“Traditional” horse training is from a scientific point of view a form of “Negative reinforcement” ie you apply pressure of some kind and when the horse does what you were looking for, you release the pressure. This obviously works, people have been doing it for centuries. However due to the research of BF Skinner we now know more, this is progress! We now know that if you associate a click (or other noise or signal) with a reward of some kind that is inherently good from the animals point of view, then you can use the click to say “YES that’s what I’m looking for” It is precise, clear and easily understood by the horse. It is just as useful for competition and performance as groundwork. Involves no bullying so the horse has no reason to resent work or people. But just as when you are teaching a child to tie their shoelaces, you make a big fuss the first few times, but it would be insulting to your teenager to continue rewarding them for tying their shoelaces. The same with horses, once a behaviour is put on cue (the horse is taught the aids or given a verbal cue for a particular behaviour) you no longer need to click and reward for that behaviour every time the horse offers it.
Clicker training is much the fastest and gentlest way to teach the aids to a horse, after all they are by instinct “Move into pressure” animals and need to be taught to move away from pressure.
Example 1
When I first got my young KWPN gelding Womble, I quickly went from having an uneducated "idiot on a rope" who twirled and pulled and was so excitable he just didn't know where to put himself, to having a horse that led quietly and calmly and would never pull even when startled. Also form having a nervous and spooky horse to having a brave think-before-you-react-to-something-spooky horse who would willingly stand untied in a howling gale while I held a strip of light plastic bale wrapping fluttering around his side and legs.
It took me two sessions of 10 minutes for me to get him to stand completely unbothered while I opened a large umbrella right next to him and allowed it to touch him and be passed over his back.
In riding, he would welcome a treat after the click when he was learning something new, but after he was certain what was wanted he no longer looked for a treat after being clicked.
It is a very simple matter, when you can say “Yes, that’s it!” to teach aiming for the centre of a jump, or to teach extension and collection and self carriage.
You can try it on a human volunteer and see how much of a difference it makes. Take one human and place them in a room with a chair, obviously you cannot tell them what it is you want them to do, first get them to turn the light switch on/off, but only use the word “No!” when they are doing the wrong thing and keep quiet and still when they are going in the right direction and doing the right thing. After that add “Yes” to your repertoire and get them to kneel sideways on the chair. say “Yes for moving towards the chair, then for touching the chair, your volunteer will then probably think you want them to sit on the chair but for that they get a “No”. Note the times taken.
Horses are intelligent social creatures and deserve to be treated with their welfare as the highest priority, in my book this does not include punishing a horse for not doing something it doesn’t know I want it to do.
In my experience of training people to train horses, some humans are not suitable clicker trainers, you need a clear idea of what is safe, desirable behaviour and you need absolutely precise timing with your click, otherwise you may easily end up teaching the wrong thing, timing is absolutely vital.
I've only really found one person so far who found the coordination of timing their click to the exact moment for the horse pretty near impossible. The vast majority of people pick it up almost as quickly as their horses! For that individual it was not a suitable method, as they inadvertently taught their horse to move away rather than stand still. They recognised that it was not their "thing" and I trained the horse for them in the basics and to be easy to catch and bring in from the field which was the reason I was asked to help.
Clicker training is much the fastest and gentlest way to teach the aids to a horse, after all they are by instinct “Move into pressure” animals and need to be taught to move away from pressure.
Example 1
When I first got my young KWPN gelding Womble, I quickly went from having an uneducated "idiot on a rope" who twirled and pulled and was so excitable he just didn't know where to put himself, to having a horse that led quietly and calmly and would never pull even when startled. Also form having a nervous and spooky horse to having a brave think-before-you-react-to-something-spooky horse who would willingly stand untied in a howling gale while I held a strip of light plastic bale wrapping fluttering around his side and legs.
It took me two sessions of 10 minutes for me to get him to stand completely unbothered while I opened a large umbrella right next to him and allowed it to touch him and be passed over his back.
In riding, he would welcome a treat after the click when he was learning something new, but after he was certain what was wanted he no longer looked for a treat after being clicked.
It is a very simple matter, when you can say “Yes, that’s it!” to teach aiming for the centre of a jump, or to teach extension and collection and self carriage.
You can try it on a human volunteer and see how much of a difference it makes. Take one human and place them in a room with a chair, obviously you cannot tell them what it is you want them to do, first get them to turn the light switch on/off, but only use the word “No!” when they are doing the wrong thing and keep quiet and still when they are going in the right direction and doing the right thing. After that add “Yes” to your repertoire and get them to kneel sideways on the chair. say “Yes for moving towards the chair, then for touching the chair, your volunteer will then probably think you want them to sit on the chair but for that they get a “No”. Note the times taken.
Horses are intelligent social creatures and deserve to be treated with their welfare as the highest priority, in my book this does not include punishing a horse for not doing something it doesn’t know I want it to do.
In my experience of training people to train horses, some humans are not suitable clicker trainers, you need a clear idea of what is safe, desirable behaviour and you need absolutely precise timing with your click, otherwise you may easily end up teaching the wrong thing, timing is absolutely vital.
I've only really found one person so far who found the coordination of timing their click to the exact moment for the horse pretty near impossible. The vast majority of people pick it up almost as quickly as their horses! For that individual it was not a suitable method, as they inadvertently taught their horse to move away rather than stand still. They recognised that it was not their "thing" and I trained the horse for them in the basics and to be easy to catch and bring in from the field which was the reason I was asked to help.