The Art of Natural Dressage

A topic about food rewards again

I am curious what people using food reward, reward.

Why I want to know this is I made a movie and someone on another forum asked about my food rewarding and why so much because then the meaning might be gone.

Well this made me think and I now Timber is not very food orientated. Ester would go onother mile for a piece of apple or carrot but Timber sometimes even does not care about it.

Like today she did a pesade, I rewarded with a click and a piece of carrot but I had to put it in her mouth and another moment I clicked but she had an itch so started to scratch herself befor accepting the foodreward .

It is even so if I do not have the right foodrewards she does not even eat it (Timber is very very very picky about her food not a spoiled princess at al )

So this might mean the food rewards are not special to Timber......maybe I should only reward new and special things. Will this make the food reward more special?

Sorry about my chaotic story but I do not know how to tell it different in English But I am curious about your ideas

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I have the same issues, from time to time I click and he just goes and eat some grass or walks a bit further on. But he knows that food=reward, but I do not like that...
And then I have a question too: if he does something and I want to reward with scratching or just being happy I should not click, but he just really knows that click=good job
What can I do, I hope it will all work out but reading Frances story it popped up

Well I'm back to dog-training again

Some dogs works for ANY food.

Some dogs work for food, but it has to be beaf, waffles whatever...

Some dogs work for GAMES - a ball, a fresbee. Something to run after or fight for. It is also very individual how the dogs like their games the most.

A lot of dogs will work for all of this, but most of them have something they prefer over the other.

I guess it is quite the same with horses.... You have to find what motivtes YOUR horse....

But for the games we usually have one thing with dogs that we don't so often have with horses.... Dogs who are supposed to be trained is usually played a lot with already from it is puppy... I have never ever learned it is ok to play with a foal before attending NHE and AND.... But, it is of course not too late to get the play when the dog or horse is adult either. It is just some times a bit more work (but I don't think you hvae that problem )

Oh - and you can of course use other rewards than food even if you click-train... You use what your horse prefers!!

I'm taking a clickertraining course with Leslie Pavlich and she only treats to teach the horse something. Once he knows what to do and how to do it, she doesn't treat anymore (just a rub). Once he knows how to do something, you link that to something new, etc., then you treat for the new stuff he's learning.

anyways, I too am in the learning process but it is so much fun. And Corado's loves the attention and he seems to love to think.
Magik, on the other hand, is different. He hasn't grasped the concept of clicking and treating. I've only started about 2-3 weeks ago with Magik. And like your horse, he's not too food-oriented but loves to be rubbed.
Jocelyne

Hi Barbara,

One solution is instead of clicking when you want to scratch/rub, you can simply use a different sound or word like 'good'. I ALWAYS treat after a click. The reason for me is that there is a classical association between the click/yes and the food and I want to keep that association strong, i.e my horses salivate, lick, chew, etc. (involuntary response) at the sound of the click/yes in anticipation of the food. I use 'goood' for simple behaviors that are on low rates of reinforcement, and will use an ear rub or butt scratch.

Also, if my horse does not stop for the click, or ignores the click, or doesn't take the food, for me thats a bad thing, and a red flag goes up for me and I reassess my training, change something, take a water/hay break, change my treats, etc., depending upon what I decide is causing it.

Brenda

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Hi Jocelyn,

Sounds like behavior chaining, a very useful concept to build behaviors. Can you give us an example of a behavior that is taught with food and then later reinforced with a rub??? How is the behavior cued?? Have you learned any chains yet??

Brenda

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Hi Frances,

I use hay stretcher pellets, not sure if you have them where you live??? I find my horses like dry treats the best, tho they will take carrots, and only like apples if they are newly cut up <G>

Does Timber get grain?? If so you can use that for your sessions. You can give her the carrots in her stall instead, or something like that???

Do you think she is calm at these times??? I know you have written many times about things that trigger her stress??? Also, I would be very careful as to using pressure training, that can sometimes get the physical behavior you want of course, but often their brains might go somewhere else???

Not sure if that makes sense. I experienced that a lot when I got Jack, if he thought I was using pressure, even accidentally, he would bypass the treats. If my horses won't eat, they are either full, or there's something wrong or stressing them???

Brenda

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Re:FOOD

I use food as my main reinforcer, a lot of it, all the time and there is no dimishing value to the food as a reinforcer that I can see??? I see just the opposite. My horses are addicted to playing the clicker game, and even tho they get the same ol' same ol' boring treats, they never quit, unless they are thirsty or full!! I think that's what you were asking??

My goal to train Lucy solely with positive reinforcement, and her top reinforcer is definitely food! I'm not sure how far I can go but I have lots of time and nothing to lose. Targeting, mimicing, and clicker training are my main tools.

So what I'm saying is that I use a LOT of food and not much else. I am amazed that I can work her into a sweat for treats, like with target lunging, no pressure, at liberty, she can leave or stop if she wanted to!!! But she doesn't, or I am careful to raise and lower my crieria to keep her in the game.

Something I think about with training horses is 'response cost'. IOW, the reinforcer has to be able to support the expense of energy from the behavior. We ask our horse to do a LOT of work! Sort fo like the paycheck has to match the work done. And there just aren't many intrinsic reinforcers that horses will work for beside food, unlike our dogs who have LOTS of innate games, etc.!

So since I wants to avoid using pressure/release as a reinforcement, then treats, LOTS of them, for my horses is the best reinforcer when actively shaping, building and maintaining behaviors.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it <grin>!!

Brenda

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The best example is lifting Corado's feet.
Originally he was taught to lift when I pinched the chestnut.
Now, to teach him, I would stand beside him and pet his shoulder. click and treat if he didn't move.
Then I would stand beside him and glide my hand down his leg until I got to the knee. Click and treat if he didn't move. Would do this about 3-4 times. Then I would lower even further down his leg. Click and treat. Then I would lower my hand and wait until he showed the slightest move. Click and treat. After a few tries, he would know that I wanted his foot and he would give it. the second he gave me his foot, I would click and treat. then I would treat after a few seconds in my hand. then after I cleaned the hoof.
Now I just stand beside him, rub his shoulder, bend my back and up goes the leg (not all the time but most of the time). I clean each foot this way now and rub after each leg, but I won't treat anymore. He knows what I'm asking him. I will treat though once the whole job is done (I don't think I should because this may send mixed signals but he has made me happy and that's my way of telling him).
HOpe you understand the concept. What I understood is once the horse knows how to do what you're asking, a rub should be sufficient. Then we go on from there or teach him new things.
Next week, we are teaching our horses how to back up. It's so interesting. I hope Corado will learn this because he has more trouble backing up than moving forward. So we'll see how that goes.
Jocelyne

Timber gets grain in her stall but she does not really care about that eiter sometimes when they come inside she first starts to eat her hay and eats her grains later. Pellets she totaly dislikes......she even spits it out.

This winter I thought she was sick because she did not want to eat her grains anymore but changing to another brand made her eat again....for 2 weeks then I had to change brand again

And last summer she also had a long periode she only ate the apple I brought and left the grains for others to eat.

I once bought horse candy, I could give the whole bag to Ester becaues Timber refused to eat it. It was no reward to her....Looking at her face it maybe even was disappointing to her she would get that for doing something for me.

The things she likes most just are apples and carrots.

This has nothing to do with stress or pressure training she is just not that food orientated.
She is born with me and there was alway enough food, and there was also always carrots, apples and "special" things like that so food is just not that special to her.

They also get the hay they want in a day and Timber is high in the picking order so never has to go hungry.....there just always is enough.

Ester also had much milk when Timber was born. Sometimes she even had to let it run because Timber was so full and was not hungry. So Timber does not know the concept of hunger I think and food is just not that special to her

It is not a thing I worry about or sudden change in her behavior she always has been like this.
But that can be a problem using foodrewards.....

Horsefever I might try this, thanks.
This is exactly what I was thinking about this way the food reward might get more meaning to Timber.
And finding another way to reward like scratches to use I will also think about.....

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Lovely explanations, Kirsti, Jocelyn and Brenda. It gives me a few ideas on how to start weaning Freckles away from so many food rewards.

As you said, different personalities work for different rewards. Freckles will work for apples and carrots, but he absolutely "lights up" when I bring out the 12% pellets I got for training. His normal meal is a mixture of a powder, cracked seeds and chopped lucerne so I wanted a different taste and texture because I don't want him to think that eating is dependant on pleasing me.

Very often he will refuse to do something I'm asking and stare hard at the treat bag, or even "lip" it. As soon as I take a treat into my hand he will then do the behaviour I asked for! It's funny, but can be frustrating.

Sometimes when he thinks he has done what I want he will "turn into a mule" until he gets it! I accept that, because I feel that my communication must have been confusing. I'm still working at getting my horse-language right!

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Glen Grobler

Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. Anon

The trick is, after you've found the 'treat' that motivates, is to associate the behavior to it.

But more, much more, is the phase where you work on extinguishing the need for the treat.

Repetition serves to create habit.

But more, again, once the behavior is well established, the use of random intermediate reward, 'treat,' will tend to accelerate the behavior. This moves you into two objectives. More vigorous offering of the wanted behavior, and not having to treat at every production of the behavior.

In time, the behavior will be so habitual that the treat can be 'faded,' out completely.

Of the behavior begins to extinguish, shown by either not offering it on cue, or a reduction in energy of the behavior, a return to intermittent treats can bring it back strongly.

Our problem, or mine really, is that I get such pleasure out of treating my horse or dog that I do it almost without thinking.

There is a third way that also tends to increase intensity of behavior, and leads to fading out the treat.

That is to increase the time duration from the 'click,' the bridge cue, and the actual delivery of the reinforcer, the treat.

Working on 'stay' is my favorite behavior to do this with.

In time the relationship between human and horse tends to, and should I think, cause all these behaviors and treats to meld into a lifestyle together.

But know that one moves then much more toward the horse choosing when to perform the behavior. Just as you appear to him or her as no longer being 'controlled,' as a treat dispenser whose button he or she pushes with results every time.

Both of you have, at that point, freewill.

For AND it seems that that is a goal. To make the relationship so warm and nurturing and trusting and rewarding that horse and human treat each other well and have fun together.

While it is somewhat like a human to human relationship develops, or can, it is even more like raising a child.

Sounds good to me.

Donald Redux

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Love is Trust, trust is All
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So say Don, Altea, and Bonnie the Wonder Filly.

Donald! That is a large part of it! I get a kick out of watching his eyelids droop with pleasure while he munches the treats, so I often can't resist giving him too many!

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Glen Grobler



Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled. Anon

ok I finally found the right topic, thanks everyone for this one, I just noticed yesterday that Viola was not interested in food reward, at first she was a bit and then she looked not interested in food at all, even sniffing the tiger was much more interesting )) Lets see whether clicker will work better, I think combining it with food should be better.

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