Training Horses with Positive Reinforcement

Animal behaviorist and equine welfare expert Emily Weiss, Ph.D., reveals the key to solving any equine behavior challenge: positive reinforcement.

If you’ve ever wondered why your horse behaves a certain way, or why you’re having trouble solving an equine behavior challenge—from trailer loading to simply catching your horse in the pasture—you are not alone. According to Emily Weiss, Ph.D., an applied animal behaviorist, it’s the top question she hears all the time, and it all boils down to one simple thing.

“The answer to all behavior, whether you’re a flatworm, a human, a horse, orangutan, or dog is the same: why we behave the way that we do is because it feels good,” she says. “Or, it feels less bad than the alternative.”

Weiss should know—she has worked with species of all kinds, including lions, orangutans, elephants and Komodo dragons, as well as many dogs, cats and horses. While it all comes down to “feeling good,” we have to first figure out what that means.

Think Like a Horse

Sometimes this requires an objective look at the situation, and being observant to best understand why an animal is behaving a certain way, says Weiss.

“Oftentimes we can’t help but think like humans about the things that we would like or what feels good to us,” she says. “We have to be able to take that hat off and think a bit like a horse.”

For example, consider trailer loading.

“Walking up into a horse trailer, for a lot of reasons, doesn’t feel good for horses,” says Weiss. “One thing we often don’t think about is the change in light. Going from a very light area into a horse trailer, which is quite dark, can be incredibly off-putting and frightening because horses can’t see it very well. To set up a horse [for success] while you’re training him to get on a horse trailer, one of the things you might start with is getting the trailer [well] lit so there isn’t that change in light.

“Thinking like a horse can be really helpful to figure out what might be motivating this particular animal to behave in this way at this time,” says Weiss. “And then, what do I have in my toolbox to be able to modify and change that?”

A Trainer’s Toolbox

As a behaviorist, Weiss’ preferred tool is positive reinforcement, which means you give a reward, or something that feels good, when the desired behavior happens.

Typically for horses this is food, but other rewards may include touch, such as scratching a favorite spot. By giving the reward, you increase the likelihood of the horse repeating the behavior.

Traditional horse training, using the concept of pressure and release that most equestrians are familiar with, is known in learning theory terms as negative reinforcement. Folks associate the term “positive” as good and “negative” as bad, but the terms here are referring to giving and taking away, says Weiss.

“Negative reinforcement just means you remove something when the desired behavior happens: I apply pressure, my horse moves to the left, and I release that pressure,” explains Weiss.

One of the benefits of positive reinforcement is that it can increase confidence (in both horse and human) and trust. Many routine horse care and handling tasks can be easily trained using this technique.

Both methods require good timing.

“When you apply pressure, you need to release it at the right time for the horse to learn ‘this is the behavior you want me to do,’” says Weiss.

Tweet & Treat

Thankfully, Weiss says, most domesticated horses are incredibly food-motivated, and some animals, including the horse, can be incredibly touch-motivated. Even the ones that are not comfortable with humans are pretty food-motivated, and that can serve as a powerful starting point.

When working with positive reinforcement using food, it’s important to have a signal that says “food is coming,” says Weiss.

This is typically a sound and is often called a “bridge,” or a marker, because it marks the moment a behavior occurs, and bridges the gap until you can deliver the reward.

At the moment the desired behavior occurs it tells the horse, “Yes, that’s what I want you to do, food will be coming,” and then gives you time to be able to take the food from your pocket or wherever it is and give it to your horse.

“I use a whistle, so I call it ‘tweet and treat,’” says Weiss.

Step one is to pair the sound with the delivery of food. Tweet (or whatever sound you use) followed quickly by treat. Pair the delivery several times and then observe what happens when you tweet. If the horse looks toward the food location, you have successfully paired your sound!

There should be no food visible during the training process, says Weiss. You’re teaching the horse “If I do X (behavior), I get Y (reward).”

How to Use Positive and Negative Reinforcement

There are lots of different ways you can train a horse to pick up his feet. The traditional method uses negative reinforcement, where you run your hand down the leg, apply pressure when you’re closer to the hoof, and then increase that pressure until the horse lifts his foot. Once the horse lifts his foot, you release the pressure. You then have to shape the behavior from there.

Using positive reinforcement can take a little bit of patience in the beginning, but it’s quick and quite effective, as Weiss outlines:

Begin by bringing the horse into the space in which you’d normally work with his feet, placing either a stick or your finger on his leg, waiting for any movement at all and then reinforcing that, using Weiss’ “tweet and treat” method or similar, so that the horse understands that when he moves his foot, he gets a reward.

“Once the horse now understands that touch means ‘move my foot,’ you can progress from shifting the weight and moving the foot to holding the foot for a second (tweet and treat); lifting that hoof (tweet and treat); and then holding that hoof and doing what you need to do,” says Weiss.

Weiss adds the pairing of a verbal cue so that the horse lifts without the handler having to first touch the leg.

“Done correctly, this takes a couple of sessions for most horses to learn to hold their feet,” she says. “For horses that have had a lot of negative experiences, it can take longer.”

Techniques of positive and negative reinforcement can also be used in combination, adds Weiss. The use of positive reinforcement is just one tool in the toolbox, and can be woven into more traditional pressure-and-release training.

The Pushy Horse Many horse people have concerns about using food as a reward and believe their horse may become pushy or aggressive about the treats. To explain why this happens, Weiss always goes back to the “why” behind horses and all organisms doing what they do. “They do it because it feels good,” she says, which means that if a horse is pushy, they must have been getting a treat at least every once and a while. The horse thinks, “If the behavior results in the thing that feels good, I push, and occasionally I get a treat,” then that behavior will persist. Typically, it’s a case of user error; horse handlers just give in, or they’re not paying attention and inadvertently reward pushiness. While some horses are more persistent than others, every horse is susceptible to this inadvertent training, says Weiss. “Food needs to be delivered very purposefully and never should be delivered when it is the horse pushing or touching you to receive a treat,” she adds.

Variable Reinforcement

If you’re worried about what happens when you run out of cookies and carrots, or becoming a nonstop treat dispenser, Weiss says that’s where variable reinforcement comes into the process: the horse gets a treat for the behavior sometimes, but not every time.

“When we’re first teaching the behavior, the horse gets a treat every time because he needs to learn it and is trying to figure it out,” says Weiss. “We have to make it consistent so that the horse understands if I do X, and I get Y.”

Once established, you can move on to variable reinforcement to make the behavior “stick.” You might use a little scratch or a verbal reinforcer if he finds that to be something that feels good to him, but he doesn’t have to get food every time.

“If he doesn’t expect to get the reward every time, he’s going to continue to do that behavior and it will remain consistent so long as he gets reinforced every once in a while,” says Weiss. “Think about playing the slot machines in a casino. Most of the time, people don’t win anything. But every once in a while, they do, and this keeps them coming back and pulling the lever.”

Mistakes to Avoid & Pasture Catching If you’re looking to incorporate positive reinforcement in general interactions with your horse, which could include being on his back, Weiss recommends finding a sound you can make on your own as the bridge or marker, without relying on a clicker or other device. “Holding a clicker, you can fumble a lot and you can end up missing [the moment],” says Weiss. “Timing is so important with any kind of training, and with positive reinforcement, you’re capturing the behavior as it happens.” Another pitfall can be using food as a lure, such as getting your horse from a pasture, where many people bring out a bucket of grain and shake it to get their horse to come. This often results in the horse grabbing a mouthful and dashing off when you try to get the lead rope over his neck. “It becomes a trick, and nobody likes to be tricked,” says Weiss. “The difference between going out with a bucket and getting that lead rope on really quick and a true positive reinforcement training where I’m teaching the horse to come to me, is that he is learning the contingency of ‘I get a halter on or rope around my neck and I get something good.’ “If the horse stood still as I approached, I’m going to whistle and give him a treat, and then I’m going to walk away,” she continues. “And very quickly that horse is going to just want to be with me. This isn’t that I’m tricking him to come be with me. He’s learning, ‘I approach her, I get a food reward. I approach her, she puts the lead rope over me, I get a food reward. I approach her, she put the lead rope over me, puts the halter on me, I get a food reward.’ “Ultimately, it will take less time to teach the horse to come on cue, rather than tricking him with the bucket,” says Weiss. “Because over time, tricking is not going to work, and it may be eroding the trust between you and your horse. And I guarantee you if there’s an emergency and you’ve got to grab him fast, it’s going to go much faster if he’s trained to reliably come on cue, as opposed to hoping a shake of the bucket will break through the stress of the situation.” Next time you are finding yourself frustrated because your horse just won’t stop X or do Y, pause and observe what is happening before and after the behavior so that you can set him up for success by understanding what feels good (or less bad) to him.

Key Takeaway

Positive reinforcement is a valuable addition for any horse handler.

“It’s all about finding the right tools in your toolbox for a particular situation,” says Weiss. “And for a lot of horses there’s a frustration point, where you haven’t quite been able to get the behavior that you want. Removing the negative reinforcer and replacing it with a positive reinforcer can be just the ticket to completely change the horse’s perspective and make it much easier for you to get the training done.”

About the Expert As an applied animal behaviorist, Weiss has worked with species as varied as lions, orangutans, elephants and Komodo dragons, as well as many dogs, cats and horses. Weiss is a lifelong horse owner and trainer and served as the ASPCA’s Vice President of Equine Welfare, working to increase rehoming of horses, as well as VP of Research & Development, overseeing research related to the animal sheltering field and developing assessment tools for shelter animals. Prior to that, she created training programs to improve husbandry and decrease stress for many zoo animals.

This article about training horses with positive reinforcement appeared in the July 2024 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!