Contents:
House Breaking and Magic Hands
The "Yes Answer" Game
Whale Stories
******************************************************************
House breaking and Magic Hands
By Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
This first part of this post refers to Panda, the miniature horse I trained to be a guide for the blind. For more on Panda go to the Panda Project section of this web site. The story I am sharing is a follow up on another post which described how a horse had used a behavior her owner had taught her to communicate back to her.
Great post Margaret. I have to add my own example of horses using behaviors we have taught them to communicate with us. This is a Panda story.
Panda is house broken. She has two cues: "Get busy" for urination, and "Park time" to defecate. Sorry for the topic for those of you who are reading this over breakfast, but Panda has provided us with a fascinating example of her ability to communicate with us using behaviors we have taught her.
I saw this behavior most clearly when Ann and I were traveling together on the toll roads here in the Northeast. We can't just pull over when it's convenient. We have to wait until we get to the rest stops to give Panda a relieving break. That means we aren't always on her schedule. It's like traveling with a toddler. When the next rest stop is another forty miles on, we don't always want to push our luck, or her comfort level. So we'll sometimes stop a little early, before Panda really needs a break.
Ann will take her out. Panda has an amazing bladder. She can always oblige on the cue to "get busy", but dropping a pile is another matter. It can sometimes take her five or ten minutes before she is successful. But she clearly knows what she is supposed to do. She stays on task, going through her pre-relieving cycle of behaviors. She turns in small circles, sniffs the ground, looks back at her flank, lifts her tail.
Especially in the winter when it's cold waiting for her, there's always the temptation to say that she really doesn't need to go, and to put her back in the car before she's dropped a pile. But then there's the worry that now that we've started the process she'll need to go before we can get to the next rest stop. So we wait, and she keeps working away at it, and eventually she produces a pile.
(For those of you who haven't been around minis of Panda's size, you mustn't picture that we now pull a full size muck tub out of the trunk of my car to clean up after her. Ann uses the same size plastic bag to clean up Panda's pile that used for her dogs.)
This relieving process illustrates beautifully the difference between a cue and a command. We can't order Panda to produce a pile. When she doesn't produce a pile right away, we can't say it's because she's being stubborn, or she's testing us, or she's showing disrespect. All we can do is give her the opportunity and reinforce her for trying. The rest is up to Panda, and it is quite remarkable to watch her diligently working away at it until she can oblige us with a pile.
But there are times when she really doesn't need to go. Panda has developed a wonderful way of signaling to us that she doesn't need her pit stop. She presses up against Ann's leg.
Pressing against the handler's leg was a behavior I taught her early on in her training. It's part of her version of "the grown ups are talking, please don't interrupt". When I was standing in line at the post office or chatting with neighbors, I would reinforce Panda for pressing her body against my leg. Panda now makes it her responsibility to keep herself attached to Ann. Ann doesn't have to worry about Panda swinging her rear end out into someone else's space. She can feel her pressing her body actively against her leg so she knows exactly where she is.
It's a behavior we taught in one context which Panda has transferred to another. When she really doesn't need to go, she swings over and presses up against Ann. The first couple of times she did this, we tried to send her back to focus on relieving, but she very determinedly swung back around to press against Ann. And when we put her back in the car, she was fine until the next rest stop. So now we believe her when she tells us that she really doesn't need to go.
This using a behavior we have taught in one context to signal us in another is something to keep track of. When you see instances of it with your horses, you should definitely share them with a post to the list.
"Magic Hands"
When I used to show Panda's training videos to groups, I would say that, of course, with the big horses we don't teach them to press in against us. We teach them to move over out of our space. That is true - at first, but I have started to teach the press-in-against behavior as well. It started with Robin. I taught him Panda's lock-in-to-my-body heel position, and then evolved that into "Magic Hands". Michelene just sent in a wonderful report on the success she's been having with Troubadour using the "Magic Hands" exercise.
Basically it's a targeting lesson. You're asking your horse to target, usually his shoulder, to your hand. Depending upon what your horse already knows, there are a number of ways you can initiate this game. With most horses you simply rest your hand on your horse's shoulder. You roll your hand so the heel of it presses against his skin, but beyond that, there's no making him go. When he takes a step, click and treat. At first you are on a very high rate of reinforcement. Every time your horse steps forward, click and treat. In between trials, you either take your hand off his shoulder, or you can scratch him while he eats. This later has the added benefit of pairing scratching with a primary reinforcer so you are increasing the value of scratching as a conditioned reinforcer.
At first you are following your horse, but gradually you change the game and have him follow you. If he starts walking too fast so you have to rush to keep up with him, you'll stop your feet instead. You may even pivot on your heels and take a step back to draw him to you. Your horse will begin to make the association. He gets clicked and treated when his shoulder rests under your hand, and it is his responsibility to adjust his pace and direction to stay attached to you. That's a great concept for a riding horse to understand. It is his responsibility to keep his body attached to yours.
It's a great exercise. In the beginning with a horse that is a non-foot mover it can be as exciting as watching grass grow, but the grass that's growing turns into great things. The liberty ground driving that's at the end of the "Why Would You Leave Me" DVD is essentially a "Magic Hands" exercise.
I call it "Magic Hands" because it does look like magic when its done well. There are no adversives to fade. If your horse leaves, you don't drive him back to you. You can invite him into your space, but you don't make him wrong for leaving. He returns because he chooses to, not because he has to. This gives the exercise a very different appearance from the standard locking on that evolves out of round pen training.
I'll be doing a DVD on it at some point. There are some handling details that are worth highlighting with the visual images. One of those details is what to do if your horse bends his neck prematurely as he steps forward. Many horses will do this. They'll take a step, but then they'll wrap themselves around you, negating their forward movement. Instead of passively allowing the head turning, you can reach forward with your free hand. If you are on the left side of your horse, your right hand will be on his shoulder. Your left hand will reach forward and gently press on his jowl to encourage his head to move forward.
Some horses are initially unsettled by the movement of your hand to their face. So you'll click and treat, click and treat as needed to get your horse comfortable with this gesture. Now you can ask your horse to walk forward with your hand on his shoulder, and make adjustments as needed in the orientation of his head. If he overflexes, you can encourage him to straighten out with a soft gesture towards his jowl.
You're going to look as though you are working your horse in hand - except there is nothing attached to his head. For a horse that worries about the lead or rein, this is a great step to insert. Now when you put him back on a lead, he'll be much more comfortable. Instead of your hand pressing against his cheek, you'll be able to slide along the rope. He'll accept the approach of your hand towards his face. I've used the "Magic Hands" exercise with horses who have become protective of their heads. It's a great transition step that melts away their worry.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
******************************************************************
The "Yes Answer" Game
By Alexandra Kurland
Copyright 2007
Yvonne wrote
March 9, 2007
"I have been working with Don Carlos, my wound-up youngster, on shaping on a point of contact. I have the impression that this really worries him a lot. Instead of getting better, he becomes more and more grabby, worried and unsettled, despite the fact that I took him back to kindergarten (just standing quietly for touching the side of his mouth and other areas of his face/neck/withers). I try to keep my engergy level very low and relaxed, but he just doesn't seem to settle down. And his formerly nice, polite food-taking manners are deteriorating in the process as well."
Too Much Too Fast
When horses who are generally polite about taking food become grabby, this is a good indication that you are asking for too much too fast. And when you see an overall deterioration in the horse's behavior, that definitely means that you are asking for something that he doesn't understand. It may mean that the preparation leading to the particular lesson you are working on is not yet in place, there are missing steps, or something about the way you are asking needs to be modified. This is where a video camera can be enormously helpful. You will often spot details in timing that you weren't aware of when you were working with your horse.
It can also be enormously helpful to get a human training partner who is willing to play the part of the horse. They can give you verbal feedback about what the lead rope feels like from the horse's point of view. Little things can have an enormous impact. You said you are trying to keep your energy low. Perhaps to a sensitive horse like Don Carlos this means you feel absent or disconnected, the very opposite effect from the one you are trying to create. Getting feedback from a human can be wonderfully useful. Maybe there's a stiffness in your shoulder that feels heavy to him, or the slide up the lead isn't as smooth as you think it is, or you are using muscle instead of bone rotations so it feels to him as though you are shouting. All of these details matter. And even more, they matter under saddle. You aren't just doing ground work to teach your horse better balance and emotional control. You are doing ground work to refine your riding skills without having to put wear and tear on your horse.
I know you understand this. The question Don Carlos is posing is worth exploring. Here are some things to consider: Is this the right lesson at the wrong time? That can happen. For example, you could take a horse through the pre-why would you leave me lesson. Its a very simple lesson. You walk from cone to cone to cone, stopping at each cone for a click and a treat. You would think every horse would be able to do this lesson with ease, but not so. There are some who aren't ready even for the simplicity of this lesson. They need other steps before this one. But here's the scenario: the handler tries the lesson, the horse fusses and doesn't seem to be making any improvement, so the handler moves away from the lesson to something else. And then later she tries it again. This time all the good things that the lesson produces pop out. Her horse is a "pre-why would you leave me" superstar and progresses magnificently through the lesson.
So one possibility for Don Carlos is he simply isn't ready for the lesson you are working on, and you need to identify the preparation he needs before working on the lesson you are currently encountering difficulties with.
The "Shaping on a point of Contact" DVD is a complex lesson teaching many levels of refinement. At its core it is teaching the handler how to use the release of the lead to communicate. As the handler becomes skilled at this, very detailed balance shifts become possible.
The “Yes Answer” Game
So how do you explore this with a sensitive horse? You follow a simple rule of shaping: you find a place in the training where you can ask for something and get a consistent "yes" answer back.
You may have to go way back to very simple things to identify the "yes" answer where Don Carlos can experience consistent success. Here's where the short sessions of micro-shaping come in handy. (Refer back to a post I wrote after the Clicker Expo on micro shaping. I would have sent it to the list early in Feb.)
Your first step is to find something you can ask for that gives Don Carlos a 90% or higher success rate. How do you measure your success rate? Video tape your session. When you play back the video, record all the individual behaviors you see. What does he offer?
Suppose you see the following during a sixty second session:
He keeps his head still. Click and treat.
He grabs at the lead.
He looks away.
He sucks on his tongue.
He drops his head.
He keeps his head still. Click and treat.
He stamps his foot.
He bumps you with his nose.
He grabs at the lead.
He drops his head.
Ten behaviors, but only two clicks, so your success rate is a low 20%.
Once you've done this a few times where you really keep track, you'll be able to measure pretty accurately your success rate without having to go through the process of recording the session and counting behaviors, but its a very useful exercise to go through at some point in your training career.
Success Rates
So let's say, you are sitting at that low 20% rate given what you are currently doing. That's way too low. We want 90% or better. Suppose you've been sliding down the lead all the way to the snap, and that's creating the fussiness in Don Carlos. What could you ask for instead? Maybe it is as basic as asking the question: can I stand next to you? Essentially that is the "grown-ups are talking" question. Can Don Carlos keep his head still while you stand quietly beside him? Yes? Click and treat. You should be able to keep him on a high enough rate of reinforcement that he doesn't have time to offer any other behavior than the desired one of allowing you to stand next to him. Basic. Absolutely. But if that's where you need to go to get a consistent "yes" answer, that's where you go.
I refer to this as the "yes" game. You want to set this lesson up so it is so simple, so easy that everything Don Carlos does gets a "yes" answer. He feels completely successful. There are absolutely no "nos" either in the form of a correction, or even in a lack of a click. This is a lesson he is going to succeed in and there aren't going to be long gaps where he has to puzzle his way through to the next right answer. This is an easy game to win. It's like the opening questions on a quiz show. They are so simple everyone gets them right. Hard comes later.
When you've had a short cycle of high success, give him a break. That doesn't mean put him away. It means go do something else with him. Targeting is a great lesson to balance out another lesson that has some emotional intensity attached to it.
Oliver
We used this with Oliver at the last WA clinic. Oliver is the horse featured in the Shaping DVD. Keri has progressed from the stationary mat work to the beginnings of three-flip-three. Oliver is at an age where he can get puffed up and excited especially when he is away from home. Add in working on the precision of lateral work and some fussing at his lead popped out. To diffuse his emotional response we used a strategy that balanced the more challenging exercise of the lateral flexions with something that was familiar and easy. We set up a circle of cones. We reinforced Oliver for touching the cones. We built up that behavior with a high rate of reinforcement so he was eager to touch the cones. Then Keri used the rope handling skill of the rotation of her fully extended arm to ask Oliver to leave the cone.
The arm rotation allowed Keri to be very clear, but not forceful. When Oliver lifted his head, he earned a click and treat. Keri then slid down the lead and asked for the first step into a lateral flexion. Click and treat. She repeated this a time or two, then let Oliver move forward to the next cone in the circle.
By asking for something hard, and then balancing it with something familiar and easy, Oliver stayed very emotionally settled. He stopped fussing at the lead and gave Keri some beautiful steps of a lateral flexion. He was also learning to leave things he wanted. Leaving the cones was setting him up for leaving things such as buckets of grain or tempting spring grass. And he was having a riding lesson, learning how to follow the feel of the rope. "Everything is everything else" certainly applied to this lesson.
Keeping the Balance Between Hard and Easy
So back to Don Carlos. You need to find a step that gives you a 90% or better success rate. Work on it for just a few clicks. For novice clicker trainers I suggest they measure out a set number of treats, or do it by time so they aren't asking for too much. You'll probably be able to gauge this without needing these set references. Click/treat, click/treat just a few times. Get your success. Then shift to something fun and easy for Don Carlos. For example, let him touch a target. The opportunity to touch the target will begin to reinforce the harder work of accepting you in his space. And since emotional effects travel backwards, the all-is-well emotions associated with the easy lesson will begin to trickle over into the harder lesson.
When you've had consistent success over four or five trials in a row, increase slightly the level of difficulty. Don Carlos will tell you how chunked down you need to be and how fast you can move on.
As you begin to progress to the lead and to picking up a connection, and especially when you go to the precision work illustrated in the Shaping DVD, if his fussiness returns, you may want to consider if there is a physical issue going on. He may have some old injury that he is protecting.
We saw this with another of the horses at the WA clinic. Debra has to be very tactful when she works her young horse June Bug on the right side. June Bug is the beautiful paint pony in the riding book who is shown having one of her very early rides. Shortly after those photos were taken June Bug was over tranquilized during a dental exam and crashed head first to the ground. She ended up injuring her spine, and she was in considerable pain for a long time. She is recovering well, but she is still protective of her right side.
In this case we can trace the behavior back to a known injury. But with so many horses that information is a missing link. It is always worth considering if there is a physical reason behind any unwanted behavior you see. Is your horse trying to communicate important information? We need to be respectful of that communication and recognize the behavior for what it is - not disobedience or a lack of respect, but our horse's honest way of telling us that something is wrong.
Magic Hands
Jord-Ann wrote about her success using the "Magic Hands" exercise with one of her stallions. It's a great exercise for sorting through these emotional issues. Yes, you can view it as a simple targeting exercise, but it is targeting with the horse maintaining a physical connection with the handler. Once this has been accepted, it becomes much easier to add the lead rope back in. The horse doesn't feel as overwhelmed by all the information - some of it conflicting - that is presented by both your close proximity and the lead. He can listen to the your requests down the lead without feeling as though you are shouting down a megaphone.
I don't know how much, if any of this applies to Don Carlos, but hopefully it will give you a few directions to explore as you sort this through. The questions he is posing through his fussiness are certainly worth pursuing. I want horses that are comfortable staying with me at liberty, that can work out at the end of a long lead, and that know how to keep slack in a lead. But I also want horses that accept me in close for the work in hand and will allow me to make a direct connection to their head and spine.
Connections
At the WA clinic we worked one of the other horses through flexions at the halt. In the morning "t'ai chi" exercises we looked at the human equivalent of the lesson we were presenting to this mare. I first had people check their range of motion by lifting one knee up to see how high they could lift it.
Then we worked on the equivalent release of the spine in humans that we were asking the mare to give us. When people found this release, they discovered they could lift their knee up significantly higher. Ah ha! Think about how that translates into the gaits of a horse. And indeed that's exactly what we saw in the mare. She was already a gorgeous mover, but she gained even more lift as she went through these exercises.
That's what we're after. Beautiful, sound horses, and gaits that feel like heaven to ride - which is why these questions our horses pose are worth pursuing. Sometimes it takes some creative thinking to find the answers, but when horses ask questions, it is always worth listening to them. You never know where the process of finding answers will take you, but when you follow the principles of good training, they allows lead to good things.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
*******************************************************************************************
Whale Stories
By Alexandra Kurland
Copyright 2007
I've been absent from the list for a bit. I won't try to catch up with all the posts that have been written, except to say a general thank you to everyone who kept the conversation going.
I'm just back from the Cleveland Clicker Expo, and my head feels stuffed to the rafters. You'd think after six or seven Expos, some of the lectures would start to sound stale, but not so. It doesn't matter how many times I hear the lectures on clicker basics, there is always a new twist, a new angle that emerges.
The "ah has" from the Expo are too many to list, but I will share some highlights. On Monday after the Expo we had a Faculty meeting to discuss plans for next year. The meeting is something we all look forward to because Ken Ramirez generally brings video clips of his current training projects. Ken is the Director of Training at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago so he's always got something fun he's working on. This year's video highlights included some work he's been doing with beluga whales at an Aquarium in Japan.
Bubble Rings
Belugas apparently blow air rings the way some smokers blow smoke rings. The behavior is not well understood and there is no clear predictor of when it will occur. You could watch for days and never see the bubble rings, but by chance a Japanese film crew happened to be on hand at one point when the whales were blowing bubbles. They got some beautiful photos of the rings. The zoo started using the images in their advertising, but then of course the public wanted to see the whales blowing rings. So the zoo needed to get the behavior on cue.
The whales were in tanks with glass side walls so people could watch them swimming under water. The trainers wanted to be able to cue the whales to blow air rings at the audience. The problem was they didn't know how to get the behavior in the first place. They couldn't rely on capturing the behavior since it occurred so irregularly. So getting bubble rings on cue was the training problem the zoo asked Ken to help them solve.
Ken's solution illustrated everything I love about clicker training - the weaving together of a solid understanding of the science of clicker training with good training technique and creativity. He started with a behavior the whales had solidly on cue - spitting water. They would come up to the edge of the tank and on cue spit water at the trainers.
So Ken started by asking the whales to spit water while they were under water. The whales readily transferred the behavior. The movement of their lips for spitting was similar to that of the air blowing behavior, but spitting water under water didn't create the same charming visual effect. It was however a good beginning. The next challenge was getting them to spit air.
When the whales blew air rings on their own, they would first swim up to the surface and get a mouthful of air. So the next task was to get the whales to hold air in their mouths. This was the truly ingenious part. Ken used his own respirator. He cued the whales to open their mouths and then inserted his respirator so they got a big gulp of air. The whales seemed perfectly comfortable with this and held the air obligingly in their mouths.
So the next step was to give the "spit water" cue and see what happened. Ken gave the cue, and the whales responded by blowing an air ring. It wasn't a very good air ring, but the whale was definitely spitting out his air bubble.
Timing and Microshaping
To get a better formed ring, the trainers had to get better in their timing. The trainers Ken was working with tended to click too late. They were clicking when they could see the finished air ring, but that's not the information that was most important to the whales. They really needed to be bridged just as they were forming the bubble ring. So, Ken started looking at shaping micro movements. He said he got the idea for the solution in part from presentations he'd seen at the Expo. Kay Lawrence's discussions about shaping micro-movements in dogs got him thinking about doing something similar with the whales.
To learn what the trainers needed to click, Ken had them study video of the whales blowing bubble rings. He slowed the video way down so they could see frame by frame what the whales were doing. Ken had all the trainers watch the video over and over again until they could recognize the changes and begin to see and respond to them in real time. When he first showed us video of the whales blowing bubble rings, it was hard to see what they were doing, but slowed down it became very clear. You could see the whale form a round circle with its lips, then pull them in and at the same time the shape of its mellon (it's forehead) distorted. It creased in and a micro second later, the whale produced the bubble ring. It floated through the water, a beautifully formed ring of bubbles, as if the whale were blowing kisses at the camera.
At this point Ken could reliably cue the whales to blow bubble rings, but he was still supplying the air. The next step was to have the whales get their own air. As a preparation for that he had the aquarium's trainers include bubble blowing in the whales daily training sessions. When he returned a couple of weeks later, the whales had become practiced bubble ring blowers. So Ken did a session with them where he gave the cue to blow a ring, but did not first give the whales any air. The first whale spit water, but Ken did not bridge and reinforce him. Instead he cued him again. The whale hesitated, then went up to the surface, got his own mouthful of air, came down and very deliberately blew it straight at Ken. Success.
Ken showed some enchanting video of the whales engaging with the spectators. They blew their bubble rings straight at the people so the rings floated towards them before bursting against the glass. The rings looked like fairy rings floating in the water. The whales began adding their own flourishes to the behavior, including blowing bubble rings out their air holes! They would also blow a ring and then do a back flip so they could "catch" the ring with their tail. It was pure delight watching them.
The Horse Connection
So why am I sharing this whale story on a horse list? Apart from the fact that it was just so enchanting, it was a wonderful illustration both of the creativity that is so much a part of clicker training, and of the value of micro-shaping. The analysis of the whale's movement using slow motion video is something we should all be taking note of.
Once you get past the basic lessons where it is easy to see what your horse is doing, seeing detail matters. As clicker trainers we like to think of ourselves as positive trainers. We click and reinforce the behavior we want. We understand that the opposite of positive reinforcement is no reinforcement. It is not correction. But are we really giving our horse a truly positive training experience just because we are using positive reinforcement?
Ken gave a presentation on advanced training concepts. He prefaced his talk by defining what he meant by a beginner and an advanced trainer. A beginner clicker trainer reinforces desired behavior and ignores unwanted behavior. It's that simple. If a novice trainer needs a more advanced tool, Ken said he shouldn't be working with that particular animal. He was speaking as the director of training of a major Aquarium where he routinely has seventy trainers on his staff. Part of his job involves teaching new trainers how to work with what are potentially very dangerous animals.
We are also working with what are potentially very dangerous animals even though we are working with a domestic species. Just as they do with zoo animals, I recommend that horse owners begin with protected contact. This gives a novice clicker trainer the breathing room she needs to reinforce her horse for touching targets, putting his ears forward, backing up, etc., while at the same time remaining non-reactive to unwanted behavior. Learning how not to react to things you don't like can be a hard skill to learn, especially if your horse is presenting dangerous, unacceptable behavior. Protective contact helps. It lets you get your "sea legs" while you are learning the skills needed to be an effective clicker trainer.
That's all well and good, but its the second part of Ken's statement that can get a lot trickier. Its easy to say that a novice handler shouldn't be working in a situation that requires advanced tools. The reality is horse owners are frequently working with horses that are not well matched to their experience level. That means the foundation work is all the more important. Protective contact is a wonderful thing. While you are developing your motor skills, perfecting your timing, and learning the basic concepts that go along with clicker training, it makes sense to keep things simple. That means focusing on the foundation lessons. The more solid you become with the basics, the less frustration you and your horse will encounter later.
Positive Trainers
We are clicker trainers. We want to be positive with our horses, but we need to separate out intent from tools. If you are a lumper, if you are raising your criteria too fast, if you are inconsistent in your timing, if you do not reinforce after every click, you can easily end up with a very frustrated learner. You need to look at the effect on your learner, not just the tools you are using, to decide if the training experience is a positive one.
Jesus Rosales-Ruiz showed a wonderful example of this. One of his students was looking at the difference in response between following every click with reinforcement versus not reinforcing after every click. In the video clips he showed where the dog was being treated after every click, the dog responded promptly to the cues. He was animated. His tail was wagging.
When the same dog was clicked but treated after only fifty percent of the clicks, his body language changed dramatically. The tail stopped wagging. The handler had to repeat cues, and in one very dramatic clip, the dog gave the handler a "time out". He left the training area completely.
Jesus said that the dogs in the study belonged to a friend of the student. Normally when she went over to visit, they greeted her enthusiastically, but after she did the experiment where she clicked but did not treat, the dogs left the room when she came into the house. The experiment didn't just suppress behavior during the trial. It had a global impact on the relationship.
The Gorilla in the Room
Kathy Sdao shared with us some video clips produced by researchers who study visual cognition. I almost hate to describe one of the clips she showed. Once you know what to look for, the clip doesn't have the same impact. But it is so relevant to this topic I have to describe it. The clip shows a group of people passing basketballs back and forth. Half the group were wearing white jerseys. The other half were wearing black. Kathy instructed us to count the number of times the ball left the hands of someone wearing a white jersey.
Everyone watched and counted. At the end of the twenty second clip she asked for numbers. Fifteen, sixteen, nineteen. One very observant person called out fifteen straight passes, plus four that bounced. That's showing off - or would be except for the one thing that very focused and observant individual didn't see - and that was the person in the gorilla suit who mid way through the clip walked across the basketball court. No one in the room who hadn't heard about the clip before hand saw the gorilla in the room.
That's totally normal. Our brains filter out an enormous amount. We see what we are focused on, what we are directed to see, what we want to see.
Think about all the ways this is significant for our horses, our dogs, our family members, our work.
A trainer focuses our attention on one aspect of the training, and we fail to see the problems emerging in different areas.
Our horse fails to see the cues we are giving just as the people watching that video failed to see the gorilla in the room. We think the animal is being deliberately disobedient, when really it is just a problem in perception.
We're training one criterion, and we get so focused on that that we fail to see some other elements that are falling apart and need our attention.
I'm sure you can find many other ways in which this video clip relates to your horse. For me one of the most important is this: we want to think of ourselves as all positive trainers so we miss the signs of stress when we are lumping our criteria and making the lesson too hard for our learner.
Micro-Shaping and Positive Training
I wasn't able to get to Kay Lawrence's presentation on micro-shaping at this Expo, but I saw it last time and I had many conversations with her through the course of this weekend. I wish everyone could see the video she shows in her talk of the dog she is shaping to put his foot on a stool. In the first clip she deliberately lumps criteria. She clicks the dog for putting his foot on the stool, but she does not click for micro movements. Over a sixty second trial the rate of reinforcement in the dog is very low. He offers a few paw touches, but he is not very focused on the task and shows signs of stress.
In the next clip Kay micro-shapes. She clicks for any lift of the front paw. It doesn't have to be oriented to the stool. Even a slight lift of the paw earns a click and a treat. Over sixty seconds the rate of reinforcement goes way up as does the dog's focus and enthusiasm.
So how do you learn to see the tiny shifts in balance that present clickable moments? Ken's presentation on the beluga whale showed us one way. You video tape your animal and slow down the motion until you can see all the tiny weight shifts that create the overall movement. You learn to spot the movement that occurs just before the clickable moment so you are ready to click.
Timing Exercises
Okay, so you can see the weight shifts, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to click them in real time. How do you sharpen your mechanical skills so you are clicking on time? Theresa McKeon in her presentations on Tagteaching gave people some great exercises for sharpening their timing. She had people click when she opened her hand. She started out slowly, predictably so most people were successful, then she got faster and trickier. Sometimes she held up all five fingers. Sometimes only one or two fingers. Sometimes she started to open her clenched fist, but didn't. The number of missed clicks increased with the difficulty level. It's a great game to play with a friend.
So here's the question: how good is your timing?
Can you have a friend bounce a ball and click each time the ball hits the ground? Other timing games she suggested were watching television commercials and clicking each time there is a scene change.
Positve Trainers
I hadn't intended when I started this post to give you an Expo Highlights report. I really just wanted to share Ken's work with the belugas, but everything truly is everything else. And it ties in so well with something I've been thinking about a lot lately which is this phrase "all positive trainer".
When people describe themselves as clicker trainers, they often say they are all positive. But what does this really mean? And is it possible? If you are shaping and your animal is getting frustrated because you are lumping too many criteria together so the rate of reinforcement is low, are you being all positive? You are clicking and reinforcing correct responses, but your animal is not having a positive experience.
When you add in some clues in the form of negative reinforcement, are you no longer being all positive even though your animal is now more successful and is clearly happier?
I want my horses to have a positive learning experience. To that end I mark behavior with a click and a treat. But to judge if my horse is having a positive experience I must look not just at what quadrant of operant conditioning I am using, but at the experience my horse is having. I can be using what I would consider to be all positive methods, but if I am lumping criteria, or neglecting to reinforce after I click, my horse may be having anything but a pleasant experience.
When you are defining yourself as a positive trainer you must look at a broader picture than just your immediate training plan. What is your intent, your underlying belief system about training and the animals you work with? What tools, concepts and strategies do you use in your training? What tools, strategies and concepts do you avoid? What is the effect of your training on the learner? How good are your mechanical skills? Are you experienced enough to be working with this animal on this lesson - or should you be working on something simpler?
If you are clicking and treating but your horse is showing the kind of diminished response that Jesus saw in his study on treatless clicks, does that mean that clicker training doesn't work or that you need some other tool? Does that mean its okay to correct your horse for unwanted behavior? No. It may simply mean you need to go back a few steps and work on something easier for both you and your horse. There is always a smaller, simpler, easier step you can go back to.
Clicker trainers focus on what they want, and they remain non-reactive to unwanted behavior. But this doesn't mean they don't see the "gorilla in the room". They see the unwanted behavior, but they manage their horse and the environment so that their attention remains focused on marking and reinforcing desired behavior. If you are new to clicker training I would urge you to be on the lookout for the "gorillas in the room". That means paying attention to what your horse is telling you about his comfort level. If he is getting frustrated, take a step back and evaluate your training. Are you asking for too much too fast? Are you inadvertently punishing behavior because your timing is off and you are raising your criteria too fast?
Helix Fairweather gave a great presentation on keeping records. Finding some way of charting progress, whether it is a journal, or the type of record keeping she suggests, can be a huge assist to your training.
Throughout the weekend presenters stressed the importance of a good foundation. Clicker training is a powerful tool. Those beluga whales blowing bubble rings are proof of that statement. Ken's presentation on advanced training concepts showed that clicker training includes a rich storehouse of useful problem solving techniques, but at the core of them is developing good basic skills. Whether it is a horse, a dog, or even a beluga whale, learning good foundation skills is the key to becoming a good solid clicker trainer. The better you are with the basics, the more truly all positive the experience will be for your horse. Add creativity and experience to the mix, and over time that's how great clicker trainers emerge.
Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com
**************************************************************************************************