Avatar

horsepower engineer

@muscle-horse-appreciation / muscle-horse-appreciation.tumblr.com

we can build a better horse. we have the technology.
Posts
Avatar
reblogged
missing-merlin
Avatar
whywishesarehorses

A testament to Mustang surefootedness and dexterity, from a photographer who follows a herd in North Dakota.

"The craziest thing I seen on Sunday, and probably ever was this...

Stallion Thunder Cloud was walking along with the rest of the horses. The spot on the butte where it comes to a "V" seemed like it was crumbling as the horses passed. Well...Thunder didn't want to take his chances on the crumbling part of the butte. He did this instead...

These photos show the surefootedness these horses have, along with agility and gracefulness. More than once I thought I was going to watch him fall! Keep in mind, Thunder Cloud turns 17 this year! And...No...no one else took the path he did!

He was last in line from his band, the mares you see belong to the next band that was walking along. He is the only one who did this, the other horses stayed on the path they are on and continued on.

All photos are taken at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, ND."

Avatar
reblogged
fragmentwsd
Avatar
equine-science
There are welfare implications in failing to identify adequately the mental abilities of all animals in the care of humans. Overestimating an animal’s mental ability must be seen as a major contemporary welfare issue when it manifests as abuse, wastage, stress and conflict behaviors.
As horse trainers and handlers, our understanding of the horse’s mental abilities is based largely on a centuries-old tradition of horsemanship. Horse-training textbooks (including pony club texts) throughout the world take their reference from traditional horse practice or from the ‘great masters’ of horsemanship who lived in the past 500 years. Such texts generally abound with words to describe horse behavior that imply reasoning abilities. They generally assume that the horse ‘understands’ his training rather than simply responding through reinforcement. Training a horse within the traditional anthropomorphic framework has a number of potentially negative implications for horse welfare, as well as for the safety of riders and handlers. For example, if you believe that a horse complying with your commands is showing a willingness to please you, then you may also believe that when the same horse fails to comply he is actively seeking to displease, defy, undermine and even embarrass you. This belief system explains why so many riders feel justified in physically punishing horses for failure to perform. So while a coach may instruct a child to whip her pony as a punishment when it fails to jump a fence, an equitation scientist primarily sees the lack of response as evidence of pain or a training deficit. A scientific approach acknowledges that lack of forward movement over the fence is but one of myriad other responses that the pony failed to offer, and that whipping after the error is not going to help the pony identify the correct response in the future. We offer this specific example, not least because this issue of children whipping horses is emerging as an important topic in animal welfare debates that are being informed by equitation science.]
Furthermore, the anthropomorphic view of the horse is not supported by scientific examinations, which suggest that equids possess little or no higher mental abilities. Mindful of this, equine ethologists avoid interpreting responses as reflections of human emotions and values. They do not do this to demean horses but to recognize that there are often simpler and more plausible explanations for most of the horse’s responses.
Training does not always go according to plan. Some horses are predisposed genetically to trial undesirable responses rather than desirable ones. Some horses learn to evade stimuli most effectively when the stimuli are predictable by association, e.g. in a school context. Horses that have been subjected: to inconsistent signals, such as the lack of release of pressure, or to the pain of bad schooling, often acquire the reputation of being difficult and are sold on to homes where more often than not the harshness of schooling is escalated. This contributes to disturbing slaughter statistics. For example, in a French study of more than 3000 non-racing horses, some 66.4% died aged between 2 and 7 years. Unlike data from the racing industry, this wastage was not attributed to orthopedic or respiratory disease but more likely to inappropriate behavior. The welfare implications of this wastage suggest that veterinarians and equine scientists should become well versed in learning theory since it is the basis of good training, continuing education and behavior modification. The wrong approach to training can have consequences far worse than simple time-wasting. 
The emotiveness in the horse-riding welfare debate has fostered empirical research into the ethics of equitation and an analysis of some of the more unorthodox interventions that arise during handling, training and competition. According to Derksen and Clayton, 'Knowledge of equitation science may help veterinarians play a more effective role in preventing injuries to horses and their trainers, and in recommending more effective methods of treating and retraining equine athletes when injuries do occur, thereby improving sport horse wellbeing.’

-  Equine Behavior: A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine Scientists, Second Edition by Paul McGreevy

Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
foxy-filly

Even with runouts, I worry that the ponies get bored on these rainy days when they don’t go out in the field. To help alleviate the cabin fever during the rainiest spring EVER, I put toys and some of the stalls. Not everyone was sure what to make of it at first… 😂

Avatar
sabino-spots

Delicious but sp00py

#cute
Avatar
Anonymous asked:

Muppet is becoming such a handsome boy! I love seeing him on my dash ❤

Just wait! He's actually gained a bunch more weight of late and I'm sure he'll get far more handsome once he matures some more. :-)

Avatar
mostlyvoidpartiallydragons asked:

seeing Muppet more frequently has made my day, I can't believe he's so big now!

Avatar

Thanks! I’m definitely enjoying seeing him a lot more often now as well.

Muppet is of course genuinely convinced his presence is a gift (which is why he has a rather dazzling coverage of kicks and bite marks from the other horses having to always try and to communicate their preference to dining without his accompaniment) but I’m sure he’d love knowing you like seeing him also.   ♥

Avatar
reblogged
Avatar
muscle-horse-appreciation

If you’re arguing with someone that their training method isn’t the most effective approach and your argument is based on comparing the time it took you to train a mature horse versus the time it took them to train a two year old horse… you don’t have enough experience with training to be arguing methods.

Avatar
bparkenstone

I’m still trying to figure out how what you’re doing is classified as negative reinforcement?? Like your just chilling waiting for him to realize that the scary noisy thing wont actually kill him

Avatar
muscle-horse-appreciation

Muppet’s mother hadn't been clipped before either but I didn't post about that because what I did hardly required training with her, I just held the clippers up to her sighted side, checked she was OK with that, then held them to buzz against her neck on her blind side, checked she was OK with that, then clipped her mane clean off.

Same method essentially I used with Muppet, just sped through it in all of about two minutes because she's a mature horse who's had a lot of handling.

#training
Avatar

If you're arguing with someone that their training method isn't the most effective approach and your argument is based on comparing the time it took you to train a mature horse versus the time it took them to train a two year old horse... you don't have enough experience with training to be arguing methods.

#training
Avatar
reblogged
app-uh-latch-un
Avatar
muscle-horse-appreciation

The same kind of basic pressure and release approach that was used to get Falkor used to being touched by humans. I have him haltered on a short contact and approach him with the clippers on, if he moves away he’s pivoting around in a forehand turn and I follow him around maintaining the clippers in the same position until he stops moving and settles before patting him and turning off the clippers (releasing the pressure). And keep doing sessions like that, working up to having the body of the clippers vibrating against his neck, and gradually having the body of the clippers (as of this morning) vibrating on the topline of his neck, which is the scarier bit. It’ll probably take me a few more sessions to actually start using the clippers to buzz the hair itself because he’s just a baby.

R+ would almost definitely be way faster and easier, why use pressure/release for something so simple? I’m speaking as someone who DOES use pressure release, not an R+ purist.

Avatar
muscle-horse-appreciation

I don’t think what I’ve just described is either difficult or time consuming. He’s a two year old, I doubt any training method would get him acclimated to getting his mane clipped in less than an hour, which is how long I estimate this method will take to train him, though it’s spread across a number of days in overall sessions of about ten minutes because of his youth and inexperience.

No I mean scientifically speaking I’m pretty certain that studies have shown positive reinforcement is faster than negative reinforcement ? But I’m drinking and not gonna look it up rn lol. Google scholar prob has stuff?

But like. Trying to use pressure/release to acclimate an animal to something that is just inherently adversive to that animal by nature is just. Such a pain in the ass imo. I mean I have taught both dogs and ilex to get used to something like clippers in way less than an hr. But anyway I was just curious if there was a specific reason you chose to use negative reinforcement instead of positive. Not trying to offend, I definitely use pressure/release more often than R+ with ilex

Avatar
muscle-horse-appreciation

I'm sure you did train your horse with clippers and your dog faster than an hour. But as a two year old Muppet has a much shorter attention span, and a shorter emotional fuse than a riding age horse, and he has much less handling experience than a dog. So an hour of training spread across days is pretty reasonable. For certain training conditions positive reenforcement may be faster, but I think it may be bad pedagogy to juggle an animal between contrasting training methods, and there isn't any reason pressure and release can't be the most effective model for training things that are "inherently adversive", because backing a horse and teaching them to steer is no less "adversive" and pressure and release is the most effective method for that.

#training
Avatar
reblogged
app-uh-latch-un
Avatar
muscle-horse-appreciation

The same kind of basic pressure and release approach that was used to get Falkor used to being touched by humans. I have him haltered on a short contact and approach him with the clippers on, if he moves away he’s pivoting around in a forehand turn and I follow him around maintaining the clippers in the same position until he stops moving and settles before patting him and turning off the clippers (releasing the pressure). And keep doing sessions like that, working up to having the body of the clippers vibrating against his neck, and gradually having the body of the clippers (as of this morning) vibrating on the topline of his neck, which is the scarier bit. It’ll probably take me a few more sessions to actually start using the clippers to buzz the hair itself because he’s just a baby.

R+ would almost definitely be way faster and easier, why use pressure/release for something so simple? I’m speaking as someone who DOES use pressure release, not an R+ purist.

Avatar
muscle-horse-appreciation

I don't think what I've just described is either difficult or time consuming. He's a two year old, I doubt any training method would get him acclimated to getting his mane clipped in less than an hour, which is how long I estimate this method will take to train him, though it's spread across a number of days in overall sessions of about ten minutes because of his youth and inexperience.

#training
Avatar

The same kind of basic pressure and release approach that was used to get Falkor used to being touched by humans. I have him haltered on a short contact and approach him with the clippers on, if he moves away he’s pivoting around in a forehand turn and I follow him around maintaining the clippers in the same position until he stops moving and settles before patting him and turning off the clippers (releasing the pressure). And keep doing sessions like that, working up to having the body of the clippers vibrating against his neck, and gradually having the body of the clippers (as of this morning) vibrating on the topline of his neck, which is the scarier bit. It’ll probably take me a few more sessions to actually start using the clippers to buzz the hair itself because he’s just a baby.

#training#smol muppet cirrus
You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.