Capturing behavior ~ Smile

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When I taught Ditte smile I didn't do it the most normal way. She already smile a whole lot. All I had to do was capture the behavior and put it on cue.

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What is capturing behavior?

Capturing behavior is where the horse show a behavior and you reinforce it. I do this by clicking and giving a treat/other food, as the click is more precise than just giving a treat or scratch. After doing this a couple of times, the horse should begin to realize which behavior it's clicked for and offer that more.

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How I put smile on cue

When Ditte knew what she was rewarded for, i began putting it on cue. I did this by pointing up (my cue) when she smiled and later when I had already rewarded one smile, to encourage her to do it again. I was quite messy, trying to use it as cue before she knew what it meant etc so it took a bit for her to get it. Normally you would do it first while performing the behavior, then slowly doing it earlier until it's a cue, but I did it all over the place without any kind of structure (With my pony that need structure and clear rules. Hehe :sweat_smile: )

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Why is capturing behavior a good idea?

When you capture behavior, you reward something the horse already do. By doing this you don't need to spend as much time shaping or setting up the enviroment, as the horse can just be rewarded for a full behavior it's showing. This make it an easy way to train behaviors, as it don't require as much thinking to get the behavior you want - and sometimes you get something you would've never thought of. Dittes food anxiety actually make this my only way to teach new things to her. She get too frustrated if she have to think, but when capturing the behavior we already have a full behavior she can give me, not a small piece or two she need to figure out how to put together correct. We work on this, but currently we're not that far as i had to go away for 2 weeks the day after i found out that's also a problem (She got many) and i'm still not back.

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This isn't a super long blog and not well explained, but I hope it make sense anyway. Being away from my animals mess up my head, so I can't think half the time and have no motivation, which make it quite hard to write anything that make sense.

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#SmileTOTM

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