Question About Lead Training

[Nanno]

If it's still available I recommend "The Packgoat" in which the author describes five distinct positions (sentinels, leader, a "collector", etc.) within a herd structure. Your goat has to fill all five positions.

Isn't it true, though, that if you are seen as the "leader," that your goat no longer has to fill all the positions? If they trust you as the leader then they don't have to feel frightened in new situations because they know you would not put them in a position to get hurt. If they do become afraid, their first response should be to run to you for protection.  

And yes, you can use a whip to move her forward and you can use the whip or a swirling rope to restrain that forward movement. You will get results because any animal will move away from pain. And this will be the only thing the animal will have learned - to move away from a painful stimulus and to no longer show the behaviour that has caused the pain.

I take exception to the idea that a whip's purpose is to inflict pain. A whip's purpose is to communicate a command. I agree 100% that you can't teach an animal that is frightened or in pain. He will be more preoccupied with his discomfort than with learning, and if he gets too frightened he may even "shut down" (something my goat Sputnik would do last summer if I so much as made too sudden a movement). I want to make it clear that I never advocate beating an animal with a whip or using a whip on an animal that is frightened or doesn't understand. Most of the time when a whip is first introduced you only have to strike the ground, not the animal, in order to get a response. This is of course a fear response, but I believe there is a place for learning from fear. When a parent tells a baby not to touch a hot stove, usually the child at some point disobeys and touches it anyway out of curiosity. The "punishment" is immediate and the lesson learned is very powerful and lasts for the rest of that person's life. However, this does not mean that the person will be forever afraid of stoves and fire! They simply learned an improper way to handle a stove, and they also learned a lesson about listening to parents. 

Animals in herds also learn from fear. Younger members of a goat herd soon learn (through fear of being butted, hooked, or bitten) that they must not get in the way of the older members, take their food, climb on them while napping, or other disrespectful behavior. The young goats do not "shut down" or get in a state of "learned helplessness" because they've been threatened with negative stimuli. They simply learn a different behavior. I think when we train animals it is perfectly natural for them to learn both from positive and negative stimuli, and as humans we need to train ourselves how to properly apply and balance these tools in a way that is respectful of our animals and how they learn.  

For example, when handling a whip, it is important that the animal learns that they will never be struck unfairly with it, nor that they will ever be struck cruelly with it (i.e. to hit so hard it inflicts more than a brief sting). If an animal flees because they see you with a whip in hand, then you are not using the whip correctly. When you do things like drive or ride a horse sidesaddle the whip becomes an indispensable tool for communication both for forward and sideways movement, but this doesn't mean the horse has to fear it any more than he should fear leg or seat pressure from its rider. When driving, if you rely solely on the reins to turn, you actually put the animal in an uncomfortable position because you are bending his neck and body when he needs to keep them straight and cross his legs to turn comfortably with the shafts or pole interfering with his natural arc. The whip becomes a tool to help the reins by cueing the animal to move his body over so that he doesn't over-bend. Eventually he will do this without help from the whip, but in the beginning the whip is there to teach him how to move properly so that he doesn't feel trapped by the vehicle. I find when training novice drivers that their biggest mistake is in rein/whip handling. They have a misguided view that the whip is there to inflict pain, so they rely solely on the reins to turn the animals. When the animals turn their heads but keep going straight, the novice driver pulls even harder on the reins, getting the animals into an over-bent position from which it is now almost impossible for them to actually turn since their weight is now falling over in the wrong direction. When I direct the driver to touch the animal on the outside hip to cue him to move his body over, they almost always say, "But I don't want to hit your animal with the whip!" They don't understand that the whip is there as an aid to communication--not a torture device with which to flog disobedient animals into submission.     

Because the whip is there to help the animal become more comfortable and happy in his job, it is vital that he learn beforehand what the whip is for--to cue a "move away" response. There is nothing inherently wrong with a "move away" cue, and these are always taught naturally in the animal kingdom by some kind of negative (fear) stimulus. A mare that charges and bites a younger member of the herd to make him run away has only to put her ears back and bare her teeth the next time to get the same response (still a fear stimulus but much lower intensity). The younger herd member doesn't shut down and melt into a state of "learned helplessness" because the mare threatened him. He simply learns to stay away from Boss Mama's dinner! So while I appreciate that we want to use a lot of reward and positive reinforcement in training, I think it's important to realize that punishment and negative reinforcement hold important and perfectly natural places as well. In the case here where I recommend the use of a whip to move a reluctant goat forward, the owner should soon be able to lower the intensity and frequency of of that negative stimulus to achieve the same response. The goat will not get into a state of learned helplessness because it is being offered a choice--move forward or stand in an uncomfortable place where the whip won't stop tapping. If the goat chooses to move forward, the whip tapping stops and she's learned a behavior. Follow up with a reward and the behavior is learned even better! I see positive and negative as the yin yang of training.

That was a lot longer than intended. My apologies.