Praising Your Horse As A Teaching Tool..........

Various trainers hold different beliefs regarding the use of praise in training a horse. Some trainers, notably top-level reining trainers, believe in never praising a horse or giving him a pat. They reason that when the horse does what he is supposed to, he is only doing his job, that nothing less should be expected of him, and that his reward lies in being left alone and/or being allowed to rest. While this form of reasoning is not illogical, we firmly believe that a horse not only will give the trainer/rider more-and more willingly-if he is praised but will also learn much faster if this is used as a training aid. Why? Because when a horse is first learning something new, he often does not understand what we want of him. If we continue to apply pressure, either with the legs or the reins, until he gets it right or at least makes a step in the right direction, he will eventually learn what we want and how to do it. But this may take quite some time, and along the way the horse might do everything but what we want in an effort to try to figure out what we are asking. If we praise him the moment he makes some motion, however small, toward what we are asking, even if it is not completely right, two things happen: First, he begins to understand what we want, and second, he is reassured and does not get upset and frustrated by our repeated requests for something he does not understand. Once he has got the idea and has been praised for it, we can ask again and will probably get even more of a correct response, which we will again reward. We will continue with this system until the horse performs a maneouvre perfectly, being careful not to ask too much in one day and giving the horse time to develop his coordination and understanding over time.