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Horse Bombproofing Basics

March 25, 2012
Basics, Bombproofing
1 Comment

You know how to read a horse’s body language, right? If you don’t, you don’t want to try to bombproof because you might make a mess. These isn’t rocket science, but it can be tricky and the consequences can be bad.

Horse Bombproofing 101

There are two general methods of getting through fear….flooding and systematic desensitization. In flooding, you simply put the horse (or the person) into the traumatic situation and leave them there until they burn through all of their adrenalin and relax.

Smaller, less traumatic ways of doing flooding might be to post plastic bags around the horse’s corral so that they are blowing in the wind while the human may not even be around. This can be helpful but it’s not clicker training so we’re not going into those details.

Systematic Desensitization and Clicker Training for Horses

Clicker training uses an approach called Systematic Desensitization, which is a progressive method that never overloads or floods the animal. In systematic desensitization (SD), the exposure to the feared thing is gradual and waits for a calm response before proceeding to the next step.

With SD, we don’t ever want to flood or overwhelm the horse.

We also want to make sure we are clicking RELAXATION. This is so important. If you click the horse stepping backwards away from the scary thing, you are reinforcing fear responses. Even if you don’t click, but you retreat the scary thing by moving it away and then click, you are reinforcing the wrong thing.

Just as in every aspect of clicker training, first figure out your tiniest steps and if the horse looks overwhelmed at any time, back up.

So, in tarp training, your smallest steps might look like this:

  1. handler holds a folded up tarp in her hand within eyeshot of the horse
  2. handler holds a folded up tarp a bit closer and sees if the horse will move towards it either by moving the muzzle towards it or moving the feet to get closer
  3. horse sniffs the folded up tarp
  4. handler pets the horse with the folded up tarp
  5. handler unfolds the tarp a little bit so that it’s still folded, but a bit bigger, and repeats the steps above
  6. handler holds the tarp near the horse and makes the (still folded) tarp make a small crinkly noise
  7. handler repeats all the steps above while making crinkly noises
  8. handler unfolds the tarp some more, preferably on a day when the wind isn’t blowing and does all of the above again
Each step of the way….the horse must show a relaxation response before the handler moves on to the next step. Also, the handler clicks the relaxation response, not the fear response.
In fact, if you get more than a tiny fear response, you need to back up. We are not practicing flooding! We are practicing systematic desensitization.
If my horse snorts at the scary thing, that’s okay and I don’t back down. But I will wait until she looks more relaxed to click.
If she flinches, the thing will repeat over and over again until she’s not flinching.
If she’s backing away or even looking like she wants to back away, she’s telling me that I’m going to fast and need to back off.

 

Smallest Steps for Clicker Training

March 25, 2012
Basics
2 Comments

Keysfins, namer of this website, and former marine animal trainer, has challenged me to think about the smallest steps to teach a horse to target.

Horses are, by nature, curious animals. So even though they tend to be driven by a lot of fear, they will generally explore things with their nose and mouth, sniffing or mouthing unfamiliar things.

But what if your horse doesn’t do that? Some clicker people talk about crossover animals. They’re usually talking about dogs who have been so highly trained that they don’t offer behaviors on their own. They have to learn to explore their world and know that they can try things.

In clicker training, if you’re having trouble, probably your steps are too big. So, as an exercise…think about the smallest steps you can possibly fathom. I’m calling them the “smallers” in contrast to the bigger steps and goals.

Before you can teach targeting, you have to load your clicker.

Once you have that done, here are the smallest steps I can think of.

  1. horse looks at cone (or other target) – click
  2. horse moves nose towards target or takes a step forward or leans forward. In fact any kind of forward moving thing is clicked
  3. horse sniffs cone

Keysfins, do my smallers win yet? 🙂

Teach Your Horse to Target

March 17, 2012
Basics
1 Comment

You can accomplish so much by making sure your horse really knows how to target. This can be the foundation of many other things including trailer loading, walking on a lead, and tricks like playing fetch.

Teaching Your Horse to Target

Teach your horse to target an object. I used a small, orange marker cone. You need something sturdy enough that your horse won’t destroy it.

Hold the object near the horse’s nose. Horse’s are naturally curious animals and eventually they will sniff at it or touch it with their nose.

Click.Treat!

When your horse is reliably touching the cone, hold it to the right  and retrain it.

Hold it up higher and retrain.

Hold it lower and retrain.

It may all seem to be the same to you, but it’s not the same to your horse. And you need to keep training it in different places until your horse is entirely solid.

Adding a Command to Targeting

It’s backwards from how most of us learned to train dogs, but it’s important to teach the behavior thoroughly before you name it.

 

When your horse is reliably touching the object with his nose you can add a command. I use “touch.”

Once your horse is touching the cone, you can have him touch all kinds of things. Touching scary things can help bombproof your horse.

Loading the Clicker

March 17, 2012
Basics
2 Comments

A horse doesn’t know that a click means anything good or bad.

Before you can do clicker training, you have to teach your horse that the click means a treat is coming.

Steps to Load the Clicker

  1. If your horse is bargey, greedy, bitey, or otherwise unmannerly, you may want to have the horse in the stall for the first lessons. Safety first! Your horse cannot be allowed to run you over to get treats. More about safety in some other posts.
  2. Find some treats that your horse likes. If your horse likes the treats a little, you may not have as much success as if your horse likes the treats a lot.
  3. You can use a real clicker or use a ballpoint pen. I don’t recommend using your mouth to make noises at this stage in time.
  4. Click. Treat.
  5. Click. Treat.
  6. Click. Treat.
  7. Yes! Do it again and again until you see your horse’s ears perk up when he hears a click. It won’t take long for him to know that if he hears a click, he’s about to get a goody.

That’s it! Your horse now has the first steps towards learning almost anything. Trailer loading. Tying. Backing up. Standing for mounting and more.