Today’s post begins the final chapter of JOY Full Horses, but don’t worry about the book ending too soon. I still have a month’s worth of posts to go. The first installment went up January 3, 2016. I thought maybe I’d be done around April. Ha! I hadn’t realized how much work was going to be involved in putting up each post. My goal is to finish by January 3, 2017. We’ll see if I make it. In the meantime, if you have friends who would enjoy reading the JOY Full Horses blogs, do share the links. The more the merrier in this Holiday season!
Enjoy this next installment.
Extinction and Shaping
In the last couple of posts I’ve been sharing with you a presentation given by Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz on extinction. Many clicker trainers will say they never use extinction. I know I work hard to set up my training so horses aren’t put into the kind of guessing game that leads to outbursts of frustration and aggression. That’s something I very much want to avoid. But that doesn’t mean I don’t use extinction. That’s what Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz makes so clear when he talks about resurgence and regression.
To the people who say they never use extinction, his response is: “What do you mean you never use extinction! Extinction is at the heart of shaping. Shaping is differential reinforcement. It’s the interplay between positive reinforcement and extinction. So if someone says they aren’t using extinction, probably they don’t understand what they are saying.”
That’s such a wonderfully blunt and typical Jesús comment. Thankfully he doesn’t leave people just with that. He goes on to explain what he means. At the core of his presentations is this statement: “If you don’t understand extinction, you won’t be able to master it.”
So what does it means to master extinction, and how do you put it to use in a positive way? That’s what I’ll be exploring in the coming posts.
Coming Soon: Regression and Resurgence
Remember, if you are new to the JOY Full Horse blog, click on the JOY Full Horses tab at the top of this page to find the full table of contents and links to each of the articles I have published so far.
I hope you will want to share these articles by sending links to this blog to your friends. But please remember this is copyrighted material. All rights are reserved. Please do not copy any of the “JOY Full Horses” articles without first getting written permission from Alexandra Kurland, via theclickercenter.com
Also note: these articles are not intended as an instruction guide for introducing your horse to clicker training. If you are new to clicker training and you are looking for how-to instructions, you will find what you need at my web sites:
The Clicker Center Blog 