Article intéressant.

Pour ceux qui peuvent lire l'anglais.
Article très intéressant sur les résultats d'un entraînement effectué sur 16 chevaux rescue welsh poney.
8 ont été entraînés avec le clicker renfocement positif et 8 autres avec une technique de renforcement négatif c'est à dire avec une pression appliquée à plus ou moins grande échelle.
Tiré du blog Ozvet.

Beating a Dead Horse
December 2nd, 2008
Most everyone knows that it doesn’t do any good to beat a dead horse. No matter how hard you beat, you’re not going to be able to convince him to load up into the trailer, jump that 2 foot oxer, or perform any other sort of task.
(Most) people these days also realize that it doesn’t do a whole lot of good to beat a living horse. Yes, if you scare him badly enough you might be able to force him into that trailer. (This is mainly because at some point the “scary” trailer starts looking a whole lot more comforting than the person using force).
So, beating a horse doesn’t work. What should we do instead? How about using small amounts of pressure and release of pressure coupled with other motivators (such as comfort). Wouldn’t this be the better solution? Intuitively, we think yes. However, what if there’s an even better solution?
A recent study by several Welsh researchers evaluated the use of positive and negative training methods in retraining simple tasks (such as leading, standing for grooming, trailer loading) to rescued horses. (The original article was published in the August 2008 issue of Applied Animal Behavior Science. If you have access to journal databases through your school, you can find it online. Otherwise, you can at least read the abstract here, if you are interested.)
Here’s what they did:Horse training methods often rely on positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement or a combination of both. (In this context, positive reinforcement refers to something added after the behavior that increases the chance of the behavior occurring again, such as a treat or a scratch behind the ears. Negative reinforcement refers to a stimulus applied that the horse works to avoid, such as pressure. When we pull on the reins, the horse stops because of negative reinforcement, it is seeking to avoid the pressure.)
16 rescued Welsh ponies were trained for seven weeks (4 times a week for 30 minutes) by experienced staff to perform 5 tasks (leading, standing to be groomed, picking up feet, trailer loading, and walking an obstacle course) using either positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. The 8 ponies in the positive reinforcement group were trained using clicker training. The 8 ponies in the other group were trained using a whip/training stick. The stick was applied with a very light touch at first, and then with increasing pressure if the animal did not respond. As soon as the animal responded, the tapping was stopped.
Weekly, a novel object test was given where the ponies were individually released into an arena with a novel object (a hung umbrella). After about week 4 of training, the ponies being trained with positive reinforcement (+R) were significantly more likely to approach the novel object and the observer. This group was also more likely to approach the door to the stable while turned out in the pasture. During training, ponies in the negative reinforcement (-R) group were more likely to exhibit pawing behavior, which is often a sign of frustration. Although both methods were successful for training the ponies, the ponies in the +R group were more likely to exhibit explorative behaviors and were more willing to participate in training. Also, more of the ponies in the +R group met the criteria for re-homing at the end of the study.
Some of my thoughts:These were all rescue ponies (all had little previous contact with humans, and most past interaction with humans had been aversive). So, they could have been more sensitive to -R techniques than regular horses. This has important implications for rescue groups, who might want to incorporate more +R into their training programs. Pressure (and -R) can be a very effective for training horses. However, as was seen in this study, the horses trained in this method were less likely to exhibit curiosity or to exhibit correct behaviors on their own. So, if we want correct behaviors and control, either training method will do. But, if we want horses that are braver and more curious and that (potentially) can be rehomed faster, +R methods (such as shaping, targeting or luring) might be a better approach. It would be really interesting to see this study redone with “normal” horses that didn’t have a lot of previous stress and baggage.
(And for all you skeptics about whether or not horses can be trained with mainly positive reinforcement, go read the clickRyder blog or go watch some youtube videos. Like this one, or this one, or this one.)