Researchers Say Monty Roberts May Have it Wrong

[Anselcat]

I just need to pull over to teach people who diss higher education from afar about what, exactly, they are dissing.

Honestly, I'm not dissing higher education. I am dissing the imprecise and overblown conclusions as reported in the article.

Quoting the researcher:

We believe that our research highlights the unpleasant underpinnings of round pen horse training and for that reason we caution against its widespread use because it uses fear to gain control of horses

Repeating Kwill's view -- the study showed that an RC-car can shape horse behavior. But going farther and jumping to "round pen training ... uses fear" is a most un-scientific leap.

[goneriding24]

'K, y'all need to know a bit more about how academic research and education works before you think the first author here is personally an idiot.

I don't know what's done in England, but let me give you a general clue. She's constrained.... a lot.



Finding a research project for a Master's Thesis is hard. Often, in the sciences, you do a dinky (and I mean dinky) project that's a spin-off of a large project and grant that your faculty advisor has. You don't get to pick whatever you like in practice. And by the time you design a practicable (and affordable) experiment that will rule on some previously-made claim, you have narrowed that one down considerably. Yet you are supposed to be testing a grand idea that anyone would care about!

That's how this chick got to what looks like an overblown conclusion.

When you get farther along in your scientific career-- say, a PhD thesis that consists of a suite of experiments and papers on one problem, your questions and answers are more robust. But even PhD work doesn't look as good as the stuff done by a scientist who runs his own lab and has a (usually huge!) multi-year grant that lets him work on a much larger question.

So a science girl has got to start somewhere. Oh, and working on Animal Behavior (is it still called Ethology?) is always tough-- just about any theory can be accused of making wrong or anthropomorphic or too-simple-evoluationary-theory-based attributions. It's the nature of the kind of scientific inquiry that it Animal Behavior is.



Please read the above before you trash her work. A shitty-looking Master's level project really doesn't mean much in the way of the quality of the person or the science.... or even the degree if that credential is what rubs you the wrong way.

Sorry for the detour, folks. I just need to pull over to teach people who diss higher education from afar about what, exactly, they are dissing.

Oh, she can be higher edumacated all she wants. Plus get all the goodies at the end of the rainbow, that's fine. But, seems to me, if you are going to get into some subject, you better get in and learn what it is, how to do it, why people do it, the good, the bad, the ugly.

Now, to me, she looks like just shy of twit because she doesn't understand true roundpenning and prolly went with what is popular nowadays (endless roundpenning and not reading a horse). Not getting out and asking someone to show her the 'real' way of less is more, not a popular stance at this time. The "gotta do SOMEthing" instead of standing there and letting the feel come. She totally missed that.

So, this article gets linked over here and real horsepeople dig in and she looks way out of whack. Altho, she'll probably look really good to her superiors (I'm not even sure what to call them).

[goneriding24]

Honestly, I'm not dissing higher education. I am dissing the imprecise and overblown conclusions as reported in the article.

Quoting the researcher:

Shoot, I was trying to quote your quote of her quote, about using fear to control the horse. See, this is what I'm talking about. I feel there is an underlying agenda goin' on. Good grief, if this is how higher education comes to conclusions, no wonder there is so much bullpucky out there that the regular people know is just shite. Now, this 'study' is out there, right or wrong, and you can bet your bottom dollar someone will start using it for their ends. HA!

[Kwill]

The questions should be ...

1) will a horse respond to a machine in the same fashion as a person if asked to move forward involuntarily in a round pen.

2) does the machine cause the horse fear, which is the motivation for the involuntary movement.

2a) Is it the same fear reaction as caused by a human doing the actions?

and 3)
...is fear a valid training technique to train obedience in the horse, assuming it is fear that is motivating the horse to go forward, and not simple avoidence of discomfort.

Can't assume round penning is based on fear, and can't assume it doesn't work unless all these are answered.

[mvp]

I have done plenty or researches, or thesis, in my life. All I can say is, you don't need big budget or multi-years research lab to produce a credible result: all you need is sincerity, hard work, and a bit of creativity. Sloppy work does not equate constraints.

Honestly, I'm not dissing higher education. I am dissing the imprecise and overblown conclusions as reported in the article.

Quoting the researcher:


Repeating Kwill's view -- the study showed that an RC-car can shape horse behavior. But going farther and jumping to "round pen training ... uses fear" is a most un-scientific leap.

Oh, she can be higher edumacated all she wants. Plus get all the goodies at the end of the rainbow, that's fine. But, seems to me, if you are going to get into some subject, you better get in and learn what it is, how to do it, why people do it, the good, the bad, the ugly.

Now, to me, she looks like just shy of twit because she doesn't understand true roundpenning and prolly went with what is popular nowadays (endless roundpenning and not reading a horse). Not getting out and asking someone to show her the 'real' way of less is more, not a popular stance at this time. The "gotta do SOMEthing" instead of standing there and letting the feel come. She totally missed that.

So, this article gets linked over here and real horsepeople dig in and she looks way out of whack. Altho, she'll probably look really good to her superiors (I'm not even sure what to call them).

Shoot, I was trying to quote your quote of her quote, about using fear to control the horse. See, this is what I'm talking about. I feel there is an underlying agenda goin' on. Good grief, if this is how higher education comes to conclusions, no wonder there is so much bullpucky out there that the regular people know is just shite. Now, this 'study' is out there, right or wrong, and you can bet your bottom dollar someone will start using it for their ends. HA!

I think you ought to learn more about this researcher as not a terribly good example of what all of university-based research or higher education does before you place so much faith in your conclusions.

You seem confident and, in your quote above, insistent that people not criticize what they have not investigated thoroughly.

So you, I and this researcher agree on that point. What we don't agree about is "what counts" as a point adequately investigated.

Think about it.

[Gloria]

We are confident, because, we know what we are talking about.

When we select a research project, we pick one we actually know about, one we can handle within our own ability. That research can be an extremely small, simple subject. It does not matter. We don't go flying off to the moon and try to prove or disprove General Relativity in Einstein's stead. I wouldn't attempt to prove or disprove Big Bang Theory either: I leave such difficult topics to genius such as Hawking or the like. I might study them; I might have doubt about them; I might have a different opinion about them: I will not select a topic I have no inkling of understanding, come up with a half-ass research and calls it quit.

That, is called responsibility and sincerity. That is called discipline. That, is also called, self-awareness, knowing one's ability and limitation.

By the way, nobody says she is any indication of research or higher education - I sure hope not, or this country is in serious trouble. The criticism is solely on that research paper, and it only.

[Anselcat]

I think you ought to learn more about this researcher as not a terribly good example of what all of university-based research or higher education does before you place so much faith in your conclusions.

Um. That's kind of my point. Based on the article (as I have said before) this is not (IMHO) a good example of scientific research.

And I readily agree that my personal conclusions posted on the COTH bulletin board are not as rigorously supported as those of a good scientific research study; if we had to provide supporting data and/or footnotes citing primary sources for our posts, this would be a pretty quiet place.

And for fun -- horses and RC cars!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVLaV7LEH-Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbk5m...eature=related
Oh the fear!

[D_BaldStockings]

Aversive or avoidance behavior is measurable reaction through movement of the animal.

Fear is an emotional component that may or may not be present in the above.

Fear is an emotional label attached by humans to observed animal behaviors and often inappropriately used.

'Love' or 'Bravery' or 'Courage' are not necessarily the emotions horses may experience when they follow or approach ar exhibit attractant behavior, either.

Horses are animals of movement. That they use a basic species locomotional response is not even likely due to fear.

[Foxtrot's]

It is annoying that so many people buy into the Monty Roberts claim that he was the one who started the method of starting a horse without tying it up, throwing it to the ground and brutalising it. ... he just coined and patented the term "Join-Up".

The round pen has been around for centuries - a picadoro in Europe, which is actually a square pen. (They like it better because it causes the horse to straighten, bend through the turn, straighten, etc.)

The round penning is used by too many people without the real knowledge of reading the horse and becomes a razor in a monkey's hands, so to speak. It should generally be used just as a starting tool, or a reminder, and depending upon which school you come from, there are many other ways to start gentling a horse. If a horse has been handled at all, it should not be stressful.

Storming a horse around and around with no thought is as ignorant as lungeing without knowledge or thought - just exhausting and damaging.

[Alagirl]

It is annoying that so many people buy into the Monty Roberts claim that he was the one who started the method of starting a horse without tying it up, throwing it to the ground and brutalising it. ... he just coined and patented the term "Join-Up".

The round pen has been around for centuries - a picadoro in Europe, which is actually a square pen. (They like it better because it causes the horse to straighten, bend through the turn, straighten, etc.)

The round penning is used by too many people without the real knowledge of reading the horse and becomes a razor in a monkey's hands, so to speak. It should generally be used just as a starting tool, or a reminder, and depending upon which school you come from, there are many other ways to start gentling a horse. If a horse has been handled at all, it should not be stressful.

Storming a horse around and around with no thought is as ignorant as lungeing without knowledge or thought - just exhausting and damaging.

Well, that's why Monty wasn't that much of an aha moment for me.
He did have a few good observations (and I wonder if the Monty blankets are still being used as they were 20 years ago on the track...)

[Gloria]

Foxtrot, that is what "discovery" is, isn't it? I mean, gravity existed long before human even existed, and plenty of human had observed it and utilized it in many ways; that does not prevent Newton from being hailed as the greatest scientist ever lived, whose researches form the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.

Not to say Robert's saint or anything. His credit is not in the "invention" but in the "discovery" - or rather, "re-discovery." There is credit in formulating what he observes, gives it a name so is recognizable, sort of formating it and popularizing it. It does not matter if a millions of horsemen had been using similiar methods before him: if they did not make it out to the general horse population, it is useless for anybody.

[LookmaNohands]

Much of round penning relies on two tendencies horses have: the tendency to move away from something that moves toward them and the tendency to follow something that moves away from them--like a foal learns to follow mama or to move away from a mare that is not mama. The method also uses exhaustion and often fear. It doesn't have to do this but many people use it in this way.

The method relies mostly on negative reinforcement and punishment. Punishment tends to produce fear and fear inhibits learning. Negative reinforcement is an effective way of training but so also is positive reinforcement. You rarely see any of the round pen trainers using positive reinforcement.

IMHO round penning is not a very effective way of training a horse and it can be like a razor in a monkey's paw to someone who doesn't know how to use it well.

I find it completely unnecessary.

Horses learn in many ways which is why there are methods other than round penning that are very effective.

[Kwill]

I don't know ... any method that gets the handler interacting with the horse, in an intelligent and well thought out way, can be effective. I find the round pen to be a good tool to start a horse and assess the horses attitude and personality. It gives a good middle ground without a lot of other distractions. Obviously, one must move on from it. Otherwise, it just becomes a form of circus training in my view.

I am not sure horses learn in "many ways" either. I think they have some specific ways of learning, which makes certain training methods very effective, especially those that use operant conditioning.

[mbm]

I'm no expert but I could have told you that. I've thought the man an ass since I saw the first PBS special decades ago.

^^^^^ this.

[summerhorse]

Is it based on fear? Well I watch my old mare move my young one the same way MR would (except she moves a hell of a lot faster for the old one than any human!) But that is kind of how pecking orders work. You move out of my way and go where I want or else I'll bite and/or kick the living daylights out of you. This is your first and only warning! I'll let you know when you can return!

But like pointed out above she simply PROVED MR's method! What an idiot. I think people should know a little more about the animals before they get a masters in animal science. But whatever...

[goneriding24]

Someone send here a link to this posting. I'd love to sit back and watch the show should she deign to respond.

You edumacated people on here, methinks you could run rings around her. Now, THAT would be fun to watch!! I can support by stating how the older-timers used to do it (first hand witnessing and knowledge) and the smarty-smarty people can do the $10 words.

(I wonder, would that be a fear or flight response for/from her??)

[horsefaerie]

Geesh, add the word "research" to anything and it is supposed to be valid.

THis is an epic fail.

You can round pen a horse in a dressage arena. They will go around you in a circle because they choose to. I don't really care why. It has more to do with safety and horse handling than domination or fear. Where do these whackos come from?

[gottagrey]

I'm no expert but I could have told you that. I've thought the man an ass since I saw the first PBS special decades ago.

Have to agree w/ you. I remember watching some MR special too and here he is talking about this "wild mustang never touched before" Amazingly that "wild mustang" had grown a lovely pulled mane and 4 shoes and trimmed whiskers and fetlocks.. call me a skeptic but...

[fburton]

Aversive or avoidance behavior is measurable reaction through movement of the animal.

Fear is an emotional component that may or may not be present in the above.

You could put a heart rate monitor on the horse. That would give you some idea at least about the emotional component (and, knowing that movement/exercise also causes an increase in HR, people are developing ways to distinguish the emotional and physical components). Of course, whether any 'emotional component' you happened to see was actually fear is another matter, despite being the most natural and obvious label.

In the round pen procedure, you might initially see a large emotional component which you could attribute to fear (or something analogous). With repetition, that may decline even though the avoidance reaction is maintained. That is my best guess at what would be seen in such an experiment - my 'hypothesis'.

Fear is an emotional label attached by humans to observed animal behaviors and often inappropriately used.

'Love' or 'Bravery' or 'Courage' are not necessarily the emotions horses may experience when they follow or approach ar exhibit attractant behavior, either.

Or indeed 'respect', which in people can have a rather complicated mix of connotations to do with the regard for and feelings toward another person, but which may be purely functional in horses, i.e. respect is the quality of being moved around easily by another entity (or indeed object) entailing no higher thought processes or concepts.

Horses are animals of movement. That they use a basic species locomotional response is not even likely due to fear.

Are you saying that horses are never motivated to flee by fear?

[fburton]

Much of round penning relies on two tendencies horses have: the tendency to move away from something that moves toward them and the tendency to follow something that moves away from them--like a foal learns to follow mama or to move away from a mare that is not mama. The method also uses exhaustion and often fear. It doesn't have to do this but many people use it in this way.

The method relies mostly on negative reinforcement and punishment. Punishment tends to produce fear and fear inhibits learning. Negative reinforcement is an effective way of training but so also is positive reinforcement. You rarely see any of the round pen trainers using positive reinforcement.

IMHO round penning is not a very effective way of training a horse and it can be like a razor in a monkey's paw to someone who doesn't know how to use it well.

I find it completely unnecessary.

Horses learn in many ways which is why there are methods other than round penning that are very effective.

It sounds so simple when you put it that way. I am inclined to agree with you though.