Clicker training your horse - anyone tried it?

Trish C

Trish C

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My mum is a dog behaviourist/trainer and she uses clicker training a lot. She suggested I try it with horsey, whenever he arrives! I've done bits and pieces of it with our dogs at home, but has anyone tried it with their equines?

More interested in the benefits for practical purposes (lowering head for grooming/bridling, picking up feet on cue etc, if they need to be trained in) it may have, rather than 'tricks'. I know that these things can be trained by other methods, but just wondering has anyone tried clicker training them?
 
Yes.

I use it a lot, don't use a clicker though. Very useful for many things.

Some horses 'get it' a lot faster than others, my mini picks up new things in minutes, 2 of my mares steadfastly refuse to play.
 
Hm, I will be interested to hear how it works out. I've thought about using for trailer loading a difficult horse but I didn't actually do it. My only concern is that they will get cookie greedy. But maybe not.
It will be a good experiment :) good luck!
 
I've just started using clicker training with my mare and find it really useful. I do use it for trick training but I think it is useful for teaching any behaviour. I originally taught her tricks without the use of the clicker but she has definitely picked them up qucker since I've been using it. Really helps to pinpoint exactly what you want from them. Took Pippa a little while to get used to the noise, but she soon associated it with a reward and got used to it. Now she loves doing her clicker training!
 
M n M I actually started using a clicker so I could wean my mare of treats as a reward, the idea being that they soon learn to see the click as the reward with just the occasional food reinforcement.
 
I'm not sure on this now, but the mothership told me that the golden rule of clicker training is that if you click you must treat... so I think that the idea is that you ingrain the cue - be it hand signal or vocal signal - to start with using click and treat and then gradually decrease the number of times you reward (with click/treat, but obviously use praise), occasionally clicking/treating to keep them interested (will I get a treat or won't I?).

I had thought it was the 'click becomes the reward so use instead of treat' thing too - as you suggest frankie8 - but she corrected me on that fairly sharpish! But, if your method works where the click is the reward, it works :) I'm going to borrow a few of her books on the subject anyways.

She was also telling me that they're now using this to 'train' children in disciplines like gymnastics. I'm thinking of trialling it on some of my young musicians :D
 
The Alexandra Kurland books are good for starting off clicker training with your horses. We use it with some of our horses and it's been one of the best things we have ever done.
 
I use it for carrot stretches, click and treat when his nose touches a supplement bucket lid. I do treat every time but throw the treat onto the floor in front of him. Saves my fingers as he is very food orientated!
 
Really helped with teaching him to lead, however I have now taught him when I make two clicky noises with my mouth he's to move faster and he listens out to my feet (ie: I walk faster he trots, I jog he canters.) So have scraped the clicker until next time! Really does wonders but be patient some horses just 'don't get it' at first! x
 
Thanks for the replies - great to know people are using it successfully :) I like the idea of it, and the theories about which part of the brain it connects with (can't remember the fancy medical names, but basically the 'primal' part as opposed to the part which processes language) are very interesting :)

ISHmad - thanks for the book recomendation too, I think that was the first name which came up when I googled equine clicker training! Will see how it goes with, fingers crossed and knock on wood, my soon-arriving ISH!
 
I've used it to correct problem behaviour. One horse was bargey with food so used clicker to teach him to rein-back everytime he saw his feed bucket. Another was a bit too enthusiastic coming in from the field, so I used clicker to teach him a 'slow and stay close to me' command.

Clicker trained animals tend to be LESS bargey about food as a 'leave it' exercise is one of the first things you teach them and they learn to get food as reward for a behaviour rather than as random treats that they can discover by pestering you.

You can eventually phase out the reward (be it food or anything else) BUT it takes about 2 years of consistent training before you can do this. Betty (dog) could do a whole obedience test for one tiny food reward right at the end, but it did take a couple of years to get there and she got a lot of reinforcement for the behaviour at other times.
 
Interestingly, with our own dogs Mum doesn't use it for obedience/agility, she only uses it for the tricks e.g. obedience to music stuff... this may be because our collies are oblivious to absolutely everything when they're in proper 'work' mode, don't even care about treats until they're finished work and it's playtime again! :D

Can't wait to get started with the new fella on the clicker, can think of loads of good practical uses for it. Should be really interesting :)
 
Well any behaviour is a trick, and any trick is a behaviour the dog doesn't really know the difference between a behavour learnt because you want to do an obedience test and one learnt because you want to do fun to music stuff, or one you need for an assistance dog for the disabled, etc.

When I used to help out with the training classes, almost every group would ask why they needed to bother with hand targeting, it just seemed useless at the time...until we showed how you can use it get the dog on a table, over an obstacle, to move out of the way, to follow you in heel work, etc. It was actually one of the most useful things we taught and very simple for the dogs to pick up.
 
I have bought the book (but not read it yet!) ;)

I thought the main benefit would be to train Hugo to put his head down for the bridle, etc. I can't reach if he doesn't put it down a bit! No one at my yard has done it (well, one did attempt it but gave up), so I'd be interested to hear how others have got on.
 
Totally Booboos, and it's amazing the intricacies they can pick up in hand signals... trained to incredibly subtle differences so that they can even pick up the difference between say a spin left and a spin right depending on what way you circle a single finger! :) When you consider everything that obedience/agility/working trials and sheep trials/flyball dogs are trained to do they have an incredible vocabulary of hand signals, whistles and voice commands. Unreal animals... certainly much more intelligent than a lot of my music students :D

MrsHutt - that's what I'm thinking... I'm not far off 6 foot but if 17hh horse decides that the head is going up for bridling, I'm going to struggle to reach!
 
Some of the best advice I have ever been given involves really subtle signals. Slightly off topic, but worth their weight in gold so here goes!

When asking for walk on heel work always lead with the left leg, when leaving the dog in a sit/down stay/wait walk off on the right leg.

When introducing sit/down stays use the voice to reinforce the behaviour during the stay but also nod the head and close the eyes...eventually you can turn this into a subtle blink which is perfectly legal in an obedience test and a nice way of telling your dog that all is well and she should continue doing what she is doing!

I was once in what was the club's advanced obedience class with dogs used to distance control, out of sight sit stays, etc. when the trainer asked handlers to sit on the floor and ask their dog to sit...only one dog out of 10 responded with the handler in this unusual position!
 
Booboos said:
When asking for walk on heel work always lead with the left leg, when leaving the dog in a sit/down stay/wait walk off on the right leg.
Click to expand...

Yeah they're deadly! The first thing my mother ever taught me was the left/right thing :) Rather than a blink, we have look down for downward movements, glance upwards (without moving the head) for upward. She also teaches her advanced classes slight differences in the stance to differentiate between different 'present' types as well, very cool!

One of our sadly passed away collies was hilarious - if you left him in a down stay he'd be there forever unless you told him to move. We once left him in a down stay in the gate of a pen full of sheep, went off talking to judges or other triallers or something and forgot about him. Eventually the sheep got bored and decided to jump over him to escape, he still didn't move bless him but was terrified of sheep from that day on!
 
Trish C said:
One of our sadly passed away collies was hilarious - if you left him in a down stay he'd be there forever unless you told him to move. We once left him in a down stay in the gate of a pen full of sheep, went off talking to judges or other triallers or something and forgot about him. Eventually the sheep got bored and decided to jump over him to escape, he still didn't move bless him but was terrified of sheep from that day on!
Click to expand...

Poor boy...but that is hillarious! :D
 
Hiya TrishC

Well I may go on, because clicker training is my thing! So if you need to loo/tea break go now!


I've been clicker training for quite some time now; although I wouldn't say I'm an experienced clicker trainer- I always improve in my technique, timing and my observation/diligence each time. I have a young horse who is the apple of my eye and clicker training worked for us. When I first got him, he wasn't bad, he just didn't understand much. He kicked me several times, bit a chunk of my finger off, bolted off leaving me trying to hold on, and didn't understanding what stand still meant, or how to move his body. I don't like hitting or being aggressive towards horses and I felt that the things I tried contradicted my belief or would have upset my horse more. I am not a Parelli fan, and although I did try their exercises, I don't think I'm Linda's biggest fan either ( that's another story!). I gave Intelligent Horsemanship a shot, and some of the stuff was good but still not it. I experimented with Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling and his stuff was effective and ethical in his approach, but I think the dancing was a bit too hard for my two left feet ;D


I remember reading an article on clicker training, and became intrigued- my first thoughts were ''using food to train horses?'' ''How does that help? Does it make them nappy/nip ( my horse WAS very nippy and mouthy!)'' With my skeptic questions, I carried on reading to find out and I became fascinated with the concepts, how it worked and wanted to try it with my horse. I bought myself a clicker, a bumbag and stocked up on treats and had done some online reading. If I'm honest, I was disappointed but in hindsight, I went in too quickly, without enough knowledge of the concept and how horses/animals learn. So I bought myself Emma Lethbridge's book ''Knowing your Horse'' and took what she said and began applying it to my work with Shadow over summer, as I wasn't at school.


Clicker training works on a system of reinforcement, I'll try and break it down for you;


Primary Reinforcers- are the food/rub the horse receives after the click- this is something he finds NATURALLY reinforcing and rewarding to him.

Secondary Reinforcers- something which has to be conditioned to become rewarding to the horse. This can be the click, cluck, whistle ( dog/dolphin trainers use that concept) or even a word cue ( although that one is a lot harder due to everyday language).


Before I continue with any more definitions, I'll explain how they link together.

When teaching a horse a behaviour, we have to break things down into steps- like a maths problem. Good foundations have to be laid and I feel that in horse training in general, the reason why there are so many problems is because people almost skip the fundamentals because we expect horses to 'know' them and then problems begin. The scientific name for the process of breaking things down is called ''Successive Approximations'' or better known as shaping plans.

The best way to write a shaping plan is to write it out- it helps you log and record progress. The key is to be able to think hard about the behaviour you want to teach, and then break it down into small steps. When I was teaching my horse to stand at the mounting block. I began with the first steps being standing with me there- with no tack, just ground-tying, in the field, and conditioning him to the word ''stand''. I built up the time periods doing this and then I began walking around him.

How did I condition him to standing? How did I teach him to stand?
- A lot of people ask me why I use the clicker, and not just treat? It's a pretty good question, and the answer to it is that the clicker, is there for timing, particularly in the crucial, founding stages of teaching a behaviour.

When I was teaching him to stand on cue, I would let him walk and then if he stood still, I'd click- if I'd walked over to him, he'd probably moved, so would of been unclear on what was being rewarded for. The click acts as the clarification for what he is being rewarded for. When he hears the click, he understands that he has done a good behaviour, and will be rewarded for this ( we condition them to the click in target training, which I'll depict in a mo!). Therefore, if I'm working on getting him to stand still with me behind him, I can click him from where I am, and he will know that THAT was the good behaviour, not a minute later when I'm walking over to reward him when he is eating some grass or perhaps walking toward me. This process makes it easier for the horse to understand what he is being rewarded for. Rather than the tedious process of guess work!



Target training or ''conditioning to the click'' is the first step of approaching clicker training. You begin by having your horse perhaps the other side of the field, or in the stable and have a brush/cone etc- hold it out to the horse. When he touches it with his nose. Click, and reward. Hold the target out again and when he bumps it with his nose again, you click and reward him for this behaviour. Keep repeating, some horses take longer than others. My boy picked it up pretty quickly, but some take a little while longer. One of the horses I work with at my yard ( he's a rescue pony and I've been teaching his owner about clicker and doing some basics with him!), took a lot longer to understand. My horse became aggressive the very first week, he began biting and running at me, because he still didn't quite understand how the process worked. You do have to work through it and not be put off by it, about 40% of clicker trainers experience this to begin with, but it wears off after about a maximum of 1-2 weeks, it's just the initial stages- so don't be disheartened by it! I'm not trying to scare you off, just want to let you know! I tackled this by keep trying with the target training, until he grasps that in order to get the reward- he needs to hear the click. It's a great system.



Don't Mug Me! Was the next behaviour I wanted to work on, understanding each others personal space. I feel that mutual respect is key- we can't expect horses to respect us, if we don't respect them! When he stood next to me, if he looked away from my bumbag- he got a click and treat. If he began sniffing or nosing, I walked away and he got no click, so no treat. He soon learnt that looking away and taking a step away earned him the treat! It was very effective way of ''de-mouthing'' him!


Once those founding understanding is in place, you can use the clicker to tackle fun behaviours, core behaviours ( standing still, backing up) to tackling issues such as trailer loading issues- although one of the crucial things is that in clicker training, we don't go into to it to solve one problem. We do have to begin to understand how it works and it takes some practicing with the timing. I made lots of mistakes to begin with, but the beauty of clicker is that it is very forgiving, because if you accidently encourage an unwanted behaviour, you can extinguish this!



Some of the key terms involved in clicker, which you will learn more in depth and understand as you progress on your journey;

Positive Reinforcement- The addition of a positive stimulus as a consequence of a good behaviour. ( The click and treat!)

Negative Reinforcement- the removal of an negative stimulus as a consequence of wanted behaviour ( removing the leg when asking them to walk on, rein pressure etc).

Positive Punishment- ( try to avoid this!) the addition of an negative stimulus as a consequence of unwanted behaviour ( rein pulling, smack, whip)

Negative Punishment- The removal of a pleasant stimulus in their environment as a consequence of unwanted behaviour ( no click/treat etc).

Classical Conditioning- The association between a primary and secondary reinforcer- so the click just before the treat makes the horse aware that a treat will follow) ( It means treat delivery isn't instantaneous, and horses develop patience)

See more on my website....

http://equinelearning.weebly.com/common-definitions.html


I hope that has cleared some questions up for you, I also have a bit more on the benefits of using treats in training on my website;

Check out my website, PM me for some more info and join our forum....

http://equi-click.proboards.com

I recommend, if you visually learn, to watch 'Clicker Training with Hylling'' and SMAART horses on youtube- for some fab videos, and links to more good videos! I have some videos, but I'm nowhere NEAR as talented as the other channels, so my videos are probably shameful in comparison! I hope you do pursue a clicker journey. For me, not only did it open up a new world of horse training and learning, but it also taught me a lot about myself. I suffer from anger issues, and anger management did no help whatsoever, but when I'm around animals, I can have all the patience in the world- having a young horse was probably not the best idea, but with him and the help of clicker, we're achieving so much, he's developing into a mature gentleman, and I'm better with people, I am more patient, calm and also a lot happier in general. It really is a life changing thing. I love the clicker so much. I hope you benefit from it too.


Feel free to ask any questions! I'm more than happy to answer.
 
Wow, that is really interesting. Thanks for taking the time to type such a long reply. I was just daydreaming this morning about how to train my share horse to halt consistently on the lunge so we can do halt to trot etc, i might have a go now!
 
Thanks for taking the time for the reply, Lassieusca, good to get any tips possible!

I'm very lucky that my Mum is a clicker trainer, as well as an experienced horsewoman, (although she's never combined the two, but has been a dog trainer/behaviourlist for at least all of my life!) so I have her available for 'consults' and resources too. But it's great to know there're people with good experience of it in equine circles available at the end of a PM! :)
 
No worries, TrishC, glad I could help.

Any queries etc about getting started etc let me know. I have some PDF's about structuring shaping plans, which I can send if you would like to? Drop me your email, and I'll send them over to you!

Recommend Emma Lethbridge's book - ''Knowing your Horse'' and Ben Hart's ''Art and Science of Clicker Training''. I have Alex's book too; but I prefer Ben's and Emma's is the best book I've ever bought!
 
Gosh Lassieusca fab reply - I have printed it off. I am just about to embark on clicker training - really rather on a whim just to try something different as I am desperate with my aggressive 17hh horse. I think it is very much fear aggression, but whatever it's scary and meant and I do believe that he may well respond to clicker training in a positive way. I have bought the Alexander Kurland book and am excited by the case histories and success stories with some very aggressive horses. I just hope mine reacts similarly and responds to this training. I shall be buying clickers for all his handlers!
 
YasandCrystal said:
Gosh Lassieusca fab reply - I have printed it off. I am just about to embark on clicker training - really rather on a whim just to try something different as I am desperate with my aggressive 17hh horse. I think it is very much fear aggression, but whatever it's scary and meant and I do believe that he may well respond to clicker training in a positive way. I have bought the Alexander Kurland book and am excited by the case histories and success stories with some very aggressive horses. I just hope mine reacts similarly and responds to this training. I shall be buying clickers for all his handlers!
Click to expand...

You're welcome :)

Yes; one of the obstacles I had to face with my boy was others. I'm at school during the week, and can't drive, so am restricted to doing much in the week unless I'm off school or am able to get a lift. We have a rota at my yard, so he is fed for me in the week, and checked over etc, he isn't usually handled in the week, but we move fields monthly, and sometimes it falls on a day I can't get down etc, so I wanted him to lead for others. I first focussed on using clicker with just me, to help him lead, and have gotten people at my yard into it now- they've followed similar techniques, so it doesn't upset the way he is led. He won't be going to another home (unless something happens like we cannot afford him at all, but we're at a supportive yard), but his owners ( I have him out on full loan), would keep him and I'm currently teaching a couple of their other horses, another youngster, some things- so they'd be able to continue his training; it's important to me, because I plan to study Spanish and Portuguese at University, and in year three, I have a year abroad- so it's important to me that the consistency is kept.

I feel consistency is probably the most important thing, along with patience, particularly with aggressive horses. Shadow was aggressive, but through frustration because he didn't understand. The positive approach worked so well.

Good luck x
 
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