Titles are important. Names matter. I learned this a long time ago when I started referring to the “t’ai chi wall”. That’s an element in the rope handling that I teach. Suddenly, it became a something. It stood out from everything else that was associated with the rope handling.
Names matter. Farmers know this which is why they don’t name their animals. Names transform them into individuals.
We name our horses because we are looking for that individual connection. That brings me to the rest of the title I have given my new book. I’m calling it, “Modern Horse Training: A Constructional Guide to Becoming Your Horse’s Best Friend”.
In previous posts I’ve talked about what Modern Horse Training means to me. I’ve described the example/non-example comparison that I am making by choosing that title. In yesterday’s post, I wrote in general terms what constructional training refers to.
Of course, I tried on many different titles, but I kept coming back to “Modern Horse Training”. And then there was the subtitle. I considered staying with just “A Constructional Guide to Horse Training“, but I kept adding on the rest: “A Constructional Guide to Becoming Your Horse’s Best Friend”.
I know there will be people who read that title and think the book isn’t for them. They are interested in performance not friendship. That title is too mushy.
I’m also interested in performance. The cover reminds us that we don’t have to give up on one to have the other. Training teaches performance skills. It also creates connection.
I should say good training does this. Force-based training turns communication into a one way street. When you use commands, meaning you are controlling your horse with a do-it-or-else threat backing up every request, you become like a drill sergeant barking out orders. The sergeant tells the private what to do. The private does what he’s told. He’s not on equal footing. He doesn’t respond by giving an order back to the sergeant. If he does, he’s being insubordinate, and he will be punished.
Punishment shuts down behavior. When we use command-based training we shut down the back and forth communication that makes being with our horses such a joy. We shut down the full expression of their personality. That funny, brave, inquisitive, smart, mischievous, bold, kind individual we love so much disappears and hides away from us. Good training brings our horse’s personality out of hiding – in a good way.
In a recent Equiosity podcast I brought together a group of people who are currently going through my on-line clinics. They were all regular attendees in the coaching sessions that are part of those clinics. The conversation turned into a three part series. I ended by asking each of them to describe what they thought of when they were pictured a clicker-trained horse. I thought they might describe some particularly fun bit of training they had taught to their horses. But no, to a person, they all talked about the relationship that was developing through clicker training. What they most valued was not that they could now pick up their horse’s feet with ease, or load him on a trailer, or ride him. What they valued most was the connection the training was creating.
That’s why we have horses. Think back to the horse books you read as a child. If you are one of the horse addicted, you probably had a whole shelf full of them. Yes, the stories were full of riders who soared over giant fences or raced across deserts. But always, what mattered most was the love between horse and handler.
Too often performance is put first and that connection is lost. We talk about “bomb-proof horses”. But what really does that mean? Yes, safety always comes first. I want a horse who is comfortable with me and the world around him. But if there is a bear nearby, I would like my horse to be able to tell me that going forward is really not a good idea. I want my training to give him a voice that counts, a voice that is listened to.
If he’s hurting, I want him to be able to let me know that he can’t do what I’m asking. I want him to be able to tell me this without having to shout. Horses shout by rearing up, kicking out, bolting off. Long before he has reached the boiling point, I want my training to give him a voice that is heard.
This is how we keep horses sound. It is how we remember why we fell in love with them in the first place. It is how we transform ourselves from drill sergeant into best friend. The title is the right one to chose. The new book is indeed a constructional guide to becoming our horse’s best friend.
Robin – my best friend and performance partner
The new book, “Modern Horse Training: A Constructional Guide to becoming Your Horse’s Best Friend” will be published April 26, 2023. It will be available through my web site: theclickercenter.com and through Amazon and other booksellers. Look for it in hardcover, paperback and as an ebook.
JOY FULL Horses: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 9.) You Can’t Not Cue: Part 6 of 12
What Keeps People Interested in Clicker Training?
I ended yesterday’s post with the question: what is the “glue” that gets somebody to stick to clicker training? What makes someone take more than that first look? What creates the shift from being simply curious about clicker training, to giving it a try, to becoming an active user, and eventually a clicker trainer? I think there are four main elements that go into the creation of clicker super glue.
Science
The first component of clicker super glue is a love of science. I’ve already talked about this, but let me expand on it here. When I talk about a love of science I don’t mean someone who has read the chapter on learning theory in the psychology text book and memorized the four quadrants. Lots of people can give you the definitions of negative and positive punishment. That’s simply someone who has done a bit of reading.
A love of science is something more. It’s that curiosity that has you always asking the “why” questions. It’s wanting to know how things work. It’s never being satisfied with the “because that’s the way it’s done” answers.
Someone who is passionate about science is also passionate about history. You want to know what others before you have said in answer to those “why” questions. Where did our current ideas come from? Why do we use marker signals? Why do we call them bridging signals? Where did that term come from? What was meant by it, and is it still applicable?
“Just because” isn’t good enough. How do we test our ideas? How do we peel back the layers of confusion our words often create and look at what is really going on when we say antecedents set the occasion for behaviors which are controlled by consequences? Do you nod your head and passively write that down in your notes? Or do you want to dig down into those words to find out what those relationships really mean for your animals?
People who are passionate about science understand that what is understood today is not fixed in stone. As we learn more, our understandings change. In the sciences, as you test ideas and develop techniques that allow for more fine-tuned levels of exploration, ideas shift. Science is the perfect companion to training.
In both you will hear people saying: I used to follow this line of thought, but then the data showed me that this other was a better explanation/approach. It offered a more functional interpretation or way of handling the behavior I was seeing.
Nothing becomes entrenched because we are always asking those why questions.
Science alone is not enough. Think of it like the super glues that come in two separate tubes. Each tube by itself won’t hold anything together, but combine them, and you have a super glue that will last for years. By itself science creates an interest in training, but it doesn’t guarantee that someone will turn into what I mean by a clicker trainer.
Relationship
One of the other super glue “tubes” is relationship. When I first went out to the barn with a clicker in my hand and treats in my pocket, I was curious. The scientist in me wanted to explore what sounded like an intriguing approach to training. There weren’t any other equine clicker trainers around to act as role models. I didn’t go out to the barn because I had been watching youtube videos showing me the amazing relationships people were developing with their horses. It was the science behind the training that made me take the first look. I kept going because that early exploration into clicker training so enriched the relationship I had with Peregrine.
I started sharing my early forays into clicker training with my clients. I remember asking one of them what she thought about clicker training. She said out of all the things I had shown her, it was her favorite. When I asked why, she said it was because of the relationship it created with her horse.
Repertoire
Two tubes aren’t enough to create clicker super glue. There is another element that I think is critical and that’s repertoire.
I’ve known many people who were excited to try clicker training. They introduced their horses to the target, and then they got stuck. What do you do with it? That was the question.
When I started with the clicker, Peregrine already knew a lot, but there were glitches and speed bumps throughout his training. Always the physical issues he had with his stifles got in the way. As a youngster, he was plagued by locking stifles. The stifle joint is equivalent to our knee. When Peregrine wanted to take a step forward, the tendons that ran over his knee cap wouldn’t always release. He’d try to move, and one or both of his hind legs just wouldn’t bend. He’s be stuck in place until they let go. On the ground backing usually unlocked his joints. Under saddle the solution he was more likely to find was a hard buck forward.
So you could say he was both very well trained, and at the same time very much a problem horse. On a good day he was a dream to ride, but when his stifles were locking up, he was a nightmare. His stifles had forced me to learn so much more about training, especially about ground work, just to be able to manage him safely on those bad days. On the good days, that same training produced some simply beautiful work.
Twenty plus years ago when Peregrine and I were first exploring clicker training, ground work for most people meant lunging. That was all they knew. You lunged your horse to get the “bucks out” so your horse was safe to ride.
Lunging was often crudely done. The horse ran around you on a circle, often out of balance, often pulling on your lunge line. It wasn’t fun for either of you, so if someone said: “we’re going to use the clicker to do ground work”, of course people ran for the hills! What was fun about ground work?
I’ve raised all my horses. Peregrine was a horse I bred. I raised his mother, and Robin came to me as a yearling, so ground work to me has always meant so much more than lunging. Ground work is the teaching of connection. Ground work means showing your horse how to get along with people. It includes basic manners and leading skills, but it’s so much more than that. For a young horse ground work includes long walks out to learn about the world. It includes walking through mud puddles and over wooden bridges, meeting the cows that live in the next field over, encountering joggers and bicycle riders. It means liberty training and in-hand work. It means learning about your body and gaining control over your balance so you can go up and down hills safely and one day carry a rider in comfort.
All this meant that after Peregrine was routinely touching a target, I wasn’t stuck. I had a rich and varied repertoire to work with. I began by reshaping everything I had ever taught him with the clicker. In so many places I could almost hear him say: “Oh THAT’S what you wanted! Why didn’t you say so before?”
Everything I had already taught him – the clicker made better. I began by using it as a piggy back tool, meaning I simply added it in to familiar lessons. I would ask Peregrine to rotate up into shoulder-in much as I had always asked him, and I would click and treat as he complied. It made him more willing, so it took less explaining on my part to get the desired response.
Reworking our existing repertoire got us a solid foot in the clicker door. It gave us lots to explore to get us started. When I’m introducing people to clicker training, I want to help them see all the many possibilities that exist in ground work. If you equate clicker training just with targeting, you may well get stuck. Your horse is touching a target. That was fun, but now what?
The “now what” is finding creative ways to use that targeting behavior. And it’s recognizing that there are many other shaping methods you can use.
It’s remembering that at one point your horse didn’t know how to pick up his feet for cleaning or to stand quietly while you put on his halter. Can you use the clicker to make those things better? Of course you can! While you are learning how clicker training works, you can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.
I like beginning with the “universals”, things we all do with our horses regardless of the type of riding we do. We all need to clean our horse’s feet, groom them, halter them, and, if we ride, bridle and saddle them. Below is a fun video from Monty Gwynne showing how a clicker-trained horse takes a bridle. It’s a great example of turning the ordinary – something we all do on a regular basis – into something with real clicker flare.
Persistence
Science, relationship, repertoire are all important. There’s one more component to our super glue and that’s persistence.
Training is not easy. It is not straight forward. It is certainly not a linear path where one success builds on another, and you never have another frustrating day ever again with your horse.
Training is about running up against a reaction you don’t understand and going off to have a proverbial cup of tea while you figure out a different way to approach the problem. You have to have persistence to weather these little storms of confusion. You have to have persistence to learn the handling skills that can make the difference between smooth-sailing success and a stormy ride.
You can understand the science inside and out, but your horse may still be turning his back and walking off the minute he sees you coming. Persistence keeps you in the game, scratching your head trying to figure out what to do next. What do you change? What do you add?
Persistence is what gets you to clinics and fills your bookshelves with training book after training book. It is what gets you to tie a lead rope to your fence rail so you can practice, practice, practice your rope handling skills before you ever go near your horse. And it is what takes you back out to the barn to see what your horse thinks of all the homework you’re doing on his behalf.
Put these four things together and you will have someone who shifts from simply giving clicker training a quick look to someone who is actively using clicker training on a routine basis. But that still doesn’t mean someone is a clicker trainer.
Coming Next: Using Clicker Training Versus Being A Clicker Trainer
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:
JOY FULL Horses: Ten Things You Should Know About Cues: Number 9.) You Can’t Not Cue: Part 5 of 12
What Brings You To Clicker Training?
Science is what brought me to clicker training, but for many people that is not the principle draw. Yes, it is reassuring that others have thought about schedules of reinforcement, etc. to develop current best practice, but what appeals to them is what grows out of this work – namely a great relationship.
They see the connection others have with their clicker-trained horses. They see the enthusiasm, the joy, and the kindness. They see a relationship that is not built by showing the horse “who is boss”. Getting tougher, teaching respect, being the alpha, being dominant are all phrases that drop out of the vocabulary of clicker trainers. Our horses don’t just greet us at the gate. They ask us to stay a little longer at the end of the day for just one more game.
Science makes some people curious. Connection draws others in. In both cases people take a look and want to know more. They fill their pockets with treats and head out to the barn. That first clicker session hooks some. They see their horses light up, and there’s no going back. But others drop out.
It’s like fishing. Don’t worry about the ones who get away. Many of them will be back. They just need to dance around the edges of clicker training a bit longer. They need to watch a few more clips on youtube, read a few more articles, see their neighbor’s horse suddenly blossoming as a clicker horse. Or they may need to get that one horse who just can’t cope with traditional methods. When they “have tried everything”, they’ll be back for a second look.
Using Clicker Training
The early clicker lessons lead to people becoming active clicker users. Overtime they may evolve into what I would refer to as someone who is a clicker trainer. There is a difference. You can use clicker training without being a clicker trainer. People who use clicker training regard it as a tool, one of many they have in their overall “tool box”.
They might have a horse who is afraid of trailers. They’ll dust off their clicker and go to work. Once the horse is confidently loading, they’ll put away their clicker and treats and return to business as usual – whatever that means.
So the question is what is the glue? What makes someone do more than take that first look? What shifts someone from being simply curious about clicker training, to giving it a try, to becoming an active user, and eventually a clicker trainer?
Coming Next: The Clicker Super Glue
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 both you will hear people saying: I used to follow this line of thought, but then the data showed me that this other was a better explanation/approach. It offered a more functional interpretation or way of handling the behavior I was seeing.
Using Clicker Training
The Clicker Center Blog 