Chewie has been learning to touch her forehead to my hand! This behavior is both fun and practical. I wrote last week about nose targeting. Chewie knows how to touch her nose to lots and lots of different objects. Nose targeting is the most common type of targeting. However, with positive reinforcement, animals can learn […]
One of my favorite foundation behaviors is teaching a horse to touch their nose to an object. Animal trainers call this behavior “targeting.” Targeting is a practical and fun behavior that can be used later on to teach many other behaviors. For example, a horse could follow a target onto a trailer, stand at a […]
I’ve been out of town for most of the past week in Washington, D.C. for the annual convention for the Association for Behavior Analysis, International. This year was ABAI’s 51st annual convention! Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz and I gave a workshop on Friday as part of the pre-convention program. We had a great group of workshop […]
Chewie and I have been playing more with mats. I shared some in March about Chewie’s first encounters with these blue mats. You can check out that post HERE. In our earlier sessions with the mats, my only goal was for Chewie to be confident and curious about the mats. I didn’t try to train […]
Chewie and I have been working on some targeting exercises. During a recent training session, Chewie was practicing touching a wall target with her nose. However, shortly after we started, someone began doing some work with a loud tractor, very close to Chewie’s pasture. Chewie has walked away from the target. When the noises started, […]
Chewie’s friend Allie with some gorgeous clouds in the background! We’ve had some really lovely spring weather recently, and I am getting to spend quite a bit of time at the barn. But, I can’t spend ALL my time at the barn. Eventually, I do have to leave. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about […]
