Stimulus Control
What is the difference between a trick and a nuisance behavior? Stimulus control. With the clicker, it's easy to turn behaviors "on." Cues give us a way to turn them "off" again.
Trick training is a great way to learn about cues and stimulus control. With the target-based tricks I've just described, I didn't worry about establishing a specific cue for each of the tricks you taught. In essence, the prop itself told your horse what to do. If you wanted him to play soccer, you brought out his ball. To control the behavior, you simply took the ball away when you were done playing. That makes all these target-based tricks easy to manage.
But suppose you'd like to leave the soccer ball out where your horse can see it. You only want him playing with it when you give him permission. That's where cues come in. A cue acts like a green light. It's a signal you've taught your horse that tells him which behavior is most likely to get reinforced.
Ideally, in the absence of the cue, you also want your horse to understand that that behavior is now off limits. You want the behavior to happen when you ask for it and only when you ask for it. That's called bringing the behavior under stimulus control.
A cue acts like a green light. It says: "You may now do this particular behavior, and I'll reinforce you for it." But that's only half the equation. You may still be getting off-cue behavior. The other half of the process takes stimulus control a step further so your horse only offers the behavior when you ask for it.
In other words, when you set your brush box down on the floor, does your eager retriever try to pick it up, spilling out half the brushes in the process, or does he wait for you to give him a signal to hand it to you? In the first case, you have an entertaining pest, and in the second, a useful partner.
Tricks are easy to teach with the clicker, but they can easily become nuisance behaviors. Saying "yes," counting, bowing-these are all cute behaviors. That is, until your horse wants to offer them to you all the time. So learning about cues and stimulus control is an important part of trick training.
Teaching in Pairs
A great way to teach your horse the full meaning of cues is to teach behaviors in pairs. If he tries to perform a behavior off cue, you can interrupt the behavior by asking for something else. The cue for each action will clarify when each behavior is appropriate.
You're using incompatible behaviors to keep things in balance. For example, if you don't want your horse to retrieve his favorite toy, ask him to back up instead. Click and treat. Now ask him to wait for just a second or two.
You don't want to expect too much too soon. If you think he can control his eagerness for four seconds, you don't want to push your luck and go for five seconds. Instead, at three seconds give him his cue to retrieve. In this case, you'll be strengthening three great behaviors: backing, retrieving, and waiting.
When you train with positives in this way, a cue serves two roles. It becomes the green light that turns on the next behavior. And it also reinforces the behaviors that preceded it.
When you balance retrieving with backing, you set up the following dynamic: Your horse learns that if he backs up and waits, he gets to retrieve his favorite toy. Backing leads to good things. Backing becomes a much more valued behavior, because it opens the door to other things he enjoys. He'll be all the more responsive to the cue to back up the next time you ask, because you've just reinforced it with the green-light cue to retrieve.
This is a great scenario to encourage. Backing is essential for good balance and for great brakes. I want my horse to respond softly and readily to my requests to back. My horse thinks he is at "recess" playing fun games, but in reality I'm working on important lessons I need for great riding performance.
When I teach my horse to retrieve cones and push soccer balls, I am creating a ripple effect that will benefit every other aspect of his training. So have some fun and teach your horse tricks. Soon he'll become a better equine partner, eager to learn new things.
