"Clicker Training"

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chunklovescooks

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Just been looking into it, my horse is fine, however my mums horse is a little terror some of the time-most of the time is fine!

I have just been looking at the whole book and clicker idea, thinking i may be able to get somewhere? its not that expensive, so wondering whether i should bother buying it?

Many Thanks

Stephen!

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Personally I am not 100% convinced by this. Someone at a demo tried this on my pony (clicker, reward), that type of thing. He didn't really achieve anything with the pony excpet pony learnt when clicker went he'd get food. Didn't help his problem though! In principle I guess it may work but i don't get the difference between a clicker or a voice command?! I have the same problem re clicker training with dogs!
 
Hmm ok, that may depend on how your horse/dog reacts i suppose! its worth a try anyway
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i think the way around the Click->treats thing is to only reward when they get it right?

Stephen.
 
I think my pony was v intelligent and thought "yeah I get a click get a treat but I'm no going to actually do what you want me to do!" (he had rushing/claustrophobic issues!).

I have always trained my dogs with voice and reward and have pretty well trained dogs. Guess it depends what you want to do with them or what you're wanting to achieve
 
If pony got a treat every time the clicker went regardless, of course he wouldn't learn
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The point of clicker-training is that you can pinpoint very accurately the point of desired behaviour when it happens - no reason why you couldn't do that with your voice instead (a specific word maybe that you don't use generally, or a sound), but I found that when I used a clicker, it was just easier and the horse "got it" quicker.

It's not an instant-fix technique, rather it's one for the toolbox; you have to condition the horse to know what it means before they will start to try and figure out what it is you want, and everything you subsequently teach has to be broken down into sufficiently small steps that the horse can either do it "by accident" or can reach the goal through trial and error to start with.

It worked very well with my mare as a youngster - she was pushy, bargy, headshy and kicked badly and was very sensitive to having her feet handled, so along with desensitising her generally, I taught her to lift her feet on voice command only, so I didn't have to pull her legs around. I also use it a lot, especially if I work with little ponies, to teach them not to "mug" people for treats - mine will move her nose slightly away and holds it away before being given any food by hand. She is now exceptionally well-mannered, almost always the politest horse on any yard at the age of 5, and clicker training, along with normal consistent handling, played a large part.

I would recommend getting a good book, unless you know someone who is very good to show you the techniques - they are simple skills based on very simple psychology, but timing is crucial, and you do have to understand WHY you do them, in order to get them to work well.

It's no miracle cure for anything, but it's very useful, and the horses generally enjoy the work.

Can I just point out that you don't click to get the horse's attention or as a command to perform the desired action, I would use a voice command or gesture as normal for that - the click means "good, that was what I wanted you to do, here comes the reward".
 
I have a friend who uses clicker training and has had enormous success. She has talked to others interested and, with only one exception, they have all done amazingly well. Almost made me want to try it!!
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The one that failed was an animal scared of the clicking sound.
 
"If pony got a treat every time the clicker went regardless, of course he wouldn't learn" - for me the very essence of clicker training is that the horse does get a treat every time the clicker goes, but the clicker only goes when the horse has either performed the required behaviour or a "try" in the right direction.
 
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