I have finally made it to Day Four of the July Goat Diaries. It’s only the start of Day Four but already the goats have had 14 training sessions, and I’ve learned a lot. One of the main things I’ve learned is that goats are like horses, except that they’re not. On Day Four I continued to build on their platform training by adding in multiple platforms.
I’ve decided to wait though to post this part of the Goat Diaries until after the Thanksgiving Holidays. That may give me time to get some pictures of the current Goat Palace training. I can describe what I am doing, but without pictures you are missing out on how utterly charming these goats are.
Last night I went in intending only to check hay and water, but Elyan and Pellias were looking so eager. I couldn’t resist letting them each have another session out in the storage area. They were super. They had the game down. Go to the platform, wait for the click, go to the food bowl, and then head back to the platform. I do like this kind of training, especially at the end of the day. All I have to do is sit in a chair and toss treats into a food bucket. I’d spent the afternoon emptying one of the composter bays. It’s hard work and I was tired, but I could handle this.
I worked with Pellias first. He was so solid. Yesterday he was still learning to go to the food bowl to get his treats. Last night he had that down. I love the focus of these goats. It was after dark. He was by himself, in a new area. There were night sounds to listen to, but he never lost his focus on the game. It was go to the platform, click, go to the food bowl, then back to the platform.
I’ve been thinking a lot about horse training, but in this game they moved much more like dogs. They have the quickness and flexibility of dogs. Pellias would get his treats and lightning fast he’d back up to get onto the platform. It’s going to be fun to look at the teaching strategies dog trainers have developed. I am working with an animal that is the size of a dog, has the agility of a dog, and loves treats like a dog, so it makes sense to take advantage of what canine clicker trainers have been learning.
Elyan also got a turn. I was especially impressed by him. I was holding a large bowl containing cut up squash. I wanted to use up what was left from the morning sessions, but I didn’t want to mix it in with my horse treats. The horses are telling me they don’t really like squash, but the goats are happy to eat it.
Elyan ignored the bowl! When I clicked, he dashed to the food bucket to get the squash. He ignored the bowl on my lap. He could have been a terrible pest trying to get to the squash that was so openly available in the bowl, but he didn’t try even once. The time I spent in July focusing on good food manners was time well spent. I now have an individual who can focus on the game. He delights in the treats, but his attention is on the activity, not the food. That’s the shift that I worked on in July. Now we can really have fun!
The three youngsters – from left to right, Galahad, Elyan and Pellias.
The Goat Palace – Journal Report for 11/19/17: You Never Know What You Have Taught
Galahad had the first session of the day. He’s an eager, happy learner, and he very much chose to go into the far end to play. I stayed for a few minutes down in the front section visiting with the other goats. Elyan and Pellias were up on the top platform of the jungle gym. They were eager for head scratches. Surprisingly, so was Thanzi.
By the time I extracted myself from their appeal for more, Marla had already begun Galahad’s session. She commented that what she thought she had taught him was not what he had learned. Ah yes, that’s the clinic mantra: You never know what you have taught. You only know what you have presented. Yesterday he had been going to his target, click, followed by Marla dropping a treat in one of the food buckets. He went promptly to the bucket, got his treat, and then touched the target again. Marla would then drop his treat in a second bucket, so he was going back and forth between buckets with a quick stop in between to touch the target.
His takeaway from that was just to go from bucket to bucket – never mind touching the target. It reminded me of the table games that we play to learn about training and to work out procedures for teaching concepts.
Playing the table game during the Five Go To Sea Caribbean conference cruise. I’m hiding from the sun under the funny hat. Kay Laurence is sitting behind us.
Kay Laurence is the originator of these games. Several years ago we were together at an airport, both with long waits for our flights home. So we found a quiet corner and pulled out a table game kit. I was the learner, something when I’m teaching I rarely get to be, so that was a treat. Kay had a plan in mind for teaching me to use the pieces from the game to draw a pentagon. Of course, I had no idea what she had in mind. But I was a contented learner because I was making lots of correct choices and getting clicked and reinforced at a high rate. The only problem was the rules I was using to produce the actions she was reinforcing were not the same rules Kay was trying to teach. So I was coming up with the right answer but for the wrong (from Kay’s perspective) reason.
Every time Kay presented me with a puzzle moment I got stuck. Puzzle moments are small tests to check to see if what you think you are teaching is what your learner is learning. It was a fascinating and fun experience, though it could easily have been a frustrating experience if either of us had brought a different mind set to the game.
My flight was coming up, so we had to end the game. Kay explained what she wanted me to do. My reaction to being told the “answer” was interesting. I felt deflated. I wanted to go on and work through the puzzle. Being told the answer was far less satisfying than discovering the answer on my own. I missed the puzzle solving, and I missed seeing what strategies Kay would have used to get things sorted out. But my plane wasn’t going to wait for us to finish the game, so we had to jump straight to the final answer.
Galahad had come up with a solution to the puzzle that made total sense to him. Go from bucket to bucket and expect your person to drop a treat in when you get there. He had completely by-passed the target.
Watching him, I also didn’t think he was noticing Marla’s tongue click. With horses I suggest that people begin with an actual clicker. The sharp sound that a box clicker makes is very noticeable, and the horses seem to catch on fast to the significance of the sound. After a couple of targeting sessions with the clicker, you can switch to a tongue click, and the horses are very aware of the new marker signal.
I suggested to Marla that she get an actual clicker. At the stage where you’re using target sticks, clickers are easy to use. You can duct tape a box clicker onto the end of the target stick so you have easy access to the clicker.
Marla got a box clicker and continued on with the lesson. Galahad quickly remembered that he was supposed to touch the target. Yesterday’s fluid pattern was back. Now it was: orient to the target, click, go to the indicated food bucket for a treat, look for the target. A clean loop was reappearing.
This experience highlights another part of the start-up process. I like to begin with very short sessions. With horses I have people count out twenty treats. That means handlers who are new to this process have to stop frequently to reload their pockets. This also gives them time to think about what has just occurred and to consider what, if any, changes need to be made.
With five goats to juggle I was certainly finding I needed to do a lot of adjusting. It wasn’t just what was happening with the individual I was focusing on. What was going on with the other goats? When I had Pellias out by himself, he was having a grand time, but how stressed was Elyan? Was he being chased by Thanzi? Yes. When I took Thanzi out, was Trixie able to cope? There was a lot to think about, a lot to keep shifting around to find the right training combinations.
Keeping your initial training sessions short lets you check in with your animals more frequently to see what they are actually learning. Each time you go back in and start up the session, you get to see what’s been processed from the previous session. If your learner has come up with a different answer, these short sessions mean it hasn’t become so entrenched that it is now hard to shift the pattern.
It is ironic that I am writing about short sessions, because I am known for using long training sessions. With an established learner I’ll fill my pockets with treats and keep going. That seems to suit the learning style of horses, but these long sessions are broken up into smaller units. I give breaks through the behaviors I’ve taught. For example, I might be working on lateral flexions. We’ll have a bit of success, then it’s off to find a mat. The mat acts both as a conditioned reinforcer and a way to give a break. The change in the rhythm of the training provides a break without having to stop the play.
At the heart of this is the training principle: for every exercise you teach there is an opposite exercise you must teach to keep things in balance.
The balance that I thought was needed now for the other goats was a morning session of quiet visiting. I was very pleased that Thanzi wanted to participate in some head scratching. I had the two ladies in the back section so the three youngsters could relax and not worry about dodging out of Thanzi’s way. She stayed by the gate while I scratched her head. Normally, she’s been drawing away when I try to touch her, so I consider this real progress. Trixie came up to me repeatedly through the morning, but she’s not yet ready for a proper scratch. The boys, on the other hand, had a blissful time enjoying a prolonged cuddle session.
Afterwards, Marla and I worked some more on the Goat Palace. We’re getting close to the finish line, but there always seem to be a few more things to do. Years ago my family did some remodeling to the house. The process dragged on and on. Every day my father would make a list of things that the builders still needed to get done before he could sign off on the job. He remarked that they always seemed to get done only half the remaining jobs. You would think on a finite project like that, you would be able to check everything off the list, but it never seemed to happen.
At the moment we seem to be caught in that twilight zone of always completing just half the remaining tasks. One of yesterday’s tasks was tidying up the section we’ve designated for storage. I was very pleased to see how little we have left to store. We have managed to use up an amazing amount of miscellaneous clutter. So perhaps when we run out of stuff to find a use for, we will also run out of tasks that still need to be done. That will finish off phase one of the goat palace. (I say phase one because phase two is obviously going to be expanding the goat jungle gym. That will be as much for our entertainment as it will be for theirs.)
One of the things that contributed to the tidying up of the storage area was the snow blower went out to be serviced for the winter. That left a clear area that could be used for training. So in the early evening I took advantage of this space to work with Elyan and Pellias. It was a good time for training. The goats were beginning to settle down for the night. It was easy to close the middle gate so only Pellias and Elyan were in the front section.
I had everything set up for them out in the storage area. I had my chair, a food bucket and a couple of platforms, including the very distinctive foam platform I had introduced them to in July.
Elyan came out first. I brought him out on a lead, and then turned him loose. He stayed nearby. He was clearly interested in playing, but he wasn’t sure what to do. I let him explore for a couple of minutes, then I brought out the baton and directed him towards the foam platform. He hopped up onto it, click, I dropped the treat into the bucket. He had to step down from the platform to get to the bucket. So now the question was what would he do? The answer was he backed up to get back on the platform. Click! Drop treats in the food bucket.
Elyan seemed to catch on fast. The “rule” was get back to the platform, and you’ll get clicked. At least that’s what was happening. His “rule” might just as easily have been: back up, and you’ll get clicked. The platform was just in the path of the backing. I’ll need to have a puzzle moment to check whether he is going to the platform or simply backing up.
In any case, while he was getting his treat, I nudged the platform a little further away. He continued to back himself onto the the platform. We could have kept going all night, but this was a session that should be kept short. I got up from my chair, and he followed me back in to the front section.
Pellias was eating hay. He hadn’t been at all fussed having his brother outside the pen. But now I wanted to do a swap, and they were both at the gate. I got Pellias out and sat down in my chair. He went straight to the platform. Click. I dropped treats in the bucket. He stepped off the platform, got his treat and went straight back to the platform. I repeated this a couple of times, and then I exclaimed; “Wait a minute. You’re not Pellias!” In the fading light I hadn’t noticed that little Elyan had pushed past his brother for a second turn. With his jacket on to keep his coat clean, it was harder to tell them apart. No wonder he was so good!
I got them switched around so now it truly was Pellias’ turn. He’s always been a platform superstar. He went straight to the foam platform. Click. But now the food delivery was different. He’s used to getting the treat from my hand, not a food bucket. I moved the bucket close to the platform and helped him find the hay stretcher pellet. He got his treat and then stepped off the platform. He wandered away from the platform. I waited. He began to eat the leaves that we hadn’t swept out of this area. I got out my baton target and gave it a little shake. That got his attention. He followed it to the platform, click, drop the treat.
The hay stretchers make a very sharp noise as they fall into the bucket. That helped draw Pellias’ attention, and he began to look in the bucket for his treat. He only had to take his front feet off the platform to get to the bucket, so it was easy for him to step back onto it and get clicked. My concern was the sound of the treat dropping into the bucket might become the functional marker signal, so I clicked, and began to wait to see him react to the click before I made any move to drop the treat into his bucket. I got lucky several times with that. He had turned on the platform so he could look down the driveway. The sound of my tongue click turned him around, so it was clear, at least in this situation, that he was responding to the sound of the click.
Again, I kept the session short. When I opened the gate to let him back in, I dropped treats on the floor to distract Elyan. Pellias came in to get the treats, as well. I’m not sure I want the others out in this area yet, but for these two their July visit prepared them well for going outside of their pen.
I filled their hay feeders, opened the middle gate and left the goats tucked in for the night.
Today’s July Goat Diary appropriately enough continues with the initial training of platforms.
The July Goat Diaries: Clicker Training Day 3: Arrange The Environment for Success
I described earlier the morning sessions of day three in which I introduced both goats to platforms. This was an errand day so I wasn’t able to fit in as many sessions as usual. When I got back to the barn around 5, E and P were clearly hungry. They were standing on a bed of hay, but none of it was to their liking. I gave them fresh hay and left them to eat while I did barn chores.
7 pm session with P
P was very rambunctious – literally. He reared up several times. I managed to dodge him and get him on the platform, but the session didn’t feel very productive.
I wasn’t satisfied with the way he was orienting to the target. I thought a second platform might help. If a platform was the end destination, it might make more sense to him why he was following a target. I decided to consider this a data collecting session. I knew where I needed to head, but I would wait until tomorrow to add the second platform. Training success depends very much upon having a good set-up. I suspected adding the second platform would help smooth things out. Instead of continuing on with a session that wasn’t going well, I would wait until I had a better set up.
In contrast to P, E’s session was great. He was so very soft and sweet. I had him target the baton, click, treat. Then I scratched him around his ears. His eyes got soft, and he leaned into my hand, clearly enjoying the feel. I asked him to follow the target again, click, treat, scratch. Who knows what E was learning. I certainly found it very reinforcing! I began his day with bliss, and that’s how I ended it.
The password to open this video is: GoatDiariesDay 3 E Learns
Note: When I was in town, I stopped at the new bird store that’s just opened. I bought some black sunflower seeds which the goats really like. So now they are getting a mix of sunflower seeds, peanuts and hay stretcher pellets.
8 pm final session of the day.
We ended the evening with “cuddle time”. While Ann groomed Fengur, I took my chair into the stall and enjoyed a few minutes of goat bliss.
Coming Next: Clicker Training Day 4
Please Note: if you are new to the Goat Diaries, these are a series of articles that are best read in order. The first installment was posted on Oct. 2nd. I suggest you begin there: https://theclickercenterblog.com/2017/10/02/
The Goat Palace: Structure Matters – Nov. 14, 2017
When I first started teaching, I often traveled to people’s home barn to help them with their horses. If you board your horse in a big barn, there’s usually plenty of help around, but the people who keep their horses at home are often stuck. They might have a trailer, but they have a horse who won’t load, so getting help can be a problem. I was willing to travel, and I was also willing to make do with whatever training environment (or lack thereof) they had.
I learned fast that structure really does make a difference. The right size space, good footing, good fencing, these really do make things so much easier. I also learned to be creative with what I had. In my first book, “Clicker Training for your Horse” I described a situation with a very aggressive thoroughbred mare. There was no suitable outdoor space where we could work safely. No matter. Her stall was built into the structure of an old dairy barn, and it provided us with the perfect “theater in the round” where we could begin with protective contact. That horse really taught me how useful a starting point this can be.
Our first training day with the goats showed me that structure was going to matter with them, as well. We began our day by closing off the gaps in the fence that separated the two areas. That eliminated one problem. We didn’t have to deal with little E squeezing through the boards to join in the game. All the goats were together in the front section while we put up the boards. That made it easy to open the gate and let the first goat through. No surprise, Thanzi was first at the gate.
She started out by ignoring the target and checking out my pocket. She’d looked like such a ringer the day before going so consistently to the target. It was interesting to see what she had processed from that experience. It was clearly, when there’s food involved, head straight to the pockets.
When she got too focused on my pockets, I would shift position so the target was more in view. She would sniff at my pockets and then notice the target, touch it, get reinforced, then it was back to my pockets for another hopeful investigation. This went on for a few minutes before she abruptly switched and went consistently straight to the target, click, treat, back to the target.
I used what the horses have taught me about food delivery. As I got the treat from my pocket (winter squash rind), I moved into her space so she had to back up to get the treat. She would take a step back without any fuss. This is a very pushy, domineering goat. Moving her away from the treats right from the start seemed to be nipping in the bud any tendency to crowd into me demanding treats. Yes, she was sniffing at my pockets, but it never escalated beyond that.
I know some goat enthusiasts have worried that moving goats back might trigger a head butting response, but so far, there has been no sign of this. When I back her, I am stepping into her chest, just as I would a taller horse. And it is having the same good effect on reducing crowding that stepping into a horse’s space to deliver the treat does.
We let Trixie through the gate next. My idea was that I would work with one goat and Marla could work with the other, but the goats didn’t cooperate. Thanzi wanted whatever Trixie was getting so she hovered too close. She wasn’t yet strong enough on the targeting to be drawn away. We may have to work with her for a few days, and then catch Trixie up once Thanzi is able to stay solidly engaged with one person without being distracted by what other goats are doing.
We left the two ladies in the large area and then tried the boys. I engaged E and P down at one end. I had two platforms set up. I was trying to reinforce them for staying each on his own station. I glanced over to the other end of the pen. Marla was working Galahad using the protective contact of the fenceline. The only problem was she had Thanzi trying to be part of the session as well. I didn’t want Thanzi practicing behaviors that would create problems down the road so I suggested that Marla move Galahad away from the fence. But Marla said she needed the protective contact. Galahad was so focused on the food he couldn’t think about anything else.
Fair enough. That’s very much what you would expect at this early stage. It was interesting to compare E and P with Galahad. They had started out in exactly the same way. Peanuts meant two things: mug your person for treats and butt at your brother to drive him away. They could think of nothing else. But now they could work together in close quarters. Instead of mugging, I had the beginnings of taking turns. I was sure Galahad would catch up fast, but again structure matters.
If he needed protective contact, rather than muddle through making do, we needed to create a space that would work for him. So we withdrew to think about how best to construct what we needed.
I didn’t think we needed to build a permanent second fence in our training space. What we needed were panels that we could put up on a temporary basis. I had just the right solution. I had some lightweight training panels that could be made goat proof with a few simple additions. We pulled them out of storage and began to weave a spider’s web of baling twine through the gaps. When we were finished, it looked as though several very drunk spiders had been at work!
We set the panels across the width of the front training area using the jungle gym on one side to help hold them in place.
Little E was first into our new training area. Now that he and his brother have become long-term residents, it’s time to call them by their proper names, Elyan and Pellias (though I’ll still refer to them as E and P in the July Goat Diaries). Elyan had a super session. He followed a new target – a green target on the end of a long stick) as I moved it around on a circle. I had fun taking him up onto part of the jungle gym, and the down again to continue our circle.
Periodically, I stopped and held the target straight down to the ground in a neutral position. Elyan paused by my side, and even backed up a little away from me. Click and treat, then click and treat again to reinforce the stillness. The title of today’s Goat Diary report is: Keeping Things In Balance. That’s what we were working on here.
Galahad was next. Marla and I both moved outside the goat enclosure and worked with him through the outer fence. There was a post in the way, so we ended up working as a team. I held the target out to him and Marla fed. He was surprisingly fast at catching on to the game. He went consistently to the target, click, and then moved back to Marla as she reached for the treat. The barrier made a huge difference for him. And separating the target from the person who was feeding probably also helped.
Pellias was next. We were just getting started, when little Elyan squeezed his way through the one gap in our fence. I had thought the jungle gym would be enough to block it off, but I was wrong. So again, I did a double session with them. I got away with it, but my preference for now is to work them individually to strengthen their stationing behavior on platforms before asking them to work as a pair. We will need to fortify our panels for the next session in order to do that.
We spent the rest of the afternoon on construction. We finished the outer gates and further goat proofed the outer fencing. There’s still a lot to do before we can declare the Goat Palace finished.
Again, in the evening after the horses were tucked in, I went out to sit with the goats. This time it was Elyan who stayed for a visit. He was on the top platform of the jungle gym. I set my chair beside him and reached up to scratch his chin. He closed his eyes in blissful enjoyment.
Galahad came over a time or two but didn’t stay. Pellias watched from the back area. He would have had to run the gauntlet of the ladies to join us. If they hadn’t been there, I don’t know if he would have come over or not. It was nice to have a few minutes just with Elyan. Every time I took my hand away, he leaned down to invite me to continue. Back in July when I began this project, I had no idea how cat like goats are. It’s one of their greatest charms.
So now it’s on to the double feature of today’s installment of the July Goat Diaries. I hope this isn’t confusing you going back and forth between these two time lines.
The Goat Diaries: Day Two Session 4: Keeping Things in Balance
Moving back out of my space gets treats.
In an earlier Goat Diary blog I described how P had discovered that backing up got him treats. Surprise, surprise! This discovery was clearly messing with his head. Why did this work? This evening session was confirming for him that he was right. Backing did work! But why? That was clearly still perplexing him.
One of the core principles I follow in my training is this:
For every exercise you teach there is an opposite exercise you must teach to keep things in balance.
Backing away is great, especially when you are working with an animal that comes equipped with horns! But coming forward to me is also useful. I didn’t want to lose one behavior while I worked on the other. So I also offered him the target to touch.
This is such an important stage in an animal’s introduction to clicker training. It’s easy to be right when there is only one answer. Touch a target – get clicked. That’s easy. But if the only way to get reinforced is when there’s a target around, that’s really limiting. I want my learners to understand that there are many ways to get reinforced. Touching a target is only one option. But adding in other behaviors complicates the game. Now you have to figure out what is going to work. Is it backing? Is it targeting? What’s the right answer? If you are guessing, it is easy to become frustrated.
This is when clues begin to morph into cues and a whole new dimension is added to the game.
4th Session 5 pm
P’s Session: Backing Confirmed
You never know what you have taught. You only know what you have presented.
In this session I asked P what he was learning. What would he do when he came forward into my space? The answer: back up away from me. Wow! Was he ever a fast learner! What fun! Now my challenge was to stay a step or two ahead of him.
Backing Confirmed
With E I continued with some target practice in his stall. His session showed that he was still unclear what to do with the target. He hesitated between moving to the target and staying attached to my pockets.
It is never a race to see which goat learns the fastest. E was experimenting, learning what worked and what didn’t. This is such an important part of clicker training. One of the main things E was learning was that mistakes were not punished. It was safe to be close to me, and it was safe to guess wrong. It was safe to experiment.
With many horses their training history has taught them not to experiment. In command-based training you wait to be told what to do. Anything else can get you punished. The first steps into clicker training can feel very unsafe for these individuals. Instead of enthusiasm, you get worry and caution. It can be a slow process unraveling the fear that comes wrapped up in their training expectations. I was glad with these goats we could go straight to enthusiasm.
Video: Goat Diaries Day 2 E following a target Note:You will need a password to open this video. Use: “GoatDiariesDay 2 E Learns”
Coming Next: Goat Diaries: Clicker Training Day 2 Goats are Like Horses Except That They’re Not – Platform Training Begins
Please Note: if you are new to the Goat Diaries, these are a series of articles that are best read in order. The first installment was posted on Oct. 2nd. I suggest you begin there: https://theclickercenterblog.com/2017/10/02/
We’re off and running! I can’t say we finished the goat palace yesterday. There’s still a lot left to do, but it is enough done to receive the goats. I’m sure the three yearlings were thinking “and about time, too!” Spending the last couple of days locked in a stall with a very dominant older doe cannot have been fun. She made it very clear that they could venture out of their corner to get hay only when she was completely satisfied that she had gotten all the best bits. We were racing to get it done as much for their sake as for our own desire to see it finished.
E, P and Galahad are together in the corner. Trixie is in the middle of the stall, and Thanzi has her head down eating. The blankets are to keep their coats clean, not to keep them warm.
We were ready just at dusk. We took the two ladies out first. Marla ended up with the “pleasure” of being sled-dogged down the barn aisle by both of them while I kept the boys from going through the stall door. It was not elegant.
Thankfully they headed in exactly the direction we wanted them to go. They zipped into their new home. I had buckets scattered about the enclosure with treats in them: cut up pieces of winter squash. Thanzi found the buckets right away and quickly forgot about being nervous in a new space. Trixie was a different story. She stayed close to Thanzi, but she was too nervous to check out the feed tubs on her own or to approach us. As Thanzi found all the treats in one bucket, I dropped others in the next which moved her from bucket to bucket.
When Trixie was close enough to me, I held out my hand as a target. She was curious enough to reach out towards me. Click, I handed her a treat. She was also nervous enough to keep her distance, so at this point mugging was not an issue. That is mugging was not an issue until Thanzi noticed that we were handing out treats.
Trixie was over by Marla and Thanzi shoved her way into the game. With two it became too confusing. I suggested that we only try to have them target when only one goat was involved. I didn’t want the competition, the mugging, or the confusion over what was being clicked. Marla moved away, and that was enough to interrupt the game for the moment. As the ladies settled into their new space, we dropped more treats and withdrew to get the boys.
I should pause here to describe what we have built. The original lean-to ran part way down the long side of the arena. It was seventy feet long by twelve feet deep. In the winter the snow sliding off the arena roof often blocked access to the entrance and in the summer it became too hot, so we used it for storage only. Mainly what it stored were leftovers from the original construction.
For the goat palace we extended the roof out another nine feet to the edge of the gravel roadway that runs along that side of the barn. So the entire enclosure is 70 feet by approximately 20 feet. The goats palace is divided by an interior fence into two sections. The back section is 40 feet by 20. The front section is 30 feet by twelve. We reserved the outer half of this section for equipment storage, a 9 by 30 foot space. So the new entrance to the enclosure sits further out from the barn giving us better access in the winter.
The Goat Palace a week ago. A lot has changed in a week!
I learned from the July visit. We have built out goat enclosure very much with training in mind. The entire enclosure is fenced and then covered with mesh both to keep goats in and predators out. The fence line that runs along length of the equipment area has a narrow gap between two fence boards so we can fill hay feeders from the outside of the pen. And we can also use this fence line for any protective contact training we want to do. These two areas for the goats are divided off one from the other by an interior fence line so we separate the goats for training.
For now we had the two ladies locked in the back half so we could get the boys in without a struggle at the gate. They were very eager to be out of the stall. I led the way with E and P. They definitely did not lead with the good manners they had left with! They pulled all the way down the barn aisle. Again, it was not elegant, but we got them out to their new home and turned them loose.
We had four home made hay feeders hanging along the rail of the front enclosure. They found those quickly enough. We let them explore and eat for a couple of minutes, then we opened the gate that separates the front and back half, and let the ladies join them. Actually, it was the other way around. The boys went to them. They all ran around exploring, then they settled down at the hay feeders.
Marla and I were sitting on some elevated boards that are part of a jungle gym I built for them out of a couple of saw horses, and a big wooden box.
Trixie came over first and very tentatively held her nose out to Marla’s offered hand. Click, Marla reached into her pocket and gave her a hay stretcher pellet. I was holding a big bowl of cut up squash rind. So after a couple of target touches with Marla, I offered my hand as a target. Trixie very tentatively switched over to me. Click and treat. Then Marla offered her hand as a target. Trixie went back to her. We did a couple of these exchanges then Thanzi came over and Trixie retreated to the hay feeders.
Thanzi went first to Marla who was sitting closest to her. Marla held out her hand and clicked as Thanzi reached out her nose towards her. She fed so Thanzi had to turn her head to the side to get her treat. I offered my hand as a target. Thanzi came right over, click, but then she spotted the food bowl and went straight to helping herself. Marla snatched it away and put it up out of reach on the top part of the jungle gym.
That seemed to sort the mugging, at least for the moment. Marla held out her hand as target and fed so again Thanzi had to turn her head to the side to get the treat. Marla did this a couple of times. It helps to have a spotter when you train. I suggested that instead she feed so Thanzi would have to take a step or two back to get the treat.
This worked like a charm. Thanzi stepped back beautifully, and after only two or three clicks, she was staying back. I clicked for that. Marla had to feed because she was in reach, but I did the clicking. Thanzi is very bold. Mugging is definitely a potential problem, so to see her so quickly step back and stay back was exciting.
She was staying back beautifully. And then Galahad left the hay feeder and climbed up the back side of the jungle gym and discovered the treat bowl. E and P quickly joined him. Game over. We were too busy laughing to train. Now everyone was up on the jungle gym. I do wonder what the poor horses are going to think of all this racket.
It was starting to get cold, so we left them to their play and went in to finish the barn chores.
I was going to include another post from the July Goat Diaries, but this is enough for today. I’m eager to get the day started and to see how the goats are this morning. I’ll get pictures of the finished goat palace soon.
The goat palace is almost finished. We were hoping to get it done yesterday afternoon, but we didn’t quite make it. The three yearlings are feeling very squashed in the stall by the oldest female, Thanzi. She is making it very clear that they are TO STAY IN YOUR CORNER. I am glad we decided in our construction to use the entire space the lean-to provided and didn’t just settle for making a small goat pen. They will have plenty of room to spread out.
So for this morning it is back to July and the Goat Diaries. I had gotten as far as mid-morning of E and P’s second day of clicker training.
Training Rhythms
Good training begins to have a rhythm to it, especially in these early stages where you are asking for simple behaviors, and you’re keeping the rates of reinforcement high. It’s get the behavior – click and feed, get the behavior – click and feed, – get the behavior, click and feed. It becomes a training loop. We’re looking for clean loops.
When a loop is clean you get to move on, and not only do you get to move on you should move on. That’s the mantra of loopy training. Often people change criteria too fast which ends up confusing the learners. Or they stay too long at one step so they build a glass ceiling into their training. To the learner backing up means three steps and only three steps. If the handler asks for four, there’s frustration. The learner knows the behavior. It’s three steps and three steps only!
The mantra of loopy training helps you to know when to move on. It also helps you to know when you should pause for a moment to let your learner show you what he has learned. Canine trainer, Kay Laurence refers to these pauses as puzzle moments.
In these early sessions with these goats I was beginning to establish some training loops. P in particular was such a fast learner, it was time to give him some puzzle moments to see what dots he was connecting. If you aren’t sure what a puzzle moment looks like, P is about to show you.
Session 3: 11 am
I started with P out in the pen. He was ready, eager to touch a target, but my attention was elsewhere. I was busy setting up the camera. I was very aware that I might be missing a window of opportunity. We began with a little targeting. He oriented to it, I clicked, fed, and then clicked and fed again while he was still out of my space. The jumping up on me to try to get the food that he had been doing in the previous session was almost completely gone. My active use of food delivery was paying off.
Click for targeting. Feed where the perfect goat would be. The perfect goat would have all four feet on the ground. He would be looking straight ahead, and he would be outside my personal space.
After I clicked, I fed P so he had to take a step or two back to get the food. My concern here was the food delivery caused him to curl his neck so his head was in the orientation it would be for butting with his horns. I didn’t want to trigger that behavior. But head butting is a forward moving behavior. Here he was moving back, so I hoped that his feet would keep his head from thinking he should be charging me.
Get them while they’re standing still.
I fed P so he had to back up a couple of steps to get to the treat in my hand. Before he could come forward again, click, I was giving him a treat – this time where he was standing. I wanted him to get the idea. Standing still, away from me, is a good thing. Click treat, click treat. I was tightening the training loop down to the tiny fraction of a second in which he was standing still looking straight ahead.
The neighbors were mowing the hill up above the barn. P kept turning his head to the side to check them out. His feet were still, but I didn’t want to make such a full head turn part of the behavior. I had to wait, hoping his feet would be still when he finally looked back in my direction. Click then treat.
When I clicked, I used my food delivery to move him back a couple of steps. I wanted to be able to click again while he was still standing back out of my space. I also wanted his head to be straight. If I clicked too many times when his head was turned, I was concerned that I would build that into the base behavior. So I had to wait to click until his feet were still AND he had his head straight. Asking for two criteria at once was pushing my luck. The first couple of times he was too quick for me. He straightened his head, but just as I began to click, he was shifting forward.
I moved him back again with the food delivery. He took his treat from my hand. Before I could click again, he had come forward into my space.
I work hard to avoid putting my learners into a macro extinction process. Here’s what that means: This behavior has been consistently working to get me to hand you treats. Only now suddenly, it’s not. You’re not going to be reinforced for this very successful behavior.
We all know how frustrating this can be. You put your money in the vending machine and nothing comes out. Time to shake the vending machine!
My training rhythm was broken and P didn’t yet have enough experience in the game to know what to do. His repertoire of behaviors was still too limited to offer me something I could reinforce. Instead he was trying to go directly to my pockets. I suspect by this point the small children he had grown up with would have dropped pretzels and peanuts all over the floor and everyone would be happy. The children would be giggling, and P would be gobbling up the goodies. Only this wasn’t how I played the game. How annoying!
P gave a little chuff of a sneeze. I had llamas years ago, so I recognized this sound as a sign of frustration. He tried both my pockets. Nothing. He gave a head toss which I dodged, and then I got lucky. He dropped his head away from me enough so that I could reinforce him. The food delivery moved him out of my space, and we were back on track building good behavior.
Training is not without moments of frustration. I was beginning to recognize what this looked like in a goat. A little tail wiggle, a snort, a head butting gesture – these all told me that P was struggling a bit to make sense of what was happening. Why wasn’t I just giving him treats! That’s what the children would have done. And if they didn’t give him treats, he’d just jump up on them, and that was sure to make them scatter their peanuts and pretzels on the ground!
But here this was different. He was clearly frustrated. Doing what had always worked in the past, namely crowding into me didn’t work. Looking away, taking a step back, produced treats! It made no sense to him, so while it produced treats it also produced a puzzled goat. And a puzzled goat can very quickly become a frustrated goat. Noted.
I was monitoring carefully. Always I am asking myself is this working? Is this the best strategy? How much frustration is too much? What should I change? Should I stop?
Puzzle solving!
There is a time to be clicking, and a time to just wait it out and let your learner work out the puzzle. Through the food delivery, I had shown P the answer. Back away and you get treats. Would he put the pieces of the puzzle together? I waited. The skill here is to be quiet, to remain as non-reactive as you can be and let him figure out the answer. A puzzle you solve for yourself, is an answer you will own.
He could sniff at my pockets. I remained non-reactive. How frustrating! I was not playing the game fair. The children would have been flailing their arms about and pushing him away. Which meant they would also have been dropping treats. Push on the vending machine, and it scatters goodies over the ground, except not now.
His feet took him back a couple of steps. Click – treat. The next time the backing was even more definite.
He caught on fast and began to back away from me. When he came forward into my space, now I could wait. It was a puzzle moment. What would he do? I had shown him the answer through the food delivery. Would he find it now on his own?
The answer was yes! He backed up, not just a little, but multiple steps. And he backed with energy. Very neat!
P was definitely a quick study. He was beginning to understand that he could get the food by doing other things besides jumping up or bumping my pockets. It was a really fun session watching him catch on so fast. Though I got the impression that he was still very confused. Backing was clearly working, but it didn’t make sense to him. How could backing up get treats to appear? He was a very puzzled goat.
I sympathized. We’ve all been given sets of instructions that make no sense. Whatever is logical – do the opposite. How maddening is that! Especially when it works!
I would find out in the next session if P could reconcile himself to this new inside-out world order.
(Note: we had moved on in the treats. I was now using a mix of peanuts, peanut hulls, sunflower seeds and hay stretcher pellets as treats.)
Training time for this session: 6 minutes.
Video: Video: Goat Diaries Day 2: A Quick Study: Note you will need a password to watch this video: GoatDiariesDay 2 E Learns
“A puzzle solved is a behavior owned.” P showed me he was making the connections – fast!
Video: GOAT DIARIES/Day 2/Problem Solving: Note you will need a password to watch this video: GoatDiariesDay 2 E Learns
Coming next: Day 2 Continued – Two Different Learners
Please Note: If you are new to the Goat Diaries, these are a series of articles that are best read in order. The first installment was posted on Oct. 2nd. I suggest you begin there: https://theclickercenterblog.com/2017/10/02/
Protective Contact I talk a lot about protective contact. I like to begin with a barrier between the animal learner and the handler. The more I worked with the goats, the more I appreciated just how important beginning in this way can be. Now I am sure there are many who will read this with eyes rolling. These are baby goats! Are you so afraid of them that you need a barrier?
There are times with certain individuals where the answer would be: “Yes, absolutely I’m afraid of this animal – and so should you be. Whether it’s a tiny terrier, or a giant horse, this individual has demonstrated that he will defend himself. While we’re working out our relationship, I’ll keep myself safe by working behind a barrier.
In this case it’s the human who is on the inside of the round pen panels. The horse is free to leave. What he’s chosen is to stay and interact. What he can’t do is charge his person which was the behavior he was showing earlier.
Safety can also work the other way. It’s the animal who is afraid of us. The barrier means the handler can’t get any closer. The animal can choose when he feels comfortable enough to approach, and he can also retreat any time he needs to. That freedom of choice builds confidence. The barrier may feel restricting to the handler. We want to be in with our animals, actively doing things with them, but in the long run beginning with a barrier can help build the truly connected relationship we are looking for.
Barriers aren’t just about safety. They also limit options which means that your learner isn’t practicing behaviors you don’t want. If I don’t want mugging behavior to become woven into the matrix of these early lessons, the barrier can help. I can just step back out of range so my horse can’t reach my pockets, or my dog (or goat) can’t jump up on me.
When these unwanted behaviors aren’t present, it’s so much easier to find and reinforce behavior that works well for both of us. I’m not punishing the behaviors I don’t like. I am simply arranging the training environment so it’s easier for my animal learners to offer behaviors I like.
With the goats I didn’t have a set up that let me begin with protective contact. So instead I borrowed again from the horses and used the treat delivery to help create some spatial separation.
8 am 2nd session
At 8 am I gave the goats hay in their stall. P left to come to me, so I had him follow the target into the outside pen. E wanted to come, but I managed to close the door before he could join us. P was very eager. I was holding a cup of grain and peanuts in my hand. I wanted to keep their treats separate from the horses’ so the cup seemed the best option.
The first session or two of clicker training can seem so easy, especially with a nervous learner. He’s just beginning to figure out that treats are involved, but he’s still a little worried about approaching too close so mugging behavior is manageable. But give him time to think, and this is what he may come up with: Why bother with the target. Why not just go straight for the treats?
This was clearly what P had concluded. He kept jumping up on me. I could deflect him easily, but hmm. This was decidedly not what I wanted. If my set up had allowed, I would have gone to protective contact to keep him from practicing this behavior. Instead I borrowed another technique from the horses. I followed the mantra: “Click for behavior. Feed where the perfect horse (or goat) would be.” The perfect goat would most definitely not be jumping up to get his treat. When I clicked, I fed him so he had to take a step or two back.
This is obviously NOT behavior I want.
To help create some space between us, I fed him so he had to take a step or two back to get to his treat. Note: I am NOT pushing him back. I simply imagine that there is a bucket sitting where I want to deliver the treat. He moves with me and shifts out of my way just as he would if there actually were a bucket I needed to get to. If you don’t yet have the feel of this kind of treat delivery, begin with an actual bucket. When you can smoothly deliver treats to the bucket and your animal moves out of your way to let you get to it, you’re ready to shift to imaginary buckets. Teaching your animal learner that he may have to move his feet to get to his treat opens up many more possibilities for shaping behavior. The food delivery becomes a much more active part of the training.
You never know what you have taught. You only know what you have presented.
That is something I say often in clinics. As I deflected the jumping, I was thinking about that. I was looking for something I wanted to reinforce. I didn’t want him practicing this behavior, and I most certainly did not want to chain it into something else that I did want. P was too fast a learner for that. I could see him figuring out the following sequence: jump up, then look at the target and voila – this human feeds you peanuts! Not good.
When I did click, I fed P so he had to back up away from the cup of treats. Definitely it was going to be interesting to see what he did in the next session. What learning was taking place in that clever head?
When I stopped with him, I dropped some treats on the ground. It was a bit of a struggle to get him to find them. He was orienting to my fingers, not moving to the treats. I finally just stood up, and that’s when he started eating the dropped treats. That bought me the time I needed to slip back into the stall so I could work with E.
Little E was a perfect gentleman, especially compared with P. He followed the target pretty well, and backed up gently for his treat. It was overall a very pleasant session. On the previous day when I worked them together, I was seeing a lot of head butting between them. Frustration and resource guarding was creating a problem.
Before P jumped over the dutch door and showed me that they could be separated, my plan had been to teach them to stand on platforms. With each goat on his own platform, I would be able to bring some order to our training. Now that I could separate them, I could put that strategy on the back burner.
E moves back to get his treat. He was a perfect gentleman in this session.
Coming Next: Day 2 – These Goats Are Smart!
Please Note: If you are new to the Goat Diaries, these are a series of articles that are best read in order. The first installment was posted on Oct. 2nd. I suggest you begin there: https://theclickercenterblog.com/2017/10/02/
In the previous post I used the process of teaching a horse to back in a square to illustrate several ways in which cues evolve out of the shaping process. I showed you how you can use food delivery to move your horse through a particular motor pattern. When you first teach a horse to come forward to touch a target, it’s easy to have him step back to get to his treat. Body language cues evolve easily out of the food delivery. Now if you turn into him to ask for backing, he’ll know what you want. The cue for backing evolved out of the shaping process.
Horses are masters at reading subtle changes in body language. They are good at seeing what comes before what comes before what you are asking for. In the wild a horse needs to be good at predicting the future to stay out of trouble, both within the herd and when a predator is on the hunt. So horses are good at spotting the little clues that tell them what you’ll be asking for next. After all, the better they learn to read you, the more successful they’ll be. Those clues help them to get to their reinforcers faster.
Starter Button and Constant-On Cues
In Part one of this section, I focused on teaching your horse to back in a square. That’s the precursor to teaching head lowering. So let’s continue on to that part of the lesson. Remember you’ve been asking your horse to back from the front of his stall a step or two toward the back wall. The stall may be his actual stall, or just a square marked out with cones or ground poles. Once these steps come easily, you can begin to build duration. You’ll need to decide if your cue is a starter button or a constant-on cue.
A starter button cue is exactly what it sounds like. Think about how you use your key to turn on your car’s ignition. You turn the key and as soon as you hear the engine start, you let go. You don’t keep turning the key. You assume that once your car starts it’s going to keep going until you turn it off. If it does stall out, you’ll restart it with the turn of the key.
Your backing cue can work in the same way. When you slide down the lead, you expect your horse to begin to back. But do you hold on to the lead the whole time he’s backing, or do you let go once he’s initiated the movement? The later would be a starter button cue.
If you hold on, you’re using the lead as a constant-on signal. You’re in effect saying: “As long as this signal is present, you’re to keep backing. When it goes away, you’re to stop.”
In her book, Lads Before the Wind, Karen Pryor described how she taught her dolphins to spin and to keep spinning as long they could hear a certain signal. It was an easy way to build duration in a behavior, especially working as she was with multiple animals.
The problem with using the lead as a constant-on signal is it can effect your horse’s balance. You can experience this yourself. You’re going to hold the snap end of the lead so you get the horse’s perspective of this lesson. Have a friend slide down the lead to ask for backing. First, she’s going to hold on until you have given her the number of backing steps she wants. That’s the constant-on cue.
Next have her slide down, but she’s to let go AS SOON AS you’re in motion. If you stall out, not sure what she wants, she’s to slide down again and restart the behavior. Once you are backing freely, she’s to let you back several steps before she clicks. That will bring you to a stop. Remember, as you are backing, she is NOT keeping an active hold of the lead.
So now you’ve sampled both constant-on and starter button cues.
Question: Which way did you prefer? If you are like most people, you’ll prefer the starter button. The other will feel heavier and more demanding. You’ll also notice that there was a difference in how you backed. With the starter button your steps will be longer, more even, better balanced.
The Horse’s Perspective
There’s a lovely expression that I refer to often in clinics: Go to people for opinions and horses for answers. In this case you were the horse. You don’t have to take my word for it. You can test out the two different versions of how you ask for backing and decide for yourself which one you prefer.
One of the things I like about clicker training is we can experience directly so many of the lessons we give to our horses. Holding on to the lead with a constant-on cue comes much more easily to most people. You have to make a conscious effort to let go. If there’s no difference, there’s no reason to change. But once you’ve experienced for yourself from the horse’s perspective the difference in the feel and the impact it has on your balance, it becomes a lot easier to pay attention to the detail of letting go.
Years ago at one of the big horse expos I had a trade booth set up directly across the aisle from a company that sells electronic shock collars for horses. All weekend long I got to watch their sales video. It featured a mare who had a foal at her side. The mare was a cribber. They were using the shock collar to discourage the cribbing.
Each time she reached out to the fence, they would zap her with the collar. Over and over again as the video played, I got to watch her jump back from the shock. That was hard enough to watch. What made this even worse, when they shocked her, her foal had just started to nurse. Think of the associations that was creating!
As part of their sales pitch they were letting people feel the shock the collar produced. Toward the end of the weekend when things were quieting down, I went over to have a feel. They had the collar set at the lowest setting. You didn’t get a jolt. Touching an electric fence is much worse, but even so it was exceedingly unpleasant. That was the lowest setting.
I asked to feel the setting the mare was given.
“Oh on. We don’t let people take that level of shock.”
Soap Box Time
It made me appreciate clicker training all the more. To the best of our ability to simulate experiences, there’s nothing we do to the animals that we do not also let people experience. I can slide down the lead and let you feel what the horse feels at his end of the lead. I can set up training games and let you go through the same puzzle solving process. I can click and feed – maybe not hay stretcher pellets, but something more to your liking.
We are confronted by so many different opinions about how best to train our horses. We can’t always know how something feels to a horse. I can’t wear a bit or carry a rider on my back, so I can’t replicate every experience, but here’s my standard. Your horse should not have to go through any training procedure which you are uncomfortable watching.
Note, I do not say which you are uncomfortable doing to your horse. You may not have the skill to take your horse through a particular lesson. You may be using a trainer to help teach your horse something that requires more experience than you currently have. But you should be able to watch everything that’s done to your horse. If something makes you squirm, it’s okay to speak up for your horse. There is always, ALWAYS another way to train everything you want to teach.
A good trainer will respect you more for standing up for your horse, and a good trainer will find another way to teach the lesson. A punitive trainer with a narrow tool box will tell you this way is for the good of the horse, and you have to let him finish. He’ll tell you if you let the horse get away with being disrespectful, you’ll ruin him.
These are red flags. Thank him very much for his opinion and take your horse home. You don’t have to be a clicker trainer to know how to break a lesson down into small steps. You don’t have to be a clicker trainer to be fair to a horse. You just have to be a good trainer. So take your horse out of harm’s way, and find someone to help you who is a true teacher not a bully.
Backing with Starter Button Cues
That’s enough standing on a soap box. Let me step down off of mine and get back to the backing in a square lesson. Hopefully, you got a friend to help you, and you were able to feel the difference between a starter button and a constant-on cue. You know for this lesson you want the lead to act as a starter button cue. Once your horse initiates backing, you’ll release the lead and walk back with him.
Now note, this means that there is a constant-on cue in this process. As he backs, you’re walking forward toward him. Walking toward him is your constant-on cue. You want him to keep backing out of your way as you walk into his space. That cue is evolving out of the shaping process.
Again, if he stalls out too soon, you’ll restart the “engine” by sliding down the lead.
You’ll ask him to back a couple of steps, being mindful that you are still in a stall and there’s a wall behind him.
After the click, you’ll use your food delivery to reposition him forward.
This begins a new movement cycle.
As you ask him to repeat the cycle, you’ll see him backing with more confidence. Not only does he understand what you want, he’s backing over ground he’s already stepped on. He knows now that it doesn’t contain any hidden traps. It’s safe to step back. Each time you ask him, it becomes easier and more fluid. That’s in part why you do this back and forth dance. It is like bending a metal coat hanger. At first the hanger is very stiff, but the more you bend it, the softer and easier it becomes.
A Change in the Game
Now that you have a horse backing easily, you’re going to change the game once again. Instead of feeding forward after the click, now you’re going to feed right where you clicked.
Again, this can trip people up. They spent so much mental energy figuring out how to feed forward, and now they have to change all that and keep their feet still.
Why the change? You’re ready to tackle the puzzle that the back corner of the stall presents. So many horses feel trapped in this kind of situation. They forget that they can just swing their hindquarters over. When they get in a corner, instead of simply stepping back and to the side, they panic and push forward into the handler.
You’re going to show your horse that he has another option. You have him at a halt with his rear end close to the back wall. You’re going to slide down the lead and ask him to turn his head away from you. Your body orientation is still saying back, but you ARE NOT pushing into him AT ALL with the lead. There is no backwards force on the lead. There doesn’t need to be.
If you add a feel of pushing him back before he has figured out how, he’ll just feel trapped. All the pressure will go down into his hocks. Especially if he has any arthritis in his hocks, this will make him feel even more anxious, and it will be harder yet for him to figure out what he’s to do.
More “Being the Horse”
Instead you are simply going to ask him to turn his head away from you. You can experience what this does simply by standing up for a moment. Put your hands on your hips so you can really feel the effect. Begin by looking straight ahead. Now turn your head to one side and look over your shoulder. What did your hips do? They counter balanced the movement by swinging in the opposite direction.
As you ask your horse to bend his nose more and more to the outside, he’ll become aware of the answer to the puzzle. All he has to do is follow the turn of his hips, and he can back up out of this corner. Putting him in the corner makes it easier for him to figure out the answer. The structure helps you. I just don’t want to put him prematurely in the corner before he’s comfortable enough with backing to be able to find the answer in a relaxed manner. That’s the reason for all the back and forth prep.
If your horse doesn’t understand your request to move his head away from you, there’s a simple way to prep this part of the lesson. Use food delivery to set up the response. Begin by asking him to stand next to you in the “grown-ups are talking” position.
When you click, instead of presenting the food so he continues to keep his head in this position, you’ll extend your arm past where his nose is so he has to turn his head to get his treat. As he moves, you’ll step forward, filling the space he’s vacating. You’ll repeat this until the food delivery has created the weight shift you need to ask him to turn his hip so he can back through the corner. This is an easy way to ask for what can be a very challenging maneuver for some horses. The goal is to make this as easy and understandable as possible so your horse is very comfortable being asked to back through turns. (For another view of how to use food delivery to set up the behavior you want refer to the May 6, 2016 post on Using Environmental Cueshttps://theclickercenterblog.com/2016/05/06/)
Whichever approach you use, you now have him backing one step through the corner. Click and treat. You can ask for another step, or perhaps it is time to walk him forward again out of the stall to give him a break.
Once your horse is comfortably backing through all four the corners of the stall, it is time to change the game yet again. Now you’re going after head lowering.
Heating Up a Behavior
To get to this lesson, you’re going to take a little detour. You’re going to leave the stall for a few minutes while you make head lowering a “hot” behavior.
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Cues evolve out of the shaping process.
I chose head lowering to illustrate how this works. In Part 1 I ended with a reminder that there is always more than one way to teach every behavior. I teach head lowering in many different ways. The first, easiest way is through targeting. That’s a good start, but just because you can get head lowering one way doesn’t mean your job is done. The more different ways you can trigger the behavior, the better.
Backing in a Square
You may not see the connection at first, but one of my favorite ways to teach head lowering is via backing in a square. The reason for using this teaching process is because it generates a shift of balance from the forehand onto the horse’s hindquarters. That in turn leads straight to improved performance under saddle. You may not see the connection at first, but this way of asking for head lowering creates a very different balance from the one a horse is normally in when he drops his head. The most frequent form of head lowering occurs when he’s grazing.
Head lowering is taught via backing in a square.
Grazing is a forward-moving exercise. Horses graze by walking slowly forward. They don’t normally graze by walking backwards and eating the grass that they have already stepped on. Grazing forward means they encounter fresh grass that hasn’t yet been crushed underfoot.
Grazing is a forward-moving exercise.
Grazing is forward movement.
Not A Forward-Moving Exercise
The expression for teaching head lowering is: head lowering is not a forward-moving exercise.
At first glance this seems like a very clumsy sentence. What you are saying is your horse can stand still and drop his head. He can also walk backwards and drop his head. So you aren’t saying he can’t move his feet. He just can’t move his feet forward.
You most need head lowering when a horse is nervous. A nervous horse needs to move. If you were to try to ask him to drop his head AND stand still, you would bottle him up way too much. Under this kind of enforced restriction, he might end up exploding like an over-coiled spring.
So you don’t say to this still learning-to-be-calm horse – “Stand still”. You say: “You can move your feet all you want, but I get to choose the direction. If you need to move, you can back up. And to be more precise, you can back in a square.”
It’s best to teach this lesson when your horse is calm. If your horse already understands how to back up in a square, he won’t feel trapped. If something does make him nervous, it will be easier to remind him that backing is a great option, and dropping his head is even better.
Moving the Hips
Backing in a square lets you manage where in your work space you are going to be. If your horse becomes even more nervous the further into your arena he goes, backing in a square lets you stay in the part of the arena he can handle. It also keeps him from backing into other horses, ditches, fences, or the clutter that many of us have around our barnyards. Horses learn very quickly what works. Backing is hard work. It’s not something horses normally choose to do on their own. So if backing straight towards a barbed wire fence gets you to stop asking for backing, guess what your horse will learn fast: point your rear end towards anything sharp, or dangerous, and your human will let you go forward.
You can very quickly teach your horse to back towards ditches, blackberry canes, wild roses, barbed wire, tractors, traffic, the one horse in the group that kicks. You name it and if it’s something you don’t want your horse to back into, that’s what he’ll do.
Backing in a square circumvents that. To back through a turn your horse needs to learn two skills. The first one is obvious. Your horse needs to back up comfortably. You want him to back promptly when you ask, every time you ask. He shouldn’t feel as though he is pulling his feet out of cement. He needs to move back fluidly.
You also need to be able to ask him to bring his hips to the inside, towards you. Most of us know how to send a horse’s hips away from us. If you ask a horse to bring his nose towards you, that will send his hindquarters away from you. This is one of the first things a beginner learns.
Think about the instructions you give to someone who is holding a horse for you while you examine a cut on his hind leg. You tell this person to stay on the same side that you’re on. If the horse gets anxious, even a beginner handler will react by bringing the horse’s head towards her. This will send his hips away. If you were standing on the opposite side of the horse, you’d be knocked over. You might try to push his hips away from you, but the effect the handler has with the lead is much stronger that any push you could give at his hind end.
You can get the horse to send his hips away from you, but that’s not the only direction you can influence. A horse can move his hips in six directions.
Up and down. Think about when he lies down and gets up again.
Forward and back.
To the left and to the right.
You want to be able to ask for each of these six directions, especially the last four. Forward and back are easy. You do that every time you ask your horse to follow beside you on a lead, and to stop and back up.
You’ve already seen how you can send your horse’s hips away from you. Bend his nose towards you as he steps forward. That sends his hips away from you.
To bring his hips toward you, you’ll do the opposite. You’ll bend his head away from you as you ask him to back up. I teach this by asking him to back in a square.
Backing in a Square
If the size is suitable, I like to teach this in a stall. The walls will help your horse understand that you aren’t just asking for backing. You want him to turn. Solving this puzzle helps him become more hind end aware.
Some stalls are just too small or too crowded with feed bins, water buckets, and hay racks to be good work spaces. And some horses just aren’t comfortable in stalls. They may feel crowded by their neighbors or anxious because the rest of the herd is outside. Asking them to work in this kind of confinement isn’t fair or productive.
So the next option is a small paddock, but again there can be problems here. If you are slogging through muddy footing, it may not be safe for you or fair to your horse to ask for backing when you’re both pulling your feet out of ankle deep mud. And it’s certainly not fair to ask him to back towards electric fencing – even if that fencing is turned off.
So another option is to lay out ground poles or cones in a large square, and to use those as the boundary markers. If possible use a fence line for one side of your square.
You don’t have to have a stall or small paddock to teach your horse to back in a square. Here the square is built out of cones.
If I’m using ground poles or cones, I’ll pretend that I’m in a stall. I’ll have a designated “entrance”. I’ll begin by walking my horse into the “stall” and stopping so his nose ends up at the “entrance”. This gives me a reference point to return to after each click.
Initially, I’ll ask my horse to back just a step or two, click!.
As I am reaching for the treat, I’ll step forward.
My horse will also step forward to get his treat so we’ll end up back where we started at the entrance to our “stall”.
“Walking and Chewing Gum”
Feeding so he walks forward to the “entrance” is very important. I don’t want to keep asking my horse to back up without taking him forward again to the front of the stall. We would find ourselves all too quickly confronted with the back wall of the square before we’re ready. The closer I get to the wall that’s behind him, the more reluctant my horse is going to be to back up. He’ll be thinking: “What a stupid human! Can’t she see there’s a wall behind me! I can’t back up any more than this.”
In these two photos I’ve brought Robin in too close to the wall. I’ve left him nowhere to go. When I ask for a turn, he ends up crammed against the wall. This could easily make a less experienced horse feel very nervous.
I don’t want to make a nervous horse feel more nervous because I’m crowding him up against a wall. And I definitely don’t want my horse thinking I’m incompetent and stupid! So instead, before we get too close to the back wall, I’ll reset him forward using my food delivery.
This is one of those tricky handling skills people struggle with. They can walk. And they can reach into their pocket to get a treat. But doing both at the same time is hard. It’s so like the expression about walking and chewing gum. This is clearly a skill that must be learned and practiced.
Here are some points to look out for: You don’t want to begin your food delivery before you click. That undermines the meaning of the click. And you don’t want to get the food out of your pocket and then put your feet into motion. That interrupts the flow of the pattern.
You want to click, then begin reaching into your pocket AS you turn to walk back to the front of his stall. You want this to become so automatic that you can do both together without thinking. That frees you up to focus on your horse’s response.
Dynamic Food Delivery
Now you could ask “why bother?” Why not just click, feed where you are and then ask your horse to step forward, click, then treat again? That accomplishes the same reset forward. It’s just broken down into more steps.
This certainly works, but it doesn’t gain you some extra bonuses. Most important, I want my horse to understand that sometimes he needs to move his feet to get to the treat. This active form of food delivery does many good things. It lets me reposition him so I can set him up for the next cycle of the behavior I’m focusing on.
Earlier I described the “Why would you leave me?” game. This lesson provides us with a great example where moving to get the treat really helps both you and your horse learn the “dance steps” of the pattern. (https://theclickercenterblog.com/2016/07/27/) In this lesson you are walking your horse around a circle of cones. At some point you’re going to want to change direction. You can do this via the food delivery.
Food delivery gives you a sneaky way to execute a complex series of steps that some horses find quite challenging.
Mapping Out The Dance
It’s very much like trying to figure out the steps for a new dance. Once you’ve learned them, they seem effortless. How could you ever have struggled over something so easy? But right now you can’t figure out where to put which foot. What a mess. Arthur Murray where are you when we need you!?
That’s how your horse feels in the “Why would you leave me?” game. You’re asking him to stop, back up, swing his front end across, and walk off with you in the opposite direction. What a tangle! But if you make this dance sequence part of the food delivery, he won’t be thinking about which foot to put where. He’ll be following your lead before he’s even aware that he’s changed direction. You’re programing in the dance steps BEFORE you ask for them directly.
So it’s: click, you do your part of the dance as you reach for his treat. Next he does his part as he moves into position to take it from you. He’ll find it’s easy to stay with you. The dance is completed without his having to think about how he’s done it. You’re mapping this movement out in his nervous system. Once the map is in place, it will be that much easier to ask directly for the dance steps.
Using Food Delivery in the “Why would you leave me?” game to map out a change of direction.
You’re also getting a chance to watch how he moves BEFORE you ask directly for the steps. Does he back easily? Is he able to rock back into his hindquarters and step across into the new direction? No. Then he may have some arthritis in his hocks or some other condition that needs protecting. This kind of information makes a huge difference both in what you ask for and how you teach it.
Reading Your Dance Partner
The “why would you leave me?” lesson provides a great example of using dynamic food delivery. It’s such a useful strategy, but in clinics I often encounter horses who have only been fed in place. The first time I click and flow into my half of the dance, they don’t follow me. Just like everything else, this is a strategy that must be taught. I can’t expect my horse to understand that he needs to track my movement and move his feet to get his treat unless I have gone through a teaching process to explain this to him.
That’s a specific example of the basic training principle: you can’t ask for and expect to get on a consistent basis something you have not gone through a teaching process to teach to your horse. That and safety always comes first are twined together as the guiding principles that direct all my training. Following these two principles can help you avoid many training pitfalls and keep your training very positively oriented.
Normally, I teach the food delivery lesson early on. It’s part of his first introduction to targeting. (https://theclickercenterblog.com/2015/11/20/2015-clinic-season-an-introduction-to-clicker-training-day-1/) Once my horse figures out that he may need to track my movements to get to his treat, he’s going to pay even more attention to my body language. What hints or clues am I telegraphing that will let him know where he needs to be?
As he learns to step forward and back in response to the positioning of the treat, he’ll also be learning how to read me. When I rotate my shoulders towards him and extend my arm out towards the point of his shoulder, he’ll back up.
This lesson is introduced in the very first clicker lessons. I generally begin by having a horse touch a target. I’ll hold the target out in front of him. When he touches it, click, he gets a treat.
Robin has come forward to touch a target.
At first, I’ll make things easy for him. I want him to be successful, so I’ll deliver the treat about where the target was. He won’t have to move his feet to get to his treat. In the photo above this would keep his head on my side of the stall guard.
I would eventually like to be able to ask him to back up. If I’m working with a horse I don’t know, I won’t know what his past history with backing is. Has it been used as a punisher so he resents being asked to back? Does he have joint problems so backing is uncomfortable? I’d like to get a “read” on how he feels about backing, so I’ll introduce it first via the food delivery. As this lesson progresses, I’ll begin to step towards him so he has to back up to get his treat.
I’ve turned into Robin and extended my arm out towards the point of his shoulder. He backs up to get to his treat.
I think of the image of a swing door. If I swing the door (my torso) towards the horse, I am effectively closing the door, and he’ll back up. If I rotate in the opposite direction, I’m opening the door. I’m no longer blocking the space in front of him. Instead I’m opening that space to him and inviting him with the gesture of my leading hand to come forward.
Cues Evolve – Adding the Lead
Once my horse is consistently coming forward to touch a target and backing up to get his treat, I can clip a lead to his halter. Now I can combine the opening and closing of the “swing door” with cues from the lead. My horse will respond perfectly. I won’t need to escalate the pressure to “make” him back up. This is a very clear case of the cues evolving out of the shaping process.
Here’s the summary of this lesson:
Beginning with some of his very first clicker training lessons, my horse learned to back up or come forward to get his treats. That was easy. In the process he became aware of the clues my body orientation was giving him so he could get to the treats more efficiently. If the treats are going to be presented forward, there’s no point in getting ready to back up. You need to read your human to know which one it’s going to be.
These hints can then be transferred to a different part of the movement cycle. The hints are no longer part of the food delivery. Now they are the main event. They come before the click. I’ll use them to ask for the behavior I want. This process lets me use the food delivery to help my horse learn how to respond to the lead.
By tracing these reaction patterns back through a series of lessons, you can see how your horse’s ability to read your body language cues has been evolving beginning with the very first clicker lesson. You have been building the components you’ll need one small step at a time for the more complex lessons that are to come.
This points up how important the foundation lessons are. Ideally, no matter how complex a lesson may seem to an outside observer, for my horse the correct answer should be only one small, very attainable step away. If I jump into the middle of a teaching progression, that won’t be the case at all. I won’t have the underlying components in place. I’ll be teaching my horse three or four new things all at once, and I’m likely to end up in a muddle.
In the backing in a square exercise I’ll want him to back up and then come forward to get his treat. If he’s never moved his feet to get to his treat, he won’t understand what has just happened. I clicked, but then I marched off before he could get his treat. It will feel like a broken click, a broken promise, and he may shut down on me. But, if in an earlier lesson I have taught him to walk forward to get his treat, this component will be well understood. He’ll follow me forward to get his treat, so we’ll be set up to repeat the movement cycle. I’m only introducing one new element at a time, not three or four. In this case my horse already knows how to back up when asked, and to come forward after the click to get his treat. The new element is he’s backing within a confined space.
The key to good training is this progressive, step-by-step building of components. Lessons are only complex when they are not well prepared. Build the underlying layers well, and you can turn the difficult into the achievable.
This is one way in which cues evolve out of the shaping process. Here’s another.
Cues Evolve: How Light Can Light Be?
Now that I have my horse backing easily when I rotate toward him as I slide down the lead, I’ll begin to notice that he is already backing before I can get very far down the lead. Great! My cues are getting lighter. I’ve now opened up a whole new game to play. The goal is to see how little I need to do to get a correct response from my horse. How little do I need to do to get him to back? How far do I need to rotate? Look, I just move my shoulder slightly and he’s already backing. Click! Give him a treat with some laughter added on top.
Horses are superb masters at this game. They have to be given the herds they live in. To keep from running into one another they need to be able to read and predict movement.
When Robin and I were sorting out one of the many leading patterns I’ve wrestled with, I’m sure he thought me the rudest, clumsiest dance partner ever! I was forever in his space, “stepping on his toes”. How annoying! When I finally figured out how to ask for the sequence I wanted without crowding into him, you could see from his expression the immense relief he felt. Finally, he was getting somewhere teaching his very awkward pupil!
Who’s Not Showing Respect?
People are forever talking about respect – by which they usually mean the horse needs to mind his manners and stay out of their way. But really this goes both ways. We’re often the clumsy ones not understanding how to give our much larger dance partner the space he needs to maneuver.
Here’s something else to consider: when a horse is startled, he will often crowd in on top of us. We humans often view this as very rude, disrespectful behavior. But look at it from the horse’s point of view. What should he be doing when his herd is threatened? Bunch in closer together to make it harder for a predator to get at any one of them. He isn’t being disrespectful at all. He’s trying to keep you both alive! But that very generous act can get a human seriously hurt. That’s why we are teaching him some alternatives to crowding on top of us.
The food delivery has tuned you both into body language. He now tracks you beautifully, and you’ve been able to transfer your cues to the front end of the process, ahead of the click. You started out with a big obvious rotation of your body, but that’s now evolved into a whisper. Tighten a shoulder muscle, and he rotates back. What fun!
Now that he’s tuning into you, you’ll begin to notice even more ways in which your body language is giving him clues about what you want. Before you can give your big deliberate cue, he’s already read what you want and responded to you. You’ll need to decide if you want him to be this light, or do you want him to wait for a signal you’ve chosen.
This is often what people mean when they talk about attaching a cue to a behavior. But as you can see the cues are already there. It’s more a matter of deciding which of these signals are you going to highlight and make more definite.
You get to decide if you are going to make deliberate use of the small cues your horse is already using. You can only do that if you understand the process so you can be on the lookout for these subtle cues. Otherwise, if you block him when he starts to respond to these signals, you could end up confusing him.
One of the training mantras I repeat often in clinics is: don’t make your horse wrong for something you’ve taught him.
Being aware of the way in which cues evolve out of the shaping process is one of the ways you can help your horse to be right.
Remember, if you are new to the JOY Full Horse blog, click on the JOY Full Horses tab at the top of this page to find the full table of contents and links to each of the articles I have published so far.
I hope you will want to share these articles by sending links to this blog to your friends. But please remember this is copyrighted material. All rights are reserved. Please do not copy any of the “JOY Full Horses” articles without first getting written permission from Alexandra Kurland, via theclickercenter.com
Also note: these articles are not intended as an instruction guide for introducing your horse to clicker training. 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:
In the previous post I shared many examples of using environmental cues. For one example I wrote:
“When you have a training challenge, instead of tackling it head on with your normal “horse training” solutions, think instead about how you might use props. If your horse has trouble turning to move out of your space, how could you use mats to help with this?”
One of the reasons I wanted to share the JOYFull Horses book on line was I knew I wanted to include video along with the text. That’s what I’ll be doing in today’s post. To illustrate just how useful environmental cues can be in training, I’m going to explain more fully how you can use mats to teach basic balance and leading skills. I’ll be combining the draw of the mats with the set up for a turn that can be created out of food delivery.
These videos were taken during the spring 2015 Arkansas clinic at Cindy Martin’s farm. Cindy is one of the coaches for my on-line course. The video features her beautiful draft cross mare, Scout. Scout is a fairly new arrival in Cindy’s family. When she first started riding her, Cindy discovered two things. First, Scout’s idea of steering meant going where she wanted to go regardless of the rider’s wishes. And second, if you asked for forward, you were just as likely to trigger rearing as any forward impulsion. These riding issues meant it was time to go back to ground work and teach Scout the basics of leading.
By the time these videos were taken, Scout was well versed in the foundation skills of clicker training. She had become a mannerly, very pleasant horse to be around, but her tank-like qualities were still in evidence. This was in part due to a lack of balance. During the spring 2015 clinic, I introduced Cindy to a simple lesson in which food delivery was combined with the use of multiple mats to teach better leading skills.
These videos take you step by step through the process.
Part 1 establishes a baseline. Cindy is asking for Scout to turn away out of her space. In this short video you’ll see Scout push forward through Cindy’s request. In many traditional forms of horse training we would have dealt with this push-through by getting after Scout. We would have punished the forward push, but punishment brings with it many unwanted consequences. Obviously, we used a very different approach, one that used positive reinforcement to teach Scout what was wanted.
In Part 2 you’ll see how Cindy begins to use food delivery to set up the balance shifts she wants. If you aren’t familiar with clicker training, this can look as though Cindy is simply feeding Scout out to the side. That’s only part of what is happening.
In the video you’ll hear me refer many times to “grown-ups”. This is a short hand expression for a lesson which I call: “The grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt”. This is one of the foundation lessons of clicker training, one of the very first things we teach the horses when we introduce them to clicker training. It’s a long name for a simple lesson. What it means is the handler is able to stand next to her horse with her pockets full of treats, and her horse will stand quietly beside her. I gave it this very long name because I wanted to emphasize that at the core of clicker training sits good manners.
Having a horse who is mugging you for treats takes the fun out clicker training. I don’t want the mugging behavior. And I also don’t want the horses to be anxious about the treats, so early on we teach them this foundation behavior. Moving away from the treat pouch is what earns clicks and treats.
So many people avoid using food in training because they see it as a distraction. They want the horse working for them, not any goodies in their pockets. I ask a lot of my horses, and I want to reinforce their good behavior generously with something they really enjoy. Being able to offer something they will actively work for adds enormously to my training. Plus, I find it reinforcing for myself to be able to say thank you for a job well done.
How do you know what your horse will actively work for? Ask yourself what will he mug you to get. At the top of the list for most horses is food. I’m going to take that information and transform food from a distraction into a powerful teaching aid. I do this by teaching the “grown-ups are talking” lesson. Once a horse understands that treats come when he shows me good emotional self-control, I can use food as a reinforcer to help teach other things. That’s what you’re seeing in this series of videos.
In Part 2 Cindy is using grown-ups. First, she asks Scout to look straight ahead so her head is out of Cindy’s space. Click. Normally, Cindy would feed Scout so her head continues to be centered between her shoulders. But to teach her how to turn so she doesn’t crowd forward into Cindy’s space, Cindy is instead stepping into her and extending her arm out so Scout has to look to the right to get her treat.
Once she does, Cindy again asks for grown-ups. Scout’s head is still bent to the side. To earn a click and a treat, she needs to keep her head away from Cindy. When she does – click! – she earns another treat. Again, Cindy extends her arm out to the side so Scout has to bend her head even more. As she does, she discovers that she can move her feet. That simple realization lets her straighten out into a more comfortable position.
So, while it might look as though Cindy is simply feeding Scout treats, and that’s how she is getting her to turn, the treats are in fact reinforcers that come after Scout has been clicked for keeping her head away from Cindy in the “grown-ups are talking” lesson.
When she does, she not only gets clicked and given a treat, she also gets to walk forward to a mat. In previous lessons Scout has been introduced to mats. She’s not only comfortable standing on them, the mats have become conditioned reinforcers.
This means that there is such a deep history of reinforcement that’s been built up around the mats, Scout regards them as a great place to be. They are a predictor of good things – easy requests and lost of treats. So Scout likes going to mats. We can use them to reinforce previous behavior. We’re going combine the strategic use of the food delivery with her eagerness to go to mats to help her find her own balance through these leading turns.
Part 3 continues to develop Scout’s balance. Not only will this teach great leading manners, but it also opens the door to lateral work. So many good things come out of lessons that are taught with positive reinforcement.
Part 4 begins to introduce the lead back into the equation. We don’t want to have to rely forevermore on food delivery to get turns. Now that Scout understands the pattern we want, Cindy can begin to ask for the turns from the lead. She may encounter some old history when she slides down the lead. Scout’s old pattern was to push through pressure, so Cindy goes back and forth between the food delivery and the lead to set up the turns and and change Scout’s expectations.
You’ll see some beautiful rope handling in these videos. Cindy is very light and tactful on the lead. She is familiar with the rope handling techniques which I teach in my books, DVDs and on-line course. If you aren’t familiar with this type of rope handling, refer to my web sites: theclickercenter.com and theclickercentercourse.com.
The lessons I am presenting here are built around this style of rope handling. The lead is taught as a clicker-compatible tool. The horses trust the information it gives them. It is not used as a correction tool. I don’t want my horses to be afraid of the lead or to be worrying about what might happen if they make a mistake. That would poison the cues the lead is giving. If you are using a style of rope handling in which escalating pressure is at times used to enforce behavior, you will undermine the intent and the power of this lesson.
Part 5 takes us into the second day of the clinic and shows us steady progress in this lesson. You might want to refer back to Part 1 as a reminder of the starting point.
Up to this point Cindy has just asked Scout to turn away from her. In this lesson I have her ask her to turn in her direction, as well. We’re following a basic principle of training: For every exercise you teach, there is an opposite exercise you must teach to keep things in balance. These two turns are part of creating beautiful leading balance.
Part 6 continues the process of adding in the lead. Again, I’ll refer you to my books, DVDs, clinics and on-line course for details on this rope handling technique.
Cindy and Scout are learning how to dance together. Each small step is part of a larger flow that will let them move in balance one with the other. This is the final video of this particular lesson. Scout had been doing wonderfully well, but she was beginning to get a little slower in her responses. That’s a good indicator that she might be getting tired. So rather than push beyond what she could do, we noted this early sign of fatigue and brought the day’s lesson to a close. Both Scout and Cindy had learned a lot.
This is a glimpse into the future. This clip was taken during the fall 2015 clinic. Scout and Cindy have made great progress in their dance together. Lateral work is one of the many good results that comes out of teaching good balance.
The fun of teaching in this way is you always get so many good things popping out of simple lessons!
Have Fun!
Coming Next: Chapter 3: The Time Has Come the Walrus Said To Talk of Many Things: Premack, Asking Questions, Mats, Airplane Runways and Creativity
Remember, if you are new to the JOY Full Horse blog, click on the JOY Full Horses tab at the top of this page to find the full table of contents and links to each of the articles I have published so far.
I hope you will want to share these articles by sending links to this blog to your friends. But please remember this is copyrighted material. All rights are reserved. Please do not copy any of the “Joyful Horses” articles without first getting written permission from Alexandra Kurland, via kurlanda@crisny.org
Also note: these articles are not intended as an instruction guide for introducing your horse to clicker training. 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:
This is Part 2 in this series. The horse I am featuring was one of the horses at the November 2015 Arkansas clinic. He had no clicker training experience prior to the clinic. We tracked his progress via video over a three day period.
If you have not already read Part 1, I suggest you begin there. Part 1 covers the morning sessions of Day 1. This article covers the afternoon sessions of Day 1.
Afternoon Targeting Sessions
Just when you think you have that rare thing, a complete video record of a horse’s introduction to clicker training, you discover that several sessions are missing. For the first two rounds of Nick’s afternoon session the record button wasn’t on.
In both sets he was at the door waiting for me and began with three very definite target touches. He came forward promptly, touched the target and backed up easily for the treat delivery. He came out further over the stall guard than he had been in the morning. His interest in the game was growing. That was encouraging progress, but it was also that’s something needed to be monitored. I wanted to make sure that this new found confidence remained in balance with his general good manners.
In both rounds he showed the same cycle. He began by touching the target promptly with none of the hesitation that he had shown in the morning. He gave three solid touches, and then his response rate dipped down. That was also something to monitor.
As usual we discussed what to do with the next round of treats. Everything about his behavior suggested that he would be fine if I went into the stall with him. He was backing easily out of my space. He was taking the treats politely without any excessive mugging behavior.
Because he was now showing me that he would back away from me, I felt comfortable going into the stall with him. But that didn’t mean I had to go in. I could stay outside the stall and continue with the targeting. Or I could introduce one of the other foundation lessons. The consensus from the group was to continue with the targeting to get the come-forward-to-the-target-back-up-to-get-the-treat loop cleaner.
Again there is no right or wrong to this. We could have made some other choice. Nick’s behavior would tell us if the choices we made were heading us in a good direction.
Video: An Introduction To Clicker Training: Day 1 – Afternoon Training: 3rd Session
Data Collected. Now It’s Assessment Time
People felt this was his best round yet. I kept this session very short. I got three good touches and then ended the session. This avoided the dip in behavior that we had seen earlier. Nick was clearly still very cautious in his responses. This is a process that has to unfold in it’s own time.
Several of the clinic participants wondered if we should change targets or change treats. It’s always a possibility. One of the huge advantages of clicker training is there is always more than one way to train every behavior. There isn’t one and only one right way that you have to follow. That’s what makes these discussions so valuable. We could certainly try a different target, or introduce a different foundation lesson, but it was also okay to stay with what we were doing.
With Nick, I was still working with simple targeting, but in each round there had been significant changes. I began by offering him the food approximately where the target had been. Now I could move him back to get his treat which meant he then had to step forward to touch the target. The shaping of more complex behavior was occurring almost without his noticing. In the morning he started out much more on the forehand. I made a point of feeding him in a way that shifted his balance back slightly which brought him off his front end. That then allowed me to feed him so he moved back even more. You are now seeing in the video clip how he is moving back well out of my way to get the treat.
Because I can feed him so he steps back, the dynamic of touching the target changes. I will often see people moving the target around through big changes. They’ll hold it high, then low, then out to the side. Most horses can follow these changes and continue to touch the target. Essentially the handler is being reinforced for changing criterion in big stair steps. We call that lumping. It works for a simple behavior like targeting, but I would rather see the handler learn to build behaviors more smoothly, so a response is already happening consistently before it becomes the criterion that earns the click.
Questions
Training must always take into consideration any health concerns. One of the questions I had concerned Nick’s teeth. I wondered how long ago they had been checked. Nick not only took a long time to eat the hay stretcher pellets, I never heard him take them up onto his back molars to chew. So I wondered if he might have some sharp points or some other issues that were contributing to his overall caution. His owner said he had very recently been done by a good dentist. That’s good to hear, but it doesn’t completely eliminate my question.
It’s so hard to judge how well an equine dentist is doing. We can look at our horse’s feet to see if a farrier is leaving flare and other obvious signs that perhaps we need to question the job he’s doing. But with teeth it’s much harder to evaluate the job a dentist has done. Reaching in to check for points isn’t something we’re trained to do.
Even if you’ve had the teeth checked recently, it’s always possible that something has happened since to cause a problem. Nick’s owner reported that he is very tight in his jaw and his poll. That’s consistent with the way he was eating his treats. This is all part of this early data collecting phase of the training. Many of the concerns and questions that these early sessions raise may well simply disappear as Nick figures out the game. What remains needs to be looked at with the possibility that there is a physical issue interfering with his ability to respond well. For now we were very much still in an exploratory stage, so I continued on with another targeting session, the fourth of the afternoon:
Video An Introduction To Clicker Training: Day 1 – Afternoon Training: 4th Session
The Grown-up Are Talking, Please Don’t Interrupt
In the discussion that followed this set, we decided that it would be interesting to shift gears and introduce Nick to an exercise which I refer to as: the grown-ups are talking, please don’t interrupt. At it’s most basic this exercise is asking if the horse can keep his nose away from my treat pocket when I’m standing in close to him. Initially I free shape this lesson, meaning I am not prompting or triggering the correct response through my behavior. I am simply observing Nick and reinforcing him for approximations that move him closer to my overall goal.
If he comes into my space or nudges at my arm, I’ll let him explore. It’s important that he feels safe experimenting. If I correct him for nuzzling my pockets, I can’t expect him to feel safe offering behavior in other ways. If I don’t feel comfortable letting him nuzzle my pockets, I can always step back out of range.
When he moves his nose away from my body, click, I’ll give him a treat. I’ll feed him out away from my body where the perfect horse would be. That means he’ll have his head between his shoulders and at a height that puts him into good balance.
In this first round of grown-ups you will see that he spends over a minute investigating my pockets. I let him explore. This is such an important part of the process. He isn’t being punished for coming into my space or nuzzling at my vest. It isn’t dangerous for him to check out this option, but it also doesn’t get him any treats.
If you’ve been taught that you should never let a horse into your space like this, it can be really hard to watch him nuzzling at my pockets. During this process his owner told us that he often mugs for treats. It’s a behavior his previous owners allowed, which may account for his persistence. But watch how quickly he catches on to this new game. Moving his nose away from me is the way to get treats!
Video: An Introduction to Clicker Training: Day 1 – Afternoon Training: 5th Session – the First Asking for Grown-Ups
In the discussion that followed this session I again emphasized how systematic the unfolding of clicker training is. The behaviors I work on are very connected one to another. Even though I haven’t perfected targeting, I can still move on and introduce other behaviors. In the targeting he was learning that moving his head away from me to touch the blue end of the target stick produced goodies. In grown-ups he was discovering that moving his head into that same position, even when a target wasn’t present, also produced treats.
I think it’s important early on for horses to discover that there is more than one way for them to earn a click and a treat. If you work too long on targeting or some other behavior, a horse can get too narrow in his understanding of how the process works. He will think that there is one and only one behavior that produces treats. He can become very locked in. When you try and do something else, he’ll get very frustrated because he feels as though he is being blocked from the one thing that he knows works. So it’s good to experiment and introduce other behaviors early on in the process.
Remember there is no one and only one right answer. If we had stayed with another round of targeting, would that have been wrong? No. If we had moved from targeting sooner, would we have been wrong? No. If we had switched to a different target or to different treats, would we have been wrong? No.
Nick is definitely cautious in his approach to the target, but at this stage that isn’t a bad thing. We’re at the beginning of a huge paradigm shift. I’m letting him come into my space and sniff at my hands and explore my pockets. He has to do that in order to discover that that’s not what works. What works is taking his nose away from me. I’m not going to correct him for nuzzling at me. I don’t want to punish him for it. I want him to make that choice on his own with minimal prompting from me.
If I thought he was dangerous, if I thought he was going to bite me, I would step away. I might even have a different kind of barrier. Or I might wait to work on this particular lesson. In other words, I would set it up so I felt safe. He’s exploring. He’s experimenting. While he’s doing so, it’s important that we both feel safe.
If I said to you: I want you to experiment, but recognize that there are sharks in the water. And now go dip your toe in the water, you’d say to me: “I’d rather not.”
If I’m correcting him for nuzzling, then experimenting in general is a bad idea. Trying things has become unsafe. He’d be right to say the same thing to me. “I’m not going to reach out and touch that target, because I might get smacked. You may be giving me treats this time, but next time you just might hit me instead.”
This is why I set up the training in this very structured way, and why I begin with protective contact. I want him to learn that he can experiment safely.
In this next round you’ll see how well this strategy is paying off. Nick spent most of the previous round mugging my pockets. Now in this set you’ll see him very deliberately moving his head away from me.
Progress.
Video: Introduction to Clicker Training: Day 1 – Afternoon Training: 6th Session – 2nd Grown-ups.
Nick is showing us why clicker training is so much fun. With every round we’ve seen a shift, a change in his understanding. Grown-ups produced for him a real “lightbulb” moment. Shifting from targeting to grown-ups has helped him “connect the dots”.
It also shows again the value of using these short rounds of training. You may be thinking: that’s easy to do in a clinic. You have to stop to talk to the participants and explain what you’re doing. How am I supposed to do this the the real world of my barn?
It’s really easy to do these short rounds of training in your home environment. You might do a quick round of targeting and then fill a couple water buckets. You’d do another short round of targeting and then throw down some hay, or turn out a horse. You’d do another round, and then sweep the barn aisle. In other words, in between doing your normal barn chores, you can get in a lot of short sets of training.
After you’ve got your chores done, you might want to have a more “normal” visit with your horse. You want to do more with him than just targeting in a stall. All your previous training says you need to “work” with your horse.
You can begin to expand your clicker training into all the everyday tasks he already knows. If he’s a horse like Nick who is safe to handle, by all means bring him out and groom him. In that grooming session, you’ll be looking for opportunities to click and reinforce him. If he normally fusses and moves about while you groom him, but right now he’s standing still, click and reinforce him. When you ask him to move his hips over so you can get by, as he responds, click and reinforce him.
You will now be paying attention to all those little requests that we often take for granted when we groom. You’ll be finding excuses to click and reinforce him, and in the process you’ll be discovering how much better he can be. You will still have your “formal” clicker sessions where you focus specifically on targeting and the other foundation lessons. But you can also begin to incorporate the clicker into the “real world” of everyday tasks and expectations.
Business can continue as usual, but now you have this added communication tool that says: “thank you for a job well done.”
You’ll be doing this, and you’ll also be continuing with the formal process of introducing him to the six foundation lessons of clicker training. As your horse masters those lessons, you can use them to make daily husbandry and the rest of your training even better.
Now, if your horse were showing you dangerous behaviors, I wouldn’t be encouraging you to bring him out to groom him. While he learns how to learn, I would be recommending that you stay with protective contact. He can be dirty for a while. If you’re dodging his teeth, there’s nothing that says you have to groom him every day. If you are seeing behaviors that raise safety concerns, I would teach him the learning-how-to-learn emotional-control aspect of his training with a barrier between you.
After this discussion I decided to finish up with one more round that would include both targeting and the grown-ups are talking lesson.
Video: An Introduction to Clicker Training: Day 1 – Afternoon Training: 7th Session- Targeting & Grown-ups
This was the final round of the day. In the afternoon we spent approximately fifty minutes focused on Nick. About 17 minutes of that time was spent working directly with him. The rest was spent in discussion. That’s a good ratio, especially at this stage of the training.
One of the things we were discussing were all the changes we were seeing. You have a huge advantage because you can go back and review the earlier video clips. Think about all the changes you’ve seen in these clips. We began in the morning with his first tentative exploration of the target, and now in the afternoon he will step forward to touch a target, and I can move him back with the food delivery. I can stand next to him with my pockets filled with treats, and he will deliberately take his head away from me. I can combine targeting and grown-ups in one work session. That means I am beginning to introduce him to two important concepts: cues and chaining. Chaining refers to linking behaviors together via cues to create long sequences of behaviors.
At the beginning of the afternoon session, Nick was starting out with three strong responses and then his rate of response would drop off. In this final set of the afternoon he was maintaining a high response rate through a long training set.
Throughout each of these training sets I was making choices. In that very first round, I was deciding what does “orient to the target” look like? Can he just sniff the target to get clicked, or does he actually have to touch it. These are all choices that have to be made. Remember there are no rights or wrongs. With every click I am assessing the horse’s progress. Have I made a good choice, or do I need to adjust my criterion slightly?
When you are training, it is good to remember this wonderful quote: “It is always go to people for opinions and horses for answers.” Through his behavior your horse will tell you if you are making good choices. He will also be telling you if your basic handling skills are clean. If you are fumbling around in your pocket trying to get out a treat, you’re giving him extra time to mug you. You don’t want to be collecting unwanted behavior even as you’re reinforcing other things that you want. The steady progress Nick made through the day told us that on balance the choices were good ones, and the game was making sense to him. It was time to let him process what he was learning.
One of the expressions I use often in clinics is you never know what you have taught. You only know what you have presented. We would be finding out what he was learning by returning the next morning with another round of training.
More Training
That last video marked the end of day 1 of Nick’s introduction to clicker training. But this wasn’t the end of the day’s training for Nick’s owner. We spent another fifty minutes working with her on her clicker training skills. Just as we did with Nick, we began in a stall with “protective contact”. She was on one side practicing her handling skills while another clinic participant played the part of her horse.
I like beginning with these rehearsals. If you are new to clicker training this is a must-do step. What you just watched can look so easy. You are probably thinking: “What can be so hard about holding up a target?” Until you try it, you won’t know, but better that you find out all the little places where you’re fumbling around trying to get coordinated BEFORE you go to your horse. If you can’t find a friend to help you, you can always pretend you have a partner. Video tape yourself or practicing in front of a mirror to give yourself visual feedback.
I know many people fuss at having to go through these steps. They want to go directly to their horses. They have told themselves that they are hands-on learners. They need to be doing in order to learn. These rehearsals give them the “hands-on” learning experience they are looking for.
I am very protective of horses. If you are learning something new by going straight to your horse, your horse is going to have to withstand your learning curve of making mistakes, fumbling with the clicker, not getting the target up, etc. etc.. That can be hard on a new learner. When someone runs into trouble in the first stages of the clicker training, its often because they didn’t do enough dress rehearsals. This show up in inconsistent handling, timing that’s off, unclear criteria, and other issues that result in a horse being equally inconsistent. The result is a lot of unwanted behavior as the horse expresses his frustration.
Watching someone else training with clean, consistent handling doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be able to do it yourself. The dress rehearsal is the step you put in between. The handler will be going through all the training steps first with a “human horse”. Her partner will hold her hands together to represent a horse’s muzzle. When she reaches out and bumps the target with her hands, her “trainer” will click and give her a treat. The “human horse” will adjust her behavior to meet the needs of her learner. If someone simply needs to practice clicking and getting the food out of her pocket, the “horse” will cooperate by touching the target directly. She won’t present any behavioral challenges until her “handler” is ready to work on that step.
One of the huge advantages of this process is the “horse”can give her “handler” verbal feedback. By the time you’re ready to go to your horse, you can focus on what he’s doing instead of focusing on your own skills.
Once your “human horse” gives you the “all clear”, you’re ready to ask your horse how you’re doing. In this case we had a barnful of clicker-wise horses, so Nick’s owner was able to practice her new clicker skills with an experienced horse. This was a real luxury that prepared her even more for her first clicker lessons with Nick.
This is Puffin checking on Wendy’s “homework”. Puffin was a rescue pony who is becoming a clicker star under the guidance of his person, Karen Quirk.
The clinic participants had to wait overnight to see how Nick processed his first day’s lessons. I will make you do the same. I’ll share Day 2 in the next installment of this report.
Alexandra Kurland theclickercenter.com theclickercentercourse.com
This is Part 2 of a 4 Part series on introducing a horse to the clicker.
My thanks to Cindy Martin for organizing and hosting the November clinic, and to all the clinic participants, especially Wendy Stephens and her beautiful Nick.
Please note: This article gives you wonderful details to get you started with the clicker, but it is not intended as complete instruction. 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:
The Clicker Center Blog 