cues evolve

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Cues Evolve: Part 3

JOY FULL Horses: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 8.) Cues Can Change and Be Changed 

The previous post introduced the concept of tap root behaviors.  You strengthen a base behavior by returning frequently to it.  Like a well-nourished tap root, it keeps getting stronger.  The reinforcement history becomes extra deep, and you’ll have a rich network of behaviors branching off from it.  In this next section we’ll build on the solid foundation of good manners that approach creates.

Saying Please and Thank You  
Suppose a friend is visiting you with her four year old daughter.  The toddler sees some toys you have in a basket.  (We won’t tell her mother they’re dog toys you keep there for your other friends and their canine companions.)

The child asks to play with the toys.  Immediately, her mother is saying “What do you say?”

“Please,” the child answers.

You hand the child a toy to play with (a new one that hasn’t yet been chewed by your canine guests).

Again, the mother prompts, “What do you say?”

The child parrots out the answer: “Thank you.”

“Please” and “thank you” aren’t just for toddlers.  She isn’t learning to say these phrases just to satisfy her mother.  They are the glue that holds our social lives together.

We ask permission.  We don’t demand.

We say thank you in appreciation for all the little gestures of accommodation that make life easier.  It takes time for please and thank you to become habits, but once learned and understood, it becomes second nature to include them in conversations.

Good Manners are a Good Habit
Grown-ups is similar.  At first you have to keep reminding your horse that manners matter. He can’t just go straight to your pockets for goodies.  It takes a while for good manners to become a good habit.

I remember when I first started working with Panda, Ann was worried about her interest in my pockets.  Ann was struggling with her new guide dog.  He came to her with a total lack of basic living-with-humans manners.  Her previous dogs had always had the freedom of her house.  This dog had to live either crated or behind baby gates.  If he was given free access to the house, he would turn anything that wasn’t tied down into a chew toy.

This can be a problem for anyone living with a dog, but for someone who is blind it is especially so.  Every time you hear your dog chewing something, you have to check to see what he has. It could be your best dress shoes, a harmless dog toy, or a pill bottle filled with medicine that could kill him.

Manners matter.  This dog was supposed to be showing me the model to copy for training a super guide.  Instead he was showing me everything you didn’t want.  Ann didn’t need two problem animals.  When a very young Panda wanted to see what else we were hiding in our pockets, I could feel Ann tensing.  She had enough trouble with this dog.  She didn’t need a pushy horse, as well.

I’d only had Panda a week when we had our first long car trip.  I was teaching a clinic at a barn that was about an hour from my home.  We were quite the Noah’s Arc heading off that day. Panda was still learning how to ride in a car, so I sat in the back seat with her.  Ann sat in front with her guide dog wedged in between her feet.  And another client drove us.

Panda was essentially right in my lap so my pockets were at nose level for the entire trip.  I couldn’t be more vulnerable, and there was no putting her away and taking a break.  For the entire hour’s drive we worked on grown-ups.

Each time Panda took her nose away even for a second, click, she got a treat.  What Ann was hearing from the front seat was a rapid-fire barrage of clicks.  She’s an experienced clicker trainer so she knows how training works.  You begin with high rates of reinforcement for little things, and you gradually expand them out.  But I knew she was worried.  Her shepherd was supposed to be a “trained” dog, but everything was still in the “terrible twos” toddler stage with him. How was this going to work for Panda?

Panda was our true “toddler”.  She was only nine months old on that first car ride.  Just like a human child, she needed a lot of reminders to say “please” and “thank you”.  She was learning that mugging my pockets not only never got her treats, it wasn’t necessary.  There were so many other, great ways to get me to click.

The Grown-ups Really Are Talking
Panda was also learning that she didn’t need to bang the proverbial kitchen pots and pans to get attention.  She got plenty of attention, but sometimes my focus needed to shift away from her.  She was learning at those times it was okay to take a nap.

Panda asleep 5 photos

By the time she went to live full time with Ann, the grown-ups really could talk uninterrupted.  We could go out to dinner with Panda as Ann’s guide.  She had learned to stand next to Ann’s chair dozing while waiters set yummy smelling food on the table.  Panda would occasionally poke her nose above the table to check out what was on the menu, but she never interrupted – not until after the desert course, and then it was only to let Ann know she needed to go out.

(By the way – if you want great service, take a guide horse with you.  It was always great fun watching the waiters competing to see who got to serve the table with the mini horse.)

Great Service
This reminds me of a great Panda story.  The very first store we took Panda into was Lowes Hardware.  We quickly discovered that Panda loved to shop!  I don’t know what there is about the long cavernous aisles of the big box stores that she likes, but from the very beginning Panda has always enjoyed her trips to these stores.

She had trotted down several aisles before we found the PVC pipe we had come for.  Ann and I were discussing what size we needed for our project when I looked up.  Normally you have to hunt for someone to help you.  Not this time!  We were surrounded by twelve sales clerks.  One of them said, “We heard on the walkie-talkie there was a horse in bathroom fittings.”

I could just imagine what they were thinking – some idiot has brought a full sized horse into the store.  They had all come running.

Of course, we got great service!  And think of the conversations they must have had that night around the dinner table!

Coming Next: Consistency

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:

theclickercenter.com                    theclickercentercourse.com

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JOY FULL Horses: Cues Evolve

Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 8.) Cues Can Change and Be Changed: Part 1

Change Happens
So far we’ve looked at:
1.) Cues and commands are not the same.
2.) Not all cues are verbal.
3.) Cues can come from inanimate objects.  You can have environmental cues.
4.) Our animals can cue us.
5.) Cues evolve out of the shaping process.
6.) You need to get what you want when you want it.  That is you need stimulus control.
7.) You can teach behavior in pairs to build stimulus control.

So now you have a cue attached to a behavior and the behavior is under some level of stimulus control.  But is that really the case?  Cues not only evolve out of the shaping process.  They keep on evolving.  The cue you started out with is probably not the cue you’ll end up with.

There are many reasons why cues change.  Some are deliberate.  We changed them.  And sometimes cues change because we weren’t paying attention.  Change happens.  Cues evolve out of the shaping process, and they keep on evolving. So number 8 becomes:

8.) Cues Can Change and Be Changed.

What Comes Before What Comes Before

Panda Catch gallop with caption
Horses are very clever at figuring out what comes before the behavior that comes before the behavior that comes before the behavior you want.  Did you follow all of that?  Your horse will.

Suppose you’ve been sliding down a lead to ask your horse to go forward.  He responds.  Click and treat.

He’s eager to get his treat, so he’s watching you.  You start to slide down the lead.  He knows the answer.  He’s like the smart kid in class who has his hand up even before the teacher has finished asking the question.  “I know the answer!  Pick me! Pick me!”

Your horse knows the answer.  He’s walking off before you can get even half way down the lead.  You love the promptness and softness of his response.  Click and treat.

You ask again and your horse responds even sooner.  He’s noticing the slight rise of your shoulders just before you begin sliding down the lead.

And then he notices the little intake of breath that precedes the lift of your shoulders.

And now you just begin to think about asking him to walk off, and he’s already doing it!

Whoa! Stop!  This is a little too light!

How Light is Too Light?
At some point you have to set some boundaries around how far back in the chain you want him to go.  You need to establish where you want to position your “get ready, get set, go” cues.  Maybe you enjoy a horse who is so super light no one can see how you’re asking.  Or maybe you want your horse to wait until you give a more definite, concrete, visible cue.  In either case, you get to decide.

Learning to wait for a cue is part of stimulus control.  Again, you can be a “drill sergeant” or a “game master”.

Wait
“Wait” is a great cue to have.

So are “Get Ready” and “Get Set”.

These aren’t necessarily verbal cues.  “Get ready” may be a glance in his direction.  “Get set” might be a shift in your balance.  “Go” is your raised eyebrow.  That’s how sensitive and tuned in horses can become.

The problem is your horse will keep moving your “Get ready, get set, go!” cues.  He’ll be ready to go on the “Get set” of your shift of balance, and he’ll have found a new, even more subtle “Get ready” cue.  At some point you’re going to need to tell him to “Wait”.  When he starts to jump the gun, you’ll need to reset him back into your base position.

“Wait” stabilizes your cues at a level of response you can manage.  What does wait mean to your horse?  What are you waiting for?  Signs of relaxation.  Teach your horse to settle.  You don’t want him always on edge waiting for the next cue.  Can he relax, take a breath, stand quietly?

Now get ready.  Remember the effect of cues works in two directions so waiting will be reinforced by the cue to get ready.

Get set.

Go!

The game is on.  Have fun!

Coming next: Changing Cues and Tap Root Behaviors

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:

theclickercenter.com                    theclickercentercourse.com

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JOYFULL Horses: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 5.) Cues Evolve – Part 1

Cues Evolve Out Of The Shaping Process

Review
It’s time again to add to our list of things I would want a beginner to know about cues.  So far we have:

1.) Cues and commands are not the same.
2.) Not all cues are verbal.
3.) Cues can come from inanimate objects.  You can have environmental cues.
4.) Our animals can cue us.

Here’s number 5: Cues evolve out of the shaping process.

The way in which cues evolve as we teach new skills leads us straight to play.  That makes this a very important concept to understand.

A common question people ask when they are teaching a new behavior is: when do I get to add a cue?  This is really the wrong question.  At least when you are working with horses, the cues are already there.  In fact you really can’t NOT cue.

If you are reinforcing your horse for putting his ears forward, where are you looking?  At his ears, of course.  When you want him to take a step back, your eyes shift down to his feet.  Your horse is going to notice these difference.  For him these are clues that will morph into cues. Even if you aren’t aware of them, they are still functioning to let him know what to do next to earn reinforcement.  So it isn’t a question of when you do you get to introduce a cue, but how do you transfer from the cue that is currently working to a new cue?  But before we can get to that question, we need to look in more detail at how those cues evolve in the first place  That’s what we’ll be exploring in this section.

Bear with me.  I’m going to be traveling through several different lessons, connecting up the dots of evolving cues as we go.

Head Lowering

Robin head lowering 1
To understand how cues evolve, let’s begin with this example: suppose I want to teach my horse to drop his head.  There are a number of reasons why I might want this behavior.

The first begins with safety.  A horse cannot simultaneously rear and drop his nose to the dirt.  If I can ask for head lowering, I can interrupt a potentially dangerous behavior.

Head lowering is also practical.  Even a short horse can become very tall when you’re trying to get a bridle or a halter on.  Asking him first to lower his head makes the task easier for you and more comfortable for him.

Head lowering leads to calmness.  This is not automatic.  The first time you ask a horse to drop his head, he’s not going to magically and instantaneously calm down.  In fact, a nervous horse can actually be made more nervous by being asked to lower his head.  With his head up he can scan the horizon line for predators more effectively.  So when you ask this anxious, on-guard horse to lower his head, he’s going to want to pop it right back up again.

Should you quit and ask for something else?  No. The answer is to keep working on head lowering, but, if you can, change the environment so he feels more at ease. Ask for it again and again over many training sessions.  As you begin to build some duration into the behavior, you will begin to see a different emotional state linking up with it.

Horses living in the wild spend twelve plus hours every day grazing.  Even horses living in stalls spend several hours a day eating.  That means they are spending a huge amount of time every day feeling relaxed enough to drop their heads and eat. The classically conditioned link between head lowering while grazing and an emotional state of calm relaxation is huge.  If we can tap into that same state by asking for head lowering, we’ve just created a powerful link between clicker training and a calm emotional state. That will serve us well as we progress forward in training.

Linking head lowering to calmness is something most people are familiar with.  Something you might not think about as much is this: head lowering is the counter balance to collection.  This is perhaps one of the most important reasons to teach head lowering because it takes you into riding excellence.

Keeping Things in Balance
One of the training mantras you want to always keep in mind is:

For every exercise you teach, there is an opposite exercise you must teach to keep things in balance.

If you ask a horse to engage and collect, you also need to ask him to lengthen and stretch out.  If you focus too much attention on collection, you may not have a way to tell him he can just relax and lengthen.  As a rider is learning about collecting, if she ends up compressing her horse, she will need a way to lengthen him back out so she can try again.  Asking a horse to stretch out in head lowering provides a powerful, and very important counter-balance both physically and emotionally to collection.

Robin pose and head lowering

On the left Robin is offering beautiful collection.  On the right head lowering balances his pose.

There’s Always More Than One Way To Teach A Behavior
I teach head lowering in many different ways.  The first, easiest way is through targeting.  I will simply have the horse follow a target down to the ground.  Click and treat.

robin head lowering green cone down

The easiest way to teach head lowering is through targeting.

That’s a good start, but just because you can get head lowering one way doesn’t mean your job is done.  The more different ways I can trigger the behavior, the better.

In the next installment I’ll look at one of the most powerful ways you can teach head lowering: via backing in a square.

Robin back in square

Head lowering is taught out of backing in a square.

 

Coming next: Backing in a square

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:

theclickercenter.com                    theclickercentercourse.com