June 12, 2017 by theclickercenter

Summer Pleasures – Watermelon Parties and The Two Sides of Freedom

Watermelon Parties

watermelon

Summer means watermelon parties for the horses. They are always a surprise. As I walk through the barn, bowl in hand, I’ll announce: “It’s party time!”

Watermelon parties are held outside. That was quick learning on my part. It’s astounding the amount of happy drool even a few pieces of watermelon can produce.

Robin and Fengur follow me outside. While I pass out chunks of watermelon, they stand waiting, one on either side of me. There’s no pushing, no trying to jump the queue, no grumbling at the other horse. We have a happy time together. The horses get to enjoy one of their favorite treats, and I get to enjoy their obvious pleasure.

Summer also means sharing an afternoon nap with Robin. I’ve just come in from mowing the lower pasture. It’s time for a cool down. I’m sitting in a chair in the barn aisle, cold drink by my side, computer on my lap, and Robin dozing beside me. Fengur has wandered off to the hay box to snack. He’ll join us in a little while.

The view from my chair – Robin’s lower lip droops while he naps beside me.

Why am I writing about these simple summer pleasures? My horses live in a world of yes. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what this means. Living in a world of yes gives me the freedom to enjoy these simple pleasures. But the freedom isn’t one-sided. Living in a world of yes gives my horses just as much freedom.

We often think of training in terms of what we need from our animals. When I walk down the barn aisle, I need you, horse, to move out of my space. When the door bell rings, I need you, dog, to go sit on your mat. I’ll teach these things using clicks and treats, but the behaviors are for my benefit more than my animal companions. The freedom to ask is all on my side.

That’s not how things are in my barn. It’s set up to maximize choice for the horses. Doors are left open so they are free to go where they want. Right now what Robin wants is to nap in the barn aisle. I couldn’t give Robin this luxury of choice if I hadn’t also given him behaviors that let us share space amiably.

When I walk down the barn aisle, Robin will often pose. It’s a simple gesture, a slight arch of the neck is all that’s needed. If he thinks I’m not paying attention, he’ll give a low rumble of a nicker. I’ll click, and give him a treat. Often I’ll get a hug in return. That’s good reinforcement for me.

The pose is a guaranteed way to get attention from me. If Robin wants to interact, he knows how to cue me. And I am under excellent stimulus control! That’s how cues should work. They create a give and take, a back and forth dialog. They erase hierarchy and create instead the three C’s of clicker training. Those three C’s lead in turn to the freedom my horses and I enjoy sharing the barn together.

Before I can tell you what the three C’s are, we have to go back a few steps to commands. It’s not just in horse training that commands rule. They control most of our interactions from early childhood on. Commands have a “do it or else” threat backing them up. Parents tell children what to do. In school it is obey your teachers or face the penalties. In our communities it’s stop at red lights or get a ticket. Pay your taxes or go to jail. We all know the underlying threat is there. Stay within the rules and stay safe. Stray too far over the line and you risk punishment.

This is how we govern ourselves, so it is little wonder that it is also how we interact with our animals. With both horses and dogs – commands have been the norm. We tell our dogs to “sit”. When it is a true command, it is expected that the dog will obey – or else! The command is hierarchical which means it is also unidirectional. A sergeant gives a command to a private. The private does what he’s told. He doesn’t turn things around give a command back to the sergeant.

We give commands to our horses, to our dogs – never the reverse. We expect our commands to be obeyed. We say “sit”, and the dog sits. I tell. You obey. Because they are hierarchical, commands exclude dialog. The conversation is all one-sided. Commands put us in a frame that keeps us from seeing deep into the intelligence and personality of the individual we’re directing.

Cues are different. Cues are taught with positive reinforcement. At first, this sounds like a huge difference, but for many handlers it represents a change in procedure, but not yet of mind set. The handler may be using treats as reinforcement, but the cues are still taught with an element of coercion. How can this be? It’s not until you scratch below the surface, that you’ll begin to understand the ever widening gulf that the use of cues versus commands creates.

dog touching a target To help you see the coercive element, let’s look at how twenty plus years ago we were originally instructed how to teach cues. You used your shaping skills to get a behavior to happen. It might be something as simple as touching a target. Cues evolve out of the shaping process. The appearance of the target quickly becomes the cue to orient to it. But this cue is often not fully recognized by a novice handler. We’re such a verbal species, this handler wants her animal to wait until she says “touch”. As she understand it, that’s the cue. So what does she do? She begins by saying “touch” and clicking and reinforcing her learner for orienting to the target.

This part is easy. Whether she had said anything or not, her learner was going to touch the target. She’s ready to make a discrimination. Now she presents the target, but she says nothing. What does her learner do? He orients to the target, just as he’s been doing in all the previous trials. He expects to hear the click and be given a treat, but nothing happens. His person just changed the rules which has plunged him into a frustrating puzzle.

He’s in an extinction process. He’s no longer being reinforced for a behavior that has worked for him in the past. He’ll go through the normal trajectory of an extinction process. That means he’ll try harder. He’ll try behaviors that worked in the past, and he’ll become frustrated, anxious, even angry, before he’ll give up for a moment. In that moment of giving up, his person will say “touch” and present the target again.

She wants him to learn the distinction. In the presence of the cue perform the behavior – click and treat. In the absence do nothing.

The problem with this approach is she never taught her learner what “do nothing” looks like. She stepped from the world of commands into what she thinks of as a kinder world of cues, but she didn’t entirely shed the mantle of “do it or else”. With cues the threat of punishment may not be there, but extinction is still an unpleasant and frustrating experience. Why isn’t this key on my computer which was just working now locked up and frozen?!! Until you can find your way out of the puzzle, you can feel very trapped and helpless. A good trainer doesn’t leave her learner there very long. She’s looking for any hesitation that let’s her explain to her learner the on-off nature of cues.

There’s another way to teach this that doesn’t put the learner into this extinction bind. This other way recognizes that cues create a dialog, a back and forth conversation. I want my learner to wait for a specific signal before moving towards the target. Let’s begin by creating a base behavior, a starting point. For my horses this is the behavior I refer to as: “the grown-ups are talking please don’t interrupt”. I will reinforce my horse for standing beside me with his head looking forward. He’ll earn lots of clicks and treats for this behavior. And he’ll begin to associate a very specific stance that I’m in with this behavior. When I am standing with my hands folded in front of me, it’s a good bet to try looking straight ahead – click and treat.

“Grown-ups”

In separate sessions he’ll also be reinforced for orienting to a target. When both behaviors are well established, I’ll combine them. Now I’ll look for grown-ups. I’ll fold my hands in front of me, knowing I’ll get the response I’m looking for. Only now, instead of clicking and reinforcing him, I’ll hold out the target to touch. Click the quick response and treat.

The message is so much more interesting than the one created by using an extinction procedure to introduce cues. Cues have just become reinforcers which means they have become part of a conversation. If you want to interact with the target, here’s an easy way to get me to produce it – just shift into grown-ups. That will cue me to lift the target up. A conversation has begun. We’re at the very elementary stage of “See spot run”. I’m teaching my horses the behaviors they can use to communicate with me, and I am showing them how the process works. You can be heard. You WILL be heard. Let’s talk!

The conversation that emerges over time comes from looking more deeply at what cues really are. We can think of them as a softer form of commands, but that doesn’t oblige us to step out of our hierarchical mindset. It is still I give a signal. You – my animal companion – respond. Click and treat. Diagram this out. The arrows all point in one direction.

Signal from human leads to response from animal

Peel another layer of understanding about how cues work and you come to this:

It isn’t just that cues are taught with positive reinforcement. Cues can be given by anyone or anything. A curtain going up cues an actor to begin speaking his lines. We would never say the curtain commanded the actor.

If cues can be given by anyone or anything, that means they are not hierarchical. We cue our animals, and they cue us. Cues create a back and forth exchange. They lead to conversation – to a real listening to our animals. We adjust our behavior based on their response. Cues lead to the three C’s of clicker training which I can now say are: communication, choice, and connection. And in my barn that in turn creates opportunities for more freedom. It means doors can be left open. It means I can have watermelon parties and sit with my horses while we both enjoy the afternoon breeze through the barn aisle.

Let’s parse this some more.

The mindset that commands create is very much centered around stopping behavior. Other training options won’t make sense. They won’t work.

Cue-based training makes it easier for you to see your horse’s behavior as communication, as a bid for attention. That makes it easier for you to look for solutions that satisfy his needs.

Let’s see how these differences play out in a typical boarding barn scenario. Your horse is hungry. His initial whicker has been ignored. In frustration he’s escalated into banging on his stall door. His human caretakers see this as “demanding” hay. In a command-based frame demanding hay equal rebellious behavior which can’t be tolerated. The behavior must be stopped.

Within this frame the only training options you can think of are those centered around stopping the unwanted behavior. Other options don’t make sense and won’t work. The command-based frame narrows your field of view. It’s as though you have a tight beam focused on the problem behavior. Everything within that beam is crystal clear, but everything outside the beam might as well not exist. You can’t even begin to think about other solutions. You are targeted on the unwanted behavior. Banging on the stall door must be addressed and addressed directly.

Now let’s look at the contrast that a cue-based frame creates. Your horse is hungry. His initial whicker to you is noticed and responded to. You appreciate his alerting you to the lack of hay. You have read how important gut fill is in preventing ulcers. You attend to your horse’s needs. Within this frame many options become available including hanging a slow feeder in his stall so he doesn’t have to become anxious about his hay.

Which training options make sense will depend upon which frame you are in. If you are a teacher and you want your instructions to be effective, you need to help your students open a frame that matches what you are trying to teach.

In her presentations Dr. Susan Friedman uses a graphic showing a hierarchy of behavior change procedures beginning with the most positive, least intrusive procedures.

Dr. Susan Friedman's Hierarchy of interventions

You begin by looking at health and nutritional considerations and then move to antecedent arrangements. Hanging a hay net for our hungry horse would fit in here. Her graphic pictures a car moving along a highway. As you begin to approach more invasive procedures, there are speed bumps blocking the way. They are there to slow you down, to make you think about other approaches before you bring in the heavy guns of positive punishment. The hierarchy doesn’t exclude positive punishment as a possible solution, but it does say you would use this only when everything else has first been tried.

This hierarchy makes sense when you are looking at behavior from a cue-based perspective. From a command-based frame, the car enters not at the bottom of the roadway, but at the top.

My Changes To Procedural Changes slide

The first intervention is positive punishment. The barriers are still there, but now they act to keep you from seeing other options. It is only when punishment fails, that you are dragged, kicking and screaming, to consider other ways of changing behavior. I’ve heard these stories so many times from people who are attending their first clicker training clinic. They’ve been brought there by “that horse” – the one who challenges everything they thought they knew about training. Nothing else worked, but then they tried, as a last resort, a bit of clicker training and everything changed! So here they are, ready to learn more.

They don’t yet know what an exciting world they are entering. Everything they have thought about training is about to be turned truly upside down and inside out. That’s all right. They have the fun of watermelon parties ahead of them.

If you want to learn more about living in a world of yes and the freedom that creates for both you and your animal companions, come join us in Milwaukee for the Training Thoughtfully conference. https://www.trainingthoughtfullymilwaukee.com/

May 19, 2017 by theclickercenter

Deer Fencing – A Great Example of Everything is Connected

The view in winter out my window

I recently took the deer fencing down. That may not sound like a horse training topic, but it turned out to be a perfect example of one of my favorite training mantras: everything is connected to everything else.

The deer fencing protects a sprawling, low-growing evergreen. I let the deer eat most of my garden, but this tree I protect. Every fall the fencing goes up. And in the spring it comes down. That means taking down the plastic fencing I use and then pulling the metal fence stakes out of the ground. After I had rolled up and put away the fencing, I tackled the fence posts. I took a firm hold of the first stake, expecting it to come easily out of the soft spring ground. It didn’t move. I changed my grip, and it slipped out of the ground. The image of a warm knife cutting through butter came to mind. What was the difference? Simple answer – bone rotations.

As I pulled up the rest of the stakes, it occurred to me that this would be a great way to let people practice the rope handling technique that you use to get a horse to lift his head up from grass. ‘Tis the season when the grass is calling with a Siren’s song to our horses. In traditional training we are taught to fight the grass. The horse MUST NOT drag us to grass. This sometimes keeps clicker trainers from seeing grass for what it is – a wonderfully convenient source of reinforcement. Instead we struggle to keep our horses from plunging their heads down to graze.

No one enjoys being dragged to grass. So how do you change this picture? One answer is to change how you view the grass. Your horse wants it. Great! That means you can use it to reinforce behavior YOU want. Instead of trying to stop him from diving for the grass, you’ll be looking for opportunities to let him graze.

This lesson is connected to something else I’ve been thinking about a lot recently and that’s frames. Here I’m not talking about picture frames, though that’s a good metaphor for them. I’m referring to the mental constructs that George Lakoff describes in his books, “Your Brain’s Politics” and “Don’t Think of an Elephant”.

Frames contain things

Whether frames are the kind we hang on a wall or the kind we form around ideas, frames contain things. According to Lakoff, we organize facts within a frame of reference. Facts that fit within a given frame are easily processed. Others bounce off these frames as though they don’t even exist. Either that or we push back against them because they don’t fit comfortably within the frame. There’s no structure, no way to relate to them so the new idea might just as well not exist.

Frames both include and exclude facts

If you’ve always resisted letting your horse have grass during training, the following lesson is a great opportunity to practice expanding your frame to let some new ideas in. The first step is to decide that you’re going to give this approach a try. That’s a lot more inviting than facing another summer-long battle with your horse over access to grass.

You can’t just suddenly declare that the grass is a reinforcer and expect smooth sailing. You need to go through a teaching process for your horse to understand how to behave on grass. I’m going to assume a general understanding of clicker training. If you haven’t yet introduced your horse to the basics of clicker training, you’ll want to do that first. I’ll refer you to my web sites for details (theclickercenter.com and theclickercentercourse.com)

Many of us have to hand-graze our horses to acclimate them to spring grass. This is the perfect opportunity for this lesson. (If you need an easier starting point, you can begin in a paddock and use small piles of hay.) The idea is that you are going to teach your horse to leave food in order to get food.

For this lesson on transforming grass into a useful reinforcer here are the steps:

Begin by taking your horse out to graze. Don’t try to keep him from the grass. (If you are using hay piles scattered around your training space, let him take you to the hay. Don’t resist.) Let him eat for a couple of minutes. As he begins to settle and relax, you can start the lesson.

1.) Use your lead to ask your horse to lift his head up. He may ignore you at first, but do the best you can. This is where the image of pulling fence posts out of the ground becomes handy. If you pull straight up on the lead, you’ll feel as though you are playing tug of war against a team of football players. Your horse’s head won’t budge. Remember when I tried to pull the fence post up with a simple grip, it stayed planted in the ground. But when I coiled my arm around the post like a vine coiling itself around a stake, it came out easily.

So before you head out with your horse, go practice pulling some metal fence posts out of the ground. Test the effect. Take a simple grip and see what happens. If the stake is buried deep into the ground, you won’t be able to pull it out.

Simple versus coiled grip.png

Now coil your arm around the stake. You’ll feel it lift out with very little effort. This is the technique you’re going to use on the lead. You’re going to stand directly over the snap so the lead is perpendicular to the ground. As you slide your hand down the lead, let your arm coil around it. You’re now in a position that matches the way you coiled your arm around the metal stake. Think about how you pulled the stake out of the ground. You’ll use the same action with your horse.

In the past you may have had to yank, tug, and plead to get your horse to “come up for air”. Now suddenly his head is popping up. It can’t be this easy!

Even if your horse feels as though he’s one of those stakes that is well and truly cemented into the ground, you’ll still be able to pry his head up with considerably less effort than you would have had to use in the past. As his head begins to lift, be ready for the next step in this lesson.

Screen Shot 2017-05-18 at 10.51.08 PM

2.) As soon as he starts to lift his head, click and offer him a treat.

3.) Keeping the lead fairly short, fold your hands together at your waist. This base position is part of a lesson I call “the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt”. With both hands folded together, if your horse tries to pull down to get to the grass, you’ll be able to anchor the lead to your body. It’s surprising how solid you can be in this position. From your horse’s point of view, it’s as though he’s tied to a well anchored post.

This only works if you have a fairly short lead so he can’t get too far down to the grass. If your lead is too long, you’ll lose your leverage advantage.

Your horse is going to try and drop his head back down to the grass. With your hands anchoring the lead, you are essentially holding him as if he was tied to a post. As soon as he stops trying to pull down (even for an instant), click. Offer him a treat, and then anchor your hands again to your waist.

Panda would love to keep eating. The short lead tells her to go into “grown-ups” instead.

Repeat this several times and then, click, give him his treat and let him drop his head down to eat grass.

Let him graze a little, then again, standing directly over the snap, coil your arm around the lead. When you’re in position, rotate your arm so the “stake pops out of the ground”. As your horse lifts his head up, click and treat, then anchor your lead by standing in “grown-ups”. Remember that means you’ll have both hands held together at your waist, and the lead will be short.

As soon as he stops pulling down, again you’ll click and treat. Repeat this part of the pattern several times. Release him to the grass when you see a noticeable improvement in his behavior. The behavior you’re heading towards is his side of the “grown-ups” picture. That means he’s standing beside you with slack in the lead. His head is about level with his chest and he’s looking straight ahead. In other words he looks like a settled, well-mannered horse standing politely beside you. If a friend were with you, the “grown-ups” could talk, and your horse would be waiting patiently beside you.

A lovely result: this horse can stand on her own over grass without needing any reminders from the lead. She’ll get a click and a treat for this desirable behavior.

Instead of fighting the grass, you are now using it to reinforce the behavior you want. When you ask him to lift his head, your horse will begin to come up faster. Instead of trying to dive back down to eat grass, he’ll shift on his own into “grown-ups”. He knows he’s going to get reinforced for standing beside you with his head up. And he also knows you’re going to let him eat more grass. Instead of being anxious about getting to the grass, now he can relax and stand beside you keeping slack in the lead.

Lots of temptation under foot, but note how relaxed this horse is leading over the grass.

Once he’s coming up readily, you can ask him to walk a few steps to get to another patch of grass. At first, just go a couple of steps, then stop. People tend to want to keep going once they have a horse in motion, but this can undo the good work you’ve been establishing. Go too far and the Siren’s call of the grass may overwhelm your horse. So go just a couple of steps, stop and ask for grown-ups. As soon as he settles, which means he’s able to keep slack in the line because he’s not trying to go down for the grass, click, and let him graze.

On the search for good grass. Note the slack in the lead. This horse isn’t anxious about getting to the grass because he knows he’ll be given the opportunity to graze.

You can turn this into a game in which you are helping him find the best grass. From his point of view, you’ll probably be an incompetent grass hunter. We humans seem to be drawn to the grass that our horses don’t want to eat. We pick the long, extra green grass. They want the stubby weeds. But even if we take them to less than ideal spots, they do seem to understand that we’re on their side. We’re trying to find them good grass. It’s a great way to build a deep connection with your equine partner.

As you expand this basic lesson, you’ll be able train on grass without it becoming a distraction. In fact, when your horse does something you especially like, you’ll be able to thank him by letting him graze. What was once a major distraction will be instead a handy reinforcer. Leaving the grass will no longer be a problem. Your horse knows he’s going to be able to graze again. When you’re ready to move on, he’ll come away from the grass without a fuss. Your horse will be relaxed and ready for more work, and you’ll have a great new way to say you for a job well done!

You’ve learned how to do this because everything is connected to everything else. Pulling up garden stakes has taught you the skill needed for asking a horse to come away from grass. You’ve also learned that you can change long-held habits of thought. Instead of pushing against the grass and fighting your horse over every mouthful he snatches, you’ve found a way to transform it into a reinforcer. That’s a great way to begin transforming other habits of thought that get in the way of creating a positive connection with your horse.

Happy grazing everyone!

Whisper walking away

May 11, 2017 by theclickercenter

What Did You Mean – Not What Did You Say?

Be The Teacher Your Learner Needs 2 THM.png The Kentucky Derby was run this past Saturday. Years and years ago I used to pay attention to the Triple Crown races. How could anyone who loves horses not be captivated by Secretariat? But the glamour wore off as I came to know many ex-race horses, including some of Secretariat’s offspring. Now, if it didn’t pop up on the national news coverage, I could easily forget that the first Saturday in May is Derby Day. What brought it to mind today is a photo I use in my conference presentations. I was skimming through the talks I gave this past winter. That’s when I spotted the photo. It was in a talk connecting George Lakoff’s work with horse training.

American pharoah lip chain It’s a photo that appeared in my local newspaper, as well as on the internet. It shows our most recent Triple Crown winner, American Pharaoh, being cooled down after a workout. It could have been a photo of any race horse, or really of any hard-working performance horse. There was nothing particularly distinctive about this picture. You can see the sweat and the steam rising off his coat. And you also see the chain that runs through the halter ring and into his mouth. You can’t really tell from the picture, but the chain is probably over his top gums, an area that is even more sensitive to pain than his tongue. That’s how young, very fit thoroughbreds are controlled on the track.

Why was this photo of a thoroughbred race horse in a talk about George Lakoff’s work? What’s the connection? Lakoff is a cognitive linguist who has studied the power of metaphors in shaping how we think. He is particularly interested these days in American politics. One of his central ideas is that the current divide in our politics can best be viewed through the metaphor of family. Long before any of us were aware of national governments or political parties, we were aware of the authority of our parents. They set the rules and modeled the behavior that became the template for how each of us thinks society as a whole should be structured.

Lakoff has proposed that there are two primary family models: the strict father family and the nurturant parent family.

In the strict father model, the father is the head of the family. As the moral authority of the family, it is the father’s job to teach his children right from wrong. He communicates this to the children in a hierarchical way.

Lakoff’s description of a Strict Father patriarch sounds eerily like force-based training. You have only to substitute a few words – trainer for father, horse for child – and you have this:

“The trainer is the legitimate authority, and his authority is not to be challenged. . . Obedience to the trainer is required. It is upheld through punishment. Bad behavior from the horse is always punished.

The trainer teaches the horse right from wrong, and he communicates this to the horse in a hierarchical way.

Punishment is seen as absolutely crucial. It is the trainer’s moral duty to punish bad behavior in the horse.”

The nurturant parent model provides the contrast. In this family structure it is moral to show empathy, to nurture, and to take on individual as well as social responsibility. Cooperation with others is seen as more important than competition.

Instead of hierarchical communication, the Nurturant Parent model focuses on open communication. There is mutual respect between children and parents. This is different from other parenting models where children are expected to show respect for their parents, but not vice versa.

People often say words matter, but words are defined by our core values.

The chain in American Pharaoh’s mouth becomes a symbol of command-based training. In this very conventional view of training, horses are considered to be stupid animals. If we look at that through the lens of Lakoff’s metaphors, we see more clearly what these words mean. It implies a hierarchy – people above horses. It means people can do whatever they want with horses.

Here’s the rest. Because horses are stupid animals, you have to use force to control them. You have to show them “who’s boss”. Here’s the corollary to that: “But don’t worry. They don’t feel pain the way we do.” The frame these metaphors create very much influences what we are able to see.

In this view of the world, when a horse shows resistance, he’s being disobedient. He’s challenging the trainer’s authority and must be punished. This training frame makes it hard to see other reasons a horse might fail to obey. Only secondarily will the trainer break the lesson down into smaller steps, or look for physical causes.

Here’s the contrast:

Robin hug

This photo represents my core belief system. It says something very different. It is much more in line with Lakoff’s description of the nurturing parent model. I believe that horses are intelligent animals, and that they should be treated with great kindness and fairness. There is no hierarchy. There is no separation between their needs and mine. We are partners together.

What matters more than the words we use are the core values we hold. Words only have the meaning that those values give them. Respect is a perfect example.

Suppose you are new to the horse world. You’re looking around for an instructor who can help you train your first horse. You’ve been told that you should go watch a few lessons before taking your horse to anyone, so that’s what you’ve done. You’re watching this trainer interact with his horses. They are behaving exactly how you would like your youngster to be. They move out of his space – no questions asked. They stand politely to be groomed and saddled. They seem safe to ride. You like how he talks about his horses. He talks about partnership. He says it’s important that your horse respects you.

Respect is an important word for you, as well. You like what this trainer is saying. You like how calm and safe his horses are. You leave feeling very confident that you have found what you’re looking for.

But have you? What kind of respect do each of you mean? In the strict father model respect is maintained through the use of punishment. So, yes, horses can appear to be very respectful, meaning they are afraid of the trainer. They have learned what to do to escape punishment.

In the “nurturing parent model” respect means something very different. It is something that is earned. It is not something that is demanded.

Both parenting models can produce horses that show what you would call polite, safe manners, but the teaching process the horses experienced will have been very different. If you send your horse to this trainer, you may find it’s a perfect match. You were both talking about the same kind of respect. Or you could find yourself second guessing your decision. You like him. You can see that he’s skilled. He certainly gets results, but the lessons make you squirm.

When you find that for you there’s a disconnect between someone’s words and their actions, it’s time to look at core values.

What do the words really mean? When we train thoughtfully, we learn to look beyond the outer shell of the familiar words we use. Are we letting someone else’s meaning take over? Do our words reflect the kind of relationship we want to have? Do the training methods match our core values?

Do you want an example? Kay Laurence has just produced a promo video for our October Training Thoughtfully conference. It’s a beautiful video. Words and images are aligned. They tell you so much. When I watch this video, I know it was produced by someone whose core values match my own. If they match yours, as well, I hope you’ll join us for some Thoughtful Training this October.

Training Thoughtfully Milwaukee, Oct 20-22, 2017: Visit: https://www.trainingthoughtfullymilwaukee.com/

Watch the video: https://vimeo.com/216184198

If you want to learn more about George Lakoff’s work, read my January 8, 2017 post. (https://theclickercenterblog.com/2017/01/08/)

Enjoy!

January 8, 2017 by theclickercenter

I Don’t Understand You. You Don’t Understand Me. Thank You Donald Trump For Helping Me To Understand Why.

New Years Greetings!

I always like to prepare a New Year’s gift for everyone, a thank you for all the support people have shown for clicker training. This year’s gift comes in the form of a new blog post.

As we count down the days towards the Presidential Inauguration, this seems like an appropriate article to post. There were so many times when I was puzzled and even deeply disturbed by the 2016 election campaign. To help decipher the puzzle that is American politics, I’ve been reading some of George Lakoff’s books. What really hooked me were the very obvious parallels with horse training. This post is a result of my reading.

I thought about breaking this article up into a series of shorter posts so it wouldn’t monopolize your reading time, but it is better read in larger chunks. So make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy.

Alexandra Kurland – January 2017

I can still hear the filly screaming. She was only three months old, and she was being weaned. Her mother had been abruptly taken away earlier in the day. She was left on her own for the first time in her life, trapped in a dark stall. She was rearing and spinning, screaming for her mother. The older gelding in the stall next to her was aware of her distress and in the quiet way of horses provided her with comfort. She had latched onto him for security. As long as she could hear him next door, she was okay, but now that he had been taken out to be ridden, she was screaming her distress.

The barn owner wasn’t having it. He moved the gelding to another part of the barn and put a different horse next to her.

I was watching this drama play out from the other end of the barn where my own horse was stabled. The filly’s anguish wrenched at my heart. I wanted to help her, but she wasn’t mine to comfort. I couldn’t do anything but listen to her scream.

The barn owner didn’t share my concern. He explained he was doing this for her own good. She was destined for the race track. She needed to learn how to be on her own. Her life would be a lot better if she learned early on not to attach herself to other horses.

After the third move, and the third loss of her equine comforter, the filly did settle. She stopped forming attachments with the horses that were nearby. She stopped screaming for them whenever they were taken away.

Over the years I’ve seen the terrible stress some adult horses go through when they are separated from their friends. I think of that filly when I see their anxiety. Through his actions the barn owner may well have been saving her from a lifetime of stress, but every time I think of her I still want to give her the comfort she was so desperately crying out for.

If I told this story to the cognitive linguist, George Lakoff, he would immediately know who I voted for in the 2016 presidential election. – I’m guessing that’s not where you thought this story was heading.

To save myself some time I have uploaded the full article as a pdf file. Click on the link below to continue reading.

you-dont-understand-me-1-8-17

March 1, 2015 by theclickercenter

Words Matter

What Are You Really Saying?
We’ve been having an interesting discussion in my on-line course about the labels people use to describe their horses.

Words are so interesting. Recently I flew on a Delta airlines plane. Most of the airlines have rows at the front of the economy section that give you a couple more inches of leg room. United calls this section economy plus. Delta calls it comfort seating.

Oh dear.

As I walked past the last row of this section to my seat in the middle of the plane, I couldn’t help thinking: “abandon hope all ye who enter here.” If I have just passed the comfort seating zone, what was left – the comfortless seating rows. Exactly right!

Words Matter
Words matter. Labels matter. We use language so we are constantly creating labels and attaching them to everything. We name our family members, our friends, our pets, the objects around us, the thoughts and emotions we’re feeling.

When we talk about our horses, we often find ourselves saying they are dominant, stubborn, aggressive, playful, friendly, submissive. We stick these labels on the animal, and they become self-fulfilling prophecies. The power of expectations is huge. Dr. Robert Rosenthal demonstrated this in a clever study done with rats. Twelve lab techs were each given five rats. Their job was to train their rats to run through a maze. Six of the lab techs were told their rats came from a strain that was bred for good performance. The other six lab techs were told their rats came from a strain that had been bred for poor performance.

They were given five days to work with their rats, and from day one on there was a significant difference in how the rats performed. The “smart” rats learned the maze much faster. Of course, you’ve already guessed the set up. The rats were all from the same strain. There should have been no significant difference in performance, but the expectation of the handlers impacted how they handled the rats. The “smart” rats were handled more gently which resulted in them performing almost twice as well as the “stupid” rats. The expectations of the experimenters had created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Rosenthal went on to conduct similar tests of expectations in schools. In one study all the students in a class were given an IQ test at the beginning of the school year. The teachers were then told that five of the students had scored exceptionally well on the test and could be expected to excel throughout the year. At the end of the year, these five students had indeed surpassed all the other students in the class. And again, you’ve probably guessed the set up of the experiment. The five children were picked at random. Their scores were no higher than the rest of their classmates at the start of the school year, but the extra attention the teachers gave them again created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Rosenthal dubbed the influence that expectation can have on results as the “Pygmalion Effect”. His work clearly shows us that labels and the expectations they create do indeed matter.

What Are You Attaching The Label To?
Dr. Susan Friedman and other behaviorists remind us that the emotionally charged labels we use don’t describe the whole animal, they describe the behavior we’re seeing. That shift in focus is important. If I think of a horse as aggressive, we can both become trapped in this label just as surely as a fly is trapped in amber.

Labels can become dead ends. An aggressive horse becomes just that. Even if I modify his behavior, that label remains attached like a permanent brand tattooed around his neck. He might not be showing aggression now, but watch out, that label warns. This is an aggressive horse.

When you unlock the horse from these labels and describe instead the behavior you are observing along with its antecedents and its reinforcers, you also unlock training solutions that create the potential for lasting change.

Labels
Labels can certainly be a convenient short hand. We all use them, but we need to be mindful when we do of the effect that these labels have on the ways in which we interact with our horses and the training choices that we make. We need to keep in mind the Pygmalion effect, but that doesn’t mean we mustn’t use labels. After all, labels – meaning nouns and the adjectives that modify them – are what give meaning and richness to our language. Without them we would be creating a very drab world indeed. (Note all the labels that were used just in the last two sentences. They help give colour to the world we live in.)

So instead of stripping our language down to the bare bones because we are afraid to use any descriptive labels at all, let’s learn instead how to put the Pygmalion effect to work for us. If our expectations contribute to the outcome we get, then let’s use labels that take us in the direction we want to go.

When you attach labels, think about what you want to modify. Are you describing the whole horse or just the behavior you are seeing in this moment? If you do label the horse, select ones that take you to the horse you want to have. I believe that horses are intelligent animals, and I love being around smart horses. The labels that I attach to the horses I’m with reflect this belief system and direction I want to be heading with them. Listen to the labels that people use to describe their horses. They will reveal their underlying belief systems.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
We attract evidence to support our belief systems. If I believe that horses are intelligent animals, I will be most aware of experiences that support that view. Someone else might think of horses as stupid animals. Guess what they will notice?

We can see the same behavior, and our underlying belief system will cause us to see it in completely different ways. We’ll each end up attaching labels that support our belief system. So when you use someone else’s labels, you want to consider their underlying belief system. Is it a match with where you want to be heading with your horse?

If you try on someone else’s label, examine carefully what expectations that creates for you. When I say my horse is “smart”, there’s delight and admiration attached to that label. You might use that label and find that it creates problems. What happens if your “smart” horse doesn’t understand a lesson? Do you get frustrated with him because he’s not trying hard enough? He should be able to get this. If a label leads you down a relationship path that creates disappointment or conflict, don’t use that label.

Labels are often based on an incomplete analysis of the behavior we’re seeing. We hear so often horses are prey animals, and they are flight reaction animals. Lets take those descriptions a step further than these statements usually carry us. Horses are herd animals. They form social groups to provide safety from predators. When a predator attacks what do horses do? Run, of course. But not apart. They don’t scatter in all directions. They bunch together. Why? Because that tighter bunch makes it harder for a predator to get in close to take one of them down.

So when a horse is startled and crowds in on top of you, is he being pushy, or is he trying to keep you both safe? When you drive him out of your space because you’ve been taught that this behavior is a sign of disrespect, what must he be thinking? That you’re literally throwing him to the lions.

For obvious reasons we can’t have our horses jumping on top of us, but if I see this reaction as a desire for safety, I’ll find training solutions that support this need. Our underlying belief systems and our understanding of horses will very much influence how we see this event. It will impact what labels we attach to the horse and what training solutions we choose.

Through clicker training we are learning to look beyond the easy out of incomplete or outdated labels to the behavior we are seeing. Horses do indeed have very definite personalities. One of the great pleasures of clicker training is the horse’s personality can be expressed and remain intact. That makes it very much a study of one – your horse with his unique personality and life history. When you describe him, use words that lead you to towards the kind of relationship you want to have.

I believe horses are intelligent and my expectations create that reality in my horses.

Alexandra Kurland

Please note: If you are new to clicker training and you are looking for how-to instructions, you will find what you need at my web sites:

theclickercenter.com theclickercentercourse.com

P.S. If you want to learn more about expectations, listen to the January 22, 2015 podcast of NPR’s Invisibilia: How to Become Batman. You’ll hear Robert Rosenthal describe the study he did with the rats, and you’ll also hear from Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck. I’ve referenced her work in previous articles.

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510307/invisibilia

February 4, 2015 by theclickercenter

Yes And . . . Learning to Grab a Whale By The Tail: More Metaphors from a Systems Biologist

Getting Out Of The Cloud
Systems biologist, Uri Alon has given us the image of the cloud. As a young graduate student studying physics, he found himself in despair over his research. Assumption after assumption had failed. What he thought was a reasonable hypothesis led him nowhere. The cloud became his metaphor for the state of confusion that sits at the boundary between the known and the unknown. When you are in the cloud, you know you are getting closer to discovering something truly new.

When one of his graduate students tells him that he is in the cloud, Alon understands that this is a normal part of the research process. Knowing about the process doesn’t take away the negative feelings, but it does tell him how to help that student.

Alon: “Just knowing that the cloud is normal, that it’s essential, and in fact beautiful, means we can join the Cloud Appreciation Society. It detoxifies the feeling that something is deeply wrong with me.”

Instead of being defeated by the cloud, Alon and his graduate students use it to find creative solutions. How did Alon find this creative solution for his teaching when other researchers did not? Innovations rarely come from within a field. They come from bringing in fresh ideas from other sources.

So what was the fresh idea Alon brought to his research?

At the same time that he was working on his Ph.D, he was also studying improvisational theatre. As an actor, he was actively taught how to deal with failure. One technique for going into the unknown was saying “Yes, and . . .” to what other people offered.

Alon: “Yes and . . .” means agreeing with and building on another person’s offer. If an actor says: “Here’s a pool of water.” and the second actor says: “No, that’s just the stage.” you have nowhere to go. The second actor has created a dead end for your idea. The improvisation is over, and everyone on stage feels frustrated. That’s called blocking: saying no to the other person’s idea.

If instead you say:

There’s a pool of water.

Yes, let’s jump in.

Look, there’s a whale.

Let’s grab it by the tail.

It’s taking us to the moon.

That way you unlock hidden creativity building on each other’s ideas.

In science there’s a lot of blocking and no mindfulness for this form of communicating.”

Silencing the Inner Critic
We have an inner critic that keeps us from grabbing the whale by the tail because we don’t want people to think we are ignorant, stupid, or foolish. Saying “yes, and . . .” by-passes that inner critic.

Saying “yes, and . . .” does more than that. It transforms horse training. I love phrases like this. Psychologist Carol Dweck gave us The Power of Yet. (See: “Choosing Your Words, Your Mindset, Your Training Strategies”; published January 13, 2015.)

Saying: “My horse can’t pick up his right canter lead” is limiting and creates dead ends.

Saying: “My horse can’t pick up his right canter lead – yet” opens the door to possibilities.

Now we have another powerful phrase borrowed from the sciences. Uri Alon has given us: “Yes and. . .”

“Yes And . . .” instead of “No, Not That”
The horse world is full of: “No, not that.” We are the ones on stage saying: “no that’s not a pool of water. Don’t go there.” We are actively taught to block.

We slide down the lead asking for movement and our horse takes a step – just not in the direction we want him to go.

We say: “No, not that. That’s not the way to go.”

He tries again. “No, not that.” We keep shutting him down and shutting him down. Is it any wonder we see so many horses who have lost all the sparkle in their eyes. What we love most about horses, their spirit, we rob from them with all of our “No, not that” blocks.

How much better to say: “Yes, and. . .” That’s how we should be shaping behavior. This is what the best shapers know how to do.

They set up the training environment so they can ask for tiny slices of behavior. Each slice is greeted with a “yes, and . . .” Yes, you shifted your weight. That’s great. Now what else can you do?

Recently I was working with a group of horses who I have come to know well. When I first met them, they were saying: “No, not that” to me every time I slid down a lead. I could tell from their responses that they had encountered a lot of blocking in their past. The lead didn’t invite movement. It stalled them out.

We’ve had a great many roundabout conversations about lead ropes and the cues they can give. On this last visit the pieces of the puzzle began to come together. We had our first true “yes and” conversations via a lead. Each time I slid my hand down the lead, I was inviting movement. I was answered with a positive response. I might want more of a step to the side, but instead of blocking what they gave me, I accepted the offering and built on it.

I had a whale by the tail, and it was taking me to the moon. What a delicious feeling! As I was working with these horses I was thinking – how on earth do you teach this! Blocking is easy. How do you teach someone how to accept and flow with each changing step? And then I listened to Alon talk about “yes, and . . .” That is the metaphor that describes the dance. My partner is never wrong. “Yes, that’s right” is so much more supportive than “No not that.” These horses initially expected the “No.” Now they understand “Yes.”

Clicker training gives us the freedom to say “Yes, and . . .” The horse training I originally learned was all about saying the opposite: “No, not that . . .” I think this is a huge dividing line between what clicker training offers and what traditional training encourages. We look at what we want our animals To Do, and we say “yes” to their offerings.

While I was working on this article, I took a break from the computer and went out to give the horses their lunch. While Peregrine ate his mid-day mash, I cleaned stalls, checked the water, refilled the hay boxes. By that time Peregrine was done. I opened his stall door, and Robin went in to make sure that Peregrine hadn’t left anything that needed cleaning up. I fixed a cup of tea and was heading back into the tack room when I heard Robin calling to me from the arena.

I looked in and both horses were waiting for me. The tea could wait. I went in to the arena. Peregrine started offering his octogenarian version of Spanish walk. Robin circled around us in his beautiful collected trot and ended by positioning himself in perfect heel position by my side. I found myself laughing as I thought “Yes, and . . .”

Next time you are with your horses say “yes and . . .” to them. Grab the whale by the tail and see where they take you. To the moon and back is a wonderful place to go when it is in the company of a horse.

Alexandra Kurland

Please note: If you are new to clicker training and you are looking for how-to instructions, you will find what you need at my web sites:

theclickercenter.com theclickercentercourse.com

References:
If you want to listen to Alon describe for himself the cloud and the concept of “Yes, and . . .”, go to:

He’s an excellent presenter, and even though these are essentially the same talk, you will find new things in each one.

February 2, 2015 by theclickercenter

The Cloud: Metaphors from a Systems Biologist

I am always in search of good metaphors. Lately I have been collecting some gems from the sciences. That seems an appropriate place to look for them since clicker training is science-based. The two newest additions to the collection come from systems biologist, Uri Alon. The first is The Cloud and the second is “Yes, and . . . Learning to Grab a Whale By The Tail”. I’ll describe The Cloud first and leave you guessing about the other for another day.

The Cloud
Imagine yourself as a graduate student just beginning work on your thesis project. You have spent thousands of hours studying the results of other people’s research, but you know next to nothing about the research process itself. That was the situation Uri Alon found himself in when he entered graduate school.

He had a question and some assumptions about what his results should be, but when he began his experiments, the results did not follow a straight line trajectory towards the expected answer.

He became so frustrated and depressed by his project that he began to feel that he did not even belong at the University. He had read about great research results, but not about the process that brought researchers to these discoveries.

Somehow he made it through his first project only to find himself floundering about again in the same emotional turmoil when he embarked on his second thesis project. When he asked other graduate students what they were experiencing, they confirmed that it was much the same for them.

The frustration did not end there. When he became a professor, he again encountered the uncertainty of what to do. How do you choose a research project? How do you mentor others through the process of doing research? All those thousands of hours of study that had brought him to his own lab were not enough to answer those questions. Journal articles reported on the end product, not the hundreds of tedious hours researchers spent going in wrong directions.

Does this sound familiar. I can so easily rewrite this:

Imagine yourself as a first time horse owner. You have read everything you can get your hands on about riding. You have spent who knows how many hours reading about the results of other people’s training experience, but you have very little direct knowledge of the training process itself. You know how to ride, but you have always been on horses someone else has trained. You know how to direct them literally from point A to point B, but you know very little about what was done to get their training to this point.

But not to worry. You have bravely bought your first horse, a youngster who presumably was started under saddle. You are slowly discovering that your basic assumptions about how much this horse knows are not quite a match with reality. But that’s all right. You’ve read the books. You subscribe to all the popular magazines. You’ve memorized the steps the authors describe for dealing with the problems you’re encountering, so you head out to the barn filled with confidence that you will soon have your horse sorted. That’s when you discover that A does not always lead directly to B.

Back to physics: Alon had a mental map of how things should turn out: he had a question. He formed a hypothesis around that question. He did some work to test the hypothesis which he expected to lead to the set of conclusions he had predicted. It should have been a straight line trajectory.

A (the question) leads to B (the answer).

Except that it didn’t.

And when it didn’t, he experienced stress.

Whether it is with theoretical research or practical horse training, we crave internal consistency. We want our expectations to match our reality. When they don’t, we become uncomfortable. We look for ways to reduce the inconsistency, or to avoid situations and information that might increase it.

This drawing, borrowed from Alon’s presentations on the cloud, illustrates the way a research project often unfolds. You start off expecting a straight line to B, but instead your first assumption doesn’t work, so you try something else, and when that doesn’t work, you try again – and again.

Equally, the drawing can also describe horse training. In the books you’ve read, it says that if you can get your nervous horse to move his feet, he’ll calm down. You follow the basic recipe outlined in the books, and not only doesn’t your horse calm down, he seems even more agitated than he was before! Oh dear. This doesn’t match what the books described at all. You try something else, and that doesn’t work. So you throw that book away and try a different author’s approach. That doesn’t work either, and now you’re feeling more and more in a muddle.

In both cases you try experiment after experiment, procedure after procedure, but nothing works. You become increasingly stressed. I’m sure we’ve all read (or perhaps even written) posts to on-line forums where the person was clearly experiencing just this kind of emotional turmoil. If you are new to the training process, and especially if you are also new to horses, it’s easy to get in a muddle. You don’t understand why your horse walks away from you when you go out to catch him; why he pins his ears and bites at you when you groom him; why it’s a wrestling match every time you want to clean his feet or put on his bridle. Why, why, why, is your lament.

You try different approaches and you keep getting derailed. With each new path you feel more and more in a muddle. Finally you reach a point where it seems as though all your basic assumptions have failed. It is as though you are lost in a cloud of confusion. You become frustrated, anxious, depressed.

Alon refers to this emotional state appropriately enough as The Cloud.

Alon: “You can be lost in the cloud a day, a week, a year, a whole career, but sometimes if you have enough support, you can see in the materials you have in hand a new answer – C. You decide to go for it.”

Your first experiments don’t work, but you persist, and eventually you make a new discovery.

You tell everyone about it by publishing an article:
A leads to C is the way the results are presented in a scientific journal, but it leaves out the process of getting from A to C.

Horse Training

The same thing occurs in horse training. When you read about training in books and magazines, it can sound so straight forward. You do X and Y will happen. Easy. Here’s an exercise that will help your horse relax his top line, become more supple, and go on the bit. You follow the recipe, and your stiff horse bolts off in rebellion. You are left literally in the dust wondering what went wrong. Training can be so unbelievably frustrating in part because it is not about following simple recipes.

In the DVDs that I have produced I always like to include video of someone who is new to the lesson I’m presenting. It’s all well and good to watch someone who knows the answer take a horse through the lesson. What does it look like for a new learner? What are some of the sticky places you might encounter, the skills you will need?

When your own horse doesn’t follow a direct line from A to B, I hope watching these lessons helps you to understand that this is a normal part of training. Even simple lessons can require creativity and innovation. That’s woven into the very core of clicker training. From the very first lesson on, flexibility, ingenuity, originality is something clicker training encourages. That links it both to science and art.

In behavior analysis they talk about the study of one. That’s what we have in training. You can look at what others have done, but always it comes down to a study of one – your horse. And always it is a voyage of discovery.

Alon: “The cloud is an inherent part of research. It is part of our craft because the cloud stands at the boundary between the known and the unknown.”

“In order to discover something truly new one of your basic assumptions has to change. Otherwise, it’s not new. And in this light scientists do something truly heroic. Everyday we try to push ourselves to the boundary between the known and the unknown and face the cloud.

Now notice that B is inside the land of the known because we knew about it before we began. C is always much more fresh, exciting, profound and also much more important than B, and that’s the wonder of doing research.”

More Connections with Clicker Training

This made me think of the people who are just beginning to explore clicker training. They start out at “A” with some basic assumptions about how horses are “supposed” to behave. These assumptions are based on their previous horse experience and what others around them tell them about training. These assumptions may include things such as: horses are not supposed to offer behavior; they are to do what they are told; you need to be the alpha, the leader to be respected.

And then they have their first clicker lesson and all these assumptions are turned inside out and upside down. The belief systems that underpin clicker training are a world apart from what others have been telling them. Is it any wonder that the difference between what they have been taught and what they are encountering creates confusion.

Sometimes they quit because the people around them are so critical and judgmental. It’s hard to keep going when you are surrounded by disapproving stares. Everyone is watching while your horse mugs you for treats. Aargh! What do you do!

What you do is find a more sympathetic support team. If you’re in a muddle, feeling confused, frustrated, annoyed by your horse’s behavior, you’re very much in the cloud. The on-line clicker community can help guide you safely through your introduction into clicker training. They understand the process because they’ve been through it. They may not have a word for the muddle of emotions you find yourself in, but they have experienced it and know that things do sort out.

Alon found that having a name for this aspect of doing research was transformative for his graduate students. They would say to him: “Uri, I’m in the cloud.”

He would respond by saying: “Great, you must be feeling miserable.”

Alon: “[As a mentor] I’m kind of happy, because we might be close to the boundary between the known and the unknown. We stand a chance of discovering something truly new. The way our minds work, just knowing that the cloud is normal, it’s essential, and in fact beautiful, means we can join the Cloud Appreciation Society. It detoxifies the feeling that something is deeply wrong with me.

And as a mentor, I know what to do, which is to step up my support for the student, because research in psychology shows that if you’re feeling fear and despair, your mind narrows down to very safe and conservative ways of thinking. If you want to explore the risky paths needed to get out of the cloud, you need other emotions — solidarity, support, hope — that come with your connection to somebody else. It’s best to walk into the unknown together.”

The cloud gives us a way of understanding the training process. It doesn’t matter if others have worked out tried and true methods for working with horses. That’s their experience. You have to find your own path. They can guide you, but again, it is always a study of one.

With your own horse some things may seem very easy and straight forward. The lessons will unfold exactly as the books suggest, but then you’ll encounter situations that just seem baffling. “Why won’t my horse go on the trailer; line up next to the mounting block; stand quietly for the farrier. I’ve tried everything!” Others can hear the frustration and despair as you tell your story. You have tried one suggestion after another, and all that has happened is you feel more and more tangled. You are well and truly in the cloud.

“Great! You must be feeling miserable.”

Remember what Alon said: the cloud means you are in the boundary between the known and the unknown, and you stand a chance of discovering something new. When you know the cloud is “normal, essential, and in fact beautiful”, you too, can join the Cloud Appreciation Society.

If you are feeling confused, if your training isn’t going along smoothly on straight line trajectories, there is nothing wrong with you or your horse.

Every learning process is a voyage of discovery. I may know the answer because I have been on this voyage before you, but you don’t. I can give you some sign posts to follow, some milestones to look for, but at the end of the day, you have to find your own way. The path you take may not be quite the one I expected. Think of the way children learn. Both parent and child are enriched by seeing the world through their fresh eyes.

When one of Alon’s students tells him he is in the cloud, he knows to step up his support for that student. “In science it is best to walk into the unknown together.”

The same is true for training horses. It is best to walk into the unknown in the company of somebody else. For many stepping into clicker training is very much stepping into unknown territory. If you are taking that step, having good mentors can be a huge help. They can remind you that the path you are on is one worth following, even if at times it feels as though you are heading into brambles. The brambles are just the boundary between what you know and the uncertainty that comes from exploring a new path.

Your mentors may be others in your barn who want the same kind of relationship with their own horses that you do with yours. Or they may come from connections you make on-line, from reading blogs like this, and other virtual resources. They might even be a canine clicker trainer who knows nothing about horses, but lots about training.

My Own Clouds
I will be celebrating Peregrine’s thirtieth birthday this spring. Over the years he has sent me into many dense clouds filled with frustration. Some were the normal things you run into when you are raising a young horse. Some were directly attributable to the physical issues he had with his locking stifles.

Uri Alon’s description of the frustrations he encountered doing his graduate thesis rang very true with me. They described very much what Peregrine put me through, especially in his first couple of years. He was my “graduate thesis”. I would solve one problem, feel the elation and satisfaction that goes along with that, and then Peregrine would present me with another, even more challenging puzzle. I’d be thrown right back into the cloud, trying to figure out the puzzle that was Peregrine. If other horses now seem much more straight forward to me, it is only because he was so very, very difficult.

We eventually got things more or less sorted. Then Peregrine got Potomac horse fever, and the clouds set in denser and thicker than ever. The Potomac horse fever damaged his feet. It took us three years to work our way out of that Cloud and to bring him back to full riding soundness.

Around that time I started experimenting with clicker training. I had “A” – the question: what is this and how do you use it with horses?

I set out on the first step, found several easy “B”s. That encouraged me to keep going. But as I kept exploring this question – what is clicker training and how do you use it? – I found that the line between A and B was not always so straight. That led to new, different, other ways of solving puzzles.

Clicker Puzzles

Picture again Alon’s model:

“A” might be a simple question: How do you introduce your horse to the clicker?”

With most horses the answer is a straight line trajectory between A and B. B in this case is you use targets. You click and treat as your horse sniffs the target out of curiosity.

But what about the horse who has lived surrounded by loud electric fences and panics at the sound of the clicker?

Okay, that’s easy. You use a different marker signal. But he’s still afraid to come up and explore your target. You try one approach after another. Finally what works for this horse is sitting quietly with him in his field while he makes the choice to come to you. You have found your new C. But once it is found, C sits within the boundary of the known.

So now with most horses you know you can begin with basic targeting. But with very timid horses you may first have to begin by reinforcing them for showing any interest in you at all.

Everything is great until you work with a friend’s horse who panics when she’s separated from the other members of her herd. Touching targets holds no interest for this horse. All she wants to do is get back to her equine friends. And you could sit for days in her field, she has zero interest in you. So you’re back in the cloud trying to figure out an approach that will work for her.

You try several different approaches until finally, perhaps with some help from your mentor, you spot D, the new solution you hadn’t seen before. You change the way you have your training area set up, and now you have a horse who is engaged with you.

So now D sits within the known strategies.

Each new puzzle, each new horse, each new venture into the cloud, expands your training knowledge. What at first seemed like just a tangled mess, now feels like very straightforward, familiar territory. You begin to know how to deal with a greater variety of situations, but don’t get too smug. It is the nature of horses to throw new clouds at us. Just when you think you are starting to know something, along will come a situation that sends you into the thickest of thick fogs.

I do love this image because it helps us understand the feelings of frustration that come so easily when we are trying to sort through the puzzles our horses throw at us. There’s nothing wrong with us, with them, or with the training system we are exploring. It is okay to feel confused, and frustrated. When you do, you can now say you are in The Cloud. And you can also know this is a good time to seek out the help of others. They may not have answers for you, but they can at least offer you the support you need to stay open and creative.

Expanding Your Training Map
Alon’s map helps us understand training in yet another way.

You began with a simple question (A): How do I get started?

As you worked with the three horses in your herd you found three different answers.

This confusing mess sorted itself out in your mind and became . . .

Your first horse followed a fairly conventional path to “B”. The other two horses were rescues with issues coming from past experiences complicating the process. They stretched you to find “C” and “D”.

But now each of those solutions becomes the launching point for the another question: What do I do next?

I will leave it up to you to draw out the map. Each layer takes you deeper into the training process. You will see intersecting paths. When you come to these again with a new horse, you will know you have choices. Each has led to successful solutions in the past. This is how training experience grows, horse by horse, lesson by lesson until you have a complex mosaic of choices all sitting comfortably within the boundaries of the known. You have created a rich tapestry of training connections. Now when you introduce the next horse to the clicker you do so with the confidence that comes from having successfully navigated your way through many clouds.

You are comfortable stretching yourself beyond the boundary of the known because you understand the cloud. You know that the muddle of emotions you sometimes experience when you are learning something new is not something to be afraid of. It’s not something to back away from. It is the sign post that tells you are leaving the security of the known and venturing heroically into new territory. You are facing the cloud, and you know beyond it is a new discovery and another layer of connection with your horse.

Coming soon: “Yes And . . . – Learning To Grab A Whale By The Tail: More Metaphors from a Systems Biologist”

Alexandra Kurland

February 3, 2015

Please note: If you are new to clicker training and you are looking for how-to instructions, you will find what you need at my web sites:

theclickercenter.com theclickercentercourse.com