Category Archives: successive approximations

Leading Position 1

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Leading Position 1 (LP1) has the handler in front of the horse, facing the same way as the horse.

Bridget is walking right in front of Smokey with a nice loop or ‘smile’ in the lead rope.

This concept of ‘Walking Away’ can also be useful whenever we want to get our horse used to something new. Horses have a tendency to follow anything moving away, and move away from anything coming toward them.

Leading a horse on a narrow track or road, spooky things can happen behind, so having the horse walk a meter or so behind you on a loose lead means the horse can spook right or left without running into you. For casual walking out, this can be a useful position.

However, Leading Position 1 is especially interesting because horses have two ways of looking at it.

Concept One: the horse is happy to mosey along behind.

We can cruise along together like horses following each other on their way to water or new grazing. The horse in front watches for snakes or other dangers, allowing the horse or horses filing behind to relax their guard a little bit.

Boots is happy to mosey along behind me knowing I will keep a lookout for dangers ahead.

Concept Two: The horse is ‘driving’ us from behind.

The second concept the is that horse sees it as an opportunity to haze (drive) the person along. Horses often haze each other from behind. Stallions use hazing to gather up and move their mares if they feel the need to shift them, and mares do the same with their foals.

Horses higher in the social order do it to move a horse lower in the social order if it is in their way or being annoying – something that is very noticeable in domestic horse situations.

When we taught Smoky to walk behind us through the S-bend for Horse Agility, we had to be watchful because he loved to catch up with us and give us a solid nudge with his nose to ‘move us along’.

It’s definitely best if the horse is happy to work with the first concept – follow behind in a relaxed mode. We’d also like the horse to know signals for slowing down or stopping when we are walking in front of him. It’s quite different from when we ride or long-rein, and are guiding from behind.

So: We can teach the horse clear signals to indicate when we intend to walk out in front of him, and that we’d like him to maintain a polite distance behind us, slow when we slow, and stop when we stop.

The following Training Plan looks at a possible way of teaching clear boundaries with Leading Position 1.

TRAINING PLAN

Aims:

  1. To develop a signal that lets the horse know when we are going to move from LP3 (beside neck) into LP1 (in front facing away from him).
  2. To have the horse comfortable with us in front and moving in single file.
  3. To develop clear signals while in Leading Position 1, to let the horse know when we are slowing into a halt and when he needs to halt or back up.

Environment:

  • Horse in an area where he is usually relaxed and confident.
  • Herd buddies not able to interfere but in view if possible.
  • Horse in a learning frame of mind.
  • Body extension during the teaching/learning phase if we need to emphasize a signal.
  • Halter and lead.
  • Lane 10-12 feet long with one high side (e.g., a safe fence) and one side a rail on the ground which the handler can easily step over.
  • If using destinations, set a mat or nose target destination several meters beyond each end of the lane.
  • Prerequisite: horse is confident with various ways of backing up in a lane. https://youtu.be/XcKSrz8feN8,
  • https://youtu.be/rMN5jWSn-HU
  • Consciously look for signs which indicate that the horse is reaching the limit of his ability to keep trying. Aim to stop while he is still engaged and willing. You can stop at any time on any slice of the process.

Slices of the Plan: 

For each slice, begin walking with the horse in LP3 – beside neck. Move on when each slice is smooth and ho-hum for the horse.

  1. Refresh the three basic lane tasks using LP3 – beside neck: a) walk through; b) walk in, halt and walk on out; c) walk in, halt and back out. Make sure these are all smooth when you are leading the horse on his left side and on his right side.
  2. Walk the horse into the beginning of the lane, halt, and step over the rail into the lane, pivoting into LP7 which is facing the horse. Give him an arm’s length of space. Turn off your body energy; relax (click&treat). Check for any signs of anxiety (looking away, shifting feet, backing away, stepping toward you, nudging you or stepping over the rail out of the lane). Stay with this slice until the horse can remain totally relaxed as you move into position and stand facing him (which is Leading Position 7), with your energy turned off, for a few seconds before the click&treat. Gradually work up to about ten seconds.
  3. When 2 is good, repeat but now step in front of the horse facing away from him after the halt. Give him a couple of feet of space behind you as you step into the lane to stand in front of him; relax (click&treat – turn to deliver the treat, then turn away again), pause.
  4. Ask the horse to walk forward out of the lane while you stay in the single file facing away position in front of him. You may need to create a new ‘walk on’ signal for this context. Hopefully you have already established a strong vocal ‘walk on’ cue. Walk to your destination; relax (click&treat). Walk a loop in LP3 (beside neck) to return to the lane.
  5. Repeat 3-4 until it is ho-hum for the horse.
  6. Repeat 3-4 but gradually stand in front of him (facing away) a bit longer before walking on. Increase the time in one second intervals. Ten seconds is a good time to aim for.  When he can do ten seconds before a click&treat, vary how long you wait facing forward before walking out of the lane.
  7. Once the horse is cool about having you step in front of him into the lane, decide on a clear signal you can use in motion to let the horse know you are about to step in front of him. I used a raised outside arm because that seemed easiest for the horse to see. The signal Boots and I eventually developed is more like a half halt in my body, change in breathing and a small hand gesture. Each horse and handler will work out and refine something that makes sense to them.
  8. First use your new signal to let him know you are going to step in front of him when he is halted in the lane.
  9. Then walk alongside his neck/ears and step in front of him while he is still in motion, using the signal you worked out in 8. above. After stepping in front of the horse, keep walking along in LP1 (facing forward) all the way to your destination mat or nose target; relax (click&treat).
  10. When 9. is smooth, we can start to build in the back-up. Check that the back-up is in good shape by asking for it first while you remain outside the lane.

Building in the Back Up

Step into the lane into LP1, then gently turn and ask the horse to back-up. Ideally the horse will quietly step back as you make the request; relax (click&treat).

11. When 10. is smooth, you can begin to teach the horse to back up while you remain facing away in LP1. First, refresh 8 above: as you approach the lane, move from LP3 into LP1 and walk right through the lane in LP1 to the destination mat for a release plus (click&treat).

12. When 11. is smooth (over however many sessions, this is not something to rush) gently slow down your walking pace in the middle of the lane for a few steps, then pick up your original pace. This should give you feedback about whether your horse easily keeps a safe distance behind you, or might barge into you. You might need your body extension to wave behind you to remind him to keep a nice space between you when you slow down. Safety is always first.

If you are unsure, it is smart to carry a body extension in neutral. You may or may not need to activate it. Having it there allows you to be clear for the horse the first instance he needs clarification. You don’t want him to nudge you, push through you, step out of the lane or push past you.

13. The most straightforward body language signal I’ve found, to let the horse know I am slowing down, halting and backing up from LP1, is flapping my elbows sideways. It’s possible to flap elbows and wave a body extension toward the horse’s legs or chest at the same time. If we can be crystal clear right from the beginning, that he needs to keep space between us, the horse usually picks this up easily.

14. Introduce your flapping elbow signal as you slow down, then pick up pace and walk to your destination; relax (click&treat). Repeat until smooth and ho-hum.

15. When the horse easily keeps his distance during 14 above, slow down gradually into a halt in the middle of the lane. If the slices have been taught carefully, the horse will also slow down and halt; relax (click&treat – turn around to deliver the treat). Repeat until smooth and ho-hum. Also use your ‘whoa’ verbal cue.

16. Now that the horse knows that flapping elbows means ‘slow down’ and possibly halt, we want to add a back-up while remaining in LP1. As you approach the lane, step into LP1 (using your signal). Walk into the lane, slow down, halt, and then energetically flap your elbows to ask the horse to move back a step or two before you halt. Drop your elbows; relax (click&treat – turn to deliver the treat). In the beginning, reward any indication that the horse is thinking ‘back’. Then use your voice and body languate ‘walk on’ signals to walk on out to your treat destination.

17. When 16. is smooth, ask for a few more steps of back-up before you relax (click&treat).

18. When you are smoothly getting several steps of back-up, work up to a series of ‘walk forward, slow to halt, back-up’ sequences before you walk to your relaxation and click&treat destination.

By now you may not need the rail on the ground but it is a good idea to work along a fence for a bit longer, to put the ideas into deep memory.

Ideally you can now signal the horse that you would like him to ‘follow you’ and he will slot in behind you. He will stay in LP1, slow as you slow and step back when you step back.

Generalization

Generalization often requires us to go back to early slices in order to build the horse’s confidence in new situations.

A horse’s confidence is highly dependent on context. He may do something perfectly ‘at home’ or in his initial training environment but be totally thrown by the same request in a different environment.

For generalization of LP1 we can play with:

  1. Different safe fence lines
  2. Away from fences
  3. New places
  4. Following us through narrow spaces
  5. Following us over water and unusual surfaces
  6. Following us through a pattern such as a weave, a U-bend, Z-bend or S-bend
  7. Following us in a circle
  8. Following us at liberty
  9. Following us at trot
  10.  Halt – walk – trot – walk – halt – back up transitions

I’m flapping my elbows to indicate to Boots that I would like her to back up.

Using LP1 to teach a new skill. She learned this quickly when coming through the curtain earned a click&treat.

Do let me know if you decided to take up this big piece of training or have already trained something similar.

Leading Position Seven

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I’m going to focus on Leading Position 7 next because Leading Positions 1 and 2 require us to be in front of the horse, facing away from him.

Leading Position 7 (LP7) has the handler face to face with the horse, either directly in front or a bit to the right or left of the horse’s head.

Remember that horses have a blind spot right in front of them for about 3 feet or a meter, due to the way their eyes are positioned at the side of the head. You can check this out for yourself by cupping your hands in around and in front of your nose to imitate a horse’s long nose. You will notice that you can no longer see right in front of yourself.

In order to feel safe in front of the horse facing away, we want to know that the horse backs up easily whenever we ask him to do so.

Face to face interactions include:

  • Greeting (horseman’s handshake).
  • Teaching the horse to put his nose on a hand-held target often has us standing facing. him, maybe at a bit of an angle.
  • Recall, e.g., asking the horse to come to us from the paddock.
  • Recall across unusual surfaces, and in a variety of other situations.
  • Rope Relaxation: tossing the rope around the horse’s head left to right and right to left.
  • Asking for back-up.
  • Protecting our personal space bubble while sharing time and space.
  • Backing up over a rail and recall over a rail.
  • Teaching sideways with the mirroring technique which can grow into a ‘square dance’ when it is paired with back-up and recall.
  • Teaching poll relaxation and flexion.
  • Tummy crunches

Greeting

When horses approach each other front-on, they usually greet by sniffing noses. If they don’t know each other, a sparring match might follow. If there is a sparring match, typically, one horse will strike out with a front leg. The other horse then retaliates or backs away.

Eventually one will capitulate and move out of range of the other. They may play a chasing game. Or they might both tire of the game and go back to eating or snoozing.

Two horses carefully checking each other out.

So it appears that a face-on approach from the front can be recognized as a greeting or a challenge/confrontation. If the horses belong to the same ‘in-group’, the approach from the front is usually a friendly greeting showing recognition. It resembles the smile and nod we exchange with colleagues at work. 

Once we have established a positive relationship with our horse, we can maintain the bond by offering the standard ‘Greeting’ every time we approach. We extend the back of our hand – which stands in for another horse’s nose. We allow the horse to close the last inch of the gap to touch our hand, then we carry on with our business, as would another horse in the herd.   

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

We must let the horse close the final gap between his nose and the back of our hand.

If the horse is not interested in closing the gap to touch our hand, we have powerful feedback. For some reason, at that moment, the horse is not in the mood to greet us. The horse has spoken, but are we listening? We have an opportunity to reflect on why this might be.

We want to develop this into a habit for each time we visit with the horse. To teach the horse, we use the Greet & Go procedure. This seems deceptively simple, but it is extremely powerful to both establish and maintain the connection between the horse and the person.

Generally, horses are not comfortable with having people’s hands all over their faces to ‘say hello’. Horses don’t go around patting each other on the head. Getting people to stop doing this is quite a challenge.

This desire that people have to rub on a horsse’s face is a factor in the biting urge that some horses exhibit around people.

This is sometimes called “The Horseman’s Handshake”. As soon as Boots touched the back of Ada’s hand, Ada walked away. She is using the “Greet and Go” procedure. A greeting like this is the polite way to approach any horse. Once the “Greet and Go” procedure is well established, we can “Greet”, then carry on with what we plan to do with the horse.

Targeting: Teaching the horse to put his nose on a hand-held target often has us standing facing him, maybe at a bit of an angle.

We need to remember that horses have a blind spot right in front of them for about 3 feet or a meter, due to the way their eyes are positioned at the side of the head.

Teaching Back-Up Signals

Straight body with raised fingers tapping the air, plus a voice signal are our cues for backing up while in front of the horse. Here we are working on a straight back-up between two rails.

The following four short video clips show the many ways we can play with Leading Position 7. Be aware that sometimes I use a body extension to help amplify my signal to make it clearer for the horse. Once the horseunderstands what I am asking, the body extension is no longer needed. Eventually we can do most things at liberty with gesture and voice cues.

The body extension is never a ‘punishment’. It merely makes it easier for the horse to understand what behaviour will both remove the signal presssure (negative reinforcement) and earn the click&treat (positive reinforcement). It’s easy to use both methods of reinforcement at the same time. For some tasks, it makes out intention much clearer for the horse. Horses thrive an clarity. I know some people in the clicker training world find this highly problematic, but it doesn’t need to be. It depends on how much finesse, and how many different moves, we want to build into our training program.

Recall

Once the horse knows that a ‘recall’ signal (my rounded open arm position, leaning forward slightly, and voice cue) will result in a treat, we can practice from further and further away. For paddock recall, I use a whistle and reward the coming with an ample treat.

Boots likes to show off her ‘bow’ because she knows it always results in a treat .

Be sure to check out my blog number 13 (see the ‘Blog Contents Quick Links’ at the top of the page) for using thin-slicing to plan a Training Program. Each task or move you want to teach your horse needs careful consideration of how you will make it easy for the horse to understand what you want – you need to design a Training Plan for each task.

I’d love to hear which move you have chosen and how it is going.

How Clicker Training Influences our Training

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Clicker training teaches both the handler and the horse important things.

  1. The horse learns that the click means ‘Yes’ that’s right. That’s what I’m asking you to do.

Here I used click&treat to show Boots that what I want is for her to halt with her back feet in the square of squashed bottles.

2. The handler learns to look for and click&treat the slightest try in the direction of the desired behavior.

When first teaching about mats, we click&treat the slightest interest in the mat, even looking at it or approaching it or sniffing the edge of it.

Clicker training allows us to shape* behavior by ensuring that the horse can be continually successful. We do this by putting the following points into place.

[Terms with an asterisk (*) are further explained in the GLOSSARY section. The link to this is at the tip of the page.]

  1. We start with an end goal clear in our mind.
  2. We note what the horse is able to offer already.
  3. We work toward our goal through a series of ‘successive approximations’* which in plain English means gradual tiny changes toward our end goal.
  4. Each tiny change becomes the horse’s decision. He then ‘owns’ that change because he understands that he made a good choice because it earned him a click&treat.
  5. Unwanted behavior is ignored or re-directed. If we feel unsafe, we return to having a barrier between us and the horse.
  6. If the horse’s behavior makes us feel unsafe or frustrated, it is essential to go back to the place in our training where both horse and handler feel confident and comfortable. Then work forward again from there. If we feel unsafe or annoyed, the horse will pick up our feeling and also feel unsafe and want to leave (if he is in anxious mode) or take over (if he is in confident mode).
  7. It is important to thin-slice* end goals into the tiniest clickable moves that we can think of. It helps a great deal to create a written ‘Individual Education Program’ (IEP)* for each horse. We make revisions as we go along and learn via the feedback from each interaction with the horse. A written plan allows us to look back and review how well (or not) a particular horse responded to each slice of our Program. Being able to look back gives us more feedback so we can adjust the Individual Education Program (IEP).

As a thin-slicing example, let’s look at Pool Noodle Task we did for Horse Agility

The various ‘slices’ of this task build the horse’s confidence to walk through an overlapping horizontal pool noodle arrangement, so the horse is comfortable pushing through them with his chest. Each slice* could take a minute or a day, week, month of short, fun sessions. How long each ‘slice’ takes depends on many factors.

We know we can move on when the horse tells us, through his body language, that he is OK with each slice. Boots is already familiar with this sort of work because she was taught to pull a cart using positive reinforcement. A horse new to these concepts will probably need multiple short sessions for each slice*.

SLICES: The video that follows illustrates the slices* for this task.

1. Investigate the pool noodle (PN) in her own time with nose and feet.

2. Comfortable with PN rubbed all over her body, both sides.

3. Confidently pushes her chest into the PN, held by the handler, as they walk along together.

4. Confidently walks over the PN on the ground.

5. Confidently walks over the PN between the gap created by the uprights for the eventual task set-up of the pool noodles.

6. Confidently walks through the gap with one PN in place at chest height — in both directions.

7. Confidently walks through two PNs in place (slightly overlapping).

8. Waits when asked, while handler walks through the PN, then follows on request.

9. As 8, at liberty.

10. Add more pairs of PN, one at a time, until we have 5 pairs.

11. Trot through.

Every change we make is relevant to the horse. If we change something, we have changed a parameter*, and need to be aware of how the horse might perceive the change.  A parameter is something we keep constant during our interactions with the horse. It becomes a condition or action that the horse can depend on because it stays the same. When we change a parameter, we have to carefully teach the horse what the change means.

Number 8 in the Blog Contents List goes into more detail about parameters.

The parameter here is that when I stand doing nothing, looking nowhere and with my hands crossed across my belly, the horse is required to stand quietly, and hopefully relaxed, waiting for the click – this is DURATION at the halt..

That parameter can be changed/extended to include when I’m in a sitting position.

Confidence with Unusual Surfaces

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The key prerequisite for all the tasks shown in the clips below about UNUSUAL SURFACES is having first mastered smooth ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ transitions. If we have to first work on this prerequisite, we can do it using target destinations and training ourselves to be really clear when we are requesting ‘walk on’ and when we are requesting ‘halt’. Blog Number 16 in my Blog Contents Quick Links demonstrates. Below is a quick revision.

Walk-on Body Language

These four things are done all together – a ‘multi-signal’.

  1. Breathe in deeply (horses hear this) plus raise your torso and body anergy.
  2. Forward gesture with your outside hand. If you are using a hand-held target to first teach this, as in the video below, the action of moving the target forward into play will soon morph into just an arm signal.
  3. Step off with your ouside foot. It’s easier for the horse to see your outside foot moving forward.
  4. Use your chosen voice signal for ‘walk-on’.

Halt Body Language

These four things are done together – again, a multi-signal.

  1. Drain the energy from your body while you –
  2. Drop your weight down into your butt (as we want the horse to do when he halts)
  3. Breathe out loudly (horses hear this)
  4. Use your ‘halt’ or ‘whoa’ voice signal

The following clip was made to support relaxed foot care, so there is a bit at the very end about backing up to shift the horse’s weight

When ‘walk-on’ and ‘halt’ are solidly in place, we can carry on with unusual surfaces.

Thin-Slicing the 1m Board

Thin-Slicing Walking on Plastic Bottles

More About Unusual Surfaces and Backing Up

Other related blogs: You can find the links easily on my Blog Contents Quick Links page.

  • No. 9: Mats: Parking or Stationing and Much More
  • No. 10: ‘Zero Intent’ and ‘Intent’
  • No. 17: Destination Training
  • No. 26: Getting a Smooth Halt in Many Situations
  • No. 33: Willing Response to a Halt Voice Signal
  • No. 51: Reverse Pens
  • No. 68: 20 Steps Exercise
  • No. 101: Precision Leading

Also, all the routines in my book, Companion Horse Training Using Positive Reinforcement, refine the skills of walking with a handler. The book works through a series of activities that require minimal equipment (set of rags and a fence). They are designed to make the horse ‘handy’ and happy following our clear body language including turns and backing up.

Guided Shaping of Voluntary Touch

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Guided shaping is when we set up the environment in a way that encourages the horse to offer a behaviour we would like to develop – in this case putting his nose on an object. We may have the horse on a halter and lead and give him a few ‘pointers’ along the way. The aim is to make it as easy as possible for the horse to figure out what will earn the clcik&treat (i.e., the behaviour we want.)

Here I’ve set up the environment for teaching relaxation in tight spaces – essential as a prerequisite for trailer loading. She is wearing a halter and lead, as we’ll usually have to do when trailer-loading. I’ve asked Boots to walk into the ‘dead end’ space where there is a nose target (white bottle) and given her a ‘wait’ signal. Then I walk behind her, then forward to her front again, before a click&treat. I want to be able to walk to the back and forward again at least three times without her wanting to back out, before I ask her to back out. When we load into most trailers we have to walk to the back (and out of the horse’s view) to shut the tailgate.

Shaping ‘Touch’ with Your Nose’

Targeting many different things to earn a click&treat does a lot to build a horse’s confidence. We usually start as in the fourth photo above, with a handheld target, and teach a ‘touch’ voice signal once the horse understands that putting his nose on an object will earn a click&treat.

Teaching confident touching of the nose to unusual objects and obstacles at our suggestion, is a good way to begin building confidence with new things. The more different positive ‘touch’ experiences the horse has, (built up with a little bit each session) the bolder he becomes.

If the horse is wary about putting his nose on the object you’ve chosen as your first target, It can help to rub fresh grass juices on it, or a wet peppermint, or a slice of apple, in order to increase their curiosity.

Once the horse understand the ‘touch’ voice signal using his nose, we can expland to touching other body parts to a target.

Teaching TOUCH with Other Body Parts

The goal behaviour here is to raise her knee to a target. This is an excellent skill to teach to develop the horse’s ability to shift his weight to achieve confident balance on three legs. It is a game changer when it comes to hoof care, because lack of balance on three legs training like this is the root cause of many horses’ struggle with hoof care.

The task in the photo above was begun by touching the target to the horse’s knee, click&treat. After a while, I held the target a fraction above the knee and the horse quickly learned to lift her leg to make the touch connection: click&treat. Then I could hold the target further up and she quickly learned to raise her leg higher. After a while I added our verbal signal (touch) to the action, and could simply use my hand as the target.

Eye to Hand

Boots targetting my hand with her eye. Very useful if we ever have to treat eye infection or injury. She also learned to target her ear so my hand, for the same reason. Some process as described above: touch eye/ear gently – click&treat. After a while, hold your hand a tiny distance away and wait for the horse to make the contact – click&treat.

Chin to Hand

Targetting her chin to my hand. Same process as above.

Using the process described, we can teach lifting the hind feet to a target (front feet = Number 59 in the Blog Contents Quick Links, and hind feet = Number 74) , moving the shoulder toward our hand (Number 27 in the Blog Contents Quick Links) , moving the hindquarters toward our hand (Number 28 in the Blog Contents Quick Links). Stepping back to touch our hand with his withers or his rump.

Stretching the neck to touch a target.

Neck Bending: I started by asking for just a slight bend to touch the target. Then as she understood the task, I gradually asked for a bit more.

Butt Bingo

Backing the butt to touch a solid upright: We started with safe fences, walls and hedges, then graduated to barrels, big cones, trees and things like this 4×4 post. It’s an important exercise if we want to put our horse in a trailer and close up behind. Here she looks rather proud of herself while she waits for me to deliver the treat after the click. We did one or two repeats of this, often, over a long time. It was a prerequisite for backing between the shafts of a cart, as in the photo below.

If we want to teach backing between shafts in preparation to teaching driving, we can use simulations like this that will come apart if the horse gets startled. I taught backing butt against many safe solid objects before adding the pretend shafts.

Months of preparation, with many stages, which started with just targeting all parts of the cart, allowed hitching up to be a relaxed process.

What will your horse voluntarily touch?

Have you taught ‘voluntary touch’ with any of his body parts other than his nose?

The blog below looks at Seeking the Horse’s Consent Signal, (also often called a Start Buttons or similar), which can fascilitate confident touching of various body parts to our hand.

Seeking the Horse’s Consent Signals

Following the Feel of a Touch Signal

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Application

In the photo above, we are doing a long-reining ‘change direction’ exercise. Because Boots knows how to ‘follow the feel’ of the slightest touch on the halter, we can long-rein a cloverleaf pattern using four rails. I only need to change my hand position slightly to give her the directional signals.

In the photo we’ve started at rail 2, will wallk across rail 4, arc right to walk over rail 1 followed by rail 3 (plus the other two rails lying there); arc right to walk over rail 4 followed by rail 2. Then arc right over rails 3 and 1; then arc right again and we’ve done the last leaf of the pattern and are in front of rail 2 ready to repeat turning to the left this time.

Following the feel of a touch signal is an essential skill the horse needs for leading with a rope and for using reins either riding or long-reining. And it is especially important if we go places where we have to tie up the horse.

Since we have no control of what the future may bring, for ourselves or the horse, it’s a skill we must teach early and to a high standard, so that in a situation of stress, or new ownership, the horse knows this response well.

With Positive Reinforcement

Ideally we teach a horse at liberty with targets, using body language, gesture and voice signals. This is what is shown in the four short video clips that follow.

When the horse shows us that he is ready, we add halter with rope and repeat the exact same exercises. In this way we teach that rope or rein pressure means move toward the pressure, so releasing it. The voice and hand gesture signals are excellent aids if we want to eventually ride bridle-less.

Teaching Soft Rope or Rein Response.

These clips look at teaching soft rope/rein response with the horse standing still. Once he understands this well, we introduce walking toward stationary targets at liberty, adding gesture and voice signals for ‘walk on’ and ‘whoa’, and changes of direction. Then we add the rope. By using our body language and voice signals, the rope basically stays slack most of the time. When we do use it to indicate change of direction, it takes just the hint of a touch.

It’s important to stay with each step of the training until the horse is comfortable with it, and responding ‘correctly’ each time. Be aware that external distractions can take his attention. If that happens, simply wait until his attention turns back to you. Boots, in the clips, was very focussed on what was earning each treat, and hightly experienced with clicker training.

Prerequisites

  1. If you don’t already have your horse loving to target mats with his feet, you start with targeting mats first (Number 9 in the Blog Contents Quick Links).
  2. if you have been using a long-handled target, get the horse hooked on a short, hand-held target.
  3. You may need to first spend time getting the horse comfortable standing in a corner by using your hand-held target. Standing in a corner makes it easier for the horse to understand the option (turning just his head toward you) that you want him to choose.
  4. The Anchor Task: in this case the the anchor task is horse standing beside you with his head forward. It is the key part of this exercise. It has to be solid before you begin asking for the ‘turn head’ request. It must be kept solid throughout the teaching exercises. Later, once you are moving with the horse, it’s no longer needed as much.

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3

Clip 4

Let me know if you have a go at teaching this, and how it is going. You can do it with a horse that already leads well, or with a horse new to training.

Free-Shaping

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Free-shaping means clicking and treating the moment the horse naturally displays a behaviour you want to encourage. The click&treat encourages the horse to repeat the behaviour that earned the treat.

The first free-shaping exercise most handers use is to hold (or set) out a target and wait for the horse to investigate it with his his nose = Click&Treat. Most horses pick this up quite readily. Many equine clicker trainers use it to teach their horse the meaning of the ‘click’ or whatever marker sound they are using. My older mare (with a chequered background before I got her) took nine short sessions over a week before she made the connection between her nose touching the target, the click, and the treat that followed.

Because it is the horse’s choice to do the task, they learn it readly because it was their idea in the first place. It gives them a sense of ‘agency’ – being in control. Like us, horses like to be in control of their lives.

Boots has to her nose on a stationary target. I clicked as her nose touched it and I walked to her to deliver the treat. Once the horse loves to do this for a click and treat, we can put such objects all around our training area and walk or trot between them to earn a click&treat at eachone. Also useful for ‘destinations’ when we begin leaving home. We can use destinations for groundwork and riding.

Using a hand-held target, It’s always wise to start out with ‘protected contact‘, i.e., the horse on the other side of a barrier. Until we begin clicker training, we have no idea how the horse will react to food treats from our hand. This is also the time to try out different treats .

Here I’ve created a barrier in a corner, which is another option if you don’t have a suitable fence handy, but with a new horse – maybe make the person’s space a bit bigger!

Your safety barrier for PROTECTED CONTACT does not necessarily have to be fancy.

If you can use electic fence tape for training, make sure the power is turned off during training time.

In this clip, I’m free-shaping head lowering.

Eventually we added a verbal signal, and a body language signal, so when I bowed, she bowed.

The following clip shows an alternative to hand-feeding while teaching the TARGET = CLICK = TREAT process.

In the next clip, I free-shaped step aerobics.

It’s also a possible way to build confidence with any tight space or a trailer.

In the next clip we are doing the 20 Steps Exercise. Depending on your starting point, it could take a few or many short sessions to get 20 smooth steps with one click&treat at the end. All you need is for the horse to willingly walk one step with you, click&treat, and work forward from that.

The next clip is a very early lesson in free-shaping Boots’ confidence moving along with a bicycle.

The following clip with the bicycle is much later.

The next clip is a demo of tummy crunches.

I learned this from Alex Kurland.

1. I began with the horse behind a low barrier. I stood at neutral (zero intent = Number 10 in the Blog Contents Quick Links) and watched casually (not staring at the horse) with a relaxed stance, watching to click&treat any upward or backward shift of weight.

2. I did this IN THE SAME SPOT for a minute or two once or twice a day, mainly right before afternoon feeding time. And as a ‘last thing’ at the end of a play session. Having usual times in the same place seems to make the horse look forward to having ‘another go’.

3. Once we were getting a purposeful weight shift back because she realized that’s what earned the click&treat, I sat down to bring the horse’s head a bit lower. Previously we had ignored head position as the horse was experimenting with different possibilities. When I sat down, she lowered her head position because the treats were offered lower. This developed over months and months.

4. At some point, the crunches became a part of her personal repertoire because she would offer them if she wanted to initiate an interaction. At this point I added a verbal signal/cue.

5. I’d never do more than about what is on this clip at one time.

6. Eventually I could ask for the crunches standing her shoulder, her butt and behind her, using the verbal signal (zzzip) plus my body language of leaning backwards. We had such a long and strong history of reinforcement that she readily adjusted to my different positions. She happily did it with a rider aboard as well.

Free-Shaping Boots doing a STRETCH:

Once Boots realized that her ‘downward dog’ stretch earned a click&treat every time she did it, she offered it frequently. I initially free-shaped it by noticing that she often stretched like this after getting up from a nap. I managed to ‘capture’ the behavior two days in a row, and she then began to offer it often enough so I could put a verbal cue to it – ‘Stretch’.

What sort of things have you free-shaped?

Part 2 of Relaxed Foot Care – the Hind Feet

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When the horse is comfortable picking up the front feet on request, we can proceed in a similar way with the hind feet.  We start as usual with the horse willingly targeting a familiar mat and able to stay parked on it.

Then we make sure the horse is comfortable being rubbed all over with a body extension, paying special attention to the belly and hind legs.

If the horse expresses concern about being touched with a body extension or with having a rope swung lightly around his hind legs, we’ve found a big training hole. It’s essential to go back and build the horse’s confidence about standing still while we do things around him.

Before we proceed with picking up feet, we need the horse calm and relaxed having his legs brushed with a soft brush right down to his feet. We want him to remain calm and relaxed when we rub and massage his legs all the way down.

To develop the idea of lifting a hind leg on signal, we can touch the hock gently with a target such as a pool noodle or a tomato stake with bubble wrap taped around it. Click&treat as we touch the hock. Repeat until we can hold the target a little above the hock and the horse lifts his leg to touch the target because he’s figured out that’s what causes the click&treat. Be careful to click as the leg is coming up, not on its way down.

The hock is a convenient point at which to teach a touch signal for lifting the hind feet. Bridget has asked Boots to target her hock to the body extension which is bubble wrap taped to a tomato stake.

Eventually we just have to point to the hind leg we want lifted.

Once leg lifting is well established, we generally use touch when we want to do foot care, like a farrier or hoof trimmer would expect. We always start with our hand at the withers, and run it across the horse’s back and down to his hock. This gives the horse time to shift his weight so he CAN pick up the leg on that side.

Bridget is running her hand down to the hock. Touching the hock is our signal to ask for a foot lift.

By the time Bridget reaches the hock, Boots has already taken her weight off that leg so she can pick it up and stay balanced.

Lifting feet is all about weight shifts. It needs to be taught carefully and systematically, making sure that the horse understands each slice of the process. By teaching targeting a body extension first, the horse figures out how to shift his weight and balance on three legs without other complications thrown in – like the foot being held, cleaned, trimmed.

Bridget has a willing hind leg lift and the horse looks balanced. Gradually, one second at a time, we built duration of keeping the foot up so we can clean, inspect, rasp, spray it.

Teaching relaxation with a hoof stand is the next set of slices. It can be helpful to have a calm helper to deliver the treats when you click.

Here I’m working on duration having the foot up and forward. For hoof officianados, you might notice how much better Boots’ heel buttresses are compared to earlier pictures.

Teaching the foot to lie backwards on the hoofjack. Note she is not standing squarely in front, which makes it harder for her.

It can be helpful, timewise, to be able to clean all the feet from one side. We draw the far foot, once offered, across behind the near leg.

Checklist

No.DETAILSTick
Prerequisites
1Handler & horse are clicker-savvy 
2Leads easily, halts promptly & backs up readily 
3Horse can park & be rubbed all over 
4Foot awareness with mats & other exercises 
5Brush legs 
6Rub legs with hands 
7Comfortable ‘foot care’ spot sorted 
8Stand squarely 
Major Slices for Building Front Foot Behaviors
1Lift knee to target an object: click for foot rising 
2Lifts knee to hand 
3Add in consistent voice signal 
4Handler faces tail to ask for knee to target hand 
5Catch & hold foot briefly: click before releasing 
6Hold foot for one second 
7Hold foot for two seconds 
8Gradually hold foot longer, one second at a time 
9Clean foot with stiff brush 
10Clean foot with hoof pick 
11Teach spray bottle confidence 
12Set foot in sling (or on knee) 
13Build duration of foot in sling or on knee 
14Bring foot forward onto a hoof stand or stump 
15Build duration of hoof brought forward 
16Back foot off hoof stand (no click&treat, just praise) 
Major Slices for Building Hind Foot Behaviors
1Confident with body extension rubbed over legs 
2Confident with brush and hands rubbing legs 
3Touch cap of hock with body extension for lift 
4Add voice signal 
5Lift hind foot with pointing 
6Run hand from withers to cap of hock – relaxed 
7Lifts foot with tap on hock & voice signal 
8Hold foot briefly; click; go to head to give treat 
9Hold foot one second; click; go to head to treat 
10Hold foot two seconds; click; go to head to treat 
11Gradually hold foot longer one second at a time 
12Clean hoof with brush 
13Clean hoof with hoof pick 
14Spray hoof 
15Clean both hind feet from one side 
16Rest hind foot in a sling 
17Bring hind foot forward onto a hoof stand 
18Build duration on the hoof stand 
19Teach ‘back’ signal for foot off stand (no click&treat) 
Generalizations
1Familiar mat in new spots 
2Familiar spot without mat 
3New spots without mat 
4Away from home 

Number 74 in the Blog Contents Quick Links (at the top of the page) takes you to the blog about ‘Counting with the Hind Feet’, which goes into detail. Here is the video from that blog, which is a quick summary of a year’s work.

Successive Approximations and Resets

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The photo above shows one of the approximations we use when teaching trailer loading. Navigating a narrow space alongside the trailer, confidently, is a major step along the way to gaining confidence to enter a trailer.

Successive approximations, simply put, mean that we start with what the horse can offer already and gradually direct and reward each tiny move in the direction of the final behavior we want.

In other words, at the beginning of teaching something new, we click&treat for the slightest approximation of what we want as our final result. Each improved approximation is one tiny slice of the overall task.

When the horse feels ready, we encourage him to do a tiny bit more to gain the click&treat. This whole process of rewarding successive approximations is called ‘shaping a behavior’.

Shaping a Behavior: This is our second session of Free-shaping Head-Lowering

Putting a behaviour on signal/cue: In the next clip, you will see me re-setting the task repeatedly as I show Boots that a click&treat will only be forthcoming if I give the signal/cue for this behaviour, which is dropping my head and shoulders forward. We don’t want the horse forever putting his head down.

Putting Head-Lowering on Signal/Cue

A human example of shaping a behavior is teaching a child to write. The child starts with holding a pencil and using it to make random marks on paper. At some point the random marks become conscious curves and straight lines.

When the time is right, we introduce writing letters of the alphabet. Eventually the child can group letters to make words. Words are then arranged into meaningful sentences. Some children go on to write coherent paragraphs, essays, stories and books.

If the child loses confidence with any of the slices of the process, an element of discomfort creeps in, along with typical avoidance behavior. Not enough practice then results in a poorly shaped skill.

When a horse loses confidence in his ability to understand what we want him to do to earn a click&treat, we get typical avoidance behavior. He shuts down, stops trying – moves away if he can. Keeping the learner’s confidence is the essential role of a teacher.

Writing is an interesting human endeavor that starts at two years old and is still being shaped many years later at high school, tertiary education and beyond. There is always room for improvement.

Another way to look at successive approximations is to think of a sculptor starting with a piece of stone. He works in careful stages until the shape in his mind is visible to the rest of us in the shape of the stone.

In the same way, we gradually tease a series of movements (or stillness) out of a horse to yield the task we want. This is a bit harder than shaping stone because horses have minds of their own!

General Key Points

  1. The more quickly you click&treat, and simultaneously stop any signal/cue, when the horse complies, the faster the horse can learn to recognize just what it is you want.
  2. Once the horse understands your intent, refine your signals/cues and be TOTALLY CONSISTENT with them.   
  3. If you keep nagging with a signal/cue by repeating it, you will desensitize the horse and make him disregard the signal. Nagging is an easy habit to get into and hard to break. If the horse does not understand the first time you use the signal/cue, back up in your teaching until he does.
  4. The energy you use to communicate with a signal/cue will change with the situation and what you are asking the horse to do.
  5. To teach with the free-shaping, the horse learns without a direct signal/cue from you to initiate an action because you have set up the environment to make the action you want likely to happen. The horse does the action of his own free will. You mark the action with a click and reward it with a treat. Once the horse offers the behavior reliably, add a signal/cue to it. The signal/cue is usually determined by the nature of the task. It will be unique to you and a particular horse. For the haltering task in the video clip at the end of the blog, I started with the horse’s natural curiosity about the hoop, and shaped the haltering procedure from that.
  6. Just when everything is feeling really good is the time to STOP. Avoid at all costs the urge to do it again to see if we can. Change to something relaxing instead.
  7. One of the key skills of horsemanship is to read the horse accurately to be able to decide on the best activity (or rest) for the moment we are in. It is part of the concept of ‘feel’.
  8. When things go awry (which they will), always go back to where both you and the horse feel confident again, and gradually work forward from there.

When we watch a horse and his trainer perform a complex task, it is not always easy to see the steps the handler took to reach the smooth end behavior. Even if we can find out how the horse was trained, that only tells us about what worked for that horse and that handler.

Here are some questions we have to ask ourselves.

  • What did the horse know already before learning that task?
  • How experienced is the handler?
  • What method(s) of reinforcement does the handler use?
  • How long have the horse and handler worked together?
  • How long did it take them to reach this point?
  • What were the tricky bits along the way?
  • How often did the horse get confused?
  • How often did the handler have to go back a few steps and work forward again?

Seeing a horse carrying out a task that grabs our fancy is the beginning of our own adventure. It gives us the inspiration to teach our horse something new. The starting point for any Individual Education Program we set up for a horse will be unique to us.

Here is the definition of thin-slicing again.

Thin-slicing is a shorthand way of saying: split the overall task we want the horse to learn into its smallest teachable parts and teach each part in a way that makes it as easy as possible for the horse to understand.

Resetting a Task

When we teach something new, we are experimenting with our signals/cues and the horse is also experimenting to work out what it is we want him to do. It’s not unusual for things to get a bit complicated and messy.

If either you or the horse lose track of what you are doing, pretend it was perfect, relax (but no click&treat), pause. Count to ten and rotate your shoulders. Then go back to the beginning of the task and try again, starting with your visualization of how a good effort will look and feel.

The magic about pretending it went well (when it actually turned into a mess) is that it dissolves the natural frustration we feel when our communication is not getting through. Horses instantly pick up on the changes in our body when we are frustrated or angry, and will want to move away from the negativity, so any teaching/learning moment is lost.

If we can smile, breathe out and relax our body before the reset, we don’t upset the horse or make him anxious. We simply start again.

When someone tries to teach me something new on a computer or cell phone, they invariably go so fast that I have no idea what they did or what I should be doing. I think that is what often happens with horses.

The following two clips demonstrate teaching with successive approximations. Our sessions were never much longer than three minutes.

First Successive Approximations for Learning to Put on a Halter

In the next video clip, be aware that to make it shorter for easier watching, I cut out the bits where I reach into my pocket, after the click, so it is a bit jumpy. Everyone’s progress will be different.

From the Hoop to the Halter