Behavior Modification

By Dr. Jim and Lynda McCall

Copyright©2003

 

 

Lesson One

 

 

 

EVERY ACTION CAUSES A REACTION

 

      For about 100 years, scientists have been searching for ways to identify and explain behavior. While we might describe behavior as the way an animal acts, behind the ivy covered walls of universities, researchers carry this definition to the "nth" degree.

 

      Behavior is any observable or measurable movement of an organism, including external and internal movements, and glandular secretions and their combined effects.

 

     Complicated? You bet. Yet the beauty of science to reduce complicated systems to simple terms can enable us to explain the whys, whats and hows of horse behavior. Training horses becomes a lot clearer and easier when you have a basic understanding of horse behavior and how to manipulate it.

 

      The foundation of the study of behavior is based upon the fact that all behavior is influenced by what happens immediately after. To help keep things simplified, the action or behavior is referred to as the stimulus and what happens after is called the response. 

 

      It does not manner whether the horse itself, Mother Nature, another animal or a person provides the response.  What does matter is how the horse feels about the response.  Is the response positive or negative to its well being.

      Let's begin by looking at some of the basic instinctive responses of horses.  These behaviors are often called reflexive behaviors.

 

       A reflex behavior happens involuntarily when an event causes the horse to instinctively respond in a given way. For example, a sandstorm triggers the horse's third eyelid to lower for eye protection. Heat causes horses to sweat through their skin.

 

      A reflex behavior happens involuntarily when an event causes the horse to instinctively respond in a given way.

 

      Reflexive responses like these happen to all members of the equine family. Most of the time we think of reflexive behaviors as being related to internal body function of the horse but there are reflex behaviors that must be dealt with when living with horses.

 

      We think of fear as being a reflexive response. Fear can be described in terms of physiological responses.  There is a change in biochemistry of the body that causes some of the body organs including the brain to act in specific ways.  So anytime you do something that instinctively triggers fear in the horse, you are creating a reflex behavior.

 

      Most of the time, we try to avoid causing fear in the horse because fear triggers a horse's flight or fight syndrome.  And, in this mode, horses can be hazardous to humans.

 

     One of the classic images of creating intense fear in a horse is the old-bronc stomper roping a young horse, tying the frighten animal down, throwing a saddle on its back and cinching it down.  The instinctive response or reflex is for the horse to try and buck just like it would if a mountain lion jumped on its back.

 

     Kicking can also be a reflex behavior.  A naive horse will often fire out when startled from an unseen threat to his rear. 

 

     This is why horsemen never approach a horse from the rear.  A horse cannot see directly behind itself.  And, it is always a good idea to let a horse know that you are approaching by talking to it or calling its name.  Startling a cat-napping horse may not be pretty.

 

 

      Other events that can trigger instinctive fear in naive horses are:

 

 

 

           • Girth pressure

 

 

           • Stirrups banging on their sides.

 

 

           • Carrying a bouncing rider on their back

 

 

      Not all horses have the same instinctive fear triggers and the outward expression of the fear may be different between horses. Some horses may run. Others may buck or collapse. 

 

      The bottom line is that you caused a behavior that caused the horse's body feel fear. How the horse handles his fear will be individual.  By understanding the stimuli that can cause instinctive fear in the horse you are one step closer to learning how to manipulate its behavior.

 

      The first recognized step in learning to manipulate reflex behavior was taken around 1900 by a Russian scientist, Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist trained in biology and medicine.  Pavlov was studying the digestive system of dogs and their relationship between salivation and digestion.  He learned that when a dog sees food, he begins to salivate which tells his stomach to get ready to digest feed.

 

Ivan Pavlov

 

      Like a true scientist, once he learned the normal sequence of events, he wanted to see if he could manipulate it.  He wanted to make the dogs salivate without presenting food.  

 

      Pavlov presented dogs with food along with the sound of a bell.  The dogs salivated.  After several joint presentations, Pavlov presented the dogs with only the sound of the bell, the dogs salivated.  The learning process of the dogs associating the sound of the bell with the food was called Conditioning.

 

      Pavlov had conditioned the reflex behavior of salivation.  For this he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology in 1904. His experiment laid the foundation for a type of learning referred to as Classical Conditioning.

 

      Today, Classical Conditioning is recognized as one of the two basic ways that learning occurs.  The other system, Operant Conditioning, is based upon the principle that every behavior can be controlled by the event that immediately follows the action.  That is, we can control (or condition) a behavior by what we do after it occurs.

 

      Operant Conditioning is based upon the principle that behavior can be controlled by the event that immediately follows.

 

      B.F. Skinner is considered the father of Operant Conditioning.  In the first half of the twentieth century in a laboratory at Harvard, Dr. Skinner began studying learning.  His research animal - rats.  The task to be learned - a wooden maze box now referred to as a Skinner box.

 

      He found that he could manipulate the behavior of the rats as they moved through the maze.  If he rewarded the rats for making a specific turn in the maze, he increased the chance that the rats would turn that way each time they ran the maze.

 

      Controlling what happens immediately after a behavior influences the odds of the behavior reoccurring.   Reinforcers can be either postive or negative but they always strengthen the behavior.  On the other hand, the goal of punishment is to eliminate a specific behavior.

 

      In Operant Conditioning, aka horse training, we control the reinforcer.  We decide the best way to manipulate the behavior.  We decide which behaviors to reward and which behaviors should be eliminated.

 

      For example, a horse bites you. If you immediately (immediately being the operant word here) deliver a response that intimidates the horse, you decrease the chance that he will bite you again.  If you scream, draw back or run away, you increase the odds that the horse will bite you again. This is an example of punishment.

 

      It is time to ask the young 2 year old to trot for the first time.  After much urging, he breaks into a few trot steps.  As he is trotting, you praise him.  You are positively rewarding his behavior.  If you wait till he stops jogging to reward his behavior, you are also positively rewarding his behavior - but you are rewarding the stop.  Not the trot.

 

      Training horses (and all other animals including humans) falls mostly under the category of Operant Conditioning.  Consider some well-known quips from various horse trainers.

 

• "Hit what comes at you"

 

 

• "You can train a horse to do anything which doesn't cause him 

    immediate pain"

 

• "Horses perform at their peak, either due to pain or the

    suggestion of pain"

 

• "Punish the horse for all the wrong responses. Do nothing when

   he does it right and the horse will figure out how to do it right"

 

• "Make the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy"

 

 

      While we would disagree with the training philosophies behind some of these statements, the bottom line is that each comment is saying

 

      Manipulating horse behavior is done by creating either positive or negative consequences for specific behaviors. 

 

      By understanding this simple principle, you have found the road that leads to becoming a successful horse trainer. The first step down the road is to understand the things that have the power to change behavior, the reinforcers.

 

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