What is a Cue?
A cue is a hint, indication or trigger for your horse to perform a specific trained behavior at a specific time (now). It is trained by making an associating of the cue with the behavior.
A cue may be visual (like raising your arm)
or tactile (like a finger tap, little rein tension in one direction or leg urge)
or verbal (as in “Stand. Whoa etc”).
Cues can also be environmental. After training, a target stick is a cue to touch the stick, a specific saddle cues the horse to expect a certain type of activity, and the presence of a jump in front of the horse becomes a cue to jump over the jump. Even the physical environment can be a cue to what activity you will be participating in. A horse that competes in jumping trials recognizes the layout and equipment and this then cues him as to what behavior is expected (and usually acts as an emotional cue as well). A smell can be a cue as well.
To keep it simple, we’ll start with training verbal and tactile cues.
In Operant Conditioning, you train the behavior first, then when it looks like what you want, you attach the cue. So get the behavior first, add the cue later. Adding the cue is done through Classical Conditioning. (CC). Think Pavlov.
Pavlov discovered that when he consistently rang a bell just before he fed the dogs he was experimenting on, the dogs started salivating. By accidentally pairing the sound with the drooling, the bell became the precursor or the cue for the drooling. So any time you add a cue to a behavior, you are using CC.
If you wait until after the behavior is trained exactly as you want it before you add the cue, you get your ideal behavior. If you add the cue when the behavior is incomplete, (say halfway there), the horse thinks that (incomplete) behavior is what you want. Also, if the behavior erodes over time (say, from you rewarding sloppy cued behavior) you can simply stop using the cue, retrain the behavior back to where you want it, then reattach the cue or train a new cue.
How to Train a Visual Cue:
Since horses are sight animals, learning visual cue comes most naturally. Choose a visual cue that your horse can easily see. You may want to exaggerate it at the beginning.
Once you have the behavior how you like and are ready to add a visual cue, get the horse to offer the behavior several times to get him thinking about it. Then, just as he starts doing the behavior, use your cue. Repeat for several sessions. (If needed, exaggerate your cues, then fade them to more subtle once he shows he knows what they mean.
This would look like:
With you on the ground, horse begins to trot from a walk. Cue with a hand wave in the direction of the trot. Click and reinforce. Repeat.
Next, in a training session, start with a few uncued trials of the behavior, then give the visual cue a half second before the horse is about to offer the behavior. Make sure you are willing to bet $100 that he is intending to do the behavior in that training session. With many repetitions, your horse will associate the behavior with the cue, much like Pavlov’s dogs salivated when they heard the bell, or your horse comes running when he hears the grain in the bucket.
This looks like:
Hand wave. Horse begins to trot from a walk. Click and reinforce.
To see if your horse really understands the visual cue, try giving the it when the horse is in training mode but after a break from training other behaviors. Trying it during the first training session of the day works well so he’s had all night to think about it. If he isn’t able to do it, rule out distractions and other reasons for not performing, and go back to pairing the cue and the behavior for a session or three and try again.
This video shows a leg lifting behavior complete as the beginning of a Spanish Walk. The trainer is now adding her leg lift as the visual cue.
Video from abirdslife's channel on youtube.com
How to Train a Tactile Cue:
Once you have the behavior how you like and are ready to add a tactile (or physical) cue, get the horse to offer the behavior several times to get him thinking about it. Then, just as he starts doing the behavior, use your cue. Repeat for several sessions. (Make sure that your cues are gentle and given only once. Giving harsher and louder cues or holding your cue in position continuously only teaches your horse to ignore it or require you to apply more pressure each time.) This is especially important for continuous behaviors such as trotting. The horse will learn later that once he starts trotting, he should keep that pace until cued to do otherwise. (We'll talk about that later).
This would look like:
Horse begins to trot from a walk. Cue with a slight tap on his neck. Click and reinforce.
Next, in a training session, start with a few uncued trials of the behavior, then give the tactile cue a half second before the horse is about to offer the behavior. Make sure you are willing to bet $100 that he is intending to do the behavior in that training session. With many repetitions, your horse will associate the behavior with the cue, much like Pavlov’s dogs salivated when they heard the bell, or your horse comes running when he hears the grain in the bucket.
This looks like:
Slight tap on his neck. Horse begins to trot from a walk. Click and reinforce.
To see if your horse really understands the new tactile cue, try giving the tactile cue when the horse is in training mode but after a break from training other behaviors. Trying it during the first training session of the day works well so he’s had all night to think about it. If he isn’t able to do it, rule out distractions and other reasons for not performing, and go back to pairing the cue and the behavior for a session or two and try again.
How to Train a Verbal Cue:
If you want to add a “Take It” cue to the ‘Food Zen’ behavior in blog post 8, you will need to choose a release cue that means “Okay, you can take it”. In the early training with the clicker, the click means exactly that. Your marker word “Yes!” from blog post 7 also means “The treat is yours, you earned it”!
Next, you need to give the cue just before the old one.
So it would look like:
He leaves a food presented to him. “Take it!” click, treat (he takes food)
Practice this for several training sessions, then try dropping the click.
It looks like:
He leaves a food presented to him. “Take it!” Treat.
If he cannot do several of these in a row, go back to using the verbal and the click for more training sessions, then try just the verbal again. (For this particular behavior you can either cue the “leave it” or wait for the uncued default behavior.)
Try asking him to do another behavior he knows well and use the release cue ‘Take it' to eat some food.
Continuing Education for your Horse:Here's a great video showing how to test your horse's knowledge of the cues in different environments and situations. It's all about testing where he can do it, then more training if he can't!
Video from Peggasus09's channel on youtube.com
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