From: Sandra Kosek
Hi Jessica,
I have been working on leading exercises with Scotch and he has improved some (and I expect this trend to continue over time :-)). Thanks for the advice! I do have a follow up question though...Scotch has always been treat happy (not that this is unusual for a horse!), and if I hand feed him anything from that moment on until I leave he begs like crazy and won't keep his face out of my hands (this gets a little tricky when I'm trying to brush his face, for example). Now that I've been hand feeding him a little bit more while doing the leading, this begging behavior has been getting worse. Am I handfeeding too frequently?
Hi Sandra -- handfeeding can backfire, as you've just found out. Yes, I'd say you may have overdone the handfeeding. But it's something that you can stop!
There are three problems with handfeeding treats all the time. One is that some horses get VERY pushy about the treats, and will shove you around with their noses, trying to get into your pockets. After a point, the teeth may get involved, and the horse will be so preoccupied with getting a treat that he will nip you. This may be cute when they are two months old -- at two years, or ten years, it's not cute AT ALL. It's dangerous -- to you, to anyone else on the receiving end of this behaviour, AND to your horse (more about this later).
The second problem is that treat-feeding can actually interfere with your training if you give treats ALL the time: the horses no longer focus on what you are asking them to do, but on the fact that you are going to give them a goodie. Intermittent reinforcement is MUCH more effective -- ask for the desired behaviour ten or twenty times, and offer a treat only once or twice. The focus shifts to WHAT TO DO rather than WHERE'S MY GOODIE?, and the learning curve goes up when you do this (this also works with children, by the way).
The third problem is one you may never see, but it will exist -- people who go past your horse in the barn, or have to handle him for any reason, may not react very well to having him push or nip at them for treats, and they may hit him in the head as punishment for what they interpret as his threatening behaviour.
It will take you a little time to re-train Scotch, but do it -- it's worth the effort. If you want to give him a treat, drop it into his manger instead of giving it to him by hand. And practice your game-show "Wrong answer!" loud buzzer noise as a deterrent. You can use it when you brush him and he begins poking and prodding for goodies -- and you can use it when he begs at other times. He won't like the noise AT ALL -- nobody likes that noise -- and he'll figure out that he only hears it when he pesters you. Don't yell at him or hit him unless he DOES nip, and then yell "NO!" really loudly and slap him hard on the neck. Otherwise, just make it clear that shoving you with his nose only produces a horrible sound. He'll figure it out.
Try scratching his withers as a reward for good performance -- it's an instantly-understandable, much-appreciated, horse-language reward, AND you can do it anywhere, any time, even when you're riding (even when you halt at X!). It's something that feels wonderful, and it's something Scotch CANNOT do for himself. Now THAT's a treat!
Don't beat yourself up for "spoiling" him, by the way. Some horses are much more fanatical than others when it comes to treats. Some horses -- I've known quite a few, including one of my own -- can't seem to stay sane if their treats contain sugar. For those horses, when I need to use treats, I carry a pocketful of uncooked pasta (medium shells work nicely). Pasta makes a great treat! Horses love the taste and the crunch, but don't lose their minds the way they do when there's a cookie involved. It's cheap. A box lasts a long time. And you won't be tempted to eat it yourself!
Jessica
Jessica
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