Geldings that ‘Drop’ During Training

Could a relaxed mental state caused by positive reinforcement training also be associated with penile relaxation?
Share
Favorite
Close

No account yet? Register

ADVERTISEMENT

Q: I have been reading and appreciating the articles promoting positive reinforcement training. Many of us who use positive reinforcement have frequent discussions about geldings who “drop” their penis when they are clicker-trained. We’ve also seen it during groundwork and other training with food, even if a clicker is not used. I would love to hear a researcher’s thoughts on this (and/or any studies anyone is aware of!). Sometimes there is accompanying excitement, and sometimes it seems more like a drugged relaxation response.

—Jane Jackson, Sheffield, Vermont


A: This has been a lingering question for years, particularly in regard to clicker-training. Despite the amount of time spent thinking about it and watching video examples of dozens of different horses and trainers, I’m pretty much still scratching my head.

First, I should explain that I have not seen this behavior firsthand, only in video examples. That is in spite of literally hundreds of horse and pony stallions and geldings that I and our students have worked with using positive reinforcement training and almost always using small amounts of feed as the primary positive reinforcer. There hasn’t been a lot of clicker use, per se, but plenty of analogous training using a single syllable voice equivalent as the secondary reinforcer. We have mostly just been starting these horses or rehabbing them for ground basics, trailer loading, leading over challenging obstacles or into veterinary examination stocks, or teaching fun little tricks to demonstrate various learning concepts. We have also used similar all positive reinforcement-based procedures in a number of experiments, and I have yet to see one of these stallions or geldings drop his penis or have an erection in such a training situation. Over the years I certainly have seen dozens of videotaped examples, and I can’t seem to come up with an explanation for why it happens for some horses or for some styles of positive reinforcement training

Create a free account with TheHorse.com to view this content.

TheHorse.com is home to thousands of free articles about horse health care. In order to access some of our exclusive free content, you must be signed into TheHorse.com.

Start your free account today!

Already have an account?
and continue reading.

Share

Written by:

Sue M. McDonnell, PhD, is a certified applied animal behaviorist and the founding head of the equine behavior program at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. She is also the author of numerous books and articles about horse behavior and management.

Related Articles

Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with

FREE weekly newsletters from TheHorse.com

Sponsored Content

Weekly Poll

sponsored by:

How much time do you usually spend grooming your horse?
439 votes · 439 answers

Readers’ Most Popular

Sign In

Don’t have an account? Register for a FREE account here.

Need to update your account?

You need to be logged in to fill out this form

Create a free account with TheHorse.com!