Understanding How Horses Learn, the Language of Horse Training

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Training a horse is more than just teaching commands; it is about building a partnership rooted in mutual understanding and trust

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📧barbara.j.hardman@brighthorse.ie

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

I've got my dog's arse in my face right now. Um, why is it always that dogs need to have their arse scratched? Um, as far as she's concerned, I am sitting in her spot to record this, so I might as well facilitate her by scratching her mum. Um, rumpy schnuggles is what we call it in this household. Oh, we've gotten right in here, and now we have both cats as well. So, right, it's gonna be general chaos. Um, while we talk about understanding how horses learn um and ultimately the language of horse training. So I really want to kind of start with this one because I just think it is really important. Um and oh oh, I need to get right in there. You can't see this, making great audio. It's great for podcasting to uh to you know describe me scratching my bum. My scratching my bum scrap, it's great audio to describe scratching my dog's bum. Um rumpy schnuggles, and by bum I mean like the hindquarters, right? Just before we oh, I stopped. I stopped and now I'm getting looked at. Right. Anyway, on with the show. Um, so ultimately I'm gonna start right from the get-go and be like like horses are super intelligent, they are emotional animals, um, they feel pain, they feel emotion, they feel love, they feel separation, they are a social species that feel the cohesion between other horses more so than us. And it's something that I think um we hate to hear as horse owners that our horses would prefer to hang out with other horses over us, but it's true, like it is unfortunately true. Unlike my dog, who wants to hang out with me more than she wants to hang out with anyone else, um, evidenced by the fact that I'm getting her arse in my face. Um, horses, on the other hand, genuinely would prefer the company of other horses, um, because they're social species, so they have a really like in order to be a social species, you have to have an emotional intelligence. Um, because of the way we bred them, they're also highly compliant, and that is literally from breeding and it's honed through domestication, it is just kind of part of history. But where we run amok is when we start to think of them as like us, because ultimately we've domesticated them for a number of years, they are social species, so are we, they've lived with us for a very long time, and we've domesticated them to ride into war, you know, pull transport, the agricultural revolution, and everything in between has been with the horse, and that can significantly alter how we see them to the detriment to both our training and also our understanding of how they learn. So I genuinely believe that understanding the fundamentals of how horses learn will actually support our groundwork for more effective and ethical techniques when it comes to training. And I'll be quite honest, this isn't new, it's really not like it was developed in like the 1920s, and there was a big sort of boom in the understanding of psychology and animal learning, and we we understand it fundamentally when it comes to so many species. However, before you switch off and decide, oh okay, cool, it's not new, I already know it, that's great, you know. And the chances are you are already applying a lot of it already. Please don't switch off because this is really, really important. The language we use and the conclusions that we make then for our horse and their behavior. While we make we might make correct assertions, we also make a lot of incorrect ones. We fail to understand the science behind learning theory and equine behavior and horse behaviour, and then apply that to training and learning. And when we fail to do that, we run the risk of not achieving our goals. And I don't dive into in this podcast, there is another blog on cognition and understanding what the horse is, but also it's important to say that you know, horses are single trial learners because they're prey animals, so the first experience they have of something sticks around a very long time. Fantastic for us. Whereas we can adapt and train and adapt our learning as we grow. So it's really important to understand the behavior of the horse and how they learn so that we don't end up inadvertently attributing human ideals to the horse which might not exist. So this blog and the blogcast that you're listening to, um, and if you would like to listen to the blog, you can click in the description. Listen to the blog. If you would like to read the blog, you're listening to this, that's the one, um, which will hopefully help you navigate through just the very basics, you know, very high level of horse training, and just try and make it a bit more accessible, like, and that's you know, and something that you can action today. I really want to leave you with kind of a greater understanding of the principles involved in learning, why we call it learning theory, what's it about, why is it important, how the horse learns, so it can help you bring the tools that you need to your behavioural challenges, or just training goals. So I want to start straight away with just explaining what we mean when we say theory when it comes to learning theory, because it can kind of get caught up in that oh, but that's just a theory, and not understanding where the actual terminology comes from. So the reason we call it learning theory is coming from old principles in this in science, effectively, and it's all about maths. Now, please, please stay with me. I promise this is super easy. Maths, you can do it. So, math is one of the only sciences that technically has a quote-unquote proof, and the term proof comes from mathematics and its sister child physics, and this is where every equation effectively, you know, proves itself. So it sounds a lot more complicated than it is. I promise I'm gonna explain it. So you can do this, I promise you can do this. Two plus two equals four. Yep, see, look, you got it, right? So to prove that we need to unbake the cake. And we say that two divided by two equals two. We can also say that four minus two equals two. And finally, we can go two multiplied by two equals four. So you can see that every iteration of two plus two, four. Two minus or four minus two equals two. So you you you can basically go through it and say that every equation proves itself, and this is what we mean when we say proof. Now, unfortunately, when it comes to the way we speak, we go prove it, you know, like the sky is blue, prove it, you know. That's it, it's that's where it comes from, you know. And when we say, ah, that's just a theory, like it's because we don't, it's coming from that background, and that's where it kind of muddies the water. Now, in biology, we can't unbake a cake. So once we teach an animal something, and you know, behavior is a biological function, we can't unlearn it, like, so therefore, we can't create the same proof. Um, I'm gonna stick with my cake example here because I find that's the way people they're like, Yes, I have messed up a cake, I have baked a cake, I understand. So it tends to be a good one. So biology is very much cake, uh, or cake is biology. Um, and I can have all the correct ingredients, right? So I can have flour, butter, oil, eggs, chocolate, baking powder, whatever I need. What kind of cake are you making, Barbara? Listen, I cannot bake, it's the husband that's good at that. So even if I have all the instructions, I know the time I need to cook, I need the temperature I need to cook at, and I have an oven. The issue that we run into is my oven, if you're baking the same cake, is different than yours, even so slightly, and and and like because it comes a different make, or maybe you preheat and I don't, maybe we have a different oven dish, like all of those things are called noise or variation, and noise and variation exist within biology biological functions. If you read the instructions slightly differently to me, or maybe I don't mix the ingredients quite right, we both might end up with a quote unquote cake, but they might taste completely differently, they might look completely differently, but they're still technically a cake, right? So while mine might be less serviceable, let's just it's gonna be less serviceable than yours, it's still a cake. But we can't unbake that cake, you cannot get that egg back, not like you can with two plus two equals four, and then go four divided by or four minus two and get two again. You cannot do that with a cake, and that's biology. You cannot unbake it. The only way we can know if it is really a cake that we have made is to replicate it, and this is what biology does. So we take the same oven, make sure everyone has the same oven, we make sure everyone has the same ingredients, we make sure everyone has the same like instructions, and then we do it over and over and over and over again until the volume of results tell us that yes, without any doubt in our mind, the volume of cakes we have made is undeniably a cake, and thus, as this was said, and it shall ever be, the cake theory was born. Okay, I'm joking aside. That is why it's called a theory, because we can't technically prove it, but we st it still doesn't mean we don't have a lot of data, we still know, yeah, that's a cake. I mean it doesn't taste great, Barbara, and please don't make me anymore, but it's still a cake, and I get that, I understand it is a cake, but from a scientific perspective, we have to call it a theory. We cannot prove it from a mathematical sense, but I would say nothing in biology unless it is mathematical and it's measurable can really be proven, like the same way that we can in math and physics, and this is we get stuck here with but it's just a theory, so therefore, it mustn't have a lot of robust science behind it. And I'm here to tell you that yes, we have research going on about a hundred years, so much research, repetition, it's all there, as much and all as we call it theory, it doesn't make it fiction, it is 100% fact, we know that. So, that all being said, learning theory itself is a framework that explains how organisms, meaning all animals, me, you, horses, dogs, cats, whatever, you know, acquire, so that means they get it, process, thinking about it, and apply the knowledge that they've acquired to a situation. And that is what forms the fundamentals of equitation science, animal behaviour, applied animal behavior, including horses. We say animals, but they're still horses, you know, they're all the same, and psychology. And that's the discipline that integrates all the scientific research within horse training, which helps us not only enhance their welfare but also achieves our goals, training and performance. So, why does learning theory matter? Now that you know that's important. Learning theory isn't just an academic exercise, though I did a good job of trying to demonstrate that a minute ago. And if you've followed my convoluted cake example, then this part will feel super simple to you. You will get it like that. So, learning theory is real. Look, every like and it's every day, and it happens all the time, even if we're not training, even if we're just caring and feeding for our horses. Horses don't learn or think the same way that humans do, even though there's the same concepts of learning theory, and at least the best way to explain it, it's not in the same way that we think that it takes place, and we can often misinterpret that behaviour through a human lens, and that can risk confusion and frustration and harm welfare. For example, you know, if a horse is if you're you know taking your horse in from the field and they're leaving other horses behind, social species, prey animal, it's really important for them to stay with those species, and they're really they're young and they're scared of leaving those other horses. We can attribute that to their being naughty, which might be a human attribute of a child having a tantrum. In reality, what's happening is the horse is scared, so and they learn that if they go with you and they get caught and they leave the field, then they leave people or people, they leave other horses that are their friends behind, and that can be quite scary. So that's what we mean by it maybe harming their welfare and also creating confusion, frustration, and limiting our training. Because what could happen in that situation is the horse goes, Well, that human's gonna come and take me, take me away from the friends that make me feel safe because I'm quite an anxious little thing. Um, so I don't want to go anywhere near that human. So when we apply learning theory, it gives us the ability to communicate with our horses in a way that they clearly understand. It helps us avoid outdated and harsh methods that fundamentally rely on fear and ultimately are I know I'm saying ultimately a lot, but our misunderstanding of what the horse is actually saying. And what I would say is like it's not that it was wrong for the time, we were using horses at a time we didn't know anymore, like you know, better, right? So we were riding into war, okay, so we needed our horses to travel hundreds of kilometers and just comply because it was life or death, right? Like we were using horses to you know help the agricultural revolution. We didn't we didn't know any better, but now we are in a world where horses are our companions, they're our friends, and they help us, you know, explore the world from horseback. We get to hack, we get to do competitions, we get to other bits and pieces. So we want to make sure that we have, you know, grown and adapted and understood what the science is telling us. We're not riding into war anymore. Learning theory can also help us build trust and cooperation through predictability. So if we're predictable and consistent with our horses, that can help build trust because they know what to be expect what is expected of them and what they can expect from their human. And it also gives us an ability to be have fair training, you know, give them breaks, be able to support them and go, okay, well, we need to do this rehabilitation exercise because I need to get you stronger and keep you healthy and fit because I love you. But we want to do it in a fair and principled way, and it can also improve safety. Now, I talk about this in another blog and a blogcast of mine where I talk about low stress handling, and particularly in veterinary procedures, and how we can support the horse through medical procedures with low stress handling and keep everybody safe, handlers and vets included. Definitely look for that one, and also as well, it can improve performance because ultimately, if our horses are calmer and have more harmony within like with us in a performance setting, then we have less conflict. So it's a win-win for everybody. Ultimately, when we train with the principles of learning theory, we're not just teaching the skills of the things that we want to achieve, we're creating what I like to call a shared language because horses don't speak English and we don't speak horse, right? Fundamentally. So we need to create a new language that we both understand, and learning theory can help us do that. And when we do that, we have the foundations to make training more effective, humane, and ultimately enjoyable for everyone. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have a fight with my horse. So now I'm gonna throw some science jargon at you, um, but I will explain it, I promise. So we want to go through a couple of sort of heavy, these are really high level, but it's just so you can get an idea of the the type of principles that we use in behavior and training and how horses learn. So, generally speaking, they process information in a really straightforward way, you know, and really predictable, which actually is awesome for us because allowing trainers to understand, you know, it allows it allows us as trainers and owners to establish clear communication, right, if if we use it correctly. So I'm gonna first talk about you know something that we don't talk a lot about when it comes to training our horses, and that's non-associative learning. So associative create associations, non-associative, non-associations, if that makes sense. So non-associative learning involves changes in behavior based on repeated exposure to a stimulus. So there are two types really here, and you probably are inadvertently using one of them without even realizing, um, and that is habituation. Um, so habituation, which I often call getting used to shit, is basically that. So if I go, you know, you'll go, oh, and my dog's come back into the room because that noise, and that's it, right? So that's a big startling noise. But if you kept doing it, you would be like, oh, it's barber in the corner making weird noises. With habituation, the horse learns basically to ignore a stimulus that has no consequences. Now, a stimulus could be sight, sound, smell, whatever it happens to be, and it it doesn't actually have a consequence to it. The wind is perfect, is a perfect example, you know. Like when it's very windy and your horse is in the field, you know, the first time they're exposed to it, they're like, Whoa, what's that? and they react and then they go, Oh, nothing happened. And then as they get older, you get less reactions, you know. The caveat to that is underlying medical issues, that's another blog, I'll get to it. Health hath happy, healthy, free-living horse, you know, that is out there the first time when they're full and they're exposed to a loud sound, or they're exposed to traffic or a tractor, they will react to it, and over time they will go, Oh, that noise or that sound had no consequences, so I don't really care. So getting used to shit. They're like, eh, whatever. The other one is the opposite of that, and that's uh sensitization. Okay, so this is where the horse's response intensifies with respeat exposure to stimulus, so the trigger, whatever it happens to be. So, especially if they think it's a perceived threat, and this is really really important because this is actually used a lot in some of the very popular horse training that is on the internet. Uh god, it's all over the place. Um, I won't name names because I'm that professional, but a lot of the techniques that are used are sensitization, so you know, it is a case of going like, okay, well, we want the horse to become more reactive to a movement or a sound, and it's making them get out of dodge as fast as they fucking can and basically moving the feet. So, unfortunately, with sensitization, like this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, right? So, if you are a zebra on the savannah and you hear rustling in the bushes, and it might be a lion, you're gonna be hyper-sensitized to that rustling because it might be you and the end of a lion, like you know, you mean the you know, the end of a clause of lion. So you are gonna run, you are absolutely gonna run. So that's hyper-sensitization, like that is like that. We're hyper-vigilant and we're sensitizing to that noise. Now, I would argue that really when it comes to our horses, they're already a flight animal that we have bred and trained to be a flight animal. I think there's very little that we want to sensitise them to. We want to nearly desensitize them to to living in a human world. And sadly, a lot of the training practices from very popular trainers all focus on sensitizing the horse to a stimulus, you know. Uh I won't give examples because you'll know who I'm talking about. Right, we're moving on before I uh I get in trouble. So, associative learning, so we talked about non-associative learning. This one is associative, right? So this is where something is connected, associated with something else, right? And we we form the learning that takes place forms a connection between those events. If we were to talk about humans in this situation, what would I what would you think if you saw big grey dark clouds on the horizon? You would think that there was rain or bad weather coming, like that it's on its way. We have connected dark clouds on the horizon with rain. We have connect we have created that association. But when we were kids, we saw dark clouds, we didn't know what was happening. It was because something happened that made us think, I see those clouds, the rain's coming in. So that is associative learning. We've made those connections. Now there are two major types of this. Uh, one is classical conditioning, so this is where the horse learns to associate a previous. Neutral stimulus with something that's meaningful. So when the horse first sees a whip, it doesn't mean anything until we do something with it. When the horse first sees a bucket, it doesn't mean anything until we do something with it. So the horse may associate the sound of the feed bucket with the arrival of food. Again, the bucket means nothing, then we put food in and then we give them the food, and then whenever they see the food bucket, they go, Oh, there's my food. The same can happen as well if we use the whip inappropriately and it is used as positive punishment and it is an aversive, then the horse will go, Whoa, I see that whip. That means something bad. Now I say it in inappropriately because I often use, I will say, I will use a whip. I actually have a clicker strapped to one end of the whip and I use it as a target stick and I use it to point in different directions and I use it to point. And my horse is like, oh yay, there it is, something nice is coming. Because it hasn't been connected to something negative. It's been connected to something positive. But if we connect it to something negative, that's when that happens. So operate conditioning is the second part of the associative learning, and this, to be honest with you, is the main way that we train horses, and which is why I'm finishing on this to you know, for this section, to give you a little bit of an understanding. So this involves learning through the consequences of a behavior that's already been performed. So the horse either has to perform a behavior or we wait until they perform the behavior and then we do something about it. So they're adapting their actions to either maximize the rewards or minimize discomfort. And they're the two kind of main ways. And ultimately, it's it's kind of the major way that we use within training and education science and animal learning and applied animal behavior to train animals. And this is the bit that I said, you're probably doing this already, and learning this bit means that you can do it better. So offer conditioning is I mean, it's just used everywhere in horse training, and it can be a little bit tricky to fully grasp the terminology because it originates from the psychological concepts that were developed at the time when the theory was first formalised. Now, what makes matters even more confusing is the shorthand in today's parlance is positive reinforcement, which occasionally gets abbreviated to plus R if you're European or R plus if you're American. Now, again, that makes it even more confusing because the correct quote-unquote abbreviation is V E plus R, because that was the lab notes that were created at the time, and it has been you know changed over the years, and these terms very much like vary depending on whether you're a trainer from the EU or the US, and everybody has different backgrounds of like ethology or psychology or animal behavior or clinical animal behavior, and that makes it even more complicated. So the inconsistency and how we describe it, it just makes it more confusing for everybody involved and annoys me, frankly. Um, so I think that's why we often refer to it as pressure and release, or say clicker training. Now, both of those are two separate things, so that makes it even more confusing on top of everything else. But that's why we tend to talk about those things because we understand it better. But I really do think it's important for you to understand the concepts that are at play. So the key points to remember to make this as straightforward as possible. We're going back to maths, you're gonna hate me. Reinforcement strengthens a behavior. So think of it as reinforcing a bridge. We're gonna make it sturdier, we're gonna make it stronger, while punishment is designed to reduce that behavior. We want to make it less likely. So that's similar to sending someone to prison for committing a crime. We we don't want them to do that again. I'm not gonna talk about the judicial system and the crime because we know that doesn't work. Anyway, moving on. The plus and the minus symbols within operate conditioning are basically adding and removing. Okay, so plus, I'm gonna add something, minus, I'm gonna take it away. So again, we're gonna go for the prison example. I don't know why I'm doing this. So the prison involves adding confinement. Okay, so we're adding it, that's positive punishment. So that person committed a crime, they performed that behavior, and then we said, we're gonna put you in jail, we're gonna add jail to you. But it also includes negative reinforcement and negative punishment because we took away part of what they needed to be functioning human beings in society. Anyway, I'm gonna move on because I really don't need that as an example. On the other side, negative punishment, as I explained it there, you know, we're removing the undesirable behavior. So, taking a different example, if your child knocks over their dinner, knocks it onto the ground, and they have a tantrum, the dinner is taken away. And that is designed to discourage the behavior of knocking dinner to the ground. What's really important is that all of this is mathematical. I know I talked a lot about punishment there, but it's just to help you kind of understand those two big ones because I I think you're going to understand the reinforcement side of things better. Punishment tends to be a bit harder for people to get. It's all about adding and removing something based on the behavior that has been performed to either make it more likely to happen again or less likely to happen again. Now, there's a huge debate about which method is quote unquote better. And I'm here to tell you that it's not about good, bad, or ugly when it comes to these theories and how animals learn. They just simply are, okay? They just exist. It's like oxygen in the air. It's like having a debate with the quant, you know, the quality of the air that you have, you know, and going, oh, well, it's only 50 something percent oxygen and there's 2% nitrogen in there. Like, no, no, it just is. It just is, it just exists. And just like oxygen is in the air we breathe, the quadrants and learn of learning and learning theory just are, they're fundamentally interconnected. So, for example, you cannot have positive reinforcement without negative punishment. So, and you cannot have negative reinforcement without positive reinforcement. It is the it it's the reason it's a quadrant and they all work together is because they're fundamentally interlinked. So, if for example, my horse is hungry, they have negative reinforcement being applied to them, they have an adversive pressure being applied to their stomach. Okay, they are motivated to get food, they perform a behavior, I give them food, reward that behavior, and it relieves the pressure in their stomach. Two things are happening at once, and it's really important to understand that. If my horse thinks they've performed the right behavior and I don't provide them with a food reward, that's technically negative punishment. It's really, really important to understand these things are interconnected, they're not inherently good or bad, they're just how horses learn. Whether we intend to use them in that desired way or not, they're part of the fundamental learning. Now, in the blog, I have detailed some really nice just infographs. I say really nice, I did them myself, so obviously biased, where you can actually see the breakdown of positive and negative reinforcement. I suppose the take-home message really here is when we talk about learning theory and how they learn, we need to remove the emotional side of things and say that oh, punishment is bad, and oh positive reinforcement is the best way to go, various other bits and pieces. We need to just understand their principles as they are and take the human emotion out of it and just understand them as fundamental principles because if we do that, that means that we can apply the correct training plan to our horse. So if I've got a horse that's really scared of something and I'm counterconditioning, I want to use positive reinforcement there. I don't want to use punishment because that might make it worse. But if I understand the principles of what's happening, I can apply the correct training. So learning theory isn't necessarily understanding how to train your horse in the fundamentals. Oh, you have to use this one thing. It's about understanding the principles so that you can create an applicable training plan for your horse. So, lastly, I just want to talk about you know the role of timing and consistency. So, training in order for it to work well and stay kind and consistent to the horse so they can learn. Timing and consistency are so critical. Horses work best when they rely on cues that are predictable and when reinforcements happen straight away. If our timing is off or our cues aren't consistent, it'll lead to confusion. There's no two ways about it, as well as frustration, which can have redirected consequences in the behavior, and also create unwanted behaviors because there's a vacuum and a void that the horse feels they need to fill. So we need to understand what we're doing in order to apply it correctly, and this is why I think it's really important to understand the principles of learning theory and apply them correctly for the training that you want to achieve and ethically and kindly, but it starts from that understanding. Horses have to figure out how to apply that learning in different situations, and this is what we call generalization, and that means telling the difference between similar cues, which is discrimination. So, for example, that could be you know learning to stand still in the yard, and also also learning to stand still in a really busy competition setting. So, how do we help them, you know, learn those signals? So it could be the difference between stop and slow down, and this is where shaping and other behavior, you know, behavioral modification training comes into it, and it gets you know goes beyond the scope of this blogcast and podcast, and it becomes more complicated when it comes to different behaviors and breaking them down smaller steps, but it's how you can use that to shape those behaviors so that your horse understands what's happening and you can get to that final behavior. And again, this comes to you already know this, it comes from gradually building up little behaviors till you get your desired outcome. The last thing we want to do is make sure that we have it on stimulus control so when we are training it, we want to make sure that it's really consistent, or horse understands absolutely what is we are asking them, and achieving this requires clear signals, being consistent, and ultimately using the right reinforcer with the right timing and the right applicable training plan. And this is where I think it's really important to embrace equitation science because with equitation science, it will always change, okay, because it's it's science, so we're always going to adapt and develop the way that we learn and the way that we learn with our horses based on the current literature and what we know is best for our horses. It bridges the gap between learning theory and also horse ethology, so what the horse needs to be a horse, the study of natural behaviors, because we know that that is fundamentally important, understanding what the horse's own behavior tells us and how we can support that so that they live their best lives, and it also gives us the best training methods to support their learning. I think that ultimately equitation science, animal behavior and learning theory really actually does everything that we as horse owners and riders actually really want. We want clear communication and we want a relationship with our horses. We want to establish a clear language where we both understand what the ask is and what the results that we want is, and it helps us achieve our goals with our horses. We all want to enhance welfare and we all want to reduce stress. I think that's something that is fundamentally clear. Like when we work with animals, no one wants a horse that has compromised welfare, and no one wants a horse that's stressed. And if you do, this is the wrong blog, like this is the wrong blog and podcast for you. Training in and of itself, I talked about that cake, isn't without its challenges, like it really isn't. Like we can take all these principles, but we can all bake that cake slightly differently. Horses fundamentally are prey animals, they have their own instincts and innate behaviors, their own complicated learning patterns, they can respond to things in ways that we never expected them to. And as I said earlier, they are one-trial learners, which is exactly what it sounds. They learn it once and it sticks around and which makes it very fucking hard for us. Which makes it even more important that we try and use careful techniques to set them up for success. The final point I'm I'll make before signing off is we need to really make sure that we don't anthroporphosize the behaviour that we see in our horses. This means attributing human emotions or reasoning, they know what they did wrong, they're being naughty, that type of thing, to our horse, because ultimately that can lead to misunderstandings between us and our horses, and that lack of communication develops, and then it will lead us to apply an inappropriate training method to our horse. And we want to always look back and go, is this an appropriate training method? Is this what the horse is actually feeling or experiencing based on their actual natural behaviour or theology? And am I applying the correct training to that situation to be able to rectify that training problem? That's it for me tonight, guys. It is getting late and I haven't had dinner. Um, this was a very long one. I hope you've enjoyed it. It was very much a high level. There's lots there. There's more in the blog as well if you want to have a read. And I hopefully will do kind of a part two for this one to dive into a little bit more. If there's anything in particular that you want me to do a little bit more of, I believe Spotify does comments. I don't know, I don't understand. Uh, but you can get me on all my socials, message me anytime. If there's a particular aspect of this that you know you wanted me to look into in a little bit more detail, I'll write another blog. Uh go user generated content. Keep me going. Uh like I need more work. Anyway, right, with that said, I'm off to have dinner. All the best.