Clicker Training

January 12, 2008 by Capuce.

I have always thought that clicker training was a bit of a joke.  Not that I had tried it in the past but the concept just seemed silly.  I’ve had success training my pit pulls to advanced level without the use of a clicker and they do very well.

Horses seem to have a clicker mentality though.  The respond the best to reward at the exact second a behavior has been reached.  Unless you have the fastest whit and hands achieving this is rather difficult for the majority of us.  Thus enter the clicker.  An easy devise to give an audible reward to a desired behavior the second it is achieved.

So I started playing around with my newly purchased clicker Friday.  I worked my 2 horses and my boarders horse for 15 min each.  The goal was to touch a tennis ball at the end of a dressage whip.  This was a bit trivial for my old guy but great start for the 2 youngsters.

Today I did footwork.  Asking them to paw with a leg that I asked of them.  The beginnings of a Spanish walk!  I was amazed at how fast horses can learn and at what enthusiasm they perform their task.  Even more interesting is how they act when the session is ended.  None of them wish to stop, they continue to do their new tricks or hunt down the tennis ball in hopes of one last little morsel in my pocket.

I will continue this training throughout the winter as it’s really the only thing I can do daily with the weather being poor.

I hope you enjoy our little video from today.

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