Smallest Steps for Clicker Training
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.
- horse looks at cone (or other target) – click
- horse moves nose towards target or takes a step forward or leans forward. In fact any kind of forward moving thing is clicked
- horse sniffs cone
Keysfins, do my smallers win yet? 🙂
Re: Smaller steps:
They do if your Zahra is progressing nicely! The animal always shows you exactly what you are training. Or, perhaps, missing in your training steps.
😉
Zahra is rocking it on a daily basis!
What’s astonishing is how fast “smallers” turn into “biggers!” She is progressing incredibly rapidly through all kinds of new information and she’s thriving on it all.