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My horse is calm… until the treats come out
Have you ever noticed how quickly your horse can change the moment the treats come out?
Maybe they were standing perfectly peacefully beside you a few seconds ago, but as soon as they realize you're about to train, suddenly they're backing up, turning their head away, targeting things, pawing, lifting a leg, or cycling through every behavior they've learned in the last six months.
Sometimes they'll even start offering things you're fairly certain you never intentionally taught them. 😅
It's easy to look at this and think we have a horse who is really excited about training. And to some extent, that may be true! I absolutely want my horses to be enthusiastic participants who look forward to our training sessions, but there's a difference between enthusiasm and an anxious horse. A horse who feels like they need to constantly do something to make reinforcement happen.
When a horse starts rapidly offering behaviors we haven't asked for, what we're seeing may actually be frustration or confusion. They know food is available and they know doing things has made food happen before, but what they aren't so sure about is exactly what they're supposed to do right now.
So they guess.
Maybe backing up gets reinforced. No? How about turning my head? Spanish walk? Targeting? Backing up again?
When you look at it from the horse's perspective, it makes perfect sense. If you're not sure which answer is going to work, trying all the answers you've learned before isn't a bad strategy.
But I don't want my horses to feel like training is a guessing game. I don't want them thinking they need to constantly perform to keep reinforcement available, or that every moment between one treat and the next needs to be filled with something. I want them to be confident enough to simply wait, and understand that the wait itself is something that will be reinforced.
That's where something I call Default Neutral comes in.
It's the very first behavior I teach when introducing food rewards, and while it can look like a horse simply standing calmly, there's a lot more to it.
I'm teaching the horse that waiting is part of training too. That they don't have to guess what I want next. They can trust me to give them the information they need, and they can still be reinforced for simply hanging out with me and waiting for that information.
I recently made a video showing exactly what I mean and why I think this is such an important piece of training with food rewards:
One of the most important things to understand here is that I'm not trying to teach a horse to be less enthusiastic about training. Quite the opposite.
I want enthusiasm without anxiety. I want a horse who is eager to participate but doesn't feel like they have to scramble for the right answer. A horse who can confidently do what I ask when I cue it, receive their reinforcement, and then comfortably settle back into waiting for whatever comes next.
This creates a very different kind of training session. There's less guessing, less frustration, and less of that frantic feeling that can sometimes develop around food. Instead, we have room for clearer communication and a horse who can actually slow down enough to listen to the information we're giving them.
And it's amazing how such a small detail can make a surprisingly big impact.
This is the kind of detail I love exploring inside The Willing Equine Academy—the pieces of training that are easy to overlook, but can completely change the way you and your horse experience training together.
If you enjoy understanding the why behind training, not just following the steps, I’d love to have you join us.
Stay curious about the why,
Adele
