Teaching Complex Behaviours

What seems like a complicated behaviour is just a combination of other easier behaviours that have been joined together and established under a new cue.

The following is how I taught Phantom "sidepass toward".

First, we established positive reinforcement and created a solid conditioned reinforcer. This gives us a language, where I can tell him exactly the moment he performs the desired behaviour.

Next, we established movement at liberty - walk, stop, turn and back up. All with no pressure, just rewarding each tiny step to each new behaviour until the cues were well understood. This creates connection and deeper understanding between us and teaches him to understand my body language, as well as I learning to understand his.

Then I reinforced movement of the hindquarters towards, and then clockwise movement towards, while his forequarters stayed in place.

A new cue was introduced to flex his head to the right, to make it easier to shape behaviours and change his direction/ focus for movements from his front end.

So the combination of behaviours "hindquarters towards", " forequarters towards" and "focus/ flexion right", creates the behaviour of sidepass towards. A new cue was connected to this behaviour, and the movement was reinforced repeatedly and shaped into what you see here.

Each one of these steps was broken down into tiny, achievable mico-steps, reinforcing each correct behaviour, setting him up to succeed each tiny step, and if any confusion was presented, going back to his comfort zone and breaking things down even further when necessary.

Once you have a good foundational understanding of the training concepts, both within your horse and within yourself, you will be able to break down any goal and piece movements, thoughts and actions together to create any behaviour you desire.