Safety with R+

The top concern for most people switching to R+ is how to do so safely. This is super important for everyone. The horse and the human need to feel equally safe. In R- training often the human's safety is formed by making the horse feel unsafe, but we've found that when the horse feels unsafe, its actually less safe for everyone. Its more likely the horse will act out, become defensive, or hide their feelings until they react without warning. So it's vital when we train we do so with a focus on both partners feeling safe to express themselves and their feelings heard.

One huge benefit of R+ training is that we don't need to physically control our horse, we are training through their mind so THEY control their body, not us. So we can actually work over a physical barrier. We can train without even going in with the horse. Protected contact training is the top test of a great trainer. If your horse can learn and respond correctly to each cue without you even being in with them, you know your horse truly understands and wants to perform the behavior. This approach helps you both feel safe while learning and removes the need for any punishment.

Of course we are going to eventually want to be in with them at some point. Rather than making yourself feel safe by asding restraints or tools to control the horse, protect yourself with things that actually help - like helmets and protective vests.

In training we can do a lot to promote safety too, many of us want to jump right to teaching fun stuff like running around together, cute tricks like spanish walk or fetch. But then we have hyper horses who throw hooves around and bite random objects. Why? Because R+ is a Strong and powerful training method and if you only use it to teach things like this, that's all you'll get.

We need to always, even with the safest horse, teach safe behaviors first. Let them learn stimulus control with safe behaviors. Teach behaviors which give you space and help you both feel comfortable moving together. A safe default "standing facing forward" is always a good early behavior to test your other behaviors. If they aren't sure what to do lining up in a safe default is always a good option. Practice this often and reinforce it heavily. You get what you reinforce.

Train away behaviors with the target before you train towards behaviors (for most horses) so you can ask them to move different parts of them away from you. Use a long target to guide behaviors and help the horse see what you are asking them to do. Practice sending to targets away from the handler and going around and object and back. This helps build you and your horse's confidence in being apart from each other and having more comfortable personal space.

Train stimulus control on all your behaviors and save unsafe behaviors for when you know your horse can handle not doing the behavior without the cue