Here are some photos from last weekend of Beau and Gracie, two of our sanctuary residents at the horse rescue. I’ve written about both Beau and Gracie before, both of them were horribly abused and were completely untouchable for the first several years that they were at the rescue. They were terrified of people and did not even want someone to approach within 15-20 feet of them.

The three pictures below show just how friendly Beau is now. He followed us around the whole time last weekend (several hours) and was really enjoying getting scratches on his forehead. He kept trying to “help” Dawn check things on her cell phone and even let Dawn spend some time getting the tangles out of his mane. He wasn’t too sure about having his mane brushed, but he did let us get a few big knots out.

Last summer, myself and some of the other volunteers at the rescue spent a lot of time working with Beau and Gracie and we had some pretty big break throughs! Both horses are now pretty friendly and will seek out interaction with people. Beau will even do this with new people who he has never met before! Gracie, on the other hand, still usually prefers people who she knows well.

Both horses are still not halter trained — they are very, very sensitive about hands and objects around their head because of their former abuse. However, that’s one of our big main goals for these two horses for this summer and I think that we will be able to make lots of good progress! I have also already started working some with Beau on the beginning steps of picking up his feet for hoof care, and I plan to continue working on that with both Beau and Gracie this summer.

Last weekend, Dawn and I had a great time hanging out in the pasture for a couple of hours with Beau and Gracie, as well as a few of our other sanctuary residents. Beau and Gracie have been on another property for the past several months and they only recently have been moved back to the rescue’s main property. Gracie had some itchy spots on her back, shoulders, and neck and was really enjoyed getting scratched! She also let me brush all of the tangles out of her mane. She doesn’t have nearly as much mane as Beau does, so she doesn’t get the same amount of knots and tangles that he does.

I love how relaxed Gracie looks in all of these photos. She has always been much more skeptical of people than Beau. We do not know the exact nature of the abuse these two horses went through. However, it must have been pretty awful.

Beau’s reaction to people before we started working with him was always to run as far away as he could get. Gracie, however, would hold her ground and whirl and kick if she felt threatened or afraid. Because of this, we have gone much more slowly with her training. We never wanted to push her even a tiny little bit because we did not want anyone to get hurt. You can read a bit more about CAT training, the type of training that I have done with Beau and Gracie, in this post.

One more photo of two of our old timers at the rescue. The black gelding is Shadow and the white gelding is Jim. Both are over 30, which is quite old for a horse. They are the best of buds and have a great time hanging out together at the rescue. You can read more about Jim’s story or Shadow’s story on the rescue’s website. Beau and Gracie get along well with Jim and Shadow and I know all four horses were happy to see each other when Beau and Gracie were brought back to the rescue’s main property recently.

The video is titled “first 90 days of horse training.” Usually, when I find videos titled “the first x days of training,” the video is crammed full of everything the trainer rushed the horse through in too short of a time. As I’ve written about before, (see this post), I’m not a big fan of trainers who set time limits on training or make a competition out of how much they can get done in the shortest period of time. I like this video because it looks like this gal is spending a lot of time hanging out with the horse and developing a solid foundation and relationship, rather than rushing forward.

One of the parts of this video that I really like is the short part around ~1:55 when she uses scratches as a reinforcer after asking the horse to take a step over with her hind quarters. The trainer has pretty good timing and she switches to scratching as soon as she gets one step over. She has a light touch and is not using much pressure to ask the horse to step over.

Also, she knows exactly where to scratch and does a good job of scratching enough for the horse to enjoy it, but keeps it short enough to keep the training session going. Scratches can be a great reinforcer, but I’ve learned it does take some practice to get timing and delivery down, and she seems to have a good feel for this.

I often use food as a reinforcer when clicker training because it is convenient and easy–the horse can eat the treat quickly and then we can return to training. However, I think it’s really important to also think about and develop other reinforcers that can be used during training. Although most horses love working for treats, there are plenty of other things that horses like as well! What are your horse’s favorite non-food rewards? Have you found ways to effectively incorporate these into your training?

Watch on Youtube: Wild Mustang Trained with Parelli – First 90 Days of Horse Training

I’ve finally finished posting my notes from the 4th annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference at UNT. ORCA puts on an awesome conference every year, but I thought this year was one of the best! You can read all of my notes from the conference by visiting this page. We had great talks from Joe Layng, Bob Bailey, Alexandra Kurland, Ken Ramirez, Steve White, and Kay Laurence.

This year I’ve added a newsletter to my site. If you haven’t joined it yet, I encourage you to join by filling out the form to the right or by visiting this page. Every Monday I send out a short newsletter that lists the blog posts from the previous week, as well as bits of additional information about what I’m up to with my animals.

In this past week’s newsletter, I talked a bit about how I’ve just started training Amy, one of my new rats. I also asked my newsletter subscribers what they think about and do when they first start training a new animal. Since asking that, I’ve been corresponding by e-mail with one friend, Paula. Here’s part of her answer to this question: “The first and most important thing is for them to know I think they are wonderful.”

I asked her if I could share this quote because I thought this was a great statement and a wonderful attitude. I know of many training situations that would have gone much easier and much more successfully if the trainer had started with the assumption that the animal was wonderful and if the animal already had learned that the trainer liked him and wanted him to be successful.

What do you think about when you begin training? What assumptions and ideas do you have when you first start interacting with an animal?

Now, a bit about bicycling with horses, because I know you’ve been wondering about the title of this post!

My friend Hertha recently sent me a great video of her horse Boots. Recently, she and Boots have been going for bicycle rides together! Letting Boots trot along beside her is a great way for both of them to go on outings and get a bit of exercise. However, this definitely required a well thought out teaching process!

Here’s Hertha’s description of her bicycling video:

Since my hips have given up riding and my knees have given up decent running, I’ve taken to my bike to help my horse maintain some good sustained movement that is more interesting for her than circles.

Free-shaping means giving positive reinforcement when the horse displays behaviour you want to encourage. The treat earned causes the horse to display more of the behaviour that earns the treats. Once the horse gets comfortable with the new behaviour and offers it willingly, the treats can be spaced increasingly further apart. On our 3km trip with the bike we only stopped twice for a nibble of grass and a bit of apple.

Watch on YouTube: Free-shaping: Boots and the Bicycle

Since watching the video, I’ve corresponded a bit with Hertha about how she taught this to Boots. I was impressed by how calm Boots was in the video, since I’ve known many horses who were terrified of bicycles. Apparently, Boots wasn’t always this calm around bikes!

Several years ago, when Hertha originally taught Boots about bicycles, she had to break the process down into lots of little steps. She started with her son riding a bike and her and Boots following (with Boots on a lead rope). It took awhile before Boots was confident enough to approach the bike.

Once Boots would approach the bike, Hertha had her son walk with the bike, so Boots would feel confident to approach closer. Eventually, Boots even offered to sniff the tire. After that, they did lots of ‘follow the bike’ at the walk and jog, and continued to practice ‘sniffing the bike’, until Boots was completely relaxed around the bike. Then, Hertha switched things up so that she was the one riding the bike. She practiced riding toward and away from Boots, until she could ride right up to her and give her a treat.

This is one of the coolest behaviors that I’ve seen in awhile for a creative way to exercise a horse. Do you have any unique or unusual behaviors that you are teaching your animals right now? If so, I’d love to hear about them!

If you’ve been around enough clicker trainers and positive animal trainers, you’ll find that everyone has an opinion about shaping, luring and targeting. And, trainers often don’t agree about which of these methods are best for training or if certain ones of these methods should even be used at all. Kay Laurence gave a very interesting lecture about this subject at the 4th Annual Art and Science of Animal Training Conference. This post is some of my notes and thoughts from her lecture.

Ways to get behavior: Shaping, luring and targeting

Shaping, luring, and targeting are three possible ways for teaching an animal a new behavior. Many clicker trainers are big fans of shaping, but have various opinions regarding how much a trainer should use luring or targeting. Here are a few definitions, just so we’re all on the same page.

Shaping: The trainer waits for the animal to do any approximation of a behavior and rewards these attempts. The trainer moves through a progression of steps, each step being closer to the final goal. This method is the most self-directed of the three methods that will be discussed in this post and the animal has the least guidance from the trainer. (Here’s a video of a rat being shaped to do a simple behavior.)

Luring: The trainer uses a piece of food to guide the animal through the motions of the behavior. During this method, the animal is highly dependent on the trainer for guidance and direction. After the initial training, the lure is gradually removed. (This video shows a finished behavior that was originally taught using luring.)

Targeting: The trainer teaches the animal to touch a target. Then, the target is used to initiate the behavior or to guide the animal through the behavior. Depending on how the target is used, this method can be a more trainer-directed type of learning or a more self-directed type of learning. (Here are several video examples of using targets during training.)

The test: Which method is best?

Kay Laurence wanted to know which of these methods was the best for teaching a behavior. Would self-taught (free-shaped) behavior be more reliable or resilient? Would luring result in an animal who fixated on the food and didn’t actually learn the behavior? Could a trainer get the same end result no matter which method the trainer used to teach the behavior?

To test these ideas, Kay taught three behaviors to three of her border collies. The three behaviors were stepping into a box, going out and around a cone, and walking along a line on the ground. Each behavior was taught to one dog using luring, one dog using shaping, and one dog using targeting. So, for example, the first dog was taught to step in the box using luring, to go around the cone using shaping, and to walk along the line using targeting.

What were the results?

All three methods were successful for training and all the dogs were able to learn all of the behaviors, regardless of the teaching method used. However, the learning process and final outcome were slightly different for each dog and each behavior, depending on the teaching method.

Over all, Kay reported that the shaping method seemed more successful for teaching the step into the box behavior and the luring method seemed more successful for teaching the walking along the line. All three methods worked equally as well for teaching the dogs to go around a cone.

So, for a trainer who is skilled in all three methods, one of these three methods of teaching is not necessarily better than the other two. When deciding what training method to use, you should consider the particulars of the behavior, as well as other factors that might affect the teaching process and the outcome.

Choices, choices, choices

So, if all three of these methods can work, how does a trainer know which one to choose? When formulating a training plan, begin by considering all your options. Consider your skills, the animal’s skills, the particulars of the behavior, and your relationship with the animal.

These different methods require different skills on the part of the animal and on the part of the trainer. For example, for luring to be successful, the animal has to have learned a high degree of discipline around food and the trainer needs to understand how to fade out food lures. For shaping to be successful, the trainer must be able to anticipate behavior and avoid frustrating the learner. For targeting to be successful, the trainer must have the mechanical skills to handle the target, clicker, and food, all at the same time.

Kay gave a list of four considerations when choosing between these three training methods. A trainer must think about:
1) The trainer’s mechanical skills and the mechanics of the behavior
2) The confidence of the learner
3) The skill of the teacher
4) The future use of the behavior

Some behaviors logically need more guidance or direction from the trainer. Most of us would not want to be free-shaped if we were being taught to use a chain saw or to scuba dive! Likewise, when training animals, some types of errors can be costly. Luring or targeting can often be used to minimize certain types of errors, since the trainer can more carefully direct the animal. On the other hand, for some behaviors, it might be much better to shape the behavior.

Be careful about discounting any one of these methods. I’ve heard some people say that shaping doesn’t work, other people say that targeting doesn’t work, and still other people say that luring doesn’t work. One reason why people say these things is that each of these three methods has lots of different variations. And, some of these variations work better than others, or work better in some situations than other situations, or work better for some trainers than other trainers, depending on the trainer’s skill level and the trainer’s history with the animal.

Is luring evil?

I’m only half joking with the heading of this section. Of these three methods, luring, by far, has the worst reputation. I’ve met many trainers who seem to think that luring is awful and should never, ever be used when training.

Kay Laurence believes that most clicker trainers dismiss luring because they have not learned good luring skills. Most people try to “lump” when they lure and train a behavior in one big piece. (What is lumping?) To be good at luring, a trainer still needs to know how to split behavior down into small pieces and needs to know how to efficiently fade out the lure.

I’ve seen some brilliant video clips of Kay and her students teaching complex behaviors using luring and then quickly and quietly fading out the lure and adding in a cue. Also, in the experiment discussed above, Kay was able to quickly start to fade out the lure because of each dog’s history with training and shaping.

A few final thoughts

Don’t discount a teaching method too quickly because it has not worked for you (or others you have known). See first how expert trainers use the method. Are they able to get results? What do they do differently that makes the technique work well? Do you like how the final behavior looks?

Want to get better at training? Watch the experts. See how they get behavior and see how they use each of these three methods. Then go practice with your own animals. Videotape yourself (or have a friend watch you) and try to decide how you could improve your shaping, targeting, and/or luring skills. Do you already know areas you could be practicing?

Which of these three methods, shaping, targeting, and luring do you use most often? Do you ever combine two of these together? What influences you when you are deciding what method to use when training a new behavior?

Training can be a lot of fun. However, it can also be physically and mentally challenging for both the animal and the human. Although breaks are needed, they can really disrupt a training session if they are used haphazardly. Trainers need to think carefully about breaks and learn how to effectively incorporate breaks without interrupting the flow of the training.

At the conference, Alexandra Kurland discussed how to give breaks during training sessions. The full title of her talk was “Give me a break: How to give breaks without giving breaks.” At the beginning of her talk, Alexandra explained that she doesn’t really like breaks. However, breaks are good for learning. So, she explained ways we can give breaks without really taking breaks.

Why take breaks?

After a break, many trainers report an improvement in the behavior they are training or an increase in learning. A break gives both the horse and the human time to process the training session. Also, many trainers forget that breaks are just as useful for humans as for horses.

For instance, when people are new to clicker training, Alexandra recommends that they start training in short sessions, 10-15 treats. A short beak after each short session lets the human evaluate what just happened and plan what to do for the next 10 clicks. This is also great for teaching self-control to horses who are new to clicker training. Some horses get uncertain or unsure when the clicker training session ends. Taking breaks teaches the horse that the person or the treats can sometimes go away, but they will both come back again.

What’s a break? Using favorite behaviors as breaks

What comes to mind when you think about breaks? You might be thinking about resting and doing nothing or you could also associate breaks with stopping and interruptions. However, the main point of Alexandra’s lecture was that breaks don’t have to be “breaks.”

For example, other behaviors can be used as breaks, especially known behaviors that the animal really enjoys doing. You’ve probably seen dog trainers doing this—-a trainer might take a break from practicing agility and let a dog play with a tug toy for several minutes.

Any previously learned behavior that the animal likes and is comfortable doing can be used as a break. For example, if you’ve seen Alexandra’s microshaping DVD, she used a target to give the horse short breaks from equine pilates, which is physically challenging for the horse. After a handful of good repetitions of microshaping the pilates behavior, the trainer switches to targeting and gives the horse several clicks and treats for touching the target.

Breaks don’t have to be long. Sometimes even a very short break can be beneficial for both the horse and trainer. Alexandra showed one video clip of a clicker trainer working with her horse on a circle of cones. The trainer would take very short breaks every now and then and pause a bit to stroke the horse on his face. Alexandra suggested thinking about breaks as punctuation marks in a sentence.

More Benefits of Breaks

Breaks can function as reinforcers. This is especially true when we are creating structured breaks that involve activities that the animal really enjoys. For example, in the pilates mircoshaping work that I discussed above, Alexandra does not give the breaks randomly or at set intervals. Instead, she uses short breaks (during which the horse gets to touch the target to earn reinforcers) to mark improvements in the behavior she is currently teaching. While training, try to think about giving breaks at clickable moments. This is related to Alexandra’s loopy training concept, which she talked a bit about in her presentation.

Breaks can also be used to mark a transition to new criteria. So, if a horse is doing very well with a behavior, the trainer can give a break, and then move on to something slightly different after the break. This helps the trainer be clearer to the horse about when criteria are changing. This is something I’ve been thinking a bit about. If a trainer did this consistently–increasing criteria after a break–would the horse learn this concept and start offering more or different behavior after the break? I’ve never played with this idea consistently, but I can see how it could be beneficial when training new behaviors.

How do you break up long sessions when you are training? Do you take breaks during sessions? If so, what do you do during the breaks? Are you systematic about how you structure your breaks? Have you experimented with different ways to set up sessions or take breaks?

Horses can see some colors. However, they don’t see color like humans do. Humans and other primates have what is called trichromatic color vision because they have three types of cone cells in their eyes. The most common form of color vision in non-primate mammals, including horses, is dichromatic color vision. Horses and other animals with this type of vision only have two types of cone cells in their eyes.

The diagram to the right shows the hues that normal humans can see and the hues that horses can see. Normal humans can see four basic color hues–red, green, blue, and yellow. They can also see lots of intermediate hues between each of these primary hues. A horse’s vision is similar to a person who is red-green color blind. Horses can only see blues and yellows. However, unlike a human, a horse can probably not see any intermediate hues.

The four photos below come from the journal article. The two top photos are “regular” photos, as a normal human would see the world. The two bottom photos have been doctored so that they approximate how a horse would likely see the world. In addition to altering the colors, the sharpness of the photos have also been doctored to match a horse’s vision.

Notice how some things that jump out in the top photos are difficult to see in the bottom photos. For example, in the top photo, the child on the right is wearing a very bright jacket. However, in the bottom photo, the horse sees the jacket as a shade of grey. Knowing how your horse sees the world is important for training and riding. Since horses see the world very differently than us, they will react differently than we might expect them to in certain situations.

(click on the image to view a larger version)

Diagram and photos are from:
Carroll, J., Murphy, C. J., Neitz, M., Ver Hoeve, J. N., Neitz, J. (2001). Photopigment basis for dichromatic color vision in the horse. Journal of Vision, 1, 80-87.

“Are you having fun yet?”

This third, and final post of my clinic notes is a bit of a “catch all” post. It covers work and play, using negative reinforcement when clicker training, and shaping games.

Clicker training should be fun. And it is most of the times. Still sometimes, clicker trainers struggle to find ways to make routine or complex tasks fun. If you ever find yourself (or your horse) feeling bored, unhappy, frustrated, or discouraged, try taking a step back and assessing what’s going on. It might be time for a break, a change of pace, or a new approach. I find this is especially important for horses and riders who started out from a more traditional training approach. Many horses and riders have poisoned cues associated with certain activities or have learned that certain things just aren’t fun.

Alexandra Kurland’s work beautifully combines clicker training with dressage concepts to create balanced performance horses with stunning movement. However, even after discovering the fun of clicker training, I know of many horses and riders still have negative associations with arena work and performance work. It can be hard to keep this kind of work fun and interesting for yourself and your horses if you’ve been taught in the past that this kind of work is suppose to be difficult or demanding. One thing that Alexandra told us during the clinic was that everything we do with our horses should be play. We should find ways to make our training be all about play, even when we are doing “work.” Try thinking about all of your training with your horse as playful experimenting, not as demanding, controlled work.

Here’s one fun, but very useful thing that we did at the clinic. Several of the clinic participants played around with walking in sync with their horse. The trainer and horse would start by walking around a large circle of cones. The person’s goal was to try to walk in step with the horse’s front feet. This is actually more complex than it sounds! The trainer has to focus on keeping herself and the horse moving around the circle, while at the same time watching the horse’s feet.

This is a good exercise for getting in rhythm with your horse. Alexandra suggested watching the horse’s knees, not his feet. The person should also think about to lifting her legs from the hips, not from the feet. The horses seemed to really enjoy this “work.” Several were paying attention and watching the handler’s feet intently. Try this out and I think you’ll find yourself walking differently after practicing walking in sync with your horse.

We can make training sessions more fun is by adding variety to the session or by mixing in some of the horse’s favorite behaviors with the behaviors we want to work on. One participant focused on some on in-hand work and also on improving her horse’s Spanish walk. Both of these exercises took a lot of concentration. So, she would frequently take short breaks to play with the toys in the arena, including pedestals, targets, and even a giant soccer ball.

When training, are you having fun? Is your horse having fun? If there are times when you are not, what can you do to make your training more playful for you and your horse? I’d love to hear comments regarding how you have found ways to creatively work on exercises that would normally be considered not quite as fun.

Is it possible to use negative reinforcement during clicker training and still have a happy horse?

I know a lot of horse clicker trainers who struggle or who have struggled with this question. Most horse trainers don’t start out as clicker trainers, but with traditional horse training methods, which rely heavily on negative reinforcement and punishment. Negative reinforcement is often called pressure and release by horse trainers. The trainer applies some form of pressure, such as pulling on the rein, squeezing the horse with her legs, or waving a whip at the horse. As soon as the horse moves in the desired direction, the pressure is removed.

Many horse clicker trainers start clicker training because they’ve seen some of the harmful side effects of negative reinforcement training. They’ve witnessed depressed, shut-down horses who don’t want to perform or who rebel if the rider asks for too much. These aren’t fun horses to work with.

Horses love clicker training because they are working for something, rather than just working to avoid pressure. However, after starting clicker training, many horse trainers wonder how much (if any) negative reinforcement is okay to use during training.

I know some trainers who go to the extreme and try to remove any and all negative reinforcement and pressure from their training. Others, such as Alexandra Kurland, believe that this is probably impractical and impossible. Instead, these clicker trainers try to find subtle and gentle ways to use small amounts of negative reinforcement as meaningful information, rather than as something painful to avoid.

I have a friend, Dolores, who often gives the example of dancing. If you watch two graceful dancers, they are perfectly in tune with each other’s body movements. Their communication and cues are often so light that these cues are almost impossible to see. But, a lot of these are pressure cues. A dancer might gently press on his partner’s shoulder to indicate for her to move another step over or might press in a slightly different way to ask her to shift her weight back a bit.

This is pressure as information and what we should strive for with our horses. The pressure cue is information only, not coercion, force or threat. If you closely follow Alexandra Kurland’s work, you’ll see that she teaches ways to develop pressure cues that create happy horses that are light and responsive.

Clicker training gives you tools for creating these information pressure cues. With shaping, a trainer can start with a light, barely there cue and accept any small approximations or inclinations toward the final behavior. This can be gradually built up into the final behavior. These types of pressure cues are safe cues because they are both light and predictable. There is never any threat of escalation of pressure or punishment for wrong responding.

One thing Alexandra Kurland often says is that “Everyone will eventually sit down.” This actually comes from horse trainer John Lyons. At clinics, Lyons would tell everyone in the audience to stand up. Then, he’d keep on teaching the clinic. Eventually, everybody in the audience would sit back down. Trainers don’t have to force, push or prod in order to get the behaviors they want. You can set up situations so that the horse will choose on his own to do a certain behavior.

For example, imagine a trainer who has taught a horse to target. She starts by always presenting the target to the horse at the “12 o’ clock” position, right in front of his nose. Once he completely gets the hang of this, she starts asking him to target at 10 o’ clock, a bit off to his left side. If she does enough repetitions of this in a row, the horse is probably eventually going to swing his hips over a step to straighten out his body. After a few repetitions, the trainer could switch to clicking for the movement of the hips.

In this hypothetical example, the trainer set up the horse so that the horse wanted to reorganize himself in a slightly more comfortable position. There’s nothing threatening or scary to the horse about having to turn his head. However, after a few repetitions, he might realize that he’d be more comfortable if he straightened out his body. The horse finds a new, easier way to touch the target and in the process moves his hips, which is the next behavior we want. This involves very low levels of negative reinforcement.

We talked just briefly about an example similar to this at the clinic. But, it left me thinking a lot about negative reinforcement and how we can successfully use negative reinforcement as clicker trainers. There can be a lot of benefit of using small amounts of pressure as information when teaching cues. Many of the exercises at the beginning of Alexandra’s training program use pressure cues to create a language and communication system that will come into play much further down the road.

For example, Alexandra Kurland suggests teaching both stationing on a mat and head lowering using rein pressure during the teaching process and as part of the cue. For stationing or head lowering by themselves, it probably doesn’t matter if you train these behaviors with pressure, targeting, free shaping, etc. However, the way these foundations are taught really comes into play when we start combining these behaviors into larger units and combining them with other piece of the puzzle.

Many traditional horse trainers complain about clicker training because they say you can’t teach flying lead changes or other complex, upper level performance behaviors using a clicker. Many of these people think clicker training means they have to sit around and wait for the behavior to happen. And most average horses are never going to just offer a flying lead change. However, we can use clicker training and pressure as information to build a language of subtle rein, leg, and weight cues. When we have enough of the puzzle pieces filled in, complex performance behaviors will start to fall in place almost seamlessly.

Tabletop Games for Improving You Shaping Skills

Sometimes during training you will end up confusing or frustrating your horse. This happens to all of us, both new trainers and old trainers alike! Clicker training and horse training are both skills that take time, patience and practice to develop. The best trainers I know are ones who have an attitude of continual self improvement. If things don’t go as planned they stay calm, make the best of it, and figure out what to do differently the next time.

There are many ways you can practice training horses without actually using a horse. In the first post of my clicker training clinic notes I wrote a lot about how we used “human horses” to simulate ground work exercises at the clinic. You have probably heard of and maybe even played the Shaping Game, where one person clicker trains another to do some behavior. (If you are not familiar with this game, there is a great explanation of it in Karen Pryor’s wonderful book, Don’t Shoot the Dog.

One variation of the shaping game, which I learned originally from Kay Laurence, involves two people, a collection of small household items and trinkets, a clicker, and “treats.” (The treats can be small objects such as stones or coins.) The two people sit at a table and one trains the other to “do something” with the objects. This can involve shaping different movements with different objects, putting certain behaviors on cue, and even training complex concepts and skills. This is a great way to improve your timing, mechanics, shaping skills, and observation skills.

We spent some time on the second day of the clinic playing some of these tabletop shaping games. Sometimes when clicker training horses (or training any other animal) the trainer thinks she is training one skill, but the animal is actually learning an entirely different behavior. Tabletop shaping games are helpful because we can talk to the learner after the training is over. This is a great way to figure out what the learner was thinking or feeling during the training. Analyzing this information can help you figure out ways to improve your training in the future.

For example, for one shaping problem, I trained one of the other women at the clinic four different cues, two “nouns” and two “verbs.” That is, my final goal was to be able to specify a certain action and then to also be able to specify which object she should use for that action. We had a set of children’s colored markers, so the two objects that I put on cue were for her to select a green marker or an orange marker. The two action behaviors I put on cue were rolling the marker along the table and spinning the marker back and forth on the table.

I was able to fairly quickly train my learner to roll or spin a marker and then put these two different actions on cue. Then, I trained her to select either a green marker or an orange marker and I put selecting each color on cue. Then I tried combining my cues—first giving the cue to select a specific object, and then giving the action cue. This worked perfectly for the orange marker but failed miserably for the green marker. Oops, what was going on? I wasn’t sure, but I went back to practicing each of the four component cues individually. Then, I practiced giving the cue for “orange” with each of the action cues. After a bit of this, I tried again to give the cue for green and then the cue for a specific action. And she got it! From then on, I was able to specify which object and which action.

While discussing afterwards, we figured out what had happened. My learner had been selecting the orange marker by touching it with one finger. However, she had been selecting the green marker by putting her fingers on the table on either side of the object, but not touching the object. (This was a result of the shaping process and her history of reinforcement. She had started by trying to pick up the green marker, which I didn’t want. So I had shaped her to lower her hand down over the green marker, and then put her fingers on the table on either side.)

I thought I had put “pick the orange object” and “pick the green object” on cue. And I had, for orange. However, for green, my learner had thought that she was learning an action for the object, not just an object. The action she thought she was supposed to be doing was to put her fingers on either side of the marker but to NOT touch it. So, later when I ask her to either roll or spin the green marker, to her, I was giving two completely opposite cues. I was telling her to roll or spin the green marker, while, at the same time, I was telling her not to touch the green marker. No wonder she was confused at first!

If an animal has trouble learning a new behavior or concept, it’s not because the animal is unintelligent. During training, our cues might not make sense to the animal because we might be giving confusing or conflicting information. In these situations, we need to return to a previously trained behavior, see if we are missing important component skills, and find a new or better way to communicate with the animal. These types of shaping games are great because they will help teach you how to break behavior down into smaller parts and see what component skills are necessary to build complex behaviors.

Clicker training gives us tools to create happy horses. This clinic gave me a ton to think about in terms of how I can use clicker training to create solid cues and beautifully balanced horses. As well, I was reminded that clicker training gives us ways to make training fun while, ultimately becoming better trainers. I hope you enjoyed this series of posts! You can find links to all three posts from this clinic, as well as notes from other clicker training conferences on my clinics and conferences page.

On the first morning of the clinic, we had a lengthy and interesting discussion about cues. Alexandra Kurland had recently returned from Karen Pryor’s ClickerExpo, a large clicker training conference that is held twice a year. At ClickerExpo, Alexandra got some clever ideas about using cues to build duration from clicker trainer Kay Laurence. I’m a big fan of Kay Laurence. If you’re not familiar with Kay, she is a dog trainer from England. Kay is a very talented trainer and always seems to be testing new and better ways to train behavior.

In one of the lab sessions at ClickerExpo, Kay had participants playing with a recuing procedure for extending the duration of a behavior. Teaching duration can be difficult sometimes. Many trainers are good at shaping the initial behavior, but then find that it takes them a long time to slowly increase the duration of the behavior.

Usually, clicker trainers build duration in small increments. The animal earns a treat for doing the behavior for 3 seconds. Then, once the animal gets this, the duration is increased to 4 seconds, then 5 and then 6. If the animal makes a mistake, the trainer often recues the behavior or returns to a previous, easier criteria.

Kay’s recuing procedure tackles the problem of extending duration by building cues. Here’s how Kay’s recuing procedure works for increasing duration. (Note: This is how I understand it from attending Alexandra’s clinic and from discussing it with other people online.) First, build a small, solid unit of behavior that has a small amount of duration. This might consist of having a dog sit for 2 seconds, a horse lower his head for 3 seconds, or a horse walk 4 steps forward. The size of the unit will depend on your animal and the particular behavior. The behavior needs to be reliably on cue and needs to have been taught with positive reinforcement.

For this example, consider a horse who has been trained using clicker training to walk 4 steps forward when the trainer say “walk.” The great thing about clicker training is that when cues are trained with positive reinforcement, the cue can act as a reinforcer for other behavior. If you are not familiar with this idea, please see my post on Alexandra Kurland’s loopy training concept. I think the loopy training concept is at the core of this recuing procedure.

Now that this unit of walking 4 steps forward is solidly on cue, the trainer will use this unit to build duration. The trainer starts by cueing the horse to “walk.” Right before the horse is done with the unit (walking 4 steps), the trainer cues another unit of behavior. Then, right before the horse finishes the second unit, the trainer cues a third unit of behavior. At the end of this third unit (the horse has now traveled 12 steps), the trainer clicks and gives the horse a treat.

The trainer gives the re-cue right before the behavior unit ends but, importantly, while the behavior is still going well. Often, trainers wait and give the next cue when a behavior has already stopped or when the behavior is starting to fall apart. By doing this, the trainer could actually be reinforcing unwanted behavior (If this doesn’t make sense—read about loopy training.)

After some repetition of this, the animal will start anticipating the next unit. The animal recognizes the pattern and knows that you are going to cue again for a second and third unit of behavior. When this happens, the trainer can first fade out one of the middle cues and then both of the middle cues.

When both middle cues have been faded out, the trainer now has a new unit of behavior that is 12 steps. The cue that meant walk 4 steps forward now means walk 12 steps forward. The same procedure can be repeated to further build duration.

Solid Units Help Building Duration Exponentially

Most trainers build duration linearly. Three seconds. Then four seconds. Then five seconds. Then six seconds. Each step is a unit and the trainer adds on one step each time. What Kay is suggesting here is a method for building duration exponentially. The trainer can combine three units where each unit is 4 steps to get a new unit of 12 steps. Then, 3 units (each of 12 steps) can be combined to get a new unit of 36 steps. Rather than having to add one step or second at a time, the trainer can create and then combine larger and larger units.

The key to this lesson is to build a solid base unit of behavior before you start building duration. Many trainers attempt to build duration before they have a small, solid unit of behavior on cue. This can lead to frustration and failure no matter what method you use for building duration. The idea behind this procedure is that the cue is placed so that it reinforces the last unit of behavior and initiates the next unit of behavior. Good timing is key! If the trainer cues too late, she could get staggered, interrupted units of behavior. We discussed how this procedure could be used for increasing duration when teaching a horse to stand on a mat, lift a leg, walk around a cone circle, or practice the why would you leave me exercise.

One interesting thing that it would be worth it for clicker trainers to explore is how to use this procedure to get duration, versus how to use this procedure to enhance or improve a behavior. For instance, several participants used this exercise while riding to work on improving their walk. Rather than duration, both women played with using the recuing procedure to improve the quality of the horse’s walk. The rider would wait for a nice, forward walk. Recuing while walking resulted in an even more balanced, engaged walk.

This procedure is something I’ve been thinking a lot about and something I think is definitely worth exploring. I am still not sure which situations or under what conditions this procedure would be most useful. People have been discussing this recueing procedure recently on Alexandra Kurland’s yahoo group, as well as several other online clicker training groups. If you play around with these ideas in your own training, please let me know how it goes! I think there are many variations and procedures for building duration, many which have not been systematically explored.

Nagging, KGS, and Concept Learning

In several online clicker training discussions, several people have asked questions about whether the horse would interpret this procedure as nagging. From what I’ve seen and from talking to other people, this is not the case. However, if timing was poor and the trainer was recuing as the behavior was starting to deteriorate, this could become nagging or could reinforce the deterioration of behavior.

Also, several people have asked how this compares to what some clicker trainers call a keep going signal (KGS). In my opinion, this procedure is completely different from a KGS. A KGS only tells the animal to keep doing a behavior. With this procedure, the cue tells the animal to start a known unit of behavior and acts as a reinforcer for a previous unit of behavior.

One idea we discussed briefly that related to the recuing procedure was concept learning. Once the horse or other animal has gone through this process several times, the animal begins to learn that this is a new concept or method for building duration. Theoretically, once the animal understands this process, you should be able to build duration very fast.

If a trainer always builds duration in the same way, one step at a time, trying something like this could definitely throw the animal off, creating confusion and frustration. The trainer must teach the animal that this is a new way to build behavior.

I’ve recently been watching through Alexandra’s loopy training DVD — one thing she discusses is concepts we teach our horses. One concept that is good to teach your horse is that the rules of the game can change. This does have to be taught to the horse. With clicker training, many horses quickly learn the rules of the game. The horse knows how to make you click. Because of this, it can be very frustrating for the horse if you change the rules in situations where the horse doesn’t know that the rules can change.

In what kinds of situations do we need to teach the horse that the rules can change? This depends on the horse. Some horses learn targeting and then seem to automatically figure out that they can follow a target up, down, side to side, and across the arena. With other horses, the horse might not understand that he can walk and touch a target at the same time or that targeting can happen in lots of directions. The clicker trainer must use her shaping skills to explain each of the variations to the horse.

If your horse isn’t progressing or seems confused or frustrated, look at your shaping plan. Try and see if can break things down or explain things better so the horse can successfully figure out the rules and concepts you are trying to communicate to him. When clicker training, we need to break behavior down and find small, stable units or loops of behavior. Then we can build these units in a structured, sequential manner so that the horse does not get flustered or frustrated.

What Do Your Cues Mean to Your Horse?

While training, a trainer is constantly giving the horse signals and information, many times without even realizing it. Horses have great observation skills and they quickly learn our patterns and routines. One thing that Alexandra told us at the clinic is that we should constantly be asking our horse “What are your cues?” During clicker training, a trainer should learn to be a careful observer and should take note of how her horse reacts to everything she does.

You might think that your horse understands what a certain cue means. However, if you ask the horse and then observe, the horse will tell you what he thinks each cue means. What he thinks might or might not agree with what you thought you trained. Or, more subtly, the horse could think that the cue means one thing in one context but a different thing in another situation.

Early on the first day of the clinic, one participant experimented with Alexandra’s The Grown Ups are Talking exercise with her horse. She wanted her horse to stand still and relaxed on a mat while she moved around the horse. The horse clearly told her that if she moved in certain ways, she was inadvertently cuing certain behaviors. For example, if she stood straight with her hips still, this was a cue for the horse to do a behavior Alexandra calls the “pose.”

Now, it’s not necessarily bad for your horse to formulate his own cues. You can take these cues and use them. Or, you can take this information and use it as the starting point to get where you want to go. In any case, carefully observing how your horse responds to cues gives you important information that can be used to improve your training.

Cues, Consistency, and Communication

On the second day of the clinic we played around some with human horses. I talked about this more in detail in my first post about the clinic, as this really helped explain Alexandra Kurland’s Hip Shoulder Shoulder (HSS) exercise to me. At one point, I was being the “horse” for one of the other clinic participants. We practiced some jaw flexions and then were doing some very nice HSS in the clinic host’s kitchen.

Part way through, she asked me to change directions. Then, she started cueing me again by sliding her hand down the lead rope. I starting moving forward around her again. At least, that’s what I thought she wanted. What she really actually wanted was to start again with jaw flexions on that side, like we had started on the other side. But, at first, her cues weren’t clear to me.

How many times does this happen with our horses? We ask for one behavior and get another instead. The natural reaction for many traditional trainers is to blame the horse and say the horse is unintelligent or just not paying attention. Clicker training teaches a different mindset. If the horse understood what we were asking, he’d be doing it!

My trainer had to break things way down and go back to just giving me clicks and “treats” for standing still. Then, I understood it was something different that she wanted and she was able to go back to asking for jaw flexions on the new side. If the horse isn’t doing what you want, change your own behavior. Find a way to break down the behavior or find a new way to ask for the behavior so that you can communicate more clearly with your horse.

It’s really important to pay attention to the signals you are giving your horses when training a behavior. A trainer must be consistent when building a loop so that the unit is repeatable and can be used later. Start with small loops and don’t be greedy. Sometimes, it’s really easy to want to jump ahead and work on the next step before the horse is ready. However, if the trainer has not been consistent or the loop contains unwanted behaviors, the trainer can get in trouble when moving on because there will be too much extra behavior or variability in behavior. Creating tight loops at the beginning when training a new behavior will give you a solid foundation to build on later.

One really important thing that Alexandra said was “when the handler becomes consistent, the horse will too.” There’s a lot to that statement, so I encourage you to think about that statement. Think about a time you were working with an animal and the animal’s behavior seemed erratic and unpredictable. Are you sure your behavior was consistent and precise while working with that animal? So many times, people don’t notice how their behavior is changing and varying. The trainer might not realize it, but her behavior might look very unpredictable to the horse!

Cues are important. They are your keys to communicating with your horse. Clicker trainers can use cues in clever ways, such as using cues to reinforce other behaviors or to build duration. As clicker trainers, we must be precise and clear when building cues and attaching them to behavior. If your animal isn’t responding to your cues, don’t blame the animal. Instead, take a chance to reevaluate your training plan, including what cues you are purposefully (and accidentally) giving to the horse and what these cues mean to the horse.

Check back on Saturday (March 3) for part three of my notes!

This was my third clicker training clinic with Alexandra Kurland. The Houston area has a great group of horse clicker trainers and Alexandra typically does a couple of Texas clinics in this area every year. This was a fun clinic because all of the participants have been studying with Alexandra for some time.

We were able to spend the weekend really diving into some advanced training ideas and concepts. I was only able to stay the first two days of the three-day clinic. Still, I learned a whole lot! I have plenty of good ideas now for things to try out with my horses, as well as a better idea of the purpose behind some of Alexandra’s more advanced exercises.

I’m dividing my notes from the clinic into three posts, as this will hopefully make them easier to read than one very long post. This first post will be about balance. Tomorrow, Thursday, I’ll post Part 2 of my notes, which will be about cues. And Friday I’ll post my final notes from the clinic, which will be a “catch all” post for everything fun that didn’t fit into the first two posts.

What is Balance?

This post is about balance, which was a big theme at the clinic. Balance can mean a lot of different things during clicker training. Because most people ride their horses, trainers need methods to teach horses to be physically balanced. Years of riding can do a lot of physical damage to a horse if the horse is constantly moving incorrectly and out of balance.

Balance also relates to emotions and energy. Many training methods create frustration and stress for the horse and can lead to emotional meltdowns or explosions. Instead, clicker trainers want to set up their training sessions to help achieve certain energy levels and to teach emotional self control.

Finally, we want to balance the behaviors we teach our horses. Clicker trainers who have studied Alexandra Kurland’s work are probably familiar with a mantra she often repeats — for every behavior we teach, there is an opposite behavior that we also must teach. This includes teaching behaviors that complement each other and also knowing that we can ask for certain behaviors when we want them. For example, sometimes a rider wants to be able to ask her horse for a lot of energy, engagement and movement. Other times, the rider wants to be able to tell the horse that it’s okay to take some time to chill out and relax.

Being able to ask for certain energy levels is actually a pretty advanced skill. A lot of horse trainers (and dog trainers) run into trouble because they do not know how to teach this. Think about the animals you see in many of the high energy sports, such as racehorses, barrel racing and other mounted games, and dog agility. Many of these trainers find ways for getting their animals super pumped up and high energy. However, many do not know how to achieve speed and exuberance, while still maintaining focus and precision. Most trainers, as well, do not know how to dial the energy back down and ask the animal to settle and relax after the show or game is over.

With some behaviors the trainer wants high energy and with some the trainer wants low energy but, most importantly, the energy level needs to be manageable. Even more importantly, within the same behavior, the trainer often wants to be able to ask for several different versions of that behavior.

For example, consider asking your horse to step onto and then wait on a mat. Many times, the trainer wants the horse engaged, focused and ready, waiting for the next cue. Other times, however, the trainer wants to park the horse on the mat while she spends a few minutes rearranging the jumps and other toys in the arena. In this second situation, the trainer might want to be able to tell the horse that it’s okay for the horse to take his focus off of her and just chill out and relax for a while. Depending on what the trainer is working on, there could be lots of other variations of the focus and energy level that trainer wants when the horse is on the mat. The key is to recognize the distinctions between these different situations and to train in such a way so that you can communicate to the horse exactly what you want.

One thing we worked a lot on at the clinic was walking. Several of the clinic participants worked on their horses’ walks, both on the ground and under saddle. Many riders dismiss the walk, wanting to work at faster gaits. A good walk, however, is difficult to perfect! More importantly, if a rider can achieve good balance and movement at the walk, the other gaits will come much more easily.

One participant worked awhile the first day on the ground, walking with her horse around a medium sized circle of cones. The horse had a lovely, forward moving, engaged walk. She played with asking for a more collected walk for a while and then asking for a stretched out, more relaxed walk, although still with the same forward moving energy. The difficulty here was in having two different great walks and in being able to ask the horse to switch between them.

Hip Shoulder Shoulder

One exercise we talked a lot about at the clinic was Alexandra Kurland’s Hip Shoulder Shoulder (HSS) exercise. This is actually not an exercise I have played around with much, but I would like to some in the future. The clinic really helped me understand the different variations of this exercise, as well as their purposes. If you are interested in learning more about this exercise, Alexandra has a whole DVD about it and discusses it in her riding book.

The barebones basics of the exercise, for those who aren’t familiar with it, are that the trainer starts by drawing the horse forward, then asks the horse to swing his hips away, then asks for several steps backward. The inside hind should really be stepping underneath the horse and over in front of the other hind.

If taught using clicker training, Hip Shoulder Shoulder is both a safety exercise and an advanced performance exercise. As a safety exercise, if a trainer can ask a horse to take his hips around, she can stop him from bolting off or barging over her. Training and practicing safety tools are important when working with a 1000-pound animal. If you can ask the horse to take his hips around and then back up, you can control his movement and get his focus back on you.

Alexandra teaches taking the horse’s hips around as a forward moving exercise. This means that as the horse is yielding his hips around, there is also some forward motion. The trainer uses this exercise to redirect the horse’s movement, not to completely stop or block movement. Especially with a stressed or frustrated horse, completely blocking the horse’s energy and movement can make the horse feel blocked and trapped – the horse becomes a coiled spring, waiting to explode. By allowing some forward motion, the trainer can use HSS to spiral down the horse’s energy and help the horse to relax and settle.

The second version of HSS, at the level of refinement, is an upper level performance exercise that can lead to better gaits and performance. For both versions, the trainer wants this to be a forward moving exercise. This is much more comfortable for the horse and doesn’t lead to the horse getting jammed up.

On the first day of the clinic, one participant worked on HSS with her high energy Arabian-pony cross. The pony was a very smart little mare, but at the beginning of the session was very unfocused and also a bit nippy. The trainer would let the pony move around her, then would ask the pony to yield her hips, back up, and then lower her head.

During the head down potions of this work, the handler spent lots of time stroking and scratching with the horse. She was looking for clickable moments where the horse’s eyes would soften or lips would wiggle. This participant had done lots of practice at home with HSS and head lowering, so she was able to use these exercises as management tools to allow the horse to move, while also bringing the horse’s energy down and the horse’s focus back onto her.

Alexandra discussed the importance of learning to carefully observe the horse’s body language and emotional cues and to recognize signs of worry and stress before they build. At some time, we all will probably encounter frustration, ugly faces or emotional meltdowns from our horses. So, trainers should think about and train management tools for when horses are excited, high energy, or unfocused. If the trainer can be accurately reading the horse and using her clicker training tool box, she can lead the dance, even with a horse who’s behavior was drifting toward out of control.

Practice Balancing with Human Horses

On the second morning of the clinic, we played around a bit with HSS using human horses. What this means is that one person would hold onto the lead rope and pretend to be the horse. Before attempting an exercise with your horse, it’s a great idea to practice it first with another human. We talked a lot about the human’s physical balance and also about mechanical skills. If the human is balanced and has good mechanical skills, it will be much easier for the horse to figure out what is wanted and to keep his body balanced.

With the human horses, we tried to find the “sweet spot” during HSS. The handler would ask the “horse” to take one step forward at a time, brining the horse around in a small circle (similar to asking a real horse to yield his hips around). As you do this, there comes a point where the horse shifts his weight, realigns himself, and is ready to back up. If we can catch the horse at this point, it only takes a tiny suggestion and the horse can easily float several steps backward. If we don’t find the right spot, asking the horse to go forward and then back can feel sudden and jammed.

Finding the sweet spot where the horse can easily and smoothly access backing means we end up needing to ask much less of the horse, because we’ve set him up so that he can easily do what we want. This was very interesting to do with human horses! For a while, we had the human horse indicate when she felt her weight shift so that she was ready to back up. It was really interesting for the trainer to then get to see if that would have been a point where she would have asked the horse to back up. HSS helps get the horse light in his movements, so that the trainer can easily ask him to shift his balance forward, backward, left or right.

One thing I really like about working with Alexandra is that she teaches the tiny details that can help take clicker training from good to awesome. I trained one of the other human participants for a while. I started at the beginning by asking her to move forward and step around me. But, I wasn’t very organized to begin with and we were quickly spinning in little circles, becoming out of control.

So, we stepped way back and at Alexandra’s suggestion, I worked on just asking her to take one step forward and then I would click (and pretend to feed her a treat). This is a seemingly simple clicker training exercise to do (with a horse or human), but there are a lot of subtle things that can take it from okay to really stellar. For instance, even sliding down the rope to ask the horse to move a step forward takes a lot of practice to get perfect. Sliding your hand down the rope needs to feel smooth and light to the horse and not at all sudden or forced.

We also talked a lot about physical balance while delivering treats. One thing Alexandra said to remember is that food delivery comes from the feet. When feeding a treat to a horse, you need to be balanced all the way up through your body, starting with the way your weight is in your feet and coming up through the rest of your body and spine. You need to be balanced and aligned in the right spot so that the horse can easily take the treat off of your palm.

The human’s balance greatly affects the horse’s balance. If your horse has a lot of problems with a particular exercise or behavior, look at both the horse physically and yourself physically. Does the horse physically have the balance, flexibility, and strength to perform the behavior repeatedly? Are you setting up the situation so that it is physically easy for the horse to do the behavior or does your horse feel like he’s twisting himself into a pretzel?

Don’t feel rushed while delivering treats. If you need a couple of seconds to get yourself in a good position before delivering a treat, do so! Don’t rush and feed the horse a treat in a position in which you are physically out of balance. Poor food delivery can create grumpy and frustrated horses. For instance, if the person is out of balance and feeding too far down or forward, the person can end up throwing the horse’s weight forward on to his forehand.

(For a great example of food delivery, see this short video clip by Amanda Martin. Many people, when on the horse’s left side, deliver treats with their right hand. Notice which hand Amanda uses to feed the treats—her left hand. She rotates toward the horse and then feeds with the hand in the front. This position is something I learned a couple of years back from Alexandra. I’ve found in my own training that this style of treat delivery is much more comfortable for both the horse and the human.)

One thing that Alexandra often repeats is that physical balance creates emotional balance. There’s a lot of truth to this. If your horse feels balanced throughout his body, it will be much easier for him to relax and settle. If the human’s poor mechanical skills are continually throwing the horse out of balance, this is not only confusing and frustrating, it physically just doesn’t feel good to the horse.

One of the most interesting parts about this human horse work was that we were doing it in the clinic host’s kitchen, a small, confined space. So, the handler had to be very precise and deliberate in her cues to help the horse avoid running into things. The puzzle was to create a nice, flowing, dance-like exchange of cues between human horse and trainer, without bumping into the counters or china cabinet.

Good balance and communication between horse and trainer take time and practice to develop. Another mantra that Alexandra likes to remind her students is that the more you stick with an exercise, the more good things you’ll see that will come out of it. This was very true of a lot of the clicker training exercises we worked on at the clinic, particularly Hip Shoulder Shoulder.

Many “simple” behaviors, such as standing on a mat, head lowering, backing, or moving the hindquarters, are basic behaviors many people teach at the beginning of clicker training. These (and other) first behaviors teach the horse and human about clicker training skills and help build a language so that the trainer can communicate successfully with the horse while remaining safe. However, as you work on refinement of some of these “simple” behaviors, you will begin to discover the subtle details of some of these exercises and how the behavior or exercise will aid in developing much more advanced behaviors.

Stay tuned for Part Two of my Tomball clicker training clinic notes, which will be all about cues. I’ll be posting part two tomorrow (Wednesday).

This post is the first part of my notes about a horse clicker training clinic that I audited with Alexandra Kurland in Texas in February. Click here for the rest of the posts in this series.

I am nearly done editing my notes from the clinic I audited with Alexandra Kurland two weeks ago. It’s taken awhile because there was lots of good information I wanted to include! I plan to publish the first post of notes tomorrow (Tuesday) and the second and third parts later in the week. So stay tuned!

We’ve had a lot of adoptions recently at the rescue, which has been great. I posted last week about our young quarter pony Blossom finding a great home.

Yesterday evening the rescue delivered Ella, a young donkey, to her new home. Ella was adopted by a woman named Jane, who’s been a long time friend of the rescue. I know that we’ll get lots of updates and photos from Jane. Ella came to the rescue about a year ago. She was a stray who was picked up by the county and probably wasn’t even a year old. She was completely terrified of people and didn’t want to be touched or petted.

We spent a lot of time working with Ella over the past year. One of our high school volunteers, Meghan, in particular spent a ton of time helping Ella learn that people are fun to be around and teaching her about halters, leading, picking up her feet, and trailer loading.

After Ella learned that humans were fun, it was hard to keep her away from you! She always wanted to be the life of the party and would come trotting up in the pasture, begging to get to hang out with us. This is one of my favorite videos of Ella, from one day last February when she had a great time playing with my friend Liz’s dog Ransom.

Ella got to meet a pig for the first time yesterday! She’ll also have several goats to play with and keep her company. As well, Ella will have a young little donkey named Muffin to hang out with. Donkeys love having other donkeys as friends. Many people aren’t aware of this. Some donkeys do okay with horses, but many miss having another donkey around. There have been times when we have only had one donkey at the rescue and the donkey would spend lots of time braying and talking to the other donkeys down the street.

The rescue I work is going through some big changes right now. The rescue currently needs to find foster homes for about half a dozen horses, as well as two donkeys. Some of these only need very short term foster homes, while some will need foster homes for a longer period of time. If you have friends in Texas, could you please check out this album on facebook and share it with your friends? The horses and I would really appreciate it.