A great video popped up on my Instagram feed this morning. Kelly Lambert, professor of behavioural neuroscience of the University of Richmond is leading a team studying neuroplasiticity, anticipation and motivation. As part of the study, they trained rats to drive miniature cars. The initial training was done by shaping behaviour using fruit loops as a reward. However, they found that as the process went on, the rats became increasingly enthusiastic, running to the side of the cage and jumping in anticipation when they knew the opportunity to drive was coming. Lambert said it reminded her of her dog getting excited before a walk.
Aside from what this tells us about how much rats like driving toy cars, it got me thinking about horses and how we train them and the expectations we place on them.
Just before Christmas there was a very well written post from Renate Larssen. The Equine Ethologist, asking ‘Do Horses Want to Compete’. This blog post seemed to provoke a considerable amount of debate in the equestrian community, with people quite divided in how they felt. Speaking as a Psychologist and Clinical Equine Behaviourist, I think the more pertinent question is not ‘Do horses want to compete’ but ‘Do Horses want to do *insert any activity that we do with them*’.
Looking at the rats in the study, they are quite clearly telling the researchers that they like driving for driving’s sake, not for the fruit loops.
Now certainly the fruit loops are an important part of the story. By initially training using an appetitive (pleasant) stimulus, the researchers would definitely have helped the rats to be more optimistic about participating in training, more willing to have a go. But it was the fact that they discovered through experiencing it that the activity itself is fun that has led to the sustained enthusiasm.
Puppies may not initially get excited about seeing a lead, and lead training has to take place before on lead walks can happen, but over time dogs learn that walks themselves are enjoyable. So they get excited when they see the lead.
Do they feel the same way about going to the vets? Well that depends on their experience of vets. Some dogs might bounce in to the surgery, others might tuck their tail and drag their feet.
Careful work with training and motivation can help, but there are some activities that just always need an external reinforcer added in to make them ‘worthwhile’.
You can make the initial training fun, but it is only if the activity itself remains fun that you get continued enthusiasm. Otherwise you have to pay for it forever.
For example, you can train a horse to voluntarily cooperate with worming or injections using food, but since these are, in themselves, unpleasant experiences, you will most likely always have to add the odd positive reinforcer to maintain that voluntary cooperation.
But if you are working with an activity that the horse really enjoys, then you might need to use the food to initially teach them what behaviours are involved but once they know how it works, they keep doing it because they enjoy it.
Think of this as a way that we can explain how things work… if the rats were kids, we would just use words to explain how to drive the toy car, or demonstrate it… the shaping with food rewards just helps us get across the language barrier until they discover for themselves the fun to be had.
So what has this to do with our question ‘Do Horses want to…’?
In the equestrian world currently, how many horses are actually trained to do tasks using appetitive stimuli? We know that the majority of mainstream equestrian training practices are actually based on using negative reinforcement, which relies on the use of aversive stimuli and escape and avoidance responses. This doesn’t always to lead to an optimistic outlook. So we aren’t always starting from the best place. Certainly those horses that are trained using positive reinforcement are beginning their training from a happier place.
More importantly, we need to ask our horses, if the reinforcers (appetitive or aversive) are removed and you are given choice, do you still choose to do this thing? Now that can be a rather tricky thing to unpick, since the person observing the horse needs to be skilled enough to recognise how the horse is feeling. Some horses will comply and behave in a certain way because historically, they’ve had to. For example, it is possible to train a horse to be ridden brideless using pressure (aversive stimuli, negative reinforcement). Not all ‘liberty’ is truly free. If the horse is well enough drilled with the bridle, they are much more likely to ‘behave’ without it: hence why these tend to be ‘highly trained’ horses.
This is a very different picture to a horse that has been trained at liberty using food or scratches (appetitive stimuli, positive reinforcement) from scratch.
But the actual task itself needs to be fun/ enjoyable for the horse if they want to keep doing it long after the reinforcers are removed.
You can use food or pressure to train just about anything, but can you keep doing it six months, a year, two years later without food or pressure? That’s where you find out what the horse really wants.
So what things do our horses really enjoy? Well that depends on a number of things. We have species specific activities that they choose, for example grazing together as a herd, mutual grooming or hanging out with friends, social play, object play. But these are also impacted and shaped by life experience. A horse that hasn’t grown up in a herd may feel the need for these activities but lack the social skills to safely and successfully take part in them. Then there are the activities that they might find fun but they’ve never been exposed to. Those rats didn’t know they liked driving the toy cars until the researchers showed them how to do it.
So learning and exposure are important. Driving toy cars isn’t in the natural repertoire for rats, but some of them certainly seem to like it. Will all rats like driving toy cars? Not necessarily. It will depend on individual personality, life experience, how they are first introduced to it. If they had been trained using aversive stimuli that could have tainted any future enjoyment, or reduced their willingness to take part.
Dressage or jumping or hacking alone might be fun for some horses, depending on personality, physical fitness, life experience and learned associations, but not for others. Some might enjoy jumping 90s and not 1m40s. Some might enjoy a bit of lateral work or piaffe and passage but still not enjoy the sustained effort required for a Grand Prix test. Perhaps none of them will enjoy any of it if it requires sustained physical pressure from reins or legs, or some of them might enjoy it despite those things? We need to remember that they are individuals and not machines.
The key I feel is training in a way that allows for choice, pays close attention to how the horse is feeling at every stage of the process, and doesn’t rely on sustained long term use of reinforcers, but instead focused on the task itself becoming something that is fun. If it isn’t fun, then that’s not the job for that horse.
If you’d like to learn more about how you can train in this way, you may well be interested in some of the courses I have running this year.
Click on this link to sign up for more information.
https://forms.gle/M7tM4qFm2UG8cNkz5
Please note, there will always be things that horses ‘have’ to do, that they may not choose, and there may be things that they choose that actually aren’t good for them at all. For example, overeating, avoiding essential healthcare, choosing to run out on the road… I’m not saying here that we must only do things that are fun and not worry about the rest, or that we can’t stop them making bad choices. I’m just commenting on training and the kinds of activities we expect our horses to take part in.
Here is the link to the video of the rats driving:
And here is the link to Renate’s post on competing.
https://theequineethologist.substack.com/p/do-horses-want-to-compete
Spence Horse Sense 
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