OklahomaHorses Magazine January 2022

January/February 2022 • OklahomaHorses 21 www.xyloshavings.com | 405.469.4516 Pine Shavings | Burning & Bedding Pellets | Animal Feed Bagged Shavings • Bagged Burning or Bedding Pellets Call us for Bulk Shavings Ask us about our new storage service on your site! CONTACT US TODAY FOR MORE INFORMATION! IN BUSINESS OVER 40 YEARS! process that might not necessarily be completed in a day. Because trailer loading can be dangerous for the horse and the human, it is import- ant to have a thorough understanding of horse behavior and training. Horses are trained most commonly through a pro- cess of operant conditioning. Horses are presented with stimuli and then are either reinforced or punished for their resulting reactions. Simply put, we either want the horses to repeat the action and provide reinforcement or do not want them to repeat the action and therefore provide punishment. Note that punishment does not mean abuse, pain, or fear — it simply means we want to discourage a behavior from happening again. The most com- mon type of reinforcement used in horse training is negative reinforcement in which we remove something aversive from horses when they perform the correct behavior. In horse-training lingo, that is what we mean by a release or removing the pressure. I’ll start with the most common mistakes that I see and will address other issues in future articles. One of the largest issues I see is when people try to rush the horse and fail to recognize when it made an attempt to go forward. Pressure (our stimulus) during the loading process is either physical (pressure on a lead rope), audible (claps, sounds, etc.), or psychological (waving a flag behind the horse, for example). For operant conditioning to work, the stimulus must immediately cease (negative reinforce- ment) when a horse makes some motion toward the trailer. That might mean flick- ing the ears forward, dropping the head to investigate, taking one step forward, etc. As horse owners, we are too focused on the final goal and fail to reward all the pieces that go into loading into the trailer. Acknowledgement of the “try” the horse has shown is key. When the horse does not experience any lessening of pressure for a correct response, fear and anxiety can result and can strengthen the horse’s negative response to loading into the trailer. TAKE TIME TO PRACTICE Practice loading when you don’t need to go somewhere on a time schedule. One of the key contributors to loading issues is a rushed owner who is already frustrated. If our emo- tional state is already heightened concerning trailers, believe me, the horse picks up on that. Again, think of loading a horse into a trailer as a true training exercise. We wouldn’t expect perfection on a riding maneuver the first time we attempted it, would we? Final thoughts: As owners, we often might not realize that our timing is off in provding a horse a relaease. Have an expe- rienced friend help out by observing what you are doing or even videotape a training session. You might be surprised by what you learn. Practice loading when you don’t need to go somewhere on a time schedule. One of the key contributors to loading issues is a rushed owner who is already frustrated.