Tag: clicker training

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Progress

Update 18th October 2022

Mojo has been good with picking up his feet in the field and in the school, so it occurred to me that he may be sore on his front feet rather than the hinds.

The plan was then to take him in the school before the hoof trimmer came and do some pole work, then to use the play mats for him to stand on whilst he was having his hind feet done.

He was good with the fronts, so we then put down 3 mats for him to stand on, he was very calm and let Penny do both hind feet with no fuss and even putting them on the hoof stand didn’t trigger any bad reactions. I did click and treat each time he had his feet in the air.

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Mojo Trotting a Circle

I bought a long lunge type whip, more like a stick though and then tied a bag on the end. This I used to get Mojo trotting round me – he loves to chase the bag so a longer one was easier for me to get him to trot a circle.

I now have a saddle but haven’t tried it on him yet. Will do that tomorrow and then take some photos for the saddler – it is the same size as the one he wore last week.

We had a bit of a disaster whilst foot trimming, he kicked out and somehow got his leg caught over the lead rope, and as he was tied up he panicked and broke both the head collar and the lead rope clips.
We let him settle and reassured him with lots of scratches. Then I held him so it wouldn’t happen again and he was very good with his hind feet. We do think he was a little shocked by it all and it took a while for the adrenaline to dissipate.

He seemed fine once it was all done, the other horses were being fed during the final foot being rasped. He looked but made no attempt to pull away even though he could see his tea.
He went out to the field once he had eaten his well earned tea.

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Mojo Week 2

Week 2

Monday

The podiatrist came today to do Mojo’s feet, he is very sensitive to having his feathers touched but obviously I haven’t had time to do anything about that yet. The podiatrist is very gentle and takes whatever time it takes to get Mojo calm and relaxed – I stood by his head and at one point he almost fell asleep.
I had spent some time with him in the stable grooming and getting him to stand and touch his headcollar before putting it on, I will have to desensitise and counter condition haltering too – he does tend to turn his back when he doesn’t want something. I just stood in the stable – ignored the turning round and held out the halter. Bridged and treated him touching it a few times, I would have liked to take longer with more small sessions but had to halter him to take him out to the podiatrist. Therefore I had to put on the halter sooner than I would have liked but he was calm about it and did get a jackpot.
He stood nicely for the podiatrist who was pleased with him, I need to also teach him to pick up his feet on a verbal cue, I am glad I had Benny to train before Mojo as I did teach him to pick up his feet on a cue.
 Previous horses have always picked up there own feet, I have no idea how I taught it but I would think it was just classically conditioned. Likewise with haltering and bridling – I was at a loss when I got Benny as he didn’t seek the halter or bridle like my previous horses.
So much to learn and get right!

Tuesday

This morning I just went and groomed him in the stable – no treats or bridging. He was sleepy as had just come in for breakfast so he let me touch him all over and groom all his legs, and put on the cream on his scabby bits (mallenders) with out any fuss.
I picked up 3 of his feet to clean them but the 4th remained firmly planted. More work is needed in getting him to pick them up voluntarily but I will wait until I have watched Jo Hughe’s new video and know I am conditioning the clicker correctly.
He is OK now with the sound of the clicker – the quieter one – so that is all good.
The problem I have is that when he gets fed up with anything he turns his back on people in the stable. I just stood still until he decided to turn round again – I think it may be better to do much of his training in a larger space.
It is making me think though – I am determined to use as much positive reinforcement as possible but do feel at the moment it might be a mix of that and mild negative reinforcement.

This afternoon I have found something else that Mojo doesn’t like – fly spray! Plenty for me to do with him before even thinking of riding him. He likes grooming so the touching all over isn’t really an issue – just sudden movements seem to startle him. He does have a tendency to turn his rear end towards people when he has had enough attention. I think that must have been reinforced by people leaving. I just stood by the door – just incase I needed to exit quickly but it didn’t feel like he was going to do anything untoward. He soon turned round and came back for some more grooming.

Lots of systematic desensitisation and counter conditioning (classical conditioning) for me to do before training anything else.

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Connection Training Clinic Day 1

A few thoughts about the recent clinic in Essex.

We gathered in the stable block and talked about the areas we wanted to work on either at the clinic (for those with horses there ) or at home for the auditors.

There were a variety of issues discussed:

gaining trust
getting more whoa
getting more go
desensitisation to nasal spray
bridling a slightly head shy horse
a competition horse who went over threshold at a dressage event due to horses round the arena approaching from the right side
a horse not interested in treats or training in hand in general
even the venues owners own horse who didn’t like the arena

Getting motivation was quite a key topic, making it worthwhile for the horse to want to target objects or to stand at stationary targets. Not to be stingy with the reward!

The first session was working on getting the horse to calmly target the target stick – all the participants had a history of using reward based training. It was therefore building on and refining what they were already doing.

The session on getting more whoa was interesting as the horse seemed very calm and most unlikely to be a “bolter”. I put bolt in brackets as true bolters I think are in an extreme state of fear and not just enthusiastic and strong out hacking. Sometimes we inadvertently cause them to get over aroused – excited, especially in the company of other horses.

Shawna worked on using the target to get the horse to move and then stopping and targeting – click and treat for the stop – then add rein cues to the process. The horse got a bit confused when the rider clicked as he was still looking to Shawna as the person with the treats.
At the end of the session the rein cue had begun to mean stop.
This same horse needed to be given a nasal spray, so the process of desensitisation was discussed and he got used to having his nostrils touched but there was more work to be done on another day.

The horse with bridling issues was the one with going forwards in the school issues. Shawna worked with the horse in the stable with the owner using a leather head collar at first, gradually introducing the noseband over the nose. Desensitising to the whole process, still more sessions needed to get it solid but the horse seemed less anxious about the bridle in the end.
horse being bridledtraining a horse to be bridled

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next into the arena with the same cob – the problem was the rider wanted more forward motion with out escalating pressure. Shawna had the horse moving towards a target pole and the rider clicked and treated for the slightest forward movement.

The horse with the anxiety issues when horses or people approached from a particular side was interesting. The owner said eyes had been checked but a few people thought there may have been a more physical issue than a purely behavioural one.
Shawna had the owner with the horse online on the good side to start taking him to the side of the arena were the audience was. Several people stood up and moved as the horse went by, not much reaction on the supposed good side Changed the rein and did the same thing – a bigger reaction on that side but not overly spooked.
Clicked and treated for any calmness as he passed people. The one person went outside the arena and stood on a chair, as the horse went by she waved her arms – and the horse did a major spook and looked quite panicky. He was rewarded for being calm – he did calm down quite quickly. A few more circuits with less extreme movement from the person the other side of the hedge, gradually resulting in the horse being calmer and calmer. This too was a form of desensitisation.

Then the resident horse who seems to dislike the arena. The target was used to get him calmly walking round the arena. Gradually getting him closer and closer to the scary corner!

Shawna seemed like a magnet for the horses and sometimes the owners had difficulty getting their horses attention back to them. Shawna did move from the horse area to the spectator area a few times, with lots of breaks for the horse in between chunks of training.

What I learned from day 1 – take things at the horses pace, don’t be a greedy trainer and ask too much or too soon. Give the horses time to process and calm down after a short session. Don’t be stingy with the rewards either, jackpot after a session and leave the horse with a good feeling. Timing is everything, click/bridge for the behaviour your want at exactly the time the behaviour occurs.

A few photos from the day are on Facebook – the rest are in a Photobox gallery.

Facebook images

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Connection Training Clinic

Recently I attended a clinic run by Connection Training – hosted in Essex.
Run by Shawna Karrasch and Hannah Weston.
It was great to meet so many people I had been in contact with on Facebook.

There was a variety of horses with training issues, some wouldn’t go forward and some wouldn’t stop. All people had some knowledge of reward based training so were looking for extra things to do with their horse.

I learned about sending the horse from A to B to increase forwardness and targets to get some whoa whilst adding a soft rein cue.

Clicker/reward based training is way more than just tricks.

There some photos in my Photobox Gallery

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New books

I received books about clicker training for Christmas – Alexandra Kurland’s Clicker Training for your Horse is excellent. Lots of sensible advice on using all quadrants of operant conditioning.
There is usually more than one solution to a problem, so the more tools we have in our tool box the better we are able to solve problems. Whether this is positive or negative reinforcement, or redirecting or counter conditioning we can decide what the best way is for our particular animal.
As my daughter has just acquired a foal all this information will be very useful. Many chapters are on foal and young horse handling.
So now after a festive family Christmas I will be off to the field to do more target training. Also I won’t chastise myself for using a little light negative reinforcement – using tactile cues e.g leg aids. What I don’t like is the escalation of pressure to elict behaviour, we now know there is a better way.