How To Start Clicker Training Your Horse and Have Fun, Without Turning Him into a 'Cookie Monster'
People are often afraid to start clicker training because it involves food. Some people have tried. They stopped using food in training because their horses turned into 'Cookie Monsters'. Do this...
I don’t blame them. If you are starting out (like I was, nearly 30 years ago), it seems simple.
Click - treat - repeat. Success.
Right?
Wrong!
In reality, it often goes like: click - treat- repeat. Cookie Monster created.
That’s OK. This isn’t permanent, and here’s why.
Start Clicker Training, Teach this First
One of the key lessons I like to promote is safe behaviour around food. It’s a really good foundation to start with and to keep working on.
It’s basically ‘Table Manners for Horses’.
Just like food etiquette must be taught to toddlers, so is it with horses.
Horses are herbivores.
They live ON and amidst their food.
They need to learn the human rules. What *we* consider polite, safe and convenient. For us.
Why is Table Manners one of HippoLogic’s Key lessons?
If you are working with horses, you always want to be as safe as possible.
You certainly don’t want to create problems.
This can easily happen if you train with food as a reinforcer without having clear ‘rules’.
Rules are all about expectations:
When can your horse expect a treat: only after a click
When can’t he expect treats: no click,
no glory, no treatHow can he earn clicks that lead to treats? By paying attention to the cue and answering the question correctly. Or try to answer the question. That effort is in itself already worth reinforcing.
Your Key to Success in using food as a reinforcer is to teach your horse safe hand-feeding. This is part of Key Lesson Table Manners.
Key Lessons are your Key to Success in Clicker Training Your Horse.
Ground rules in clicker training
People who, in the horses’ eyes, reward randomly with food will have horses that expect the unexpected. They frequently look forward to a random treat. That leads to impatient horses: they want it now!
Cookie monsters.
You have to make it clear.
Your horse must understand that he has to do something to earn a reward.
He also has to know what it is he did, that made him earn the treat.
He has to learn to pay attention to your marker (the click).
And learn: No click, no (food) reward.
Mugging
Mugging is often just curiosity. It can be foraging behaviour (completely natural to seek and find food). It can be learned behaviour!
When it’s learned behaviour, that’s when it often becomes a problem.
Here’s how to handle it:
