Clicker training opens up a world of possibilities for training horses, moving beyond traditional limitations and sparking new ideas. This comprehensive guide explores a variety of behaviors, from “dancing” to “duration,” that can be taught using positive reinforcement. Whether you’re a seasoned trainer or just starting, this resource aims to inspire you to teach your horse new skills and deepen your bond.
Dancing
The concept of horses and dancing together is captivating, whether on the ground or under saddle. True dancing with a horse involves a harmonious movement in sync with your cues, a far cry from behaviors taught through aversion. By teaching your horse basic movements, adding cues, and choreographing routines, you can achieve a beautiful partnership. The focus is on the flow and matching of steps, not necessarily complex maneuvers. Consider the “Heelwork to Music” routines performed by dogs for inspiration.
Potential components of equine “dancing” include:
- Forward and backward movement
- Lateral (sideways) movement
- Leg crossing
- Spins and turns
- Yielding the front and hindquarters
- Spanish walk
Dentist-Related Behaviors
Routine dental care is crucial for a horse’s well-being. Issues like sharp points, broken teeth, and misalignments can cause discomfort and health problems. While direct clicker training during dental procedures might be challenging, you can prepare your horse by teaching them to tolerate examinations. Start by getting them accustomed to having their incisors checked. If your horse is sensitive to having their head held, spend time desensitizing them to halter pressure. For advanced preparation, consider teaching your horse to accept a speculum, which is used for more thorough dental inspections. At the Vermont Training Intensive, trainers successfully taught horses to accept speculums, remain still for tooth inspections, and exhibit an “open mouth” behavior, demonstrating the feasibility of these training goals.
A helpful starting point is teaching your horse to allow you to inspect their teeth. Further useful behaviors include an “open mouth” cue and a “smile” or flehmen response, both of which can be captured or shaped. Clicker Training Horses offers detailed insights into teaching husbandry behaviors like tooth inspection.
Discrimination
Discrimination, in the context of horse training, is the ability to distinguish between different stimuli or to respond differently in the presence of varying cues. Horses naturally learn to discriminate objects, cues, and environments to make sense of their world. As trainers, our goal is to help them recognize specific cues so they understand which behavior leads to reinforcement, and to recognize these cues in different settings.
Key types of discrimination relevant to trainers include:
- Cue Discrimination: Can your horse differentiate between two distinct cues? How subtle can the difference be?
- Object Discrimination: Can your horse learn to identify and select specific objects?
- Color Discrimination: Can your horse identify an object by its color, such as finding a yellow cone among others?
- Scent Discrimination: The field of scentwork with horses is developing, leveraging their keen sense of smell to search for specific scents.
While object and color discrimination exercises are often straightforward, attaching specific cues can be more challenging. For instance, teaching a horse to find a green cone is achievable, but cueing it to find either a green or white cone within the same session requires further training.
Distance
Distance is one of the “Three D’s” (Distance, Distractions, Duration) used to describe the process of building a horse’s fluency with a behavior. While much training occurs in close proximity, the ability to ask for a behavior at a distance is valuable, especially in lunging or liberty work. When increasing distance, do so gradually and be prepared to shorten it if the horse struggles to respond. Combining verbal and visual cues can be effective. Testing verbal cues by sending a horse from one object to another while standing at a distance is a practical application.
Distractions
Distractions are another of the “Three D’s” crucial for training fluency. If a horse is only trained in a single, quiet environment, their response to cues may falter in new locations or when unexpected events occur. It’s beneficial to vary the training environment by introducing new stimuli or taking the horse to different places. Even small changes, like training in a different area of your property, can be effective. Gradually expose your horse to new sights and sounds, ensuring their success by starting in a familiar place before moving to slightly more distracting environments. Incorporating familiar objects that serve as cues or provide structure can also be helpful.
Doors and Doorways
Teaching polite behaviors around doors and doorways is essential, particularly for horses living in stalls or needing to pass through openings. Desired behaviors include:
- Backing up when approaching and opening a stall door.
- Waiting at an open doorway before being asked to proceed when being led out of a stall or field.
- Allowing the handler to enter a stall or field first when leading the horse in.
- Remaining calmly in their stall with the door open, even when the handler is nearby.
- Being sent through a doorway independently, useful when leading multiple horses.
Some horses may exhibit protective behaviors, such as ear pinning or lunging, when approached at their stall door. Addressing this involves marking and reinforcing calmer behavior and working on impatience, such as door banging. Consistency and building a strong reinforcement history for appropriate behavior are key.
Dribbling (a ball)
Many horses enjoy playing with balls. Training can focus on pushing the ball with the nose or even kicking it with the front legs. It’s important to set up the environment to ensure safety, as some horses can become overly enthusiastic once they learn the ball is mobile. A short clip shows a horse learning to push a ball with its nose, highlighting how initial excitement can occur when the ball starts moving.
Drinking
The saying “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” isn’t entirely true in the realm of training. Horses can be trained to drink on cue, which is particularly useful for those hesitant to drink away from home or particular about their water source. Practicing this cue in various locations and with different buckets builds confidence. Capturing the behavior is possible, but a more reliable method involves a structured shaping plan. A friend of the author successfully trained her horses to drink on cue using a clever shaping strategy, reinforcing them with high-value treats after they drink.
Driving (ground driving, long lining)
Clicker training is highly effective for teaching the skills necessary for driving, whether ground driving or hitching to a cart. Ground driving is an excellent way to prepare a horse for ridden work, add variety to training, and improve ground manners. It offers a different perspective and allows for varied methods of influencing behavior.
For horses intended for cart driving, improving responsiveness and teaching verbal cues through ground driving is crucial. While food reinforcers may become impractical during cart driving, a significant amount of training can be accomplished beforehand using them. Introducing the harness and cart, teaching the horse to turn, stop, and go, are all prime opportunities for food reinforcement.
When ground driving, ensure the horse is comfortable with lines around its body and legs. Be systematic about the sequence of events between the click and treat delivery. The goal is for the horse to stop on the click and stand patiently while you approach. Teaching the horse to wait for a “go forward” cue after treat delivery is also important. If your goal is cart driving, plan for the introduction of non-food reinforcers during ground driving sessions, such as praise, verbal encouragement, or tactile reinforcement.
Duration
Duration is the final of the “Three D’s” in building behavior fluency. While often addressed when needed, introducing the concept of duration early on with simple behaviors is beneficial. This prevents the horse from associating the absence of a click with a need to change behavior. Once a horse masters a few behaviors with some duration, extending it to new behaviors becomes easier.
Duration can involve:
- Holding a position for an extended period (e.g., standing on a mat, lowering the head).
- Repeating a behavior multiple times (e.g., walking, trotting, or cantering for more steps).
When training for duration, select behaviors that are easy for the horse to perform. For instance, if your horse is a “foot mover,” focus on duration in moving behaviors first. If they prefer to stand still, start with stationary behaviors. Observe when your horse is most likely to offer duration, potentially later in a session when they are less eager to offer novel behaviors. When training stationary behaviors, be mindful of the horse’s emotional state and avoid inadvertently creating negative associations with the behavior.
This guide provides a starting point for exploring the vast possibilities of clicker training with horses. Remember to consult reliable resources and adapt training methods to your individual horse’s needs and personality.
