Chewie and I are starting to work on foundational behaviors that will help Chewie for riding, horse agility, hiking, and lots of other activities that we might do in the future. One behavior we have started working on is a “go forward” cue. I would like for Chewie to walk forward independently, even if I […]
Horses generally don’t like fly spray. Fly spray has a strong smell. It can be strange and scary when it squirts out of the bottle and touches the horse, unexpectedly. And, a horse may not like the way it feels on their body. Earlier this spring, I tried using a rag to put fly spray […]
Chewie has a new toy! This past week, I introduced her to a blue puzzle ball toy. The ball is an enrichment toy that is really made for dogs, but it can work for horses, too. Session 1 with the puzzle ball When I first introduced Chewie to the ball, I put it in a […]
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 […]
