Question: why are people, who claim to want a good relationship with their animals, sceptical or reluctant to consider using food reinforcement to reward desired behaviour but not sceptical about using sticks and strings and ropes and bits and spurs and choke chains and collars and shock collars and other aversive methods of forming and reinforcing behaviour? Is it that people want relationships based on fear and control and submission or that the results count for more than the way they were produced? Why do we not see that using aversives does not make any animal happy? What needs to be true for the scales to fall from our eyes? I was teaching someone yesterday who has a lovely super learner of a horse. People are so ready to label the horse naughty and bad and are full of advice about what variety of things could be done to change that. The usual if that were my horse... and both overt and behind the back criticism of her increasingly successful efforts to teach a horse confidence, focus and calmness using nothing more than food, scratching and a plastic ball on the end of a flimsy stick. All that seems to be missing from their thought process is one thought. Which of the ways they could use to reform this horse would make the horse happy?
Posted on: Sun, 06 Jul 2014 07:02:31 +0000