Horse Training Requires Immediate Rewards Or Punishments

The most fundamental premise of behavioural science is that behavior patterns and performances are best influenced by rewarding positive attitudes and punishing negative ones. This necessary belief shapes the approach to the coaching of pets, and of more interest to us here, to the coaching of horses.

Somewhere else, I wrote articles about the significance of undertaking pony coaching with very clearly defined objectives. This will enable you as a trainer to immediately identify when your pony is lagging and when he has done very well. You respond with a penalty or a reward as appropriate.

You need to keep one thing in mind: timing is vital to ensure your pony learns his lessons well. Your reaction to your horse’s performance must be immediate. Horses, especially the younger ones, have limited concentration spans. We are talking about say 2 seconds here. Here’s where your horse would differ from your son. You can catch your child out in some misbehaviour just as you are heading off to the office, and punish him after you return while reminding him of his morning’s indiscretion. He’s going to remember the morning. You cannot do this with your pony, who will not remember and will look at you like you are nuts. You Need To reward or penalize him on the spot and straight after his accomplishment or non-achievement.

That takes us to the logical next question: what comprises suitable rewards, and what punishments are O.K.

Broadly outlined, you reward your horse with anything that pleases him. Each pony has their own preferred “treats”, even a good rub down or scratching can be rewards that are seriously appreciated, or perhaps a break from the grind.

Let’s get one thing straight: relentless corporal punishment is not in the “acceptable” class. Other than that, punishment includes anything that lets your pony know without any shadow of doubt that he’s being punished. Ideally, you should have several options of varying severity for punishing your horse in proportion to the severity of his blunder.

My voice is my favorite means of punishment. I find it to be the best and the least vicious. My voice gives me all of the variety I need. I can adjust my tone, my volume and probably a physical gesture to add the mandatory emphasis. Clearly, I spend some time teaching my horse the meaning of words, particularly words with a negative connotation like “No”, once that is done, the rest is simple.

You’ve got to do some home work before you set about coaching a horse. You really need to have mental inventories of what actions of your horse you would approve of and what actions you would censure. You need to be ready with the right reward or punishment on each instance.

Consistency is the key, naturally, to ensuring your pony learns his lessons well and for keeps.

Horses are Heather Toms passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers, like things about barrel saddles for sale