200 words on operant conditioning

Despite learning many interesting topics, the one concept I will probably remember the most strongly is the concept of operant conditioning and its applications on animal training, and in my case horse training. Operant conditioning is very prevalent in all aspects of horse training, whether it be teaching a horse not stop and eat grass while you are leading it, or training it to do a certain drill correctly. One example I have is with a young horse I had that would always stop and try to eat grass while I was leading it to the barn. This is a very undesirable trait for horses to have, so I took steps to end it as quickly as possible. First, I got a special rope halter that put a bit more pressure on the nose than a regular nylon halter (this did not harm the horse in anyway). I used this halter whenever I would lead her from the pasture. Whenever she ducked her head down to eat some grass, I would give her a quick unpleasant jerk on the rope. This action did not hurt her, but successfully stopped her eating. I proceeded to give her this swift jerk every time she attempted to eat. After about a week of reinforcing her not to pull on the rope to eat, she learned that to avoid my swift pulls on the rope, she simply had to quit eating grass while I walked her. This simple solution has its roots in operant condition, where the animal learns to walk respectfully with their owner to avoid the unpleasant tug of the rope. This is just one example of the many ways that operant conditioning is used in training horses.