The Horse World Aversion to Treats

“Your horse is only doing it for the food!”

“You’re bribing them!”

“Shovelling food into them isn’t training!”

All of these are common thought processes in people seeking reasons to dislike modernizing training practices, particularly the idea of rewards based methods.

I am not sure why the idea of a horse doing something due to being intrinsically motivated by something they need (food) is such an aversive thought to so many humans, but here’s a question.

If the belief is that horses in rewards based methods only listen due to being bribed, then why do you think horses in pressure and release programs perform behaviour?

Let’s break down how pressure and release (R-) works from a behavioural science perspective.

“R” refers to reinforcer, reinforcers are what make a behaviour more likely to reoccur. The “-“ or “negative” doesn’t stand for “bad” but for “subtractive” in that something is being REMOVED in order to be reinforced.

Now, in order for the removal of something to be reinforcing to a creature, they have to not want it there in the first place, otherwise, if it was something they liked and wanted to seek, the removal of it would actually be punishing.

So, R- uses what we call “aversives” aka unpleasant stimuli that provide relief when removed.

This can range from really low level pressure, think of someone tapping you on the shoulder and then stopping when you turn around, to high levels of escalating pressure to the point it becomes punishing, think someone teaching a horse to lunge by swinging and chasing it with a whip (adding pressure) until it’s too scared to stay in the inner circle with the human, effectively teaching it that the only way of relief is to be away from the person.

So, if horses who do behaviours due expectation of reward are only doing it for food or due to being “bribed”, then why do traditionally trained horses answer to pressure and release?

It isn’t because they’re compelled to do the behaviour out of the sheer desire to do it, it’s because they get to alleviate discomfort by doing the behaviour.

Biologically, enacting a behaviour to alleviate discomfort is something seen in all sorts of animals, for example, feeling hunger or thirst pangs pushing you to go eat or drink, effectively ending the discomfort and reinforcing you to seek food or water when you feel those feelings again.

Pressure and release or “R-“ is not a bad thing in itself and it can be used effectively and in low stress ways, but the idea that horses trained with it have more motivation to want to do what is asked of them is a myth, their only real motivation is the desire for relief from pressure. The desire to escape from a feeling.

On the flip side, rewards engage the seeking system of the horse. You now have something they want and they’re learning when and what receives them that reward and start to learn to exploit the environment an offer certain behaviours to get that reward.

When the animal fears no punishment for the wrong behaviours but is consistently rewarded for the right ones, suddenly they’re going out of their way to offer you a million different things until they get the right answer.

Suddenly, your horse has gone from being the student who sits at the back of the class, never raising their hand or offering thoughts unless prompted, to the teachers pet at the front, excitedly raising their hand for every question,

Because it is more motivating for them. They get to receive something they like. They get to predict a positive outcome when they offer what humans want in training.

Pressure and release is not a bad thing but the comfort people have with using higher and higher amounts of pressure or having solely pressure based programs whilst there’s a mass discomfort over the idea of rewarding your horse is something we need to change.

The vast majority of horse people, even the ones most vehemently against rewards based methods, if you ask them, they either would support the idea of rewarding dogs with treats if they don’t have one, or if they do own a dog, I can almost guarantee you that there are at least several behaviours the dog was trained with positive reinforcement.

So, if we use it with dogs, who are predators and do actually consume meat, but don’t fear them trying to eat or “disrespect” us, why is there such an aversion to use them with an extremely passive flight animal that will almost always select the path of lease resistance?

It honestly makes more sense with horses to feed more food in regular handling and training than what we justify with animals who it is more traditional to use rewards based methods for.

Horses are trickle feeders. They’re meant to be eating on a near constant basis. Most of their daily time budget is eating.

Feeding them in training not only allows for this natural behaviour to occur more regularly, it can also fill the stomach and prevent acid splash and discomfort from high stomach acid in an empty stomach. This can effectively prevent or at least lessen the comfort of existing ulcers.

The drive to graze and forage for horses is so high that it makes perfect sense to exploit this in training if we’re honest with ourselves and lessen our firm grip on some of the weird ideas instilled into us from the time we first started to ride.

There are a lot of misconceptions and completely incorrect ideas that we are taught as equestrians.

Way too many trainers who are actively taking in horses and students have zero grasp of learning theory and behavioural science, something any decent animal trainer or teacher of humans needs to know very well.

It is way too easy for people who don’t understand how what they’re doing works on a behavioural science level to make up their own narrative and many people opt to do that, attacking the idea of feeding rewards out of fear.

Here’s the thing: across studies, CONSISTENTLY, we are seeing lower risks of behavioural fall out, stress, dangerous behaviours to humans etc in rewards based programs.

The majority of the concerns people use to try to derail the positive reinforcement movement are actually more applicable to traditional programs and the high rate of stress behaviours seen there or are more related to management of the horse, underlying pain etc.

It is pretty powerful evidence when you see similar trends of success across animal species when using rewards based programs.

“It makes horse food aggressive and pushy!”

You get what you reinforce, so if you’re finding this happening, please find a trainer who can effectively teach you correct timing and how to start because the issue in cases like these is not the method, it’s the application.

“It’s too dangerous to feed such large animals food, they can hurt you and need to be put in their place!”

I understand horse people love feeling big and tough but it’s time we take a seat and stop acting like we’re the only ones working with dangerous animals.

Zoos and animal sanctuaries for wild animals use positive reinforcement almost exclusively for teaching cooperative care practices (like participating in necessary vet procedures) and other every day behaviours they need.

They do this with powerful, heavy animals with the potential to hurt them. With more unpredictability due to their lack of domestication and in many cases, when these animals are more aggressive than horses.

They do it because it’s the most effective, successful and lowest risk to them as animal caretakers.

Hyenas, elephants, wolves, big cats, whales, seals…

You name it, they’ve trained it with food.

If you can train a wild animal who hunts and kills for a living to accept a treat in a safe way from a human, you can train a flight animal who strictly eats vegetation and has been domesticated for hundreds of years to do the same.

It just starts with being open minded enough to look at where the research lies instead of just listening to whoever yells the loudest.

There are few, if any, actual qualifications horse trainers need before they can offer services. Even the coaching certifications we DO have don’t focus on behavioural science or proof of any real grasp of learning theory in terms of how the horse learns, much of it is focused on how to write lesson plans for humans and how to use certain equipment, set jump distances etc.

If an understanding of learning theory and behaviour science isn’t a prerequisite for a professional in this industry, then you may have to outsource where you look for info and recognize you can’t put blind trust and weight in the opinion of a singular person simply because they say they know things.

There is a lot of misinformation in the horse world.

Undoing it first starts with an open mind, then conversation, then curiosity and further research.

Once you start to learn about the science behind training animals, aka the science of behaviour modification, you will be a force to be reckoned with. Concepts you used to struggle with you’ll soon understand and it will completely change your work with horses and other animals as you know it.

Lay into the science, learn and be surprised about the cognitive capabilities of horses and just how much they can learn if you motivate them the right way.