The Supermodel and Conditioned Response Training

This is Gia.



Gia is one of the most gorgeous horses I've ever known. She was named after Gia Carangi who is said to have been the very first supermodel. If she were a person, Mike Posner's song "Cooler Than Me" could have been written about her-- she definitely thinks she's cooler than everyone. If she were human she'd wear Prada sunglasses and stiletto heels.



Unfortunately, Gia is a bit of a spaz. You can't really blame her, she spent the last several years hanging out in a big field bossing around her buddies, and now she's been dragged to an unfamiliar place and is being asked to WORK. Horror!

One of her biggest issues is standing still. She HATES to stand still, she gets very anxious, particularly when she's tied in the barn. She will dance around, bash her body into the walls, paw the floor, and occasionally pull back on the rope until her halter breaks or slips off, then take off for the hills. It's quite frustrating.

I was grooming her today, and as usual she was having kittens over being tied. But today I had a plan-- I was going to try clicker training.

Clicker training, or conditioned response training, is often used with animals-- horses, dogs, even to teach bunnies to show jump. I'm sure you've heard of Pavlov's dog-- that was the beginning of conditioned response training. It's very simple and quite effective. The best explanation I've seen is from About.com:

The conditioned response is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus. For example, let's suppose that the smell of food is an unconditioned stimulus, a feeling of hunger in response the the smell is a unconditioned response, and a the sound of a whistle is the conditioned stimulus. The conditioned response would be feeling hungry when you heard the sound of the whistle.

Clicker training basically involves teaching an animal that the sound of a clicker means they have done something right, and will be rewarded. Animals pick up on this very quickly, especially if treats are involved!

I didn't use a clicker but I did use treats. When Gia was fussy and dancing around, I ignored it and continued with my grooming. When she stopped and all four feet were on the floor, even for a moment, I gave her a treat. And, as I expected, she figured out this game pretty darn quickly. Before long, she was quiet and focused on me rather than hollering for her buddies and having a temper tantrum. She wasn't perfect by any means, but the improvement was huge. Plus she relaxed dramatically-- something she has a really hard time doing.

I have not used clicker training much in my horsey career but have seen it accomplish many things-- from teaching a horse to come when called, to one remarkable mare I knew who would shake her hoof and even SMILE (show her teeth) on command. All in all it is a very interesting training tool. It is 100% reward based which works well for some horses. Generally when we train horses we use a pressure and release system-- put pressure on the horse when they are misbehaving, and take that pressure away when they do what we ask. "Pressure" can be many things-- actual physical pressure like tightening the reins, or mental pressure like making the horse work harder when they misbehave.

Pressure and release has worked well with Gia, she has advanced by leaps and bounds but has still had trouble relaxing, so perhaps I will pursue the conditioned response training and see how far it will take us in getting her to focus. Really, it's a system that can have many applications... like your friends and family, for example. Try giving them candy (or cupcakes, in my case!) when they behave yourself, and see how far you get. You never know what you might accomplish! :)