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Discussion on Trick Training the Clicks | |
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Posted on Friday, Nov 16, 2001 - 6:52 pm: I love clicker training and I have done a multitude of things with it and my pony mare. Some would be pony jumping agility, and a curtsy! I was wondering if anyone else has tried such things before, and what steps did it take to do them. I would love to be able to teach my pony how to lie down with clicker training-but I just don't know where to start! Thanks so much everyone! |
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Posted on Saturday, Nov 17, 2001 - 7:01 am: Hi Stacey,I use clicker training with both of my horses. I haven't taught anything too complicated but when at the equine affaire we watched a clicker demo and she was working with a seeing eye mini. It appears that lie down starts with the curtsy (but you continue to bring the leg further under them. Another thought, would be to catch the moment that she lies down to roll with your clicker so that she gets the idea what you want. I did that with urinating with my pony as I hated him using his stall during the day to wet in. I would click and treat whenever I saw him actually urinate outside (of course you need to always have your clicker on hand unless you have a different bridge signal-like a tongue cluck) Kim |
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Posted on Saturday, Nov 17, 2001 - 12:32 pm: Dear Stacey and KimI've taught my horse to lie down, using the clicker. I began with a soft rope: you tie a loop in one end and put it over his front foot. (He was already broke to leading with a rope around any foot and was totally comfortable with this.) The rope then goes up over his barrel, down the far side and back to you BETWEEN the horse's front leg and the other end of the rope. Now you have a way to hold the front foot up without being right under him. Holding the front foot up, you use the lead line to gently encourage him to rock his weight backwards. Click and reward for every try, asking for a bit more and a bit more each time. It took only a few times before my horse was going right down. I click when he goes down. He still gets up pretty quickly and I am trying to encourage him to stay down longer. He's also very predictably in getting down to roll and I take full advantage of these times. I stand in front of him, point to the ground, and use my "down" command. (When he goes down, I add a "roll over" command because I think it would be cool to get him to do that on request - is that asking too much!?) When he's done rolling I click. He knows what that means and looks to me for a treat while still on the ground. I give it to him and give him a pat but I can see that he's going to get up so I give him the "up" command. I'd be glad of any suggestions about extending the down time. I think clicker training is really fun and I believe my horse does too. I've only had him a few months and he's always come when called from the field or paddock - but now when he sees me get out of the car he immediately goes to the gate to wait for me. I think that's great! I'd love to exchange more experiences with clicker training. Kathleen |
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Posted on Sunday, Nov 18, 2001 - 7:43 am: Kathleen,I think the trick to extending any behavior is to do it in real small steps. I have a hard time with it to as I'm not persistent or disciplined enough. I think you need to wait and click just before they stop the behavior and try to extend it even 30 seconds at a time and eventually you will give them the idea that they must wait for the click(or the command)to end the behavior. I asked that question at https://on-target-training.com/ They didn't reply but I didn't follow up either. You may want to check the site out. I find that the clicker works well while riding. I've taped it to the end of my crop. He normally hates water and will refuse to cross or does his best to get around it. The first time I used the clicker for water I let him stop before he refused, then ask for a small step and clicked the step-gave him a reward-then ask him for another and he just went right though-happily! It was amazing. I clicked and rewarded after we were quite through the water. It also seems to calm him when there is scary stuff to pass on the trail. I click us by and don't treat till we are well pass. Most of the time he doesn't look for the treat either. The clicker was great for trailer training-I used a target inside the trailer. I would love to hear some of the things you have used the training for. How do you keep you horse from backing or resisting the rope when using it to lay down? Kim |
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Posted on Sunday, Nov 18, 2001 - 2:36 pm: Dear KimThanks for your post. I'm going to work on extending the "down" time just as you suggest. I have looked at the on-target site since seeing Shawna Karrash demonstrate with her horses at the EquiFaire at Puyallup, Wash. last month. I was very impressed with the attitude her horses displayed and that's what I'm working towards. Re your question about backing, he only tried that a few times and the "whoa" command was enough to stop him. He never did resist the rope, but as I mentioned, he was already well conditioned to having a rope around any foot and giving to that pressure. Now - my big accomplishment yesterday was getting him to lie down WITHOUT the rope! That felt like a real victory. I just held his foot up with my hand around his pastern and kept giving the "down" command. His head was very low and he did back a bit and move in small steps in a bit of a circle - he seemed to be trying to figure out exactly what to do - or maybe just picking his spot - and then he very gently went right down. I was so excited that I wasn't quick enough to click before he got up again. I didn't ask again, wanting to quit while I was ahead. Next time I'll be more organized. The only other things I've used the training for are ground tying, which we are getting better at, and to speed up his backup. I use the target sometimes for that, or just walking beside him. I lead him with no halter or rope and click when he stays with me. (We do a "dance" where I take a couple of quick steps forward and one back and then just one leg forward and back repeatedly and he mimics my steps exactly.) When he's doing that well, then I start going backwards quite quickly and for some distance and he keeps with me. It seems to be working well. I also use the verbal cue to "back" and I hope to translate that to backing while riding. I was interested in your experiences clicking from your horse's back. I haven't tried that yet. Cheers, Kathleen |
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Posted on Monday, Nov 19, 2001 - 1:40 pm: I've just started clicker training two horses and am very enthused about the results. Right now we are working on ground manners and revisiting such things as putting on the halter and clipping. What amazes me the most is even though I haven't used it while riding, they are responding better under saddle also.The best resources I've found so far are 1) Alexander Kurland's book "Clicker Train Your Horse" 2) website https://clickryder.com/ 3) Yahoo email list clickryder, (there is a link on the website). Someone recently posted an article about a girl teaching her horse to lay down at https://www.mccamman-ranch.iceryder.net/heather1.html. She uses a technique called shaping. She puts the horse in an environment where he wants to lay down, and then click/reward when he offers the behavior. Of course you wouldn't start here. First your horse needs to understand what the click means. This is done by teaching them to touch a target. A good description of this is on clickryder.com. I'd heard about clicker training through Dr.O's website but just couldn't quite visualize how it would transfer to riding. So I put it at the back of my mind until someone else suggested that it would help the new mare I'm working with. I bought the book and it really helped me understand. In addition to the specific clicker minded training there are a lot of wonderful discussions about how to break your training plan into very small steps to get results. Good Luck and have fun! Sandi |
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Posted on Monday, Nov 19, 2001 - 1:42 pm: oops, the web page froze up and I found out I had posted this twice. SK |
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