Over rewarding.....

I always have pockets of treats and bails has one when i arrive at the yard when i tack up and if he does something good like when he has made an effort in work. he also has strong mints for stretching exercises after work. he knows not to mug me or he will get a sharp word. hes never been brilliant having his forelock plaited but as soon as ive finished plaitimg his mane and then his forelock he gets one then too. if he started mugging me for treats he would get reprimanded. most of the time he gets half mints to cut down on his sugar. its really no one elses business if you treat or over treat your horse as long as it has no impact on his behaviour i.e mugging people.
 
You are using food to reward your horse's behavior as a result of which the horse is far more likely to repeat the good behavior. Well done you! This is an excellent training method and works particularly well with overcoming fears like the memory of pain.

When working with food as a reward it's worth starting with exercises that teach the animal to back away from the food until it is given and to take it gently. Since you don't have these problems I'd continue with what you are doing. Posters who have had these problems may have skipped these training steps and would do well to go back to them.

Giving treats randomly or not tightly associated with the desired behavior is not positive reinforcement training, it's just treating. Fine if that is what you want to do, worth stopping if your horse develops unwanted behaviors.
 
I have a pocket full of mints. My very polite gelding gets one as a reward for being good. They are funnily enough more useful for me than for him. I had a bad confidence knock, from being tanked off with and dumped several time at the mounting block. I had time off for pregnancy, so the mountain block became a bit of a mental block for me!

Polite gelding gets one while he is at the block, and then a last one when I am on board. He wont get one again until we have finished. He wouldn't prat about at the block, he has never mis-behaved there - but I feel happy knowing he has something to chew on and look forward to when we are at the block, and as a little thank you for helping me get over that lack of confidence :)

In saying that, the dog and cats also get treats :p
 
MrsNorris said:
Sounds to me like you're using rewards to encourage desirable behaviour, not treating, as Dry Rot says. Excellent strategy with many horses, but timing is obviously critical, sounds like it's working for you, so carry on and ignore the detractors.
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Every year I struggle to put head collars on foals. I refuse to rugby tackle and force them on as some recommend. Last year, I was on my hands and knees trying to get foals to eat through the head collar, then struggling to do up the buckle before the foal gets bored and moves off.

This year, I got both hooked on carots, then continued to feed carrots as they reached THROUGH the head collar. Both were collared in about three short sessions.

Rewards every time! But during, not after. In my opinion, absolutely pointless to reward after the lesson. And nibbling without being invited is discouraged, though some nibbling is tolerated because that's what foals do.

Old trainer's motto, "If it works, keep on doing it. If it doesn't work, don't waste time but try something different".
 
I think if its working for you then keep doing it. There's no right or wrong way to treat IMO, just depends on the horse and the issues it might have. If its helping her relax about her issue now then I wouldnt even be questioning it :) I only tend to treat mine at set times - I usually keep a small handful of nuts in my pocket so when I get on then I give a couple of cubes, then I'll stop and treat occassionally during riding if I feel the horse has worked hard or done something particularily well. Otherwise, I give a polo when they load into the trailer (always, just to keep them sweet!) and always after I come out of the ring at a competition. My horses never mug me for food. The only one who doesn't get treats by hand is my sons little pony, since she's a lead-rein and I was told never to encourage it in case she did get nippy and she's the type that she might.
 
Dry Rot said:
Rewards every time! But during, not after. In my opinion, absolutely pointless to reward after the lesson.
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I agree - waiting until the end (or after the end) of a session means most of the important learning opportunities are over and done, and what you are actually rewarding may not be the behaviours you wanted to reward. The horse may feel good about working with you generally - so such delayed rewards are not entirely wasted - but he won't make the connection with specific behaviours that happened many seconds or minutes previously.
 
My concern would be what was in the scoop of feed. Treats as rewards at the time of learnning are fine a scoop of food is not a good idea to me. My ponies have feeds they are left alone to eat them it is their time. They have carrots, apples and vitamin treats as a reward for doing as I ask. Feed is in a bucket, treats from my hand. I suppose its the distinction of one to the other.
 
I have a thug of a cob whose default setting is rude pig. He is NEVER EVER given a treat reward generally, he gets a "good boy" and a scritch, but saying that I do some clicker training stuff with him. When I do that he gets a treat every few seconds. Initially we worked on not mugging or being a pig and it stuck, so he doesnt get rude about it. Hes super bright and incredibly easy to train using the clicker. He moves back and over from a finger point and has the basics of spanish walk and we are doing bow and other tricks. I only do it once every few weeks if that. He never forgets :)

If I treated him like that in every day life he would be a monster! But he understands the difference between everyday life and a training session. I wish I could be bothered to do the clicker training stuff every time I handled him, but it doesnt happen and other people handle him a fair bit so its probably a good thing. For us its all about the context. If its working for you then dont worry about it :)
 
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