A good friend was helping me brush Guapo yesterday.  We got out the measuring stick to see how tall he was and the newness of the instrument made him stiffen and he looked back warily. My friend pulled out a treat and gave it to him just as I was starting to touch him on the side with the stick—an action I knew was going to make him fuss given his discomfort with the presence of the stick at all.  When I realized she had given him a treat I tried very kindly to say, please, no treats. 

She asked a series of brilliant question: Why not? Doesn't it help distract him from that which he is afraid of?  And why no treats now when it is ok to give a horse grain trying to get him into a trailer?

I wasn’t able to articulate my answer right away (it was late at night after all!) other than to say, "they are just different."  I didn't like my answer so I mulled over it last night and reached the following conclusions and hopefully coherent explanation.  

To give a treat to a horse is to praise an action.  The closest action in time to the treat is the one with which the horse is going to associate the treat, or praise.  Thus, it becomes the action the horse will often repeat to try and reproduce the treat experience.  Hence, why some swear by clicker training, because it "rewards" the action as closely as possible in time (i.e., no delay in getting the treat out of your hand or out of your pocket for that matter).  By rewarding the action closer in time, the more likely it is that the horse understands exactly which action it should repeat to reproduce the praise (clicker) in hopes of getting a treat.

To provide grain in a trailer training session is different from "distracting" a horse from that which he is afraid.  Instead, it provides incentive for forward motion into the trailer (if they are afraid) and then praise once that forward action has been taken.  Thus, it seeks to encourage the horse to repeat the forward motion to get more grain.  Eventually grain is given at less and less frequent intervals until the mere promise of grain or a treat at the end of entering the trailer is sufficient motivation to get in.

When treats are used to "distract" a horse there are two detrimental things going on with regard to training.  First, as mentioned above, the horse is associating its closest-in-time behavior with the treat.  Thus, if a horse won't stand for a farrier and you give them a treat to distract them, you are praising the inability to stand still and effectively "training" in the exact behavior you are trying to avoid or discourage!

Second, when you "distract" a horse from the task at hand you are not doing any "training" at all.  For example, Guapo's fear of the measuring stick was a training moment (even though the training is not supposed to start until the 30th!).  It was a moment to build trust, to show him that I was going to do things he is not familiar with or comfortable with, but in the end it’s a fun game, he will feel no pain, and he gets a load of praise for going through the experience at all. 

When my friend gave him the treat at the very moment he was most scared (and starting to wiggle) he is most likely to think: "oh, when I am scared and wiggle, I get praised, that must be what they want!"  More importantly, I lost the opportunity to communicate with him about his limits and for him to learn to trust that I am going to push them and things will be OK.  Instead, he was thinking about food, and eating it, and the "training moment" was lost. 

Clearly, losing one moment is no big deal—there are millions of those "moments" every time anyone handles Guapo.  But, hopefully my friend finds this a better explanation to her questions then "just because." 

By the way, by our calculations he is 14.2!