Is is possible to create an even more disrespectful horse, if its not done correctly?
Any training method, if not done correctly, can produce behavior you don’t want. Notice I don’t use the word disrespectful. That’s become an overused word that can distract you from finding good training solutions. When someone says a horse is being disrespectful, what do they really mean by that? What are the behaviors they are seeing? Often what they mean is the horse is pushing into the handler’s space. That’s a behavior we can do something about. When the horse learns to step back out of the handler’s space promptly every time it is asked, others might now say the horse is more respectful. As a clicker trainer, I would say he is under better stimulus control. Is there a difference? It depends upon how the horse learned to move out of the handler’s space. Is he responding out of fear of bad consequences or anticipation of good things? Both get the basic behavior, but what are the unintended side effects? I’d rather deal with the consequences of positive reinforcement than the fallou
