Giving your horse treats

[Pebblestone]

I know some people who say it's only fair to give your horse treats after training.  I don't agree. I learnt a lesson when training my dog. When I was training him, I used treats and after that, whenever I told him to do anything, he looked for the treat. And I expect horse would do the same? Horses should learn to obey you to earn your pleasure, not for treats. What do you think? I don't know, but some people find training their horses with treats very easy.

[Lila]

I just LOVE giving my horses treats = for any reason whatsover.  I have, however learnt the hard way that it is not the right thing to do.  They get aggresive and nasty if you do not have the treats readlily available when you approach them.  For this (nasty) reason, I do not give my horses treats anymore.  They still get their carrots and apples, although they don't realise it, I just put it in with their feed at night.  Don't get your horses into bad habits, they will hurt you to get at their treats.  They should come to you for your attention, not for the treats you have to offer.

[Pebblestone]

I do give my horses treats at other times, only not when training. I also stick to healthy ones (fruit and veggies)

[Willem vd Mescht]

I agree with Lila, treats can become a huge problem if you over do it. A quote that will always stay with me, can't remember where I read it, was something like: "You must not become a mobile food dispensary."

I also agree with Pebblestone, I don't want my horse to come to me just to get treats, I want her to come to me for friendship and more importantly, leadership.

That said, treats can be a useful training tool too. Specificity, clicker training is very useful. I don't have a clicker, but I do do "clicker" training, starting of with a whistle in place of a clicker and then later once the horse understand the concept of - do something - get a treat, I'll replace the whistle with my voice. If a horse get excited and pushy having the treats around I'll stop the treats for a few weeks.

Treats are very useful for trick training. I've taught Frosty a few tricks, such as saying yes and no, to smile, to kiss, etc. and when she see I got something to eat with me, she'll get excited, but instead of harassing me to get something, she will start doing her tricks. To eliminate the harassing bit, I also rewarded her with a treat, when she turn her head away from me. So now if I stand next to her with a treat she will bend her neck away from me, at the same time bending her head so she can see when the treat will come, forming an S shape. Can be very amusing to see how she perform all by herself trying to figure out what will result in a treat.

I once leased a horse, Sokies that I taught like 20+ tricks. And it is absolutely amazing once they get to the point where they start thinking about what they must do. I remember once I was sitting in the field with a friend, with Sokkies near by. He yawned and stuck out his tongue. My friend said she wonder if one can teach him to do that, I said we could try. The next time he yawned, I jumped up, gave him a treat. Naturally he followed me back to look for more. After sniffing us for a while and getting nothing, he gave up and went back to sleep right there by us. Again he yawned and again I quickly gave him a treat. Then he realized he had done something to deserve a treat. Instead of sniffing us, his brain went into overdrive. He knew it was something about his face and he pulled all sorts of faces, moving is lips around, rolling his eyes, etc. until he opened his mouth and the tongue came out. I gave him his treat and he got the trick. From there I just had to add a queue to the trick, so I could get him to stick his tongue out by standing next to him and pointing my finger to the side of his mouth.

Another trick I taught him was to "touch it." I would point to any object and say touch it and he would do so. Actually that is a branch of clicker training, called on target training, search the web for "on target training" and you will probably find more info on that. Anyway, Sokkies was a very nervous and fearful horse. One day I came back from a ride and someone left a heap of several bags filled with manure in the middle of the field. When Sokkies saw it, he was just thinking lets get out of here. However I slowly lead him to the bags, inch by inch. When he was about 4m away, he was like I'm not getting any closer than this to that monster and still ready to run any moment. I then gave the command: "touch it." The look in his eyes changed and with a determinant walk he walked up to the bags and touched it. Must have been the crinkling sound of the bag or something that scared him at that moment. I'm sure you've seen how horses spread their front legs, just before they turn and run. Well, he spread his legs, but instead of turning, he calmly bend his neck to me and asked where's my treat? After that no more worries about the bags.

So treats can be very useful, but can also be dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. I've seen many horse owners getting into trouble with treats.

[Pebblestone]

Yes, some people might find it useful to train their horse using treats provided the horse doesn't  start acting rough. But the thing is, when you train your horse using treats, they always expect the treats when they do the tricks you tell them to do.
The tricks you trained Frosty to do sounds so cute! I wish I could see him do it. It must have taken a while, I'm sure?

[Willem vd Mescht]

But the thing is, when you train your horse using treats, they always expect the treats when they do the tricks you tell them to do.

Not really, when I don't have treats with me, Frosty will still do her tricks when I ask. Maybe not as keenly as when I got treats with me. Actually sometimes it work even better since she will then do what I queue her for and not just anything. Doing the tricks too often without treats will of cause result in the horse losing interest. When I do a trick without a treat, I do still reward with a good scratch and that Frosty also thoroughly enjoy, but it doesn't have the same effect as giving a treat.

One big negative in my opinion is with using treats in general, that if a horse don't want to do something, no amount of treats will make him do it.

Yes it takes time, but one don't really notice the time it takes. I usually take 5 minutes after a ride to do the trick and treating.  Not after every ride and if I find she is expecting or anticipating the treat she don't get any.