Rosie and I recently started playing with a big green ball. It’s not quite as big as some of the ones marketed by natural horse trainers, but it’s still pretty big! The ball is actually an exercise ball I bought at a sporting goods store. I just hope it will be strong enough for the […]
This is a video I found yesterday that I really like. It’s a great example of a trainer setting the animal up for success and then patiently clicking successive approximations to the final goal. Horses are curious by nature and are usually interested in exploring new items in their surrounding. If we can reward even […]
These are our babies at the rescue, getting to practice wearing halters. Suede is wearing the pink halter, Moody is wearing the teal halter and Tilde isn’t wearing a halter. Tilde’s a bit more shy than the other two. While he’s starting to enjoy getting scratched, he’s still not at the point where he’s comfortable […]
I’m no longer a fan of many of the teachings of the Parelli Natural Horsemanship program. However, many of the program’s ground exercises offer a good foundation for the young horse, especially if they are adapted with clicker training to reduce/eliminate the amount of negative reinforcement used during teaching. The Parelli friendly game is essentially […]
Mom and Sebastian make friends over the fence. Sebastian is getting pretty comfortable with me touching him over most of his body with both my hands and a carrot stick. (Read about Sebastian here or watch a few video clips here.) Here’s three of our next tasks to work on: 1. Touching sensitive body parts […]
Welcome to first edition the clicker carnival, a new blog carnival especially for clicker trainers and positive animal trainers. I recently heard someone ask if horse (clicker) trainers could learn anything from dog (clicker) trainers. The answer, of course, is a resounding Yes! Even when the species is different, the principles of reinforcement, shaping and […]
