This ATA members only web-class is a LIVE “Mini-Panel discussion” full of innovative thinking, ideas and positive reinforcement based training methods. Here are some of the topics we covered in the class
- The influence of trainers of other species on Peggy & Sarah’s thinking
- How Peggy & Sarah both teach their respective species to wait for cues – without using extinction
- Some specificities around how to do the above
- Default attention behaviours
- Stability in the body
- Safety issues
- And more…
Click here to LOGIN to view this content
Gah! I am so excited for this webinar ? So many questions/comments.
I was just discussing with Bex in her group about adding distinct cues to final behaviours and whether or not you should put targeting/stationing under stimulus control. Another member felt by doing this it would take that away as her horses default behaviour. I however still am undecided on this as my horse thinks the name of the game is to target every object I touch or lay down then looks at me for reinforcement.
Also I was listening to Alex and Sarah’s podcast together yesterday and LOVE how s? Sarah prefers the terminology of stimulus communication over stimulus control. Alex referred to it as stabilizing the behaviour. This was a great mindset shift for me coming from the horse world that is all about control and dominance. It helped to shift my mindset away from the need to control the animal/behaviour and shifted it towards how do I communicate better with my horse so expectations are clear on both sides to stabilize this behaviour.
I really really hope as a new learner to walk away from this webinar feeling more confident in my understanding of putting behaviours under stimulus control. When to do it and how exactly to do it. It seems as tho the preferred method is to do this by training behaviour in pairs to limit frustration. So still confused. Let’s say I pair a stationary target with a back up. I understand that pairing the behaviours will make the cue for each behaviour more noticeable and clear (hopefully). If however while pairing the behaviours my horse targets off cue would I not click and reinforce but instead ask for a back up and reinforce that? Can you explain this using grown ups. Still trying to understand how the pairing process leads to bringing the behaviour under stimulus control. It seems super clear when I think only in terms of not clicking behaviour I did not cue.
Alex brought up the point of not using the more traditional method of training stimulus control as she wants to limit causing frustration in an animal she rides. Totally agree with this point!
Then…. and this may be too advanced for me yet! Alex assures me one day I will be able to start putting the puzzle together… but Sarah and Alex were talking about whether your finished cue will be a verbal cue or a body cue and how you would train each a little differently. I don’t think I am there yet being new to R+ but felt it was a good point.
I think that is the main issue with podcasts on stimulus control and Sarah reflected on this in her podcast with Alex that whenever you attempt to talk stimulus control you really end up talking abut cues and shaping and she didn’t really get to the core of breaking it down. Sarah here is the moment I have been anxiously awaiting for!
Being that Peggy is here and she will be referring to horses and most horse people I assume are fairly new to R+ Like myself can we teach to the beginner level?. I’ll do my best to keep up with ya all;) Sometimes things are still well beyond me like how to teach differently for a verbal cue vs a body cue . ?
I remember when I joined ATA recently Peggy stressed the importance of putting behaviours on cue with horses so maybe she would like to talk about that as I assume it may potentially be a safety thing as well with horses being so large.
As you can tell I am super pumped for this one! ????????
You bet I’ll talk about cues Holly. So glad you’ll be joining us.
Hint. The opposite of touching a target is a well trained behavior of waiting for a cue to touch it.
😉