Clicker training, who uses it and do you find it helpful?

[ohmt]

That is so neat, thank you for sharing, hippocampe! What a very smart boy you have. Your english is excellent

 

[hippocampe]

thank you!

 

[cassie]

Cassie,

I'd suggest you purchase the book "The Click That Teaches, A Step By Step Guide In Pictures" by Alexandra Kurland. It's not a big investment of money and it will answser your questions, has lots of photos and easy to follow steps. It also has minis in it.

My copy is so dog eared and worn from being with me all the time and I consider it one of the best purchases I've ever made. Here's a link to Alexandra's page. Hope it's okay to post it. http://www.theclicke...ertraining.html

I'd also join Clickryder on Yahoo Groups. Here's the link to that: http://pets.groups.y...oup/clickryder/ It's not a high traffic list but it's an amazing group of people who are dedicated to cicker training and are happy to help.

I think you'll discover when you start to use clicker training, you'll find your horse will tell you what he wants and needs from you. It's an exciting journey and a very personal journey as well because essentially you are forging a strong bond through a different form of communication. You learn so much about yourself in the process as well. There will be times of incredible highs as you see your horse "get it" and you realize you did this as a team. I guarantee you'll never look at training the same way.

Hope that helps.

Thank you so much

both Finn and myself are learning so much through this. I will get that book

it looks brilliant. having a look at the website now. and Peggy I saw some of your videos and they are amazing thank you! =D will definitley keep learning from them.

hippocampe, wow what an awesome trainer you are and what a wonderful boy you have there! amazing! haha I wish my colt Finn could do all that... but he is only 6 months old and still working on it... he was really excited to do our lesson this morning and even stopped eating his hay when I brought his halter out and followed me around really good. I want to try work on getting him to trot on the lead now... will try find some more info on how to get him to do that... might post a video of our lessons in a week or so. we have had alot of rain the last few days, so I couldn't do any training, but when I went back out there this morning. first time training since the rain he was really good

so I am really excited.

Thank you everyone for all your help and info it is greatly appreciated

Cassie

 

[Peggy Hogan]

Francoise, this is such a fun video. You and Icon are off to such a great start. It's so wonderful to see the enthusiasm. And he's sure good looking!

I hope you have time to come to the FB chat and join in. You'll love it.

Peggy

Hi, I've been training a little bit my dogs by clicker training. I'm an absolute beginner and still in the phase to click for fun... will mean my dogs didn't learn something really usefull with clicker-training, but they had fun and me too!

I was doubtfull about clicking horses, I had doubts about rewarding by treats and also if a horse would really offer an action to me...

What I've understood in clicker training (I hope it's right), is that at the beginning ou don't ask for something, but you let your animal try to make you click by offering a mouvement, an activity.. something he could do. (excuse my bad english, I'm french and do really my best

) Whenever he does something you expect, or you like, you click & reward. So he will offer you the same again and again, and when you reach the phase, you know he will do it, than you can start to fix a name for this action to ask for it.

Regardless of my doubts for clicking horses, I tried with my mini "Icon". First day just loading the clicker. Icon looked concentrated at me and stood nearly still. Because I was just (resultless) trying to teach him to stand without a move, even when I go back a few steps, I took this opportunity to improve his standing. It was great, he never stood so immobile... but for the first clicker-experience, it was non-sense: nothing is so inactive than just standing, so my mini had nothing to offer to me... so the next step was a little bit difficult, because he was just standing, an waiting.

Good luck, somme flies helped me

... and Icon shaked his head. Happy that he did anything, I clicked for this... and later on I add the order "schütteln" (means shake in german... yes I'm french, but speak french-german-mix with my animals an family, because my husband is german)

here is a short video of the 4th clicking exercice with Icon. Not perfect of course, remember I'm a bloody beginner, but Icon is volontary and intelligent. he learns quickliy.

http://youtu.be/sH-G8uU84r0

So...and I've just visit Peggy's website and find it nice, so I've download the clicker-tips vol.1+2

Happy of having found some infos, advices and training-ideas for clicking horses!!

 

[Peggy Hogan]

Cassie, there is some more fantastic information you can really use. There is a way to make a secondary reinforcer (scratching)) be very close to the strength of a primary reinforcer (food) when you are working with a young horse. This window is open to you now, where it might not be as open in another year. It you could check out the one video about the young filly who will do anything for scratching you'll at least get an overview.

It's a bit more complex than it looks, but you're in a very cool spot to start program scratching as a reward a horse will WORK to get. All interesting stuff.

 

[cassie]

great thank you Peggy, is that in your videos? Finn absoloutly LOVES scratches LOL my nails don't like it LOL I always come back in with brown nails (and no I don't use brown nail polish LOL) he will stand for hours getting scratches and cuddles he is such a little snuggle bug

I am trying to order the book, The click that Teaches: a step by step guide to training (can't remember if that was the exact wording but you get what I mean lol) but I can't seem to find it anywhere in Australia

and so I will probably have to order it from overseas, which will either be very expensive or take ages or both

I guess I'll just order it and keep watching your videos and learning from then until it arrives... lol I'm so eager to learn more and get Finn doing really well with the leading and learning a few new things.

Thanks again for all your help Peggy, will have a look at that one of the filly

 

[cassie]

just watched that video Peggy, wow thats awesome, I definitley think Finn could do that... might start a little with his lesson this afternoon

the filly is so adorable, I love how they move their lips and stretch their necks for the scratches.

Thanks

 

[Peggy Hogan]

Cassie, there is a wealth of free info. online. Karen Pryor has a site that describes many techniques and tools, and although they're for dogs, the concepts are the same. The thing you want to learn is that if you start with something the horse WANTS, then you can use it to reinforce things you like. Try this, scratch your guy for a 30 seconds. If you KNOW you're on a good spot, stop for just a a few seconds. He'll look at you and wonder why you stopped.

When he head is forward (not on you), click with your tongue and start scratching again. Keep repeating this. It's real important to click when his head is forward, do not let him mutual groom or chew on you.

 

[cassie]

Cassie, there is a wealth of free info. online. Karen Pryor has a site that describes many techniques and tools, and although they're for dogs, the concepts are the same. The thing you want to learn is that if you start with something the horse WANTS, then you can use it to reinforce things you like. Try this, scratch your guy for a 30 seconds. If you KNOW you're on a good spot, stop for just a a few seconds. He'll look at you and wonder why you stopped.

When he head is forward (not on you), click with your tongue and start scratching again. Keep repeating this. It's real important to click when his head is forward, do not let him mutual groom or chew on you.

ok thanks Peggy will try that tonight

its so much fun looking at all the different things we can do with the clicker training, its amazing

 

[MountainWoman]

Hippocampe, LOVED the video!!! Cassie, there is a lot of free info on the internet and the group Clickryder can do a lot to help you too. I personally liked having the book because when I was starting out with the horses, I could take it with me and have it right there with me as I worked through the beginning lessons. The book was my reinforcer that I could do it

The photos were also very helpful to me and Alexandra's writing is just so encouraging. Everyone has a different learning style though and you may not need the book.

 

[Peggy Hogan]

Cassie, since you've been open to the topic, I'd like to add a bit more.

I wanted to mention is the use of a marker signal or a click in your training.

There are many people who use food reinforcers when they are doing halter training. They use the food as a lure, they try to coax the horse into a position, stance or head set. The horse has to learn what is expected without clear guidance BECAUSE they are guessing without the aid of a signal that means "Yes, that's it!"

Cassie, I am speaking from my own experiences a trainer now. I have trained horses that needed help about the whole issue of food. That's not unusual in and of itself. The thing that surprised me was how many halter horses we're beyond angry and more neurotic.

In every case I saw dramatic improvement when the horse learned that the click marked what was wanted. For them, it made more sense, and it ended the torment of being teased with food while not understanding the goal.

This proved itself several times when I worked with horses who had been shown, but I didn't know it! In each case I was seeing symptoms of a horse who had been teased with food, and later found out it had been in halter classes.

So you can imagine that would make me a real advocate of using some sort if marker signal when training with food.

Just more "food for thought'

 

[ponyarab]

I too am a professional trainer and I use clicker training with all of my horses and my clients horses with great success. I have 14 horses from miniatures to big horses and none of them bite or are rude from using clicker training. The program that I teach fades out the click and add in cues. I only use the clicker for teaching new tasks or to reinforce a behavior.

I have a great relationship with all of my horses and they all trust and respect me. Not one of my horses are inconsistent and they are not always looking for treats. Again I agree with MountainWoman that people should not just head out with a clicker and food as they need to educate themselves on how to use clicker training properly. Clicker training is just like any other training method if you don't use it properly you will have problems.

I know of 2 people who are using clicker training for reining horses and having great results. I don't teach tricks as I use clicker training to teach things that are useful for the show ring, driving, Horse Agility and when riding.

Cassie I applaud you for trying clicker training as it is a great tool. I look forward to hearing more about your progress.