Did you know that horses could be trained with clicker training? In this section you’ll find lots of information about how positive reinforcement training methods can be used to create horses that are smart, brave, athletic and enthusiastic about training. If you’re skeptical, I recommend starting with this blog post, which summarizes a research study that examined whether clicker training causes horses to bite.
Dottie is a two year old filly we have at the rescue. She had no previous handling before coming to the rescue and was very skeptical about people for a long time. We started working with her this summer and got her friendlier toward people, as well as teaching her some of the basics like […]
Boomer, one of our young paint horse geldings, got adopted this weekend! Boomer had been at the rescue for a little over a year. When he arrived in 2009, he was very skeptical of people and completely untouchable. Because the rescue had so many horses last winter, he did not get very much handling until […]
As I wrote about last week, Apollo is doing a great job learning to pick up his feet. This can be a challenging skill for some horses to learn–clicker training really helps! In just a handful of sessions, Apollo has gotten very comfortable about me handling his feet. I started by just running my hand […]
All right, you’ve probably seen the Old Spice commerical that ends with actor Isaiah Mustafa on a horse. (If not, you can watch the Old Spice commercial HERE). Some friends of the rescue I work with wanted to make a spoof of this commercial to help promote a blues dance event that is happening in […]
It’s really starting to cool off here–it’s actually fun to be outside in the afternoon with the horses! The ponies and I had a great weekend. Boomer and Apollo (the two paint horses in the picture to the left) are doing AWESOME learning how to pick up their front feet for handling and cleaning. I […]
Many riding instructors and horse clubs will tell you NEVER to hand feed treats to a horse. This will spoil the horse and teach him bad manners by encouraging him to be pushy, rude and to beg for treats. Even worse, you’ll encourage your horse to nip and bite. At least, that was what I […]
