Give Your Horse a Choice
Having a choice releases dopamine.
When you give your horse a choice of action, it learns. Dopamine is released. CHOICE is essential to the horse's well-being. It is a voluntary action under the control of the frontal lobe of the horse's brain. The horse's frontal lobe is tiny. It is used only for voluntary movements, not abstract thinking. The horse in the photo on the right has chosen to walk beside its handler. It has not been cued nor forced in any way. It is calm and relaxed on dopamine.
Leading your horse can teach it to make simple decisions. With movement, it learns to learn. Your horse may willingly walk beside you on a relaxed lead rope. This is a voluntary action. The decision to do so has been made in its frontal lobe. Stopping without a cue is also a voluntary action. It becomes involuntary only if the lead rope is lifted or wiggled. In that case, the frontal lobe has been bypassed. The horse has resorted to using other parts of its brain and motor system to halt. Choice is no longer in the picture.
When the horse finds its dopamine reward pattern, it's hooked! Leave it alone! Avoid moving. Don't utter a word. Above all, do not repeat the exercise. The horse will find its spot to down-regulate, waiting for the serotonin to release. Usually, that spot is beside a calm, relaxed individual.
Having a choice releases dopamine.
The Horse's Learning Process
Setting the Stage for Learning: Safety, Attention, Motivation
To learn, the horse must feel safe while being attentive and motivated. It feels safe when it accesses its safe spot. (See "The horse learns best when it feels safe" on the page, "Cutting Edge Training.") The horse is attentive when it is curious. Maintaining its attention while encouraging its curiosity is tricky but doable. Allow your horse to check out a distraction, then patiently wait for it to refocus its attention on you. The horse remains motivated as long as dopamine is on board. Dopamine is on board when the horse is allowed to use its natural curiosity. Curiosity increases the horse's problem-solving ability. When its curiosity is satisfied, the horse gets a dopamine hit.
The horse that uses its natural curiosity to check out its environment will internalize that lesson for the rest of its life.
Safe, Attentive and Motivated Horses Learn.
Natural Curiosity
Feed your horse's natural curiosity.
The horse toggles back and forth from its fear center in its brain, the amygdala, to its pleasure area, the nucleus accumbens. The horse is a curious animal. It gets a bit curious, then a bit fearful. The more the horse toggles back and forth between the fear and pleasure centers, the greater its tolerance for fear becomes. The horse usually remains curious but deeks out of scary situations. When the amygdala interrupts the toggle, the horse moves into self-preservation.
The more problems you give your horse to solve, the more problems it can solve, and the better learner it becomes. When the horse explores new options, the number of dendrites and synapses in the horse's brain increases. Dendrites are branched tree-like extensions of the nerve cell along which impulses from other nerves are carried to the body of the nerve cell. The greater the number of dendrites, the faster the nerve transmission.
Building Dendrites
Stimulate Your Horse's Natural Curiosity
The variety of disciplines you can enjoy with your horse is almost endless: trail rides, extreme trail, in-hand trail, cow work, reining, racing, archery, showmanship . . . and the list goes on and on. Your horse's playtime is more important to the horse's brain development than the disciplines. Activities like giving your horse a ball and presenting it with new obstacles that arouse its natural curiosity release dopamine.
During inclement weather conditions, my horses have four to six obstacles inside their indoor enclosure. An example of the most straightforward setup is shown below. Sometimes the horse walks across the poles. Other times it walks between them. This activity stimulates the release of dopamine. After a period of wait time, serotonin is released. Serotonin is linked to emotional balance and curiosity. The horse feels calm, curious, safe, and emotionally balanced, looking for the next activity.
Curiosity in Play