head lowering

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Tactile Communication

JOY FULL Horses: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 9.) You Can’t Not Cue: Part 12 of 12

Adding the Click
In an earlier section I said we expand a field not from within, but from without.   Innovations come from bringing ideas together from different areas of study.  Poco gives us a wonderful illustration of this.  I was combining two things I knew worked well: body work and clicker training.  The click turned over responsibility for the process to Poco.  I was not simply a body worker doing something TO him.  Poco and I were involved in a conversation.  I was asking questions, but I didn’t have the answers.  Poco had to provide those.

I was asking him to release through the poll.  What could you find, what could you release that would let you melt into my waiting hands?  I felt the answers through my hands, and I acknowledged them with a click and a treat.

Tactile Communication
The release through the poll was just one area I wanted to explore with Poco.  I not only wanted to get to Poco’s ears.  I also wanted to get to his hindquarters, but he had huge “DO NOT ENTER” signs posted everywhere.

I don’t know the horses I meet at clinics well enough to know which are the ones who really do mean KEEP OUT and which ones are all bluff.  If you ignore the “warning signs” of the ones who mean it, you can get seriously hurt, so I respect the “signs” all the horses post.  I try not to bludgeon my way in.  I much prefer to have them take down the warning signs themselves and invite me into their personal space.

Cues Evolve
I wanted to reach Poco’s hips.  I began my approach with long arm strokes across his back.

Poco dropped his head marginally.  Click and treat.

You can’t not cue.

Cues evolve out of the shaping process.

I was on the look out for associations which could turn into cues.  I stroked his back, and Poco dropped his head.  Again, I clicked and treated.

Poco was a tuned-in clicker horse.  He caught on right away.  I was cueing head lowering.  Very neat.

I always chuckle when this sort of thing pops out.  It’s so easy to miss that first little head drop.  It’s so easy to think that all you’re doing is stroking your horse’s back.  But if you are on the lookout, you will spot that first little drop of the head.  Once you’ve captured it with a click and a treat, you can grow it into a more definite, predictable response.

Cue Communication
Poco now had a way to tell me when it was okay for me to move on.  I could stroke a little further back along his barrel.  If his head dropped right away, I knew he was at ease, and next time I would be able to ask for a bit more.

But if he hesitated, I knew I was asking for too much.  I needed to move back towards his withers and ask for less.  Poco very quickly realized he had control.  I wouldn’t go any further, any faster than he was ready for.

I built a small, predictable loop.  First, I stood in front of him and invited him to release forward and down into my hands.

Click and treat.

Then I moved to his side and stroked along his back.  He dropped his head.  Click and treat.

That sent me back to the start of the cycle, asking for a release of his poll.  As I invited him into my hands, I leaned directly over the plane of his face.  My chin at times rested against his ears. I could feel his worry melting away.  At least in this context, he was trusting me to keep my word. I was not going to hurt him.

Adding in Lateral Flexions

poco-stroke-back

I asked for a series of these lengthening through the spine.  Then I moved to his side, but now I was looking for the next level of criterion in the head lowering.  It was no longer enough that he was dropping his head.  Now I wanted him to drop his head AND give to the side I was on.  In other words I was looking for the same lateral give that I would have been looking for if I had had a rein in my hand.

At this point I could stroke along his top line and down the backside of his hindquarters.  He dropped his head, but I didn’t click.  He brought his head up.  I re-cued head lowering by stroking my arm over his hindquarters.  He dropped his head and gave slightly to the side – a lucky discovery in his part.

Immediately I clicked and treated.

I stroked again, and he dropped his head and gave into the left bend.  Click and treat.  What a smart horse!  Our communication was expanding.  Each criterion we added gave us another bit of “syntax” to weave into the conversation we were having.

Do Not Enter Signs
It was time to ask him if he was ready to take down another of his KEEP OUT – NO TRESPASSING ALLOWED signs.

This one was on his belly.  As I also stroked along his back with one hand, I tried stroking along his sternum with the other.  He hunched up away from my hand.  This reaction revealed the kind of tension that can turn into a buck under saddle.

I eased my hand back.  He could tell me when he was ready.  When he dropped his head, click and treat, I returned to the stretch forward.  I was telling him once again that I wouldn’t proceed without his permission.

Permission granted. He took down the first of his signs.  I could stroke his belly.  He signaled his content by dropping his head and giving into the bend.  Click, treat, and walk off casually to give him some break time for processing all the new information.

Microrhythms
Cues evolve in many ways.  When you open yourself up to listen to your horse, you will quickly discover what it means when I say you can’t not cue.

When you are in conversation with someone, there are always subtle cues that are being exchanged.  We nod our head, we smile, we add in a quick word.  These simple gestures become cues that keep the conversation going. We notice them when they are absent.  When you talk on the phone and the other person doesn’t say anything in the pauses you provide, you start looking at your phone to see if the call has been dropped.

Poco and I were creating our own subtle micro rhythms.  We were understanding that our actions had influence.  I could cue him, and he could respond by cueing me.  He was showing me so clearly not only that cues evolve out of the shaping process but also that you can’t not cue.  The exchange of cues goes on even when we are not consciously aware of it.  When I turned our session into play time, I simply made these cues easier to spot.

Review
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this unit.  These videos will give you a quick review of the work I did with Poco.  The first clip was taken during the second session I did with him.  I am asking him to target his nose, then his chin, and finally I can rest my head against his forehead – click and treat.  (refer back to Part 10 of 12: Stepping Stones https://theclickercenterblog.com/2016/09/18/)

 

Next came adding in duration by clicking on the exhale of his breath.  (refer back to Part 10 of 12: Stepping Stones https://theclickercenterblog.com/2016/09/18/)

The next video shows the release of the poll and the building of head lowering. (refer to Part 11 of 12: Moving On https://theclickercenterblog.com/2016/09/19/ and this current post.)

This final video in this series shows the taking down the “Do Not Enter”signs.  I’m coupling the stroking along his back and belly with head lowering.

This ends this section: Number 9: You Can’t Not Cue.

Coming Next: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 10: Playing with Chains 

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:

theclickercenter.com                    theclickercentercourse.com

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Cues Evolve: Part 4

JOY FULL Horses: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 8.) Cues Can Change and Be Changed 

Consistency
In the previous post I shared with you some stories from Panda’s early training.  Panda’s manners developed over time because she lived in a world of total consistency.  Throughout the early part of her training I was the only one who handled her.  She didn’t have to figure out how the rules worked with different people setting different standards.

Ann’s first guide dog, Bailey, had been a great guide.  I learned a guide’s job in part by watching him.  The job description is pretty straight forward.  The real key to training a guide is consistency.  I knew that Ann would never be able to see the raised curb in front of her, so I knew that Panda and I always had to stop at each and every curb.

By the time Panda went to live full time with Ann, it was actually a relief sending her off.  Maintaining that level of consistency when you yourself don’t need it is a challenge.  There is always the temptation to cut across the parking lot because you’re in a hurry instead of following the edge the way a guide should.  I remember being at a conference where there where several guide dog trainers in attendance.  One of them spotted us and cut through several rows of empty chairs to come talk to us.  She had a dog with her who was about a week away from being placed.

I was horrified.  I would never have cut through those chairs with Panda.  We would have walked to the end of the aisle and gone through all the navigational checks that a blind handler would use to move to a different row of chairs.

There’s a great horse training expression that applies here:

“The horse doesn’t know when it doesn’t count, so it always has to count” John Lyons

The more consistent I was, the more consistent Panda was going to be.

Over-eager Students
But what happens when you can’t maintain this standard of handling?  What happens when clicker training isn’t a consistent part of a horse’s life?  That’s often the case with the horses I work with.  I see them for short periods of time, and then they are back to handling as usual.

Pico head down 1One such horse was Pico, a wonderfully clever horse who right from the start adored clicker training.  I began with him, as I do all horses, with protective contact, but I quickly moved to a larger work space where he had more room to move.  We worked on basics – grown-ups, targeting, the beginnings of mat work, backing and head lowering.

On my first visit I spent four days with him during which time he had two short sessions per day plus some casual interactions over his stall door.

For four days his world was completely turned upside down.  He was singled out from a group of fifty horses for all this special attention.  Every morning I greeted him as I walked into the barn.  I gave him extra attention.  He got to play this very neat game out in the arena.  He had the goodies, all the social interaction, and then I left and there was nothing.  From his perspective I simply disappeared. What a topsy turvy world it must have seemed to him.  I was gone.  There was no morning greeting, no play time after coming in from the day’s turnout.  Nothing.

I was gone for about a month, and then I suddenly popped back into his life.  Pico was so excited he could barely think straight.  During my first visit he’d been a superstar, but now he was a mess.  He was in my space, mugging my pockets, forgetting the manners he’d been showing me so beautifully before.  He was truly like a small child the day before Christmas.  He was just so excited, he couldn’t do anything right.

I certainly didn’t want to punish this enthusiasm, so I turned it instead into a game.

The game was: “What’s the new cue?”

I thought of it for Pico because I truly enjoyed his company.  I wasn’t training him.  I wasn’t working him.  “Working” opens one set of files.  It gives you access to tried and true methods.  It doesn’t open the creative files that bring you to new solutions.  Those are opened only when you are playing.  Play and creativity are like two vines that have grown together and hold one another up.

Creating New Cues
So what is this “What is the new cue” game?

It is based on the process of creating a new cue for an established behavior.

Here’s the process:

Suppose you have taught a puppy to sit.  You’ve added a cue to the behavior.  When you say “sit”, your puppy sits readily.

But now you would like to change the cue.  There are many reasons you might want to do this.

Your puppy may at first have sat with his hips off to the side.  That’s how young dogs often sit.  Over time you’ve cleaned up the behavior for the show ring, and he now sits with his hips squarely under him.

By changing to a new cue, you are creating a performance cue that refers only to this tidied up version of sit – not the original sloppy sit.  If you kept the original cue, under the pressure of competition, your puppy might revert back to the first-learned version of the behavior.

Or perhaps you have been sloppy with your stimulus control.  “Sit” means sometimes, if you feel like it, when the spirit moves you.  It doesn’t mean now.  So you tidy up the behavior and give it a new cue that has none of the old sloppiness associated with it.

Or maybe your puppy sits just fine.  There’s nothing wrong with the original cue, but you’d like to do some freestyle with your dog, and you’d like to use some props.  When you knock over a suitcase, you’d like your puppy to sit.

You can come up with lots of different situations where changing to a new cue for an established behavior would be useful.  Whatever the reason for wanting a new cue, they all depend upon the same process:

1.) Build the behavior.

2.) Attach a cue to the behavior.

3.) When this first cue is solid, you can begin to transfer the behavior to a new cue.

You’re going to give the new cue first, followed immediately by the old cue.  This will trigger the behavior – click then treat.

Repeat this process several times.  You will begin to see the animal initiating the behavior before you can give the old cue.  So now you can give the new cue and get the behavior – click then treat.

So it’s:

transfer cue process

Sleight of Hand Magic Tricks
This is the underlying process I used for Pico to turn an unwanted behavior – mugging my pockets – into the cue for a desirable behavior – head lowering.

That’s straight forward enough.  What changed was turning this into play.  The end result was great manners taught without the frustration of extinction.  I didn’t want to just fold my arms and wait for Pico to stop trying to get past me into my pockets.  As excited and eager as he was, that would have spoiled his game.  From his perspective he’d be saying: “I put my quarter into the candy machine.  Why isn’t my carrot bar coming out?!”

What do we do when a vending machine isn’t working?  We get frustrated.  We jiggle the vending machine, and if that doesn’t work, we bang on it harder.

Eventually, we’ll give up and leave, but we’re not going to be very eager to try again.

This was not the downward emotional spiral I wanted for Pico.  I loved his enthusiasm.  I just needed to redirect it.

So I began with head lowering.  I used my hand as a target.  I invited him to drop his head by following my hand down.   Targeting made the behavior “hot”.  Follow my hand down – click and treat.  Easy.  The cue became the combination of my targeting gesture and a slight bend of my body.

Next I transferred the cue to a light touch on his poll.  I reached out towards him and rested my hand briefly on his poll.

By itself this is a very standard “horse training” way to ask for head lowering that can be easily adapted for clicker training.  You rest your hand lightly on your horse’s neck just behind his ears.  Your horse won’t at first know what you want.  The most normal reaction is he’ll lift his head up, or he’ll brace against you.  You’ll follow his head movement, keeping your hand in place with a steady, neutral pressure.  You aren’t trying to push his head down.  That’s his job – to drop his own head.  You’ll simply wait with your hand on his poll.  Eventually, he’ll drop his head, and you’ll remove your hand.  If you’re a clicker trainer, you’ll add a click followed by a treat.

This strategy is based on the following:

A little bit of pressure over a long period of time will create a desire for change.

Understanding Pressure
If your cat is sitting on your lap while you read this text, eventually, no matter how much you love her, you will need her to move.  A little bit of pressure from her curled up on your lap has created a very great need for a change.  You’ll be squirming out from under her.  (Of course, she will then go to work training you.  She will turn into a boneless rag doll and very mysteriously manage to pin you down even more.  And she will charm you into providing even more of a lap to sit on by purring loudly.)

Your horse will eventually get tired of having your hand resting on his head.  Up doesn’t dislodge you, so he’ll try down.  At the slightest drop of his head, you’ll take your hand away. Click then treat.

This method works, but it can take a lot of patience on the part of the handler.  What usually happens is the person gets impatient and begins pushing down.  The horse pushes back, and suddenly you’re moving a long way away from play.

Play and the Transferred Cue
So instead of waiting for Pico to discover the answer, I used the transferred cue process.  I put my hand on Pico’s poll, but I didn’t linger there.  I wasn’t trying to trigger the behavior by leaving my hand there.

I rested my hand on his poll long enough for Pico to be aware that I had done so, then I offered him my hand as a target. He dropped his head.  Click then treat.

I repeated this process:

Hand on poll graphic

After the third or fourth repetition, I hesitated just fractionally after reaching out to his poll.  He dropped his head.  Click and treat.

After that, all I needed was my new hand-on-poll cue.  If he hesitated at all, I could offer a reminder by shifting to the hand targeting.  I only needed the reminder a couple of times before the new cue was solid.

So then I moved to the next transfer.  I used the simplest version of asking for head lowering from a lead.  I milked the line down.

This is a curious expression.  It means I slid my fingers along the line to create a slight downward suggestion.  My hand didn’t close around the lead.  I stroked down a couple of inches and then brought my hand back up to the snap and stroked down the lead again.  But remember this was a transfer-cue process.  I wasn’t waiting until the stroking of the lead triggered the head lowering response.  Instead I stroked the lead just a couple of times, and then I reached up and touched his poll.

He wasn’t expecting that, so I continued on back through my chain of cues and targeted him down with my hand.  He dropped his head, click then treat.

milked line transfer cue

On the next repetition I got as far as my hand on his poll before he dropped his head.

And then he had it.  As I milked the line down, he dropped his head.  Very neat.

The Transfer Continues
We practiced this for a few more reps, and then I made the next transfer.

Now the cue was a bump of my hand against his nose.

So here was the sequence of cues he knew:

transfer cue full sequence

I could go as far back into this sequence as I needed to trigger head lowering.

I thought of it like learning how to say “horse” in five different languages.  When I say “horse” as part of a children’s game, you’ll point to the picture of a horse – not the cow or the sheep.

Pferd is the German for horse.

If I say “pferd”, I want you to point to the picture of the horse.  At first, this odd word won’t mean anything to you, but if I say “pferd”, then “horse”, you’ll point to the picture I want.  Click and treat.  I’ll only need to repeat this a couple of times to have you pointing to the horse when I say “pferd”.

Okay, got that.  Before I need to remind you what pferd means, you’re pointing to the picture of the horse.

Caballo is the Spanish for pferd.

So now I say “caballo”, followed by “pferd” and you point to the picture of a horse.

“Caballo”. You don’t need the extra hint. You point right away to the horse.

Cavallo is the Italian for caballo.  So again I say “cavallo” followed by “caballo”.  The new word trips you up for a moment, so I continue on to “pferd”.  Now you have it.

“Cavallo.”  You point to the horse.

Cheval is the French for caballo.

So now I say “cheval” and you point to the horse.  This is an easy game – as long as I don’t mix in other farm animals.  That’s when it becomes a real test of memory.  Right now I am simply transferring the cue through a chain of words.

By the time I get to cheval, you’ll have no trouble making the switch.  You know the game.  Pointing to the horse is the hot behavior.  Played at this level of difficulty, this is a game you are guaranteed to win.

Pico was guaranteed to win.

I bumped his nose – he dropped his head, click and treat.

Sleight of Hand Magic – The Trick Revealed
Now if you are thinking all of this was built over a period of many sessions – think again.  These transfers happened in rapid fire succession, one after another.  It was like watching a magician’s trick.  Where’s the quarter that was just in my hand?  Oh look!  It’s on your shoulder.  How did it get there?  And how did your watch get on my wrist?  You weren’t watching.  Oh look!  When I bump his nostril, your horse is dropping his nose to the ground .  That’s a funny reaction!

So now I could fold my arms into “grown-ups”.  If Pico bumped me looking for treats, his own mugging behavior cued him to drop his head.  Magic!

But then it’s all just child’s play!

Coming Next: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 9: You Can’t Not Cue

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:

theclickercenter.com                    theclickercentercourse.com

by

JOYFULL Horses: Cues Evolve Pt 4: Priming the Pump

pump 2.pngHeating Up a Behavior
In the previous section you learned how to teach your horse to back through a square.  There are many practical reasons why you would want this kind of maneuverability in your horse.  For starters it’s important that horses understand that they can swing their hips so they don’t feel trapped in tight spaces.  I’m sure you can see why this would be important.  What may not be as obvious is the link between backing in a square and head lowering.

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.

Training Detours
The reason for this detour is this way of teaching head lowering out of backing can be a hard lesson.  I learned it originally from John Lyons where essentially you were closing down all options but the one you wanted.  You were taking away choice.  It is often taught when horses are over threshold.  It’s a powerful lesson that can bring a horse back under control.

There have been times over the years working with horses at clinics where I have been very glad I knew how to make this lesson work.  When a horse is panicking because he is away from home, you need management tools that can safely and without undue force, bring him back under control.  If you ever find yourself on the other end of the lead from a horse who is having an emotional meltdown, you may be very grateful that you know how to make this lesson work.

But, and this is a big but, I want to be a constructional trainer.  I want to teach a skill before I need to use a skill.

That means I want to teach my horse how to solve the puzzle that this head lowering lesson presents BEFORE I need to use it.  I want to tease apart what can be a hard lesson into it’s underlying component parts.  Instead of taking away choice, I want to give it back.  Instead of this feeling like a hard lesson where doors are slammed shut, I am presenting it in a series of easily understood steps.  If my horse ever does have a moment of panic, he will know how to solve the puzzle.

Think about how this would feel for yourself.  When you’re afraid, if someone asked you what 27 divided by 3 is, you might momentarily struggle to find the answer, but you know basic math.  You’d be able to give the answer.  But suppose you’re asked for something you’ve never done.  Now you’re really in a panic.  You can’t solve this additional puzzle.  You feel even more trapped.   You’re afraid of the environment, and now you are struggling to figure out what your inquisitor is demanding of you.  That’s definitely not how I want my horses to experience training.  Controlling the environment and breaking training down into small steps transforms an inquisition into a reasonable lesson.

This is essentially showing you how you can take training you may have learned from a traditional, correction-based system and transform it into something that is very clicker compatible.  That’s why I have taken so much time to describe the step-by-step teaching process that is going to take us from backing in a square to head lowering.

Priming the Pump
To make the jump from backing into head lowering, I’m going to “prime the pump”.  I’m going to make head lowering a super “hot” behavior.

To show you how this works answer the following questions:

What colour is snow?

What colour is the house the US President lives in?

What colour is a sheet of typing paper?

What colour is the opposite of black?

What colour are clouds?

What colour is a bride’s gown?

What do cows drink?

Many people will say milk.  They’ve been primed to say milk because they are thinking about things that are white.  But, of course, cows drink water, not milk.

We’re going to prime the head lowering pump by asking lots of questions where head lowering is the answer.  It’s like having a stack of files on your desk.  At the moment the head lowering file may be buried at the bottom.  It’s in there somewhere, but you’ve forgotten it’s even there.  Bring it to the top of the stack, and now you’ll be thinking about it.  Make every file you open a head lowering file, and pretty soon that’s the only answer you’ll be expecting to give.

Priming The Head Lowering Pump
The easiest way to get head lowering is through targeting, so that’s how you’re going to begin. You’ll have your horse track the target down, click and treat.

head lowering follow cone 2 photos

Another easy way is to milk the line down as you bend down softly inviting your horse to join you. The expression milking the line refers to your fingers stroking down either side of the line.  You aren’t pulling down, and you aren’t fixing your hand firmly around the lead.  You are simply drawing your fingers along the rope in a soft invitation.

milking the line down Robin

Placing your hand on your horse’s poll is yet another way.  By now he may drop his head readily because he knows head lowering has been paying well recently so why not try it again.  Click and treat.

It’s no accident that head lowering is the go-to option.  When you put your hand on his poll, it’s clear you want something, but no clicks are coming for just standing still.  When you withhold your click, you’ll see a resurgence of the behavior that was just earning high rates of reinforcement – in this case, head lowering. For a discussion of resurgence and how to use it in training refer to the May 2015 articles on Resurgence and Regression: https://theclickercenterblog.com/2015/05/21/

head lowering from poll with caption

Head Lowering from Backing in a Square
The pump is now primed.  Head lowering is a super hot behavior.  It’s time to return to the backing in a square lesson.  You were asking your horse to back through a corner.  As he swings his hips to the inside, his head is going to drop ever so slightly.  This doesn’t happen because he’s relaxing.  It’s more matter of counter-balancing.  As his hips swing to the side, his head will counter balance that move by dropping slightly.

You’re going to be looking for this subtle balance shift.  At first, it may be very small, so you have to be on the lookout for it.  Instead of releasing the lead as soon as he’s backing, you’re going to wait for this tiny head drop.  Your hand will stay on the lead to say: “I want something”.   As soon as you get the response you’re after, you’ll release it.

This isn’t a change in the way you’re playing this game.  You haven’t suddenly switched from a starter button to a constant-on cue for the backing.  What has changed is the criterion you’re looking for.  Now it isn’t backing. It’s that slight drop in his head.  You’ve been getting it in different ways.  Now you’re simply triggering it out of backing.

Head lowering is a hot behavior, so your horse will catch on fast.  He’ll start to drop his head even before he’s stepping back.  This is golden.  You now have a super reliable way of asking for head lowering, one that will work even when he is feeling nervous and anxious.

Calm Down Now!
Why are you teaching head lowering in this way?  Why not simply stay with the easier, less technically-difficult-to-teach methods?  It’s a simple answer – even the most mellow horse can have a moment when his world is falling apart.  You never know when you might suddenly find yourself holding onto a horse who is becoming increasingly worried. Maybe your friend has just taken her horse out of the arena, or maybe his best buddy is being turned out without him.  Whatever the reason your horse has suddenly gone from working quietly to exploding into a freight train’s worth of energy.  You need to keep both you and your horse safe.  Putting him away, or turning him loose to work things out at liberty may not be an option, so what else can you do?

Again, it’s a simple answer.  Ask him to back in a square.  This moves his shoulders out of your space and keeps him from crashing over the top of you.  As he backs, you’ll be displacing his head up and to the outside. The more anxious he is, the higher his head will be as he takes a step back.  When he swings his hips to the inside, he’ll have a tendency to drop his head.  This isn’t because he’s calming down.  It’s a matter of counter-balancing.  The drop of his head tends to happen as he steps to the side.

Be ready for this. As soon as you feel even the first inkling of head lowering, be certain to release the lead.

Even if you don’t manage to get a click in, the release of the lead will jump start the process.  You’ll be ready the next time to reinforce the behavior not just with the release of the lead but with a click and a treat, as well.  Repeat this a few times, and you will very quickly have a horse who lowers his head not just a tiny amount, but all the way to the ground.

Priming the pump helps the horse make the connection.  When you activate the lead, he’s going to try head lowering because head lowering has been the go-to answer.  Click and treat.  When you need it the most, activating the lead will head straight to head lowering.  (In the next unit we’ll address stimulus control so head lowering isn’t the only behavior you get when you touch the lead.)

Heading Toward Lighter Than Light Cues
Cues for head lowering will definitely grow out of this shaping process.  When you slide down the lead asking for that slight displacement of his head to the outside, he’ll know you’re after head lowering.

Robin backing black background

How light can you be?  Will he lower his head from just a soft touch on the lead?  From a hand gesture?  How can you morph that head lowering trigger into ever more subtle cues?

Playing with Cues
You can play even more with this process.  Head lowering is hot.  So let’s see what else can trigger the head lowering response.  Stroke your hand along your horse’s back.  If he’s been a little anxious, the long brush strokes your arm makes over his back may feel soothing.  If you see him drop his head even a little, click and treat.  Resume stroking his back again.  He’s catching on to this new clicker game.  He’s beginning to make connections fast.  After just a couple of clicks, you’ll see that stroking his back cues him to drop his head.  Very neat!

You can install all kinds of fun “buttons” all over your horse.  And it’s not just head lowering that you can trigger.  If you understand the overall concept of how this priming process works, you can install “buttons” for ears forward, for the pilates pose, for forward motion, for backing, etc.

“How’d you do that?”
As you play with this game, the question you’ll be hearing from your friends will be:  “How’d you do that?”

“How did you get your horse to back up by pulling on his tail?”

“How did you get your horse to drop his head by tickling his belly?”

“How did you get your horse to run towards you by sitting in a chair?”

You don’t have to give away all your secrets (unless you want to). You can give them the best answer of all – playfully.

Author’s note: I want to remind people that I am using these lessons to illustrate some important concepts.  I’ve included a lot of how-to instruction in this unit, but I have also left a great deal out.  I can’t fit everything that needs to be said about head lowering into the length of an article.  It was never my intent that these articles would give that kind of complete detailed, how-to instructions.  For those resources refer to my web sites, and to my books, DVDs, and on-line course.  In particular refer to my book, “The Click That Teaches: A Step-By-Step Guide in Pictures”, and the early DVDs in the DVD lesson series: Lesson 1: Getting Started with the Clicker, Lesson 2: Ground Manners, and Lesson 3: Head Lowering.  My on-line course will also provide you with very thorough how-to instructions.

Coming Next: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 6.) Getting What You Want When You Want It: Stimulus Control

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:

theclickercenter.com                    theclickercentercourse.com

by

JOYFULL Horses: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 5.) Cues Evolve – Part 1

Cues Evolve Out Of The Shaping Process

Review
It’s time again to add to our list of things I would want a beginner to know about cues.  So far we have:

1.) Cues and commands are not the same.
2.) Not all cues are verbal.
3.) Cues can come from inanimate objects.  You can have environmental cues.
4.) Our animals can cue us.

Here’s number 5: Cues evolve out of the shaping process.

The way in which cues evolve as we teach new skills leads us straight to play.  That makes this a very important concept to understand.

A common question people ask when they are teaching a new behavior is: when do I get to add a cue?  This is really the wrong question.  At least when you are working with horses, the cues are already there.  In fact you really can’t NOT cue.

If you are reinforcing your horse for putting his ears forward, where are you looking?  At his ears, of course.  When you want him to take a step back, your eyes shift down to his feet.  Your horse is going to notice these difference.  For him these are clues that will morph into cues. Even if you aren’t aware of them, they are still functioning to let him know what to do next to earn reinforcement.  So it isn’t a question of when you do you get to introduce a cue, but how do you transfer from the cue that is currently working to a new cue?  But before we can get to that question, we need to look in more detail at how those cues evolve in the first place  That’s what we’ll be exploring in this section.

Bear with me.  I’m going to be traveling through several different lessons, connecting up the dots of evolving cues as we go.

Head Lowering

Robin head lowering 1
To understand how cues evolve, let’s begin with this example: suppose I want to teach my horse to drop his head.  There are a number of reasons why I might want this behavior.

The first begins with safety.  A horse cannot simultaneously rear and drop his nose to the dirt.  If I can ask for head lowering, I can interrupt a potentially dangerous behavior.

Head lowering is also practical.  Even a short horse can become very tall when you’re trying to get a bridle or a halter on.  Asking him first to lower his head makes the task easier for you and more comfortable for him.

Head lowering leads to calmness.  This is not automatic.  The first time you ask a horse to drop his head, he’s not going to magically and instantaneously calm down.  In fact, a nervous horse can actually be made more nervous by being asked to lower his head.  With his head up he can scan the horizon line for predators more effectively.  So when you ask this anxious, on-guard horse to lower his head, he’s going to want to pop it right back up again.

Should you quit and ask for something else?  No. The answer is to keep working on head lowering, but, if you can, change the environment so he feels more at ease. Ask for it again and again over many training sessions.  As you begin to build some duration into the behavior, you will begin to see a different emotional state linking up with it.

Horses living in the wild spend twelve plus hours every day grazing.  Even horses living in stalls spend several hours a day eating.  That means they are spending a huge amount of time every day feeling relaxed enough to drop their heads and eat. The classically conditioned link between head lowering while grazing and an emotional state of calm relaxation is huge.  If we can tap into that same state by asking for head lowering, we’ve just created a powerful link between clicker training and a calm emotional state. That will serve us well as we progress forward in training.

Linking head lowering to calmness is something most people are familiar with.  Something you might not think about as much is this: head lowering is the counter balance to collection.  This is perhaps one of the most important reasons to teach head lowering because it takes you into riding excellence.

Keeping Things in Balance
One of the training mantras you want to always keep in mind is:

For every exercise you teach, there is an opposite exercise you must teach to keep things in balance.

If you ask a horse to engage and collect, you also need to ask him to lengthen and stretch out.  If you focus too much attention on collection, you may not have a way to tell him he can just relax and lengthen.  As a rider is learning about collecting, if she ends up compressing her horse, she will need a way to lengthen him back out so she can try again.  Asking a horse to stretch out in head lowering provides a powerful, and very important counter-balance both physically and emotionally to collection.

Robin pose and head lowering

On the left Robin is offering beautiful collection.  On the right head lowering balances his pose.

There’s Always More Than One Way To Teach A Behavior
I teach head lowering in many different ways.  The first, easiest way is through targeting.  I will simply have the horse follow a target down to the ground.  Click and treat.

robin head lowering green cone down

The easiest way to teach head lowering 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 I can trigger the behavior, the better.

In the next installment I’ll look at one of the most powerful ways you can teach head lowering: via backing in a square.

Robin back in square

Head lowering is taught out of backing in a square.

 

Coming next: Backing in a square

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:

theclickercenter.com                    theclickercentercourse.com