Old Horses and New Tricks
How do you teach an old horse new tricks? .... Welcome to today’s Open Range, I’m Susan Allen. Thanks to the advances of modern equine medicine, most notably good dental, care our 26 year old gelding is still teaching newbies to rope but can Smokey, who is the equivalent of an 85 year old man learn new tricks, you’ll find out after the break. According to research out of France the best way to teach old ponies new tricks is through positive reinforcement. Equine Behaviorist Carol Sankey tested her theory on twenty one old ponies. When given the command to back, the first group received a treat after they backed correctly while the second set of ponies were privy to a whip shaken in front of their face to get them to back up. (Something I might add I see horse owners and trainers do all the time.) At the end of five days both groups had learned the back command but it took longer for the set treated negatively. And poor things, the negative reinforcement group had significantly increased heart rates even before the daily session. The end result was startling. All twenty one ponies had previously been friendly with humans now the positively treated ponies became even more eager to be around people while the group treated with the whip retreated from all human contact even five months after the training stopped. The study concluded that there was no advantage to using harsh training techniques but much to be gained though positive.
