Terrible Twos Tuesday

Young horses require someone who knows how to train a horse. Someone that understands how they think. Quite often the problems that are most often associated with bad behavioural traits if young horses falls back to people not understanding the basic fundamentals of horse training.

Now I’m not referring to just experience with other horses here but actually a more in depth understanding of how our horses brain works and how they learn on a scientific basis.

The main two I want to touch on today is Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning, (Conditioning is basically the term for learning); which are apart of Associative Learning.

Classical conditioning refers to how a horse learns through a stimulus. This enables a horse to learn to associate things events over which it has no control. So basically learning through habit. It allows them to predict what is going to happen. For

example you shorten the reins to get ready to go faster and the horse goes before you ask it due to them learning that you shorten the reins before they go faster.

Operant Conditioning is the voluntary response that will bring about a reward. This gives the horse more control over their environment. So for instance leg on, horse gives response, leg off is the reward creating a more comfortable environment for them.

If you are having difficulty with your horse with a certain task then try to break down what is happening, figure out which type of learning is happening and then get a plan together to train for a more desirable response.

If you are having problems working out and pun pointing where things are going wrong you can always send me a message and I will be happy to help you through it.

Happy Training Everyone! 😊🐎❤️