on your hands and way, way more patience than I've got) you could probably get a horse to understand that rain icon = will get wet by showing them it and squirting them with a hose pipe, but it seems like overcomplicating things and anthropomorphising to a degree that actually I would argue could endanger their welfare: what if they didn't 'consent' to wormer, to hi vis? Do you ask 'consent' with everything you do with them - even a headcollar in the field? But what about the field itself? Should you ask a horse's consent before stabling them?

Animals didn't evolve to live in the human world and need human guidance to thrive in domestic settings IMO

Obviously a lot of the above is hyperbole but the point still stands that it wouldn't be a good idea to entirely hand the reins over directing their care over to the animals because they can't comprehend so many things we consider when making husbandry decisions. Listen to your horse, yes, but don't let them make decisions for you.

 

[spookypony]

I’m aware that horses are capable of making a decision in the here and now - it’s an old study that’s done the rounds a lot. My point was that they don’t have the capacity to read a forecast, or comprehend that the weather at 2am might require the rug they refuse at 8pm.

I was being flippant though.

I did get that you were being flippant (I maintain that my cat, retired from mousing, now runs online courses for other cats...)!

 

[JFTDWS]

I did get that you were being flippant (I maintain that my cat, retired from mousing, now runs online courses for other cats...)!

Smart cat!

 

[MickeyFinn22]

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask this lol but where could I learn about consent-based horse training? I already do clicker training but would love to learn more about giving him a choice on want he wants and how to read signs he wants/doesn't want to do.

Hello! My friend is a clicker trainer and behaviourist and works very much with this system. She does a lot of co-operative care and consent training. Her page is Hope for Horses Behaviour. She is really good, I would highly recommend

I'm sure she would be happy to help!

 

[Smogul]

Doesn't all care of large animals need to be cooperative to be safe?

One very good instructor told me "Your horse will always have an opinion. Sometimes you share it." Obviously, sometimes I don't!

 

[Gloi]

I'd quite like someone to come and help me with clicker training mine while I am off riding injured. I've done it before but am not very good at it. I did teach my old pony to fetch, but nothing useful