Training Success

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Yesterday I took Obama to Seal Hayne for their open day where he behaved badly for me and introduced four more people to driving the iBex and behaved perfectly for them.

But he has been to Seal Hayne before, the sunlight wasn't blazing off the sea, music wasn't blaring out of the speakers and he wasn't expected to meet everyone in the middle of a wheelchair badminton match. At Plymouth Hoe that was what I chucked him into.

Then again it might have been the big wheel that was freaking him out. Under the circumstances he was stunning, but I really believed I was going to need the iBex instant release. I didn't but it was close.After taking a very nice lady round the Hoe, I decided to be sensible and let Obama get the feel of the place without the vehicle. I have never known him to be so freaked out in a wide open space. Obama gets paranoid when the walls get close, surrounded by tower blocks or office developments next to Paddington station, but on the whole he's cool in wide open spaces, and the Plymouth Hoe couldn't be much wider or more open.

Sun off the sea, loud music, bouncy castle or big wheel, something was keeping Obama seriously scared and it showed me a really interesting training effect. 
Too close to the music and Obama was impossible. Fifty yards away and Sarah Piercey was driving him fine, in between, I could get Obama to dance with me, mirroring my every motion, responding instantly to cues. Whatever I did, he followed, instantly. Totally stunning and I doubt I will ever do it again.
Because it was based on fear. 

Obama trusts me. He trusts me mostly not to hit him, and to be between him and danger, but that is enough to get this mindblowing connection if he is scared of his environment. But I don't want him scared of his environment, I want him relaxed, chilled, enjoying himself, doing his own thing.
I would rather have Obama in his usual bloody minded, stuff you, mode, than a scared, uber obedient Obama. But then I am weird. I like him taking Sarah Piercey round the Hoe and everyone feeling relaxed, than have a stunning demonstration of control, knowing that fear was a major motivator.

Are horses vegetarian?

Are horses vegetarian?

CuChullaine O'Reilly's book, Deadly Equines has certainly opened a can of worms. The trick question is whether horses will eat the worms. The whole concept of the horse as placid herd living vegetarian has been called into question by CuChullaine's book and like so many other behavioural issues, we discover that nice, neat and tidy divisions, end up as a complex, messy continuum. But however complex and however messy, if we are to understand our animals, we need the truth, not a simple system which just happens to be based on a lie.

The first animal, however we define it, will have lived on plants, because unless it ate itself, that was the only option available for the first animal. That does not make it a vegetarian. If I go to the house of a strict temperance teetotaller, I do not become teetotal, I just can't get alcohol. It is not drinking in pubs and the houses of those who do drink alcohol, that would define me as teetotal, if I didn't reject the idea. Anyway, at last years apple and pumpkin day, I was passed a glass of what I thought was apple juice, but which was actually a very fine cider.

It was very nice, but despite the claims of the AA, I am not back on the demon booze I have had a glass. I just can't claim that I don't drink alcohol. I mention this because the vegetarian/vegan fanatics have a lot in common with the Alcoholic Anonymous and Anti Smoking lobby. They insist on this black/white scenario when the world is full of colour.

I stopped drinking alcohol about three years ago, and stopped smoking about ten years ago, and was a keen supporter of both industries at an industrial level. Now I am not. I don't have withdrawal symptoms, I don't avoid smokers or drinkers and I don't try to convert them. I am gradually eating less meat, but for no major reason, I am just eating less of it.

So the first animal was an omnivore, there just wasn't very much omni to vore that wasn't plant based. As the numbers of animals increased, some obviously decided that eating animals was an easier route to the proteins etc that they needed. But this split was from an animal that had evolved on a pure plant diet, not because it was a strict vegetarian, but because there wasn't an option. So an animal that has evolved on a pure plant diet, can evolve into an omnivore, eating plant and animal. Eventually a specialised great white shark will appear , but its ancestor ate vegetables exclusively.

That animal was water based, because evolving motion, ie becoming an animal, is easier in water. But on land, the first animal would have lived exclusively on vegetables, because again, the alternatives weren't available. As they spread over the earth, some of the land based plant eaters would have taken the easy route and started eating meat, but I doubt the marine carnivores would have competed on land. A shark makes a suitable anti hero in the water, but on dry land, rats, or even horses, would finish the shark off pretty easily. So the land based vegetable eaters evolved into Tyrannosaurus rex to provide Hollywood with something else to feed off.

Then mammals arrived on the scene. I suspect that the first mammals were predominantly vegetable eating. But from this vegetable eating ancestor, the sabre tooth tiger evolved.

The glorious divide we have created between carnivore and herbivore clearly has shaky foundations. The ferocious Grizzly bear, in reality is a omnivore, happily eating the fruits of the land when salmon or whatever isn't available. As the ice caps melt, the Grizzly is apparently hybridising with then Polar Bear, and producing viable young. This suggests they are pretty close genetically, yet the Polar Bear is pure carnivore. The fact that ice floes produce a very limited crop of nourishing grain, is a possible reason.

Animal, and human, food preferences are based on what is available. There is also an inevitable tendency to specialise. I friend of mine who did some time at Her Majesty's pleasure, met a guy who shoplifted from B & Q. He knew the routines, where the cameras were etc, and wasn't going to risk the dangerous environment at Homebase. Who knows what sort of savage predators roam the aisles preying on innocent shoplifters?

Animals specialise from both ends of the spectrum, so edible meat tends to be surrounded by creatures that will eat it. If a corpse is already surrounded by vultures,hyenas and jackals, there is probably a lion on the way as well. This is not the sort of group a sensible wild horse is going to join. So the wild horse gets on with grazing, while the carnivores dismember the corpse. The obvious reason that the smell of fresh blood scares horses, is that fresh blood suggests a carnivore is being carnivorous in the area. This is not a good place to hang out.

It is the risk of carnivores eating them that keeps herbivores away from kills. At the very least the blood would be an easy supply of salt. CuChullaine is right, we cannot look on horses as placid, flight oriented vegetarians, that is what the Sabre Toothed Tiger, T Rex and the Great White Shark all evolved from. The horse may be gentler, and eat less meat, in the same way that I drink less, and smoke less and eat less meat, but I have evolved, (in my lifetime) from chain smoking, heavy drinking consumer of bloody steaks to someone who does much less of all of them. But I still have the same lungs and digestive system, I just use them differently.

We are looking at a continuum, and once we accept that our horses behaviour will tend towards eating vegetables and running from predators, but that the basics are there to let them kill and to eat what they have killed, we will learn where on the continuum they actually are.

Horse and Hound

Horse and Hound.

You have just acquired a new dog, so you force a lump of metal into it's mouth, grab a whip, climb on top if it and kick it in the ribs. Because it is young, you don't fit metal spikes on your boots before you kick it in the ribs.

You get a new horse, and you kneel down to let it come to you and get to know your smell. You let it come to you in its own time and scratch and stroke it when it finally lets you. You move slowly to avoid frightening it, and as its confidence grows, you put on a soft padded collar, and introduce it to the outside world, letting it explore at its own pace, but making sure you are always there to reassure it if it is worried.

Makes sense doesn't it. One is a placid herd living vegetarian, the other is a pack hunting carnivorous killer. Well you don't want to take any risks with these damn vegetarians, can't trust them an inch, dominance, only language they understand. But take precautions, for God's sake carry a weapon and make sure you wear protective clothing, its not as if they are nice and safe and harmless like wolves.

A lady asked me why she couldn't get the same relationship with her horse that she had with her dog. I asked if she climbed on the dog and kicked it in the ribs when she first got it, and much to my surprise, she said that she hadn't. It is just possible that there is a lesson here.

I trained Obama by taking him for walks. At first just him and me, then I led him pulling the saddlechariot, and bit by bit, as his confidence increased, he started taking the lead until he was walking in front of me, with the saddlechariot invitingly empty. So I stepped on. I found that if I pulled on the right rein, he turned right, and surprise surprise if I pulled on the left, rein, he went left. Pulling on both seemed to slow him down.

And that was it.

The walks went further, and as Obama got more and more confident, he went faster and tended to take the lead, so I climbed on board more and more, but if Obama got nervous or scared, or just plain awkward and stopped, I would get off and lead him. Good old reliable pressure release. I put pressure on the halter, and the instant he movced forward I released the pressure. Sometimes progress was slow, sometimes fast. I started taking him into the industrial bits of Brecon to get him used to new things, and he came to accept pretty much anything, as none of it ever attacked him.

Within six months we set out from Brecon for Birmingham. By the time we had done that journey there was little that scared him. I didn't hit him, I just led him when he was scared, and let him pull me when he wasn't. Next time you train a horse, think hound, not horse. It makes sense, not to Horse and Hound, but to horses and to hounds.

Leadership training.

Leadership training is linguistic more than anything else. Think of the definition of leading, that you, as the leader, go in front, and your followers, follow behind. That's it. If you are the leader, you are in front. If you are behind, on top, off to one side or in the next county, you are not leading.

Leadership and dominance are different subjects. The leader can be dominant, or subordinate.

There are endless videos of wildebeeste in the great migrations on the Serengeti, which show that on arrival at a river, nobody wants to lead, as the first one in is highly likely to be a crocodile's lunch. So the widlebeeste frantically try to nudge each other over the bank. This is subordinate leadership. You see the same thing with penguins not wanting to be the first off the iceflow, to provide leopard seal lunch, and “accidentally” lurching into their maates to push them in.

Complicated dominance heirarchies aren't about leadership, they are about sex or survival. I have no desire to compete with any horse for a mate, and except when Obama is trying to nick my burger or Pizza, I don't tend to fight them about food, so dominance doesn't interest me very much. Obama is more than happy to let me think I am in charge, until it is something he cares about, when he decides he is the boss. But when danger threatens, I take the leaders position, between Obama and danger.

Most of the time this isn't any great problem. Obama has moments of worrying about lions round the corner, or behind hedges, and I am happy to lead the way past them. So far, my judgement has been vindicated. Ditto for the crocodiles off Exmouth beach and when crossing the Alphinbrook. It is the cars that will get me. Crossing a bridge on the way to Glastonbury, on our Exeter to London trip, we had set off across the single lane bridge when the lights went green, but we weren't right across before they changed. The driver of the lead car coming the other way could see us quite clearly, and still drove straight at Obama, shouting “the lights are green.”

This is the downside of leadership, and I stepped between Obama and the danger, and the driver, looking me in the eyes, drove into me. It didn't hurt much, but it is the hell of a shock to have a respectable looking, middle aged man in a reasonably new car, drive into you, while looking you in the eyes. Lee who was with me at the time got a photograph of the car and its number, but I never bothered to do anything about it. Obama is black and white, I was wearing a reflective road mender's jacket. We are obviously gypsies, so who cares.

The true test of leadership came a lot later in the journey. We were crossing under the London to Exeter main railway line just next to the summit of the Kennet and Avon Canal. The tunnel was 6” high, 6” wide and maybe 25” long. I had the Bannedwaggon loaded with luggage jammed in the tunnel so there was no way back. Obama was exiting the tunnel just ahead of me, when an Exeter bound express hammered down the line. The wheels were about 6 feet from Obama's head, the only route forwards appeared to lead towards the train, the tunnel behind was blocked. Not pleasant. All I could do was stand at his head saying “It's OK” “relax” and other fatuous comments.

We were both scared, but Obama was sufficiently used to the idea that I would keep him safe, and stand between him and danger, that he just stood there shaking till the train had gone. He was so terrified I had to take him down the road till I found a farmer with a field where I could park him to let him unwind. It was a few hours before he relaxed completely and we could continue the journey.

But when Obama meets danger, firstly I get between him and the danger as fast as possible. Secondly, I never punish him for fear. To be honest I never punish him for anything. The other day I was driving the Saddlechariot back from Exeter to Shillingford when we met a group of hunt horses in a narrow lane. They shied at the sight of Obama, or me, or the vehicle, and were promptly hit for it, and all three had to turn back to find a wide space to let me through.

The riders told me they were hunt horses and should be OK but sounded really impressed when they discovered I had been driving through Exeter. I then realised that the calmness I expect, is to most riders, stunning. But then when Obama is frightened, I don't hit him to stop him shying, or hit him to make him go past. I step off and lead him, reassuring him. So when he sees something new, he knows that if he gets scared, I will lead him past. The poor hunt horses know that if they see something new and scary, they will get hit. Hit if they shy, hit if they won't go past, is it any wonder they are nervous of new things.

Obama can still get scared, and so can I, but however scary the things is, he KNOWS that I won't hit him. So if it turns out not to be dangerous, next time he strolls past. If his memory had been that the last time we saw this scary object, I hit him, then hit him again. What will his reaction be?

Straightness. (Is it really a word?)

I think the thing I object to is deconstruction, but I can't be certain. Breaking down actions into component parts, teaching each component, and then reassembling all the behaviours into the desired action, seems to be popular these days, and it works, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

So much training is obsessional about control, but I am at heart, lazy.

To take a simple example, row crop work. The pony must pull a series of hoes along two lines of plants, 29”apart, ideally with the hoes an inch or two either side of the plants. The rows are 30 to 40 yards long and straight, which simplifies the job. The machine Obama is pulling has the wheel centres 72” apart, and the hoes are pulled along the rows. One wheel follows straight behind Obama, and the machiine is offset to the right, with the other two wheels 72” to his right.

It is clearly vital to teach the animal to move in a straight line. Aim him right, teach him to run straight and life is easy. But how do you get the concept of straight into his life. Can you think of a way to teach an animal that has a partial blindspot straight in front, to walk in a straight line, forward. But as I said I am lazy. The tractor which sows the seeds, or plants the plants, has wheels 72” apart, so actually all I did is walk Obama down the tractor tyre marks, correcting any tendency to deviate from the path.

Animals instinctively follow trails, which is why there are trails. If one animal has left a track it proves that the ground is solid, without major risk. As more and more animals use it it becomes clearly defined, and more obviously safe, and is used more and more. This is not just on the ground, squirrels have tracks through the trees and they will use specific routes through woods.

People do exactly the same, and when they are big enough call them M5 or A303.

So rather than trying to teach Obama the nebulous concept of straight, I teach him that tractor tracks, especially with rows of vegetables either side, are good. So he follows the tractor tracks, and rather than waste my time steering him, I can walk behind steering the hoes which are pulled by the frontbar of the vehicle. This allows me to steer the hoes with total precision to within probably half an inch, if I am concentrating, and I haven't taught Obama anything complicated, just that I want him to follow this track, a habit pre programmed into his genes and mine.

Because my actions are about achieving something, hoeing vegetables, taking a wheelchair across Dartmoor, or from Exeter to Hyde Park, it is easier to teach Obama the job, than to try and break each job down into trainable modules.

Learning Theory

There is gravitational theory, evolutionary theory and learning theory,, but only one of them claims that the theory is necessary to the performance of the action. Things drop whether you believe in Newton or not. Even if you believe that gravity is a myth and the earth really does suck, things still drop, and the earth still rises very slightly to meet them. Darwin believed that the Galapagos finches had evolved long before the Beagle set sail, and would continue to evolve long after the Beagle was forgotten, but education experts would have you believe that you can't teach without understanding learning theory.

This is demonstrably cobblers as the first learning theorist must have been self taught, ie by someone who, by definition didn't know learning theory. Learning happens. Apples fall out of trees, land on your head and teach you not to sit under apple trees if your dad is called William Tell. You can aspire to be the President of the United Satates of America and deny the theory of evolution. In a couple of decades it may be a necessary qualification to PROVE that you are incapable of understanding the Theory of Evolution.

Training anyone or anything will be easier if you understand learning theory, or would be if learning theory even began to approach the scientific rigour of evolution or gravity. Those who discuss learning theory have a problem, they want to be scientific and they want to be nice to children or animals, or whoever they want to teach.

This is not scientific. Science doesn't pick nice data, it doesn't come out with the politically correct answer. Men run faster than women. Capital punishment reduces reoffending. (Hanging the wrong person doesn't stop the criminal reoffending, it only works when you hang the right one.) I am against capital punishment and I have four daughters so I am all in favour of equal chances for women, but I don't kid myself that my beliefs will change the data.

So back to training, and learning theory, and ponies, my particular interest. Obama, my pony, is still terrified of whips and sticks though he has been trained entirely with kindness, (and occasional bad language) since January 2009. Thirty months of kindness hasn't eradicated the lesson that whips hurt. In educational terms, whips, and those who wield them, are vastly more effective than I am.

Our learning theory has to accept that pain and fear combined are probably the ultimate learning method. Temple Grandin believes that really deap seated fears are probably incurable, though she, and I would welcome any system that proved this wrong. This is where NICE conflicts with SCIENCE. But we won't understand learning theory, or learn how to teach children, animals or aspiring Presidents of the USA by denying the facts.

So let's be honest, we want a nice learning theory. No problem, as long as we can agree on a definition of nice, and learning and theory. Am I against violence? The easy answer is yes, but if my children or Obama are about to walk into danger, I will cheerfully hit them if it is the only, or even the easiest way to stop them. It may also make them think twice about repeating the action. It is certainly going to be remembered for longer than a carrot or a scratch, or for the children a Smartie. For someone as totally anti whips as I am, to admit that violence is a reasonable and intelligent, and the most effective option, shows the depth of the problem.

For a change, I am not looking for answers, I am looking to see if there are any basic principles I can lay down other than “Simon is right, send him some money.”

Animals, and children, learn by trial and error. Yes but not exclusively, and not on the things that matter. Young Zebras don't learn how close they can get to a lion by trying different distances and seeing what happens. You would rapidly have no zebras, and soon, no lions. Zebra's watch mum first, and then other herd members and mimic their behaviour, learning, by observation, the safe way to behave around lions.

Behaviour is either instinctive or learned. Again, not that simple. Researchers found that although monkeys are predisposed to be scared of snakes, the deciding factor is the behaviour of the other monkeys when they first see a snake. If the other monkeys are relaxed, the new monkey will be cautious, but not terrified. If the other monkeys are terrified, the new monkey will be terrified for life. The one that has been exposed to snakes in the company of relaxed monkeys is innoculated against the terror, even when put in with monkeys that are terrified of snakes.

The problem is actually simple, it is one of time. learning is part of life, starting when you wake up, and continuing till you go to sleep, with a strong possibiility that sleep allows your brain to sort out and file all that it has learned. The proponents of learning theory are trying to find a quick fix, a way to instil the maximum knowledge in the minimum time. It may not be possible. Learning to drive, learning to ride a bike , learning to read, how long did they take? And now, you can't see what the problem was. Changing gears, you could learn that in a minute. Hill starts, dead easy, but when you were learning, when your reactions were better than they are today, when your brain was young, and fit, and trained by all that school work, it took weeks.

But it is there, ingrained in your system, and you have been learning more every time you drive, so now, you have a vast store of memories to guide you, and still you back into parked cars.

When training ponies or children, or adults, the pace must be appropriate. And time must be allowed to store the learning. The old seven year apprenticship had a lot to recommend it, the repetitive nature of the work, doing all the easy boring bits, cleaning, painting, sanding off rough edges, boring endless boring holes. I know the saddlechariot, and the iBex backwards because I have made all the pieces at some stage or another, I have cleaned the welds, and countersunk screw holes, and assembled all the different variations. I can date any saddlechariot I see, but more to the point, I can redesign it in my head, and test ride it too, without needing to put it together, all in my head, because I have served that apprenticeship, OK, under me, and I can tell you, I am a right shit to work for.

We can't train ponies in brief sessions. Or children, or US Presidents. Life is a learning process. We wouldn't shut our children in a field or worse, a stable for 23 hours a day, (however tempting) and expect them to learn much. I really got to know Obama when I drove him from Brecon to Birmingham. Before then I deluded myself I was training him, after that I realised we were just working together. I learn from him, he from me, and both from experience.

Now when I want Obama to do something new, I just get Obama and we do it. If he is unsure, or nervous, I lead. If he is confident and relaxed, I steer.

Over the next week or so I expect to do some more rowcrop work, but Obama started doing that before we set out for Birmingham and he knows the rules. Follow the tramlines, don't eat the crops. And I know the rules, we stop at the end of each row for Obama to have a munch on the verge. He sets rules as well. We are working together. It's what they call teamwork.

Look at the things I don't do.

Where or how Obama holds his head is his business. Up down or sideways, it's his head and he can choose how to hold it. The same with his legs. He can move them in any order he likes. If he can gallop at a suitable pace for hoeing rowcrops with me walking behind, that is fine by me. How high he lifts his knees is his choice. How high I lift MY knees is MY choice.

There are huge chunks of his behaviour I never control, any more than I would control the gait of a dog, or the head carriage of a dog. On one thing I am absolutely firm. I like to be stationary when I have a crap, I allow him the same privilege. I can think of no reason for forcing an animal to walk on while having a shit other than a bloody minded obsession with having your own way

Rowcrop work.

I have never really bothered to train Obama, I have just done loads of things with him, so when I want to check out the Rowcrop system, totally remodelled as a stretched iBex, (actually it is the Bannedwaggon I took to London with a cut and shut job,) I wanted to see how it would behave in crops, and hooked it to Obama and just did it.
This sequence is the result.


I haven't a clue how I would train Obama to do this, but he is so used to me by now, that he just works out what is going on and tries to make it work. After all somebody has to. Tomorrow I hook on some implements but I needed to check the steering before I take hoes into the crops.