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.
As each tiny part of the task becomes ‘ho-hum’ for the horse, move on to the next part. Gradually all of the parts will come together so the overall task is seamlessly carried out with confidence and willingness.
It means starting with the most fundamental lessons and gradually adding complexity, one click&treat at a time, until we have shaped the whole behavior we want.
As each small part, called a ‘slice’, is mastered, we begin to teach the next slice, either separately or as a continuation of the first slice. If taught separately, once the second slice is learned, we link it to the first one.
Proceeding like this, we gradually chain all the slices together until the horse can do the whole task as a continuous movement with one click&treat at the end.
Some tasks, of course, like haltering, saddling or harnessing, mounting up, worming, vet inspection, grooming and foot care, require the horse to stand still.
When we teach these ‘standing still’ procedures, we begin with a release (click&treat) for relaxation during each tiny slice of the overall process. Gradually, as the horse can relax more, we do a bit more before each release (click&treat).
It’s crucial to remember that ‘standing still’ during an unusual situation is not something a horse in the wild would ever do.
Asking a horse to ‘stand still’ while we do all sorts of things to him, is a big ask.
To teach a flight animal to ‘stand still’ on request means we have to actively teach the horse to be inactive.
In other words, the horse learns to be actively inactive. His instinct will be to move his feet if he feels uncomfortable. Good training will give him the trust and confidence to keep his feet still when we ask.
This concept is explored in teaching the art of standing still, or ‘Parking’. It’s important to promptly move to the front of the horse to deliver treat so he doesn’t form the habit of turning toward you. Perhaps start by standing in front of him rather than to the side as in the video clip.
Example 1: Park & Wait
The key to good training of any kind is to keep the horse being continuously successful in his responses to our requests. If the horse understands our request and is comfortable with it, the chances are good that he will respond willingly.
Example 2: Free-shaping standing on a mat.
Example 3: to teach my horse to walk through a square of ground rails filled with squashed plastic bottles (a Horse Agility obstacle that shows up occasionally), I split the overall task into a series of tiny slices. It’s a great exercise to allow the horse to become more confident with putting his feet onto unusual surfaces like tarps, ramps, trailers, bridges, water, balance beams or mattresses.
Example 4: This clip looks at thin-slicing walking through a water obstacle. We start with things the horse is already familiar with. If walking across rails and tarps are new for your horse, that is where you would start and work with until they are ho-hum.
Example 5: This clip looks at free-shaping ringing a bell.
Thin-slicing and consistency are the holy grails of horse training. By using the mark and reward (click&treat) dynamic, we let the horse know what will earn the treat and therefore increase to probability that he will happily do that action (or inaction) again.
Most days I practice a few of the tasks, or some aspects of a task, but I’m careful not to do too much of one thing. Now and then I put a lot of them together.
By regularly returning to each task on its own, as well as to different combinations of two or three of the tasks, we keep the whole thing fresh.
We can put the slow-dance routine together in any order that we like. We want to keep it fun for us, as well as keep our horse supple and interested.
Perfection is never part of the equation. Some days things will go smoothly, other days they won’t. People and horses have good days and less good days.
We developed the Simple Bow which gives us a consistent way to begin a series of Slow Dancing movements and a way to let the horse know that we’ve come to the end of a sequence.
The Simple Bow – fun to use as a start and finish for our Slow Dancing routines.
We started with a review of placing the feet accurately using a rail on the ground. As well as make the horse more aware of what each foot is doing, it is a nuanced exercise that helps the handler become more aware of their orientation to the horse as well as their body language, energy level, gesture, voice and touch signals.
Next we looked at Line Dancing in Position with the Front Feet. In moderation, this a good exercise to keep suppleness in the horse’s amazing shoulder musculature.
Line Dancing in position with the front feet. Doing it regularly on both sides gains and maintains symmetry.
We then looked at the Do-Si-Do, which is a yield of the hindquarters, then bringing the front of the horse past us so we end up on his other side, followed with a yield of the forequarters. I often fit it in as our second task because it allows us to do Line Dancing in Position with the Front Feet on the horse’s other side.
It can take a while to get this flowing nicely but once it does, it’s a great stretching exercise. And it helps handlers develop super awareness of their body position and timing.
Do-si-do: This is hard to show with still shots. I’m asking for a hindquarter yield on the horse’s right side. As she comes around, I step back (third photo) so she she can bring her head in front of me and put me in her left eye, at which point I will ask for a forequarter yield. In this case we would finish up facing the cows.
From our position shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse, we can ask for half a hindquarter yield so we end up face-to-face with the horse, which sets us up for the Recall and Back-Up In Rhythm or any of the face-to-face tasks.
Once we have established a back-up signal while face-to-face with the horse, we add the recall. It is a fairly sophisticated exercise. It is valuable because it asks the horse to shift his weight and balance backwards and forwards in a quiet, no-stress context. Once the horse is adept at this, it’s fun to do a few of these whenever we have the horse warmed up.
We teach the ‘wait plus recall’ and the ‘back-up’ separately, then put them together.
While we are face-to-face with the horse, it is easy to morph from Back-Up and Recall into Sidestepping Face-To-Face. First we carefully teach the horse how to smoothly move sideways keeping his body straight while we are in position beside his ribs. Once the horse understands the concept and a voice signal, it is not hard to teach the same movement while we are facing him.
This exercise helps suppleness of the hip as well as the shoulders. If the horse finds it difficult in either direction (or both), it usually indicates chronic stiffness or possibly new or residual soreness. A little bit often (if the horse is not showing soreness) is a good idea, but only if the horse is already warmed up with straight-line walking and trotting.
You can see by her tail that this is demanding physical and mental work. She is doing such a good job of keeping her body straight. I only ask for a few steps each direction before a click&treat.
We ask the horse to WAIT and walk a short distance away. From WAIT, we Recall the horse who walks to us, then past us on one side, makes a U-turn behind us so he ends up standing beside our shoulder on the other side (‘at heel’).
Boots walked toward me, moved past my right shoulder, turned 180 degrees behind me to end up alongside my left shoulder.
We also sometimes play with making the U-turn staying on the same side. When the horse is standing beside our shoulder, we can easily move into The Spiral.
The Spiral is a task my horse Boots made up for us and for some reason she seems to like it a lot. We had spent quite a bit of time walking spiral circles, making each time round the circle either larger or smaller.
Just for fun one day I wanted to see how small we could get the circle. We ended up with my back tight against her shoulder, turning on the spot while she curved around me as much as a horse is able to curve. The big celebration and triple treats telling her how clever she was probably set it up as a future favorite exercise.
As long as we stay within the horse’s ability to bend comfortably at the hip area, and ensure that the horse is already warmed up, it is a fun task to do often.
We start with a large circle and gradually make the circle smaller until we can turn on the spot with the horse moving tightly around us. If the horse is not able to keep his hind end on the arc of the circle, we are asking more than he is able to do at the moment. Done regularly, flexion usually improves if pain or past injury is not a factor.
The Balancera exercise is another of our favorites. We built it up slowly with many short practices over the years. It is physically the same as the Back-Up and Recall except that the handler is at the horse’s shoulder. The main difference is that we start with several steps forward (I use between 3 and 10) followed immediately by the same number of steps backing up.
To turn it into the Balancera task, we repeat with one less step forward and backward each time until we are rocking forward one step and rocking back one step. It is another unique ‘balance shift exercise’ done in the context of quiet concentration. I count the steps out loud and the horse seems to hone in on the sound of the numbers.
Here we are in the process of shifting our balance from walking forward to walking backwards. I have dropped my weight into my hips and am raising my outside hand to signal for backing up. We do one less step each time until we are doing one step forward and one step back. This exercise helps the horse become a master at reading our body language and intent. Start with a high rate of reinforcement and only a few steps.
The Balancera has us in position beside the horse’s shoulder, which is where we need to be to do Line Dancing Shoulder-To-Shoulder. Our usual body orientation when asking the horse to sidestep is probably facing his ribs.
It’s not too hard to stay shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse instead. We have to adjust the way we give the signal to let the horse know our intent. We need the signal different from the signal we use for Line Dancing in Position with the Front Feet.
In this frame, with the very interested cattle, Boots is sidestepping toward me. I found staying shoulder-to-shoulder for this part harder because our signal is my raised hand for her to target. It can get smoother once a voice signal is well established. We often practice this with a rail under the horse’s belly, which gives the horse a destination – i.e. click and treat once past the rail.
This brings us to the tenth Slow Dancing task, which is TheTwirl. For this we leave the horse in a Wait and walk away so we can face the front of the horse with space between us (as we do for the Recall to Heel).
When Boots first learned this, it remained one of her favorites for a long time and she is always happy to do it. When we play the ‘Send Out at Trot, then Recall‘ game, she will easily do three twirls on the way back to me.
For the Slow Dance routine, we do The Twirl slowly. As she does her turn I also turn 360 degrees and we end up face-to-face again; click&treat. The task can be generalized across a longer distance and at trot.
Boots is doing a turn on the forehand (twirl) while I also spin around. Note how carefully she keeps her ear and eye on where I am. As she comes around we celebrate the effort with a click&treat.This became one of her favorites when we first learned it and I had to promptly put it ‘on signal only’, so she didn’t randomly show it off to people and startle them.
In the photo above I am doing my twirl at the same time as Boots is doing her twirl. She is always careful to keep an eye and ear back so she knows where I am. As soon as she comes around to face me again she earns a click&treat.
The ‘twirl’ in this context is a turn on the forequarters. A ‘spin’ usually describes a turn on the hindquarters.
It’s great fun to recall our horse and ask him to do a twirl as he comes in. Once Boots knew this task, she enjoyed showing it off, at walk and trot.
The Twirl is the last task of the dance sequence we worked on for the year. Now we can chain all the tasks together. At first we did the tasks in the same order each time. Eventually we could mix them up.
AIMS
To have the horse able to remain calm and connected when we touch a rope to his legs and wrap a rope around his body.
As the horse recalls at liberty, we have a signal for the horse to do one or more twirls during his approach.
PREREQUISITES
As usual, we must have each of the prerequisites in excellent shape so we can smoothly build this multi-part task.
Horse is relaxed with a long rope moved along and wrapped around his body and tossed over his head. #22 HorseGym with Boots: Rope Relaxation. https://youtu.be/6Y34VlUk0Iw. And #121 HorseGym with Boots: Stick & String Confidence. https://youtu.be/WIpsT4PPiXo
Horse and handler have developed a good WAIT. Number 65 in my Blog Contents List. (The link to this is at the top of the page).
A training area where the horse is relaxed and ideally can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
Horse is not hungry.
Horse and Handler are clicker savvy.
Horse in a learning frame of mind.
Handler is relaxed.
Halter and long lunge line or similar, long enough to wrap right around the horse.
NOTES
As with all our training, this is a task to build up slowly over time, so the horse looks forward to it because it results in a click&treat that he enjoys.
Two or three repeats each training session is plenty. Over weeks and months, it will become a solid part of your repertoire.
If things don’t go well, work out which of the prerequisites needs more development. Complex interactions with our horse simply consist of the basics done really well.
The beginning of video #256 shows a fun way of doing a twirl using a food lure. But I don’t recommend this. To teach a twirl while the horse is moving toward us, or even from a halt standing in front of us, it is much easier for the horse to understand if food only appears at the end of the twirl via a regular click&treat.
Often the most recent thing we are working with becomes the horse’s favorite thing to show off. Be aware that your horse may want to show off his twirl when you are not prepared for it, especially if other people are nearby. He can run his butt into you without meaning to. Also, other people might be threatened when the horse offers to move his butt this way. In other words, be prompt about putting the twirl ‘on signal’ or ‘on cue’. Don’t reward it unless you’ve asked for it.
SLICES
Once the horse is comfortable with a rope touching him all over his body (Prerequisite 1), attach one end to his halter and bring the rope around behind him and along his other side as shown in the video clip.
Ask the horse to wait with the rope around him. Click&treat staying at zero intent, starting with one second and building up to about five seconds.
Face the horse and introduce an arm/hand gesture and a voice signal as you apply a halter touch signal via the rope to cause the horse to turn away from you and turn on the forehand until he faces you again. Click&teat (major celebration).
Each session with the horse, repeat 3 above two or three times. As the horse begins to recognize your arm/hand and voice signals, ease off on the halter pressure via the rope until you no longer need to use it.
Ensure that your basic RECALL is smooth (Prerequisite 3).
When 4 above is smooth, play without the lead rope and slot in a little recall before you ask for the twirl. If it falls apart, simply and quietly reset to using the wraparound lead rope again, as lightly as possible. Horses learn at different rates and handler skills are variable. Usually if we strive hard to perfect our own skill with giving clear, consistent signals, the horse magically improves.
GENERALIZATIONS
Play in different venues.
Play on a slope.
If the horse keenly recalls at a trot, ask for a twirl before he reaches you. Boots would happily fit in two or three twirls, one after the other, before reaching me.
Do half a twirl and morph it into a back-up. This was an interesting Horse Agility challenge from www.thehorseagilityclub.com. Here is the clip:
In the photo above we are using a rail to consolidate line-dancing shoulder-to-shoulder. Once past the rail, the horse earns a click&treat. The rail helps in that: a) I don’t ask for too much, b) the horse quickly realizes that a click&treat happens when he sidesteps past the rail, and c) it encourages straightness.
Try stepping sideways by stretching out your arms to the side while you cross your legs. Then cross your arms while stepping apart with your legs. This is how a horse organizes his body when he move sideways keeping his body relatively straight. Front legs apart while back legs cross over. Hind legs apart while front legs cross over.
If horses tried to cross both front and hind legs at the same time, it would be easy for them to lose balance and fall over.
As mentioned when discussing sidestepping face-to-face with the horse, moving sideways in rhythm is not something horses tend to do in their everyday life. It may therefore take the horse a while to get his legs organized when we first teach this movement. Our horse may have to think hard to get this sorted, so be especially patient and celebrate small successes.
AIMS
The horse understands body language, voice and a gesture/touch signal at the girth to move sideways away from us as we sidestep toward him.
The horse understands body language, gesture and voice signals to sidestep toward us.
PREREQUISITES
In case you have not yet taught basic sidestepping, see Number 29 in my Blog Contents List:Sidestepping. There is a link to my Blog Contents List at the top of the page.
Targeting shoulder to hand is the background needed to initiate movement toward us with a hand gesture signal. See Number 27 in my Blog Contents List:Target Shoulder to Hand.
The training plan for this can also be found in Chapter Twelve in my book: Horse Training: Fun with Flexion using Positive Reinforcement, in case you have that book.
Hip to hand is the other part we need. See Number 28 in my Blog Contents List:Targeting Hindquarters to our Hand. It is Chapter Thirteen in the book mentioned above.
Once we have shoulder to hand and hip to hand, we can introduce the idea of the whole horse moving sideways toward us.
VIDEO
#280 HorseGym with Boots: Line Dance in Motion.
MATERIALS AND ENVIRONMENT
A training area where the horse is relaxed and ideally can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
Horse is not hungry.
Horse and Handler are clicker savvy.
Horse in a learning frame of mind.
Handler in a relaxed frame of mind.
Halter and lead unless teaching at liberty.
A lane a few meters long with a barrier in front and behind. For example, a fence and raised rails, a fence and a line of barrels. We can use fencing tape between tall cones or jump stands, as long as the horse is comfortable working around fencing tape which is not electrified.
NOTES
It’s important to warm the horse up with general activity before asking for yields like this. As we develop and maintain such exercises, our horse’s flexibility will gradually improve.
Most horses find this easier on one side. At first, be happy if he can only sidestep with his body at a 45-degree angle to the barrier. With frequent short practices, he will develop the muscles and flexion to be straighter. Boots’ ability to sidestep has been built up over years.
A horse with arthritis and/or past injuries may have restricted or severely limited movement for this type of work.
Doing a little bit often gives reliable results and keeps the horse keen to seek out his next click&treat. As usual, we are teaching a habit in response to a signal, so we never want to make the horse sore or reluctant.
For the slow-dancing routine, we only need a few steps away and a few steps toward us.
SLICES
Sidestepping Away
Set up a lane with a barrier behind and in front of the horse so that moving sideways is an easy option for him to choose. Have it wide enough to be comfortable for the horse.
Have a nose target or a barrier a few sidesteps away on each end of the lane so that the horse has a destination where he knows he will get his next click&treat. I used our shelter because it ensured that I did not ask for too many steps at once. The horse quickly realized that reaching the other side of the shelter resulted in a click&treat.
If the horse finds one side easier, start on that side. Using your orientation facing the horse’s side, ensure you have smooth yielding of shoulder and hindquarters, then consolidate a light touch/gesture signal at the girth to ask the whole horse to move over (Prerequisite 1).
Once 3 is smooth, begin to align yourself shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse. At first, you may need to face him for the original signal but strive to change to using a gesture or light touch while you stay shoulder-to-shoulder. Three-five sidesteps is plenty.
When 4 above is good, teach it again from the beginning on the horse’s other side.
When 5 above is good, remove either the front or rear barrier. Work on both sides.
When 6 above is good, work without the barrier props. Work on both sides. Be careful not to ask for too much. Celebrate small successes.
Sidestepping Toward the Handler
Set up as for 1 and 2 above.
If the horse finds one side easier, start on that side.
Using your orientation facing the horse’s side, ensure you have smooth targeting of shoulder and hindquarters in rhythm, then develop a gesture signal to ask the whole horse to sidestep toward you. (Prerequisites 2 and 3). At this point, don’t worry about your body’s orientation to the horse. Use whatever signals the horse finds easiest to understand. Celebrate hugely when you get the first sidestep toward you.
When 3 is coming along nicely, teach it all again from the beginning on the horse’s other side.
When 4 is good using the props, remove either the front or rear barrier. If the horse tends to back up, remove the front barrier first. If he tends to inch forward, remove the back barrier first.
When 5 is smooth, remove both barriers.
Now it’s time to focus more on your position so you can stay shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse as much as possible, but don’t make it a big deal.
GENERALIZATIONS
When the task is sound in a familiar training area, play in different places.
In the photo above, Boots and I are walking a few steps forward shoulder-to-shoulder. We will then pause forward movement and step backwards an equal number of steps remaining shoulder-to-shoulder.
Horses have an inherent ability to move in synchronization with each other. We can play with this wonderful ability. One way is to devise an exercise where the ‘walk on’ signal balances smoothly with the ‘back up’ signal.
This is fun to work with once both our ‘walk on’ signals and our ‘back up’ signals individually result in fluid moving together shoulder-to-shoulder. We simply bring those two tasks together to form a sequence of dance steps.
We pause forward movement momentarily, so the horse’s body has time to organize itself to step backwards. It can look and feel rough at first, but by spending a short time with it often, the change-over can become calm and polished.
Horse responds willingly to ‘walk on’ signals when the handler is beside his neck/shoulder. See Number 16 in my Blog Contents List:Smooth Walk-On and Halt Transitions. (Access my Blog Contents List via the tab at the top of the page.)
Horse understands touch, voice and gesture ‘back-up’ signals. See Number 40 in my Blog Contents List: Finesse Back-Up.
My Playlist: Backing-up (in my YouTube channel: Hertha Muddyhorse), has further clips which show teaching the back-up in a variety of ways. Click here.
* Boots’ demonstrations on the videos is the sum of many short sessions over a long time. When teaching something new, we stay with each slice of the task until it feels easy and smooth, then move on to add in the next slice.
* Whenever anything feels ‘broken’, go back to the slice where both the horse and the handler feel confident, and work forward from there again. Click&treat at a rate that keeps the horse continuously successful at earning his next click&treat.
* Teach everything again (from the beginning) on the other side of the horse. You can do this with each slice, or you can get it all good on one side and then repeat all the slices on the other side.
Check you can ‘walk on’ together fluidly, staying in position shoulder-to-shoulder.
Check you can ‘halt’ together fluidly, staying in position shoulder-to-shoulder.
Set up a lane and walk the horse through it in both directions. Horse is in the lane, handler on the outside.
When 3 above is ho-hum, walk the horse into the lane and ask for a halt about halfway along; click&treat.
Repeat 4 above, asking the horse to wait a second longer before the click&treat, until he comfortably waits up to 4 or 5 seconds.
Block off the lane with a barrier about half a horse’s length inside the lane. Walk the horse into the lane and halt at the barrier; click&treat.
Hold the rope in the hand nearest the horse. Lift your rope hand straight up and jiggle the rope lightly to put a distinctive touch signal on the halter. If you have taught a voice ‘back’ signal, use that as well. At first, watch for any movement backwards, even a body shift back, to click&treat. Since the way forward is blocked off, it will make sense to the horse to step back.
Repeat 6 and 7 above, gradually building up to several steps back.
Once 8 above is good, block off the lane a little further along in stages until the horse is halting right inside the lane. Repeat 6 and 7 above aiming for a fluid, confident back-up out of the lane.
Now we want to switch the halter-jiggle signal to a hand signal. At the same time as you lift the rope hand (nearest the horse) straight up to jiggle the rope, lift your outside hand to the horse’s eye level and make a backward gesture with it. Also use your “back-up” voice signal. Click&treat for stepping back. Return to click&treat for just one or a few steps at first, then gradually all the steps needed to exit the lane.
Repeat, using the outside hand and voice signals BEFORE you lift your rope hand to put jiggle energy into the halter. The moment the horse begins to step back, stop jiggling the rope but ask for another step or two with the outside hand and voice signals.
When the horse moves back readily with just your outside hand gesture and voice signal, fade out the rope-jiggle. It’s there to be used in times of need.
Now we want to combine the steps forward, pause, steps backward with one click&treat after doing both. Walk into the lane, halt at the barrier, signal for the back-up; click&treat for any back-up that is offered. Because we are introducing new complexity (changing a parameter), we relax our criteria for number of steps back.
Gradually, over many very short sessions that always end on a good note, ask for more steps back after the halt before you click&treat. Work up to about 10 steps.
When 14 above is in good shape, practice with a lane of ground rails. Still have a barrier at the front (e.g., a fence). Most horses usually veer right or left when they back up, due to the natural asymmetry of their bodies. One hind leg pushes off harder, so their hind end will veer away from the stronger leg.
By frequent backing through a lane of ground rails, we help the horse organize his body to stay straighter. I regularly use this task as part of our gymnastic work.
Practice with a barrier only on the far side of the horse. This gives you another opportunity to note which way his hind end tends to veer.
Generalize by halting facing a fence or any free-standing barrier, then backing up without the prop of a lane.
When you feel the time is right, ask for a halt away from any barriers, followed by a back-up. Celebrate hugely when you get this. Done with finesse, the horse becomes light and keeps his full attention on your body language so he can maintain the synchronization. I always click&treat after this task.
Gradually build up to 10 steps forward (click&treat) and 10 steps back (click&treat) but vary the number of steps each time you do it. Work toward this over many short sessions.
Once 20 above is smooth, begin the actual Balancera exercise. We’re changing a parameter, so start with about 3 steps. Ask for 3 steps forward, then three steps back before the click&treat.
When 21 above is good, ask for 3 steps, 2 steps, then 1 step forward and back before the click&treat. This is the Balancera. With frequent short practices, the horse becomes more adept at shifting his weight from forward to backing up. This takes considerable energy and effort, so treat it gently. The horse will soon realize that the click&treat happens after the 1 step forward and back, even when you start with ten steps.
When 22 above is smooth, gradually ask for more steps to begin with, then reducing by one step until you are doing one step forward and one step back; click&treat.
Most of all, keep it fun. Stay within the horse’s ability that day.
This is a fun task we often teach our dogs. We call the horse toward us, then ask him to walk past our side, turn 180 degrees behind us and slot into the ‘heel’ position on our opposite side.
In the photo above, Boots has walked toward me, passed my left shoulder and is about to slot herself into position standing beside my right shoulder.
In the photo below, Boots has walked toward me, passed my right shoulder and is about to slot herself into position standing beside my left shoulder.
Boots is about to step into position beside my left shoulder where she will earn her click&treat. To make it easier for her I can move forward a step or two.
AIM
The horse walks to us, then past us, turning behind us to end up standing beside our shoulder.
Horse responds readily to handler’s ‘recall’ signal. See Number 90 in my Blog Contents List: Recall and Back Up in Rhythm.
Horse understands ‘walk on’ voice and gesture signals. See Number 16: Smooth ‘Walk On’ and ‘Halt’ Transitions and Number 68 in my Blog Contents List: 20 Steps Exercise. We want this in place so we can ask the horse to walk past us and around, rather than coming to halt in front of us.
Horse has perfected the 180-degree turn. See Number 23 in my Blog Contents List: 180 Degree Turns.
Horse and handler have developed clear WHOA signals in a variety of situations. See Number 33 in my Blog Contents List: Willing Response to a Voice Halt Signal.
A training area where the horse is relaxed and ideally can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
Horse is not hungry.
Horse and Handler are clicker savvy.
Horse in a learning frame of mind.
Halter and 12′ (4m) light lead-rope to start with.
NOTES
* Have the horse warmed up before asking for 180-degree turns.
* You can also teach this using a target, but as is often the case, phasing out the target can present its own challenges if the horse’s mind is fixated on following the target. I prefer to teach with gesture, body language and voice signals, helped at first with a lead rope.
* Check that your WAIT is in good shape.
* Check that your RECALL is in good shape.
* Check that your WALK ON gesture and voice signals are in good shape.
* Check that your WHOA is in good shape.
* Check that your 180-degree turns are in good shape and the horse knows your voice signal for turning (I use “Around”).
* Devise a signal for asking the horse to walk on past you rather than halt in front of you. Practice this with another person standing in for the horse so you can get it fluent. I adapt my WALK ON arm/hand gesture that I use for walking on when we are shoulder-to-shoulder and that seems to work okay.
* I use a halter and lead to initially teach things like this. I can use the lead rope to indicate that I want the horse to walk past me and then turn behind me. That means he never gets confused about what will earn his next click&treat. Once the horse realizes that the click&treat happens when he shows up on my other side, the lead rope is no longer necessary.
SLICES
Halter and light lead on the horse.
Ask the horse to WAIT while you walk a few steps away in front of him. Turn, pause, then ask for a RECALL.
Before the horse reaches you, signal with gesture and voice that you’d like him to walk on past you. As he does, step forward so it is easy for him to make a U-turn behind you. Then walk a couple of steps forward to draw him into a nice position alongside your opposite shoulder: click&treat.
Teach it consistently on one side and when that is smooth, teach again from the beginning on the other side.
As the horse gets fluid with this task, you can gradually not step forward as he comes around. But if he gets lost, always resume stepping forward so he is not ‘wrong’.
GENERALIZATIONS
Work at liberty.
Work in new venues.
Work on a slope.
Recall across rails or through a gap/tunnel or over a tarp.
Teach moving into the heel position after a recall without stepping around behind the handler.
Having smooth ways of asking a horse to back away from us and to come toward us on request is worth its weight in gold. We teach each of these separately and then meld them together into rhythmic dance steps to use as a suppling exercise.
AIM
The horse distinguishes clearly between our signals for backing up and coming toward us (recall) and readily repeats a few steps of each in a rhythmic fashion.
Handler has developed clear, consistent back-up signals so the horse backs up readily when face-to-face with the handler. See Number 40 in my Blog Contents List for details about teaching backing up. https://herthamuddyhorse.com/2020/02/02/finesse-back-up/
The next clip puts together the first four slow-dancing moves we’ve worked on: Bow, Line Dance in position, Do-si-do to change sides, Rhythmic back-up and recall.
MATERIALS AND ENVIRONMENT
Handler in a relaxed frame of mind.
Two or more rails. Low markers at the ends of the rails can be helpful at the beginning. A safe fence is also helpful to keep the horse straight.
Halter 12′ (4m) long, light lead during the teaching process.
NOTES
Before starting this task, we need a solid WAIT (Prerequisite 1).
We first teach a solid face-to-face back-up in a variety of situations using a high rate of reinforcement, so it becomes a favorite task for the horse. Ideally, we do a little bit every time we are with the horse (Prerequisite 2).
The slices in this training plan outline teaching the recall and then putting the recall and back-up together in a rhythmic way.
Teach everything on both sides of the horse.
Use a rate of reinforcement that keeps the horse continually successful.
Essential to keep a float (smile) in the rope unless using it momentarily to clarify our intent for the horse.
Keep sessions short in among other things you are doing with the horse.
SLICES
Set up your rails (or hose or rope) as in the photo in the Introduction. Use a fence on one side if you can.
Walk the horse parallel to the ground rails furthest from the fence, while you walk between the rails and the fence. At the end of the rails, ask him to make a U-turn toward the fence and step into the lane created by the fence and rails. Walk backwards to draw the horse to you. Click&treat when he reaches you. The fence will encourage him to make a precise U-turn rather than a loose and sloppy one. Set the width of the gap to suit the horse’s current flexibility.
Gradually send him around the end of the rail from further away, as illustrated in the video clip, until you can stay with your feet stationary at one end of a rail.
As he makes each U-turn, add a consistent voice signal. I say “Around” for the turn.
As he begins to come toward you, develop a clear, consistent body language signal and a voice signal. I say “Come In” for the recall and bring both arms forward and down to make a round shape with my arms.
When it all feels smooth, use a pair of rails away from a fence.
When 6 is ho-hum, use just one rail.
When 7 is ho-hum, use just a low marker to send the horse ‘around’.
Now we want to tidy up our WAIT task so we can ask the horse to stay parked while we walk away – so we can recall him (Prerequisite 1).
Once the recall is solid in lots of situations, we want to either teach or polish our back-up while we are face-to-face with the horse (Prerequisite 2).
Once we have clear, consistent back-up body language and voice signals established, and the horse responds willingly, we can begin to put the back-up and the recall together in a rhythmic fashion.
Set up two parallel rails about a meter apart. Ask the horse to wait at one end of the rails; click&treat. Then ask him to recall between the rails; click&treat. Walk a loop together and repeat a couple of times.
Ask the horse to walk between the rails and halt between the rails. Then ask him to back up a step or two; click&treat. Then another step or two; click&treat. Then recall him forward again, between the rails. Walk a loop and reset a couple of times.
When it feels right, ask for a recall; click&treat, then ask for a back-up; click&treat. Work with just a few steps at first. As the horse becomes more adept, gradually increase the number of steps, but stay within the horse’s ability.
Ask the horse to walk with you almost all the way through the lane of rails so you can ask for the back-up first; click&treat. Then recall; click&treat.
Once 15 is smooth, chain together one back-up and one recall before the click&treat (or one recall and one back-up).
Work toward chaining two repeats of back and recall. Then maybe three repeats before the click&treat. But always stay within the horse’s capability. Rushing will wreck things.
When it is ho-hum using the parallel rails, do the task without them. Go back to Slice 14 and work forward from there.
GENERALIZATION
Play with it in different venues.
Play on a slope.
Add one or more rails which the horse crosses during the recall and back-up.
Once the horse and handler have mastered smooth forequarter yields and smooth hindquarter yields, we can build the DO SI DO. It consists of asking for a hindquarter yield first. Then, as the horse’s hind end is moving away, we stand upright and move back slightly so the horse brings his head through, and we end up in his other eye.
It is a way of changing sides by the horse doing the moving. Once that is achieved, we add a yield of the forequarters.
If the horse’s lifestyle keeps him supple, this series of movements is a good stretching and bending exercise. If the horse finds it hard, we have useful feedback to use in our planning.
AIM
The horse is able to execute a smooth 360-degree hindquarter yield followed immediately by a smooth 360-degree forequarter yield.
PREREQUISITES
Horse and handler agree on signals to yield the hindquarters. See Number 83 in my Blog Contents List.
Horse and handler agree on signals to yield the forequarters. See Number 84 in my Blog Contents List.
A training area where the horse is relaxed and ideally can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
Horse is not hungry.
NOTES
Use a rate of reinforcement (how often you click&treat) that allows the horse to easily work out exactly what he has to do to earn his next click&treat.
As the horse begins to understand the sequence of movements, gradually move the click point along until eventually there is one at the end of the whole series of movements.
Whenever the horse gets ‘lost’, immediately return to click&treat for what he can do and work forward gradually from that spot.
Do a little bit often, as this is hard work for the horse.
Be aware that when we give signals with the non-dominant side of our body, they may not be as clear and precise as when we use the dominant side of our body. We can improve this once we are aware of it. In the same way, the horse may find yielding in one direction more difficult. If you notice a difference, begin teaching using the direction he finds easier. Later, do a few extra repeats on the difficult side.
SLICES
Ask the horse to yield is hindquarters with body language, energy and a gesture signal (and voice if you like – I use the word “Away”) about a meter out from his side. Move along with him, keeping your relative position and using ‘constant on’ signals (body orientation, arm gesture and energy) until you want him to stop (at which point you stand up straight and stop all signals). Click&treat.
Click&treat each single step away at first, then gradually work toward click&treat for a full 360 turn. How long it all takes to get smooth with this part of the task depends on previous training and how clear our signals are.
At some point, stop following the hindquarters around, stand upright in one spot and move back a bit so that the horse can bring his head through the space in front of you, which puts you on his other side – in his other eye. Click&treat. Spend the time (via many short sessions) to get this part smooth.
Teach 1-3 above from the beginning on the horse’s other side. He may find one direction harder.
When 1-3 above are in good shape, gently build and consolidate your forequarter yield by itself until you have a smooth 360-degree turn on the haunches. Start with click&treat for one good step and build from there.
Repeat 5 above on the horse’s other side. Again, he may find one direction harder.
When all the above are going well, after completing slice 3 (and click&treat on completion of slice 3), ask for the forequarter yield. Just a step or two at first, before a click&treat, but gradually work toward the full turn on the haunches.
Work toward a 360-degree hindquarter yield (turn on the forehand) followed immediately by a 360-degree forequarter yield without a click&treat stop in the middle. We can call it achieved when a full 360-degree yield in both directions is ho-hum.
Work with 8 above starting on the other side of the horse.
GENERALIZATION
Practice in many different places.
Practice on a slope.
Start with forequarter yield and morph into hindquarter yield.
Once we have the simple bow, line dancing in place with the front feet, and the do si do mastered, we can chain the three tasks together.
Some horses easily walk along carrying something in their mouth. Other horses find this a foreign concept. For such horses we must work through a series of slices to build up a new skill. My horse, Boots, has never worn a bit for riding, so walking with something in her mouth was a truly new experience.
Some horses learn this quickly at liberty. Others gain security by being on halter and lead (kept loose) so we can give more guidance as we walk along together.
This is only a possible training plan – each person/horse partnership must tweak the ideas to suit their situation – Individual Education Plans are different for each horse.
Aim
On request, the horse moves to an item we have tossed away, picks it up and returns it to us.
Prerequisites
1. The horse understands the task of picking items up off the ground and handing them to you. (See Number 73 in the Blog Contents List for the detailed Training Plan).
Clip showing the various slices of the Training Plan.
Materials and Environment
A venue where the horse is able to relax. Ideally he can see his buddies but they can’t interfere.
Places to walk together.
Horse is not hungry.
Lightweight items easy for the horse to hold.
Halter and lead to go for walks.
Notes
With this exercise, we are chaining a whole series of tasks together to build a new skill: 1) pick up, 2) walk holding the item, 3) release the item into the handler’s hand without dropping it, 4) turn holding the item, 5) move toward the item when it is thrown out and pick it up, 6) turn to walk back to deliver the item to the handler.
Several repeats one after the other, of the slice you are currently working on, is usually plenty. A little bit often builds an enduring habit and the horse will be willing to take part next time you bring out your item(s). If we turn it into a drill, we usually lose the horse’s willingness to engage again.
Each time you click, remove the item behind you to take it ‘out of play’. It will then be obvious to him when you preset the item into view again.
Some horses quickly progress through the early slices as soon as you start. Others need a great deal of patience over may days of mini-sessions.
Any time the horse loses confidence, go back to what he can do confidently and gradually work forward again. Horses instantly pick up any emotion of frustration or annoyance or anger, so be sure to practice emotional neutrality except for gleeful celebration when things go well.
A horse can’t be ‘wrong’ until we have carefully taught him what we want in a way that he can understand and does not make him anxious.
Slices
Take your horse for a walk and occasionally halt and ask him to take the item out of your hand, hold it for x number of seconds (starting with one second) before asking him to release it back to your hand; click&treat.
While taking your horse for walks, occasionally ask him to hold, then carry the item for one step, then release it to your hand. With some horses this slice may take many, many repeats. If he drops it, have zero reaction, pick it up and try again, asking for it back BEFORE he drops it, even if so far you haven’t been able to walk one step – i.e., return to Slice 1 for a while.
Once you have a single step and it is good 90% of the time, ask for two steps, and so one, adding one step at a time over as many sessions as it takes to maintain the horse’s willingness to try again. It’s easy to rush these early slices. To build a confident, lasting behavior, we do a little bit often over many days, weeks, months, depending on your horse.
Gradually add more steps, one at a time, before asking for the item back. If he drops it, ignore it with zero reaction, pick it up and go back to what the horse can do confidently. Slowly work forward again from that point.
Once he will walk beside you carrying the item for 15-20 steps, we’ll change a parameter* by slowly walk backwards so the horse turns and walks toward us, hopefully still carrying his item. Have a big celebration the first time he turns without dropping it.
When he can reliably hold the item as he walks with you, turns toward you as you walk backwards, and walks toward you, we can add the ‘picking up’ part. We use the ‘pick’ signals we taught as in video clip #224. Ask him to pick the item up and walk along holding it. Because we’ve changed a parameter (please pick it up first), we again click&treat for one step walking, and as before, build up to numerous steps gradually.
Fetch: when he picks it up readily and walks with it, start to toss it a wee bit further away. Go to him as he picks it up, receive it from him and click&treat right away.
When 7 above is good, after you toss the item away, walk into a position that makes it easy for him to walk toward you after he’s picked it up; accept it from him; click&treat. Gradually position yourself a bit further away ( and eventually at different angles to him) so he takes two steps, three steps, and so on to deliver the item back to you. When you change the angle note how well he can orientate himself to deliver the item to you.
Once the horse understands that the task is to fetch the item and return it to you, wherever you are, toss out the item and stay where you are so the horse picks it up and turns to bring it back to you.
Some horses will get into this game with enthusiasm. Others will do it in a sedate manner to earn their click&treat.
Generalizations
Use a variety of item that are easy for the horse to carry.
Play in a variety of venues.
Add variety like walking over rails, backing up, or weaving while carrying an item.
When my hips gave up riding horses but not riding my bike, it made sense to teach Boots to ‘pony’ from my bike. Usually people ‘pony’ a second horse while riding another horse.
It’s a skill developed for pack horses or to exercise two horses at the same time. When my son was very small we rode together with his pony on a lead. Leading a horse from a bike or scooter rather than another horse comes with its own hazards and challenges.
Aim
The horse walks/trots confidently and safely led by a person on a bike or a scooter.
Prerequisites
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
Horse and handler agree on voice and breathing signals for ‘walk on’, ‘halt’ with the handler beside the horse. Number 16 in the Blog Contents List.
Horse and handler agree on voice and gesture signals for ‘back up’ while the handler is beside the horse. Number 32 in the Blog Contents list.
Horse and handler have a good command of prompt transitions upward and downward using voice signals.
Horse is relaxed about a dragging rope. It’s inevitable that we will drop the rope at some point to stop being pulled off our bike. #60 HorseGym with Boots – specifically the second half of this clip.Click Here.
Horse and handler agree on voice signals for ‘right turn’ and ‘left turn’. #137 HorseGym with Boots: Click here.
Horse and handler agree on signals for ‘go around and turn’. This is important to have smooth because as much as possible, we want ourselves between the horse and anything ahead that he might find worrisome. If he needs more space, we want him to move away from us, not into us. # 250 HorseGym with Boots: https://youtu.be/3oqPs4LM5AM and video clip #251 below.
If riding on public roads or tracks, we must ensure that the horse has been given the time and opportunity to be comfortable around cars, motorbikes, trucks, dogs, pushchairs, other people on bikes, tractors, hikers, and children while the handler is walking with the horse. We need to feel secure with other road users approaching from in front or from behind. Trailers with flapping plastic are an ultimate test. Essential to get used to flapping plastic at home.
Videos
#247 HorseGym with Boots: Boots and Bicycle. Older video – short.
#228 HorseGym with Boots: Intro to Bike. Recent video.
#230 HorseGym with Boots: Bike on the Road. Recent video.
#251 HorseGym with Boots: Changing Sides. Recent video.
#249 HorseGym with Boots: Scooter Outings. Recent video.
#248 HorseGym with Boots: Bob meets Bicycle. Click here.Older video featuring a young horse seeing a bike for the first time.
Materials and Environment
We need a safe enclosed place where it’s possible to use free-shaping to introduce the horse to the bicycle and establish the basic protocols using a lead rope.
A helper is great to have at the beginning.
Horse is not hungry.
Quiet tracks, trails or roads to expand confidence. For public roads, the key is usually choosing the quietest part of the day.
Walk with the horse on the routes you will take, for many days, weeks, months, so the route is as familiar as possible. I’d walked or ridden our routes for a long time before ponying on my bike.
Bicycle or mobility scooter or similar.
Be especially sure the horse is not hungry before you set off. For some horses, a light mesh grazing muzzle can be a safety feature if the horse tends to dive for grass. Use it first walking out so it is not directly related to the bike. Munch-N-Go make a muzzle that is light and its easy to slip a treat into the side.
Notes
It’s important to take the time to get all the prerequisites established. Although I put up monthly challenges, each challenge is just an idea that you may like to work toward. The real magic is in getting the prerequisites into good shape, which can take months or years, depending on many factors.
Keep each session short. Three repeats is often plenty. Many short sessions keep the horse keen to ‘do it again’ next time.
Click&treat often enough to keep the horse continually successful with what you are asking him to learn. Build duration gradually, but always be conscious of increasing duration as you can.
Create a strong habit of using your voice signals all the time when they are appropriate, not just with the bike. Our “Whoa” response has saved my bacon numerous times. The “Back-up” with voice and gesture signals is essential. We don’t want the horse crossing in front of us unless we are inviting him to change sides.
You may be fortunate enough to have tracks and trails where the horse can accompany you on your bike without the need for a lead rope. Some horses, like mine, will gravitate to the closest grass and stay there. If you are limited to public roads or tracks, safety with the lead rope is a must.
When I take my horse out and about in the neighborhood, we have grazing destinations. If there is no grass, I take an ample supply of carrots and horse pellets which we stop to enjoy at the furthest point of our outing. In other words, I don’t expect the horse to randomly go with me. I give her a destination that makes sense to her. Horses who can move freely always know where they are going and why. We remove much of this self-determination from them when we want to do something with the horse. Working with destinations is a way to return it in a small way. See also Number 17 in my Blog Contents List: Destination Training.
Slices
Have someone walk with your bike and you follow behind with your horse wearing halter and lead. Allow the horse to decide how close (or not) he will get to the bike. As soon as you see/feel interest or less tension (sighing, blowing out, lower head, softer body) – click&treat.
Repeat 1 above until the horse is confident enough to walk right up close to the back of the bike, with click&treat for each sign of greater confidence.
Ask the person wheeling the bike to slow gradually to a stop so the horse can touch his nose to the bike if he’s ready for that step; click&treat. Repeat a few times to consolidate.
Have your helper ride the bike and repeat 1-3 above.
At this point, if it feels safe, take off the lead rope so the horse makes his own decisions about approaching and/or following the bike.
Without a helper: Walk with the bike yourself. Click&treat any movement of the horse toward you and the bike. The aim here is for him to want to come and target your hand or the bike to earn a click&treat.
When 6 is smooth, ride the bike. Click&treat coming over plus any offer to move with you and the bike. At this point, it’s helpful to expect little but click&treat each tiny sign of increasing interest and confidence.
Gradually work on duration of staying with you and the bike. Setting up a roomy reverse round pen is helpful at this stage – protected contact for you as the horse gains confidence. You bike inside the barrier while the horse follows outside the barrier. You can use foot targets in set places on the path of travel where you will always stop to click&treat, so the horse knows that there is a destination – a stop point if he stays with you. Eventually have just one foot target on the perimeter of the reverse pen.
When the horse stays with you on the bike willingly and with confidence, see if you can speed it up so he trots. Sometimes transitioning to a higher gait brings out a spurt of excited energy. It’s good to test this out while you are in protected contact inside the reverse pen. It’s also a good place to work with upward and downward transitions using voice signals. Use your downward transition (trot-walk or walk-halt) voice signals as you approach the foot target when slowing down makes sense to the horse. Use your upward transition signal (halt-walk) as you leave the mat and your walk-trot signal a little while after you leave the foot target when the horse is anticipating reaching it again.
Build duration without the reverse round pen by using foot or nose targets as destinations. Start with them close together and gradually put them further apart. If you used this method for teaching good leading behavior while walking with the horse, the horse will already be familiar with the concept.
Introduce the lead rope into the situation. At first, walk the bike while leading the horse. When you introduce a new element to a situation, always go back to click&treat more often (in this case, anytime the horse is coming along smoothly for a few steps), then gradually less often as the horse gains confidence.
When ponying from the bike at home in familiar places is smooth, venture out on the road first walking the bike. As mentioned in the prerequisites, ensure that you have walked with the horse many times on the public roads you plan to bike with your horse, so that dogs running out, horses or cattle galloping in adjoining paddocks, vehicles, children, and so on, have all been met before and worked through.
When walking with the horse and bike is smooth, one day it will feel right to get on your bike. Keep the early sessions going away from home and returning home short – celebrate your safe return. It takes a long time to build confidence (yours and the horse’s) but it can be lost in a nanosecond.
When you reach the farthest point of your day’s outing, allow the horse grazing time or stop for a generous jackpot of treats, before heading home again. This gives the horse a sense of ‘destination’ as outlined in NOTE 6.
Slowly build up confidence with the types of landscapes you have for biking or scootering with your horse. Shorter distances done often are preferable to long distances less often.
If you have graduated to a mobility scooter or similar, play with it at home first. Play with having the horse follow it with you while another person drives it. Walk the horse on the left side and the right side of the scooter, first with you nearest the scooter, then with the horse nearest the scooter. Practice the ‘walk on’, ‘halt’, ‘back-up’ transitions. Practice the ‘go around in front and turn to change sides’ maneuver (Prerequisite 7) from both sides until both sides feel smooth.
Generalizations
Different venues.
Electric bike.
Four-wheeler – avoid horse having to breathe in exhaust.
Golf cart.
Introduce a rider to horse’s movement without having to ‘be in charge’.
Some horses show a natural inclination to pick things up, in which case we can ‘capture’ the behavior with well-timed click&treat. The challenge with such horses is to quickly put the task ‘on signal’ or ‘on cue’ to counteract a tendency to pick up anything and everything in the hope of earning a treat.
Others, like my horse Boots, learn to pick things up because it earns a click&treat. For such horses, we can thin-slice the whole process, starting with sniffing an item, taking an item out of our hand, and so on. Such thin slices might also help to put the task ‘on signal’ for the keen horse.
Aim
On request, the horse picks up items , holds them, and presents them to our hand.
Prerequisites
Horse has a strong history of positive reinforcement for standing with front feet on a mat. #8 HorseGym with Boots: Duration on the Mat. Click here.
Horse and Handler have developed good table manners standing quietly together. Number 10 in my Blog Contents List: ‘Zero Intent’ and ‘Intent’. Click here.
Horse and handler agree on signals the horse gives when he is ready to do something again. Seeking the Horse’s Consent Signals: Click here.
For Generalization with the bell as in the second video clip, handler and horse agree on a clear ‘recall’ signal. February 2018 Obstacle Challenge: Simple Recall Pt. 1. Click here.
Videos
#224 HorseGym with Boots: Picking Things Up.
#231 HorseGym with Boots: Picking Up a Bell.
Materials and Environment
A venue where the horse can relax. Ideally he can see his buddies but they can’t interfere.
Horse is not hungry.
A variety of items safe and easy for a horse to pick up.
One or two objects that can serve as platforms so we can gradually put the items closer and closer to the ground. E.g. chair or a tub turned over.
Horse at liberty if possible.
For some horses, rubbing something that smells nice to the horse on the item can gain initial interest, but make sure it does not encourage the horse to eat your item, especially if it is something like a cloth.
Notes
Three repeats of the slice you are currently working with is usually plenty. A tiny bit often is the key. The horse will think about it and be willing to try again next time. If we turn it into a drill, we usually lose willingness to engage again.
Each time you click, remove the item behind you to take it ‘out of play’. This will give the horse time to enjoy his treat and let you know with a consent signal (Prerequisite 3) when he is ready to do a repeat. Also, it will be obvious to him when you preset the item into view again.
Some horses quickly progress through the early slices as soon as you start. Others need a great deal of patience over may days of mini-sessions.
Any time the horse loses confidence, go back to what he can do confidently and gradually work forward again. Horses instantly pick up any emotion of frustration or annoyance or anger, so be sure to practice emotional neutrality except for gleeful celebration when things go well.
A horse can’t be ‘wrong’ until we have carefully taught him what we want in a way that he can understand and does not make him anxious.
We are building a little chain of behaviors: pick up – hold – move item to my hand – release item to my hand.
Slices
With the horse parked confidently on a mat so he knows you want him to stand still, offer your item: click&treat any willingness to sniff the item.
Look for and click&treat any tendency to move his lips around the item. As always, take the item ‘out of play’ as you click&treat
Look for and click&treat any tendency to open the mouth and use the teeth to investigate the item.
Look for and click&treat any instance that you can momentarily remove your hand and the horse doesn’t drop the item. If he drops it, have zero reaction, pick it up, and go back to click&treat a couple of times for the previous slice the horse IS able to do, before finishing the session.
Once you can remove your hand momentarily, gradually build duration of him holding the item one second at a time. We want the horse to eventually hold the item until we put our hand out to receive it. Three seconds is good. Five seconds is great. Also praise and click&treat any indication that the horse is moving his head toward your hand to deliver the item to you.
At this point, we can introduce a voice signal for picking up an item. I use the word, “Pick”. I also eventually introduce the voice signal, “Hold”, once the horse can hold the item for three or more seconds without dropping it.
Once 5 above is smooth and reliable over several mini-sessions, introduce something that can act as a platform about halfway to the ground and put the item on it. At first you may need to keep your hand on it or near it by pointing to it and using your voice signal. Gradually move your hand further away. Pointing to the object along with the voice signal makes a useful multi-signal.
We’d like the horse to move his head toward our hand to ‘deliver’ the item to us. Gradually move your receiving hand a bit further away so the horse raises/turns his head a bit more to ‘deliver’ the item to you. If he drops it, have zero reaction, pick it up and return to the slice where he can be successful.
When 7 and 8 above are smooth, organize a platform a bit closer to the ground and repeat.
When 9 above is smooth, put the item on the ground and ask him to pick it up and hand it to you.
Generalizations
Set out a series of items and move along to to pick each one up.
Ask the horse to pick objects like ropes or rags off a fence or similar. Some people have fun setting up a ‘clothes line’ with cloths for the horse to take off.
Ask the horse to walk a step or two holding the object. Boots had great difficulty with this. She happily picked things up and gave them to me, but the idea of moving holding something in her mouth was totally foreign to her, maybe because we never used a bit when riding. I started out asking her to walk-on after giving her a willow twig which she ate as she walked. Then we progressed to one step holding an old riding crop; click&treat. When one step was solid we added steps one at a time. It took us all winter of playing with this during our morning walks before she felt comfortable carrying an object for about 15 steps.
Ask the horse to recall a few steps, to ‘deliver’ the object to you. This is the beginning of teaching ‘fetch’.
This routine presents a novel way to walk ever-decreasing circles. It also includes weaving and 180-degree turns.
AIM
Smoothly carry out a routine walking together in a variety of configurations.
PREREQUISITES
Walking together shoulder-to-shoulder. Smooth ‘Walk On’ and ‘Halt’ Transitions. Click here.
While walking shoulder-to-shoulder, the horse changes direction in response to the handler moving his/her body axis toward the horse or away from the horse. #170 HorseGym with Boots: Body Axis Orientation Signals; Click here.
Weaving. #70 HorseGym with Boots: Only Horse Weaves;Click here.
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Halter and relatively short lead rope (8′).
Rags: I used six rags in this video clip for easier filming and to avoid boring viewers, but you can use as many as you like and make the circle as large as you like.
I like to memorize the sequence of tasks by walking the pattern without the horse and/or with a person standing in for the horse. It also works to visualize the sequence often.
Make the circle a size that suits your horse. We want him to be able to do the weave part easily. As he gets more adepts, you can gradually make the circle smaller to encourage more bend.
I found it a challenge to remember which rag we were going to leave out next as we made the circle smaller. Having different colored rags made it easier.
Boots is now so good about recognizing that the rags are not mats, that I could walk on the rags or inside the rag circle without her stepping on them. If your horse tends to step on the rags, walk on the outside of the rags so he is further away from them.
Use a rate of reinforcement that keeps your horse continually successful. This can be very often when you first introduce the routine. As the horse gets to know the routine, gradually decrease your rate of reinforcement (how often you click&treat).
Be careful not to drill. Multiple short sessions will keep the horse keen to do it again next time.
TASKS
On the horse’s left side, starting from the center of the circle, ask the horse to weave the rags while you remain walking inside the rags.
When you’ve weaved through all the rags, walk a full circle around all the rags.
Walk a second circle leaving out one rag.
Walk a third circle leaving out two rags, and so on, systematically, until you reach your last circle around just one rag.
Walk to the center of the circle for a rest; click&treat.
From the center, walk straight ahead and do a U-turn around the nearest rag and return to the center.
You’re now facing the opposite direction, so choose another rag in front of you, walk toward it and do a U-turn and return to the center.
Use your ‘end of routine’ routine so the horse knows it is the end of the routine. I use a Triple Treat.
Repeat on the horse’s right side. You may want to do something else before you repeat this on the other side because it is such concentrated work.
GENERALIZATIONS
When it feels smooth, work at liberty.
If you are able, set up a big circle and do some of the routine at trot.
Add the task of ever-increasing circles.
Work on a slope if you have one handy.
Use more rags.
Set the rags into a rectangle or a triangle to encourage more variety of movement. Or have one end round and the other end with two right angles.
Photo: The first task is to weave the rags together.
INTRODUCTION
Maintaining mobility is an important aspect of keeping horses in captivity. Usually they live without the freedom of movement over large areas with varied terrain. We can take a small step to encourage whole-body movement with short routines done often but never turned into a drill.
AIM
To combine weaving (serpentines) with sidestepping, backing up and recall using rags as markers.
PREREQUISITES
‘Walk on’ and ‘halt’ transitions staying shoulder-to-shoulder. Smooth Walk and Halt transitions: https://wp.me/p4VYHH-5TT
We have established clear mutual signals for weaving obstacles. https://youtu.be/mjBwyDsVX6Y. As well as this clip,there are several more in my playlist called Weave and Tight Turns.
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Halter and a lead long enough so we can keep a nice drape in the rope but not so long it gets in the way. 12′ (4m) is a useful length.
Six rags laid out in a straight line far enough apart to allow comfortable weaving of the rags walking the pattern together. As the horse becomes more supple, the rags can be put closer together.
VIDEO CLIPS
#203 HorseGym with Boots: Routine 8, Rags as Focus: Click here.
#204 HorseGym with Boots: Routine 8 at Liberty: Click here.
NOTES
It helps to memorize the sequence of tasks by walking the pattern without the horse. If you have a willing human friend, take turns being the horse or the handler. Usually, as handler precision improves, horse precision improves.
The aim is to keep the rope with a nice drape or loop as much as possible, so the horse is getting his signals from our body language and signals rather than rope pressure. We want the horse to find his own balance rather than be pushed or held into a certain outline.
Click&treat at a rate that keeps your horse being successful. As a horse learns a pattern through frequent short repetitions, we can gradually ask for a bit more before each click&treat.
TASKS
Handler on the horse’s left side, weave the rags together.
Turn at the end of the rags and weave in the opposite direction.
Walk a circle around the last rag to end up between the last two rags plus several steps beyond them.
Halt, then ask the horse to back up between the rags. If he backs up on his own, go to the horse to deliver a click&treat.
Ask the horse to sidestep to put him in line with the middle of the next two rags.
Ask the horse to ‘wait’ while you walk between the rags to the end of the rope.
Ask the horse to ‘recall’.
Ask the horse to sidestep so he is in line with the middle of the next two rags.
Halt, then ask the horse to back up between the rags. If he backs up on his own go to the horse to deliver a click&treat.
Ask the horse to sidestep so he is in line with the middle of the next two rags.
Ask the horse to ‘wait’ while you back away to the end of the rope.
Ask the horse to ‘recall’.
Ask the horse to do the final sideways so he is in line with the middle of the last two rags if you are using six rags.
Ask the horse to back up.
Do an established ‘end of routine’ celebration. I use a ‘Triple Treat’.
GENERALIZATIONS
Repeat with the handler on the horse’s right side for the weaving.
Practice in different venues.
Use more rags.
Play at liberty.
Have only the horse weave – handler walks a straight line.
Practice on a slope.
Carry out the same sequence of tasks without marker rags.
This routine has us alternating frequently between the left and right sides of the horse. The objective is to develop our ‘walk on’, ‘halt’ and ‘turn’ signals to make them as clear and precise as possible.
AIM
To improve handler precision by linking a series of tasks into a sequence.
PREREQUISITES
Smooth ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ transitions staying shoulder-to-shoulder. (Smooth Walk and Halt transitions: https://wp.me/p4VYHH-5TT)
Handler has developed a clear ‘Zero Intent’ signal so the horse knows when standing quietly is what is wanted. (‘Zero Intent’ and ‘Intent’: https://wp.me/p4VYHH-5RO)
ENVIRONMENT AND MATERIALS
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Halter and a lead long enough so we can keep a nice drape in it but not so long it gets in the way.
Six or more rags marking out a roomy circle. Have an even number of rags.
NOTES
For this routine, it helps if the rags are a different color.
Make the circle as large as you like. It is small in the clips for ease of filming.
I like to memorize the sequence of events by walking the pattern without the horse and then visualizing the sequence often (a good substitute for counting sheep to go to sleep!) If you have a human friend, take turns being the horse or the handler. Usually, as handler precision improves, horse precision improves.
Walk should-to-shoulder with the horse for all the tasks except the last two.
The aim is to keep the rope with a nice drape or loop as much as possible, so the horse is getting his signals from our body language and signals rather than rope pressure.
Click&treat at a rate that keeps your horse being successful. As a horse learns a pattern through frequent short repetitions, we can gradually ask for a bit more before each click&treat.
With the handler nearest the rag and on the horse’s left, stand together beside one of the rags.
Walk a full circle around the rags (anticlockwise).
On completing a full circle, turn into the middle of the circle and halt. Move to the horse’s right side.
Vary how long you stay at the halt each time you halt in the circle’s center. Be clear with your ‘no intent’ body language during the standing together, and your ‘intent’ body language when you want to walk on again.
Walk forward and curve around to circle the rags in the opposite direction (clockwise). Handler walks closest to the rags.
On completing one full circle, turn into the middle again, halt and change to the horse’s left side.
Walk forward and curve into an anticlockwise circle, but this time halt at every second rag. Vary how long you stay parked at the rags.
After one circuit halting at every second rag, turn into the center of the circle again and change to the right side.
Repeat 7 (stop at every second rag) but walking a clockwise circle.
On completing the circle, turn into the middle of the circle and halt.
Ask the horse to back up between two rags, halting when his belly is between the rags. In the clips, I face Boots to ask her to back up, but we could back up shoulder-to-shoulder.
Ask the horse to sidestep either right or left so that one of the rags passes under his belly.
Large Celebration on completion of the sequence.
GENERALIZATIONS
Practice in different venues.
Change the size of your circle.
Add more rags to your circle.
Build in walk-trot-walk transitions.
Repeat each task before changing to the next task.
Add walk-trot-walk transitions.
Add halt-trot transitions.
Add trot-halt transitions.
Play with it at liberty.
Carry out the sequence of tasks in an open area without marker rags. For the three halts along the circle (tasks 7 and 9), halt after each quarter circle.
Photo: Task 3: Walking a half-circle away from the fence.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this series of movement routines is to regularly have the horse doing a series of gentle movements that aid his overall flexion and suppleness.
We need to consider both physical suppleness and mental suppleness. Mental suppleness is about the horse’s ability to understand the signals for each task and to move calmly between tasks.
Once the horse is adept with each of the tasks in the routine, this whole routine takes about two minutes. But it might take weeks or months of short daily practices to teach each element of the routine to the proficiency needed to link them all together.
I like to mark the end of a routine such as this with a celebration which in our case is a triple treat (details in Prerequisite 8).
AIM
To link this series of tasks into a sequence:
Walk together.
Recall toward fence.
Walk a half-circle
Yield shoulder to put horse’s butt at 90 degrees to fence.
Back butt against fence.
Two steps forward, one step back.
One step forward, one step back; repeat once.
Yield shoulder so horse faces fence and morph into sidestepping away.
Sidestep in the opposite direction.
PREREQUISITES
Smooth ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ transitions staying shoulder-to-shoulder. (Smooth Walk and Halt transitions: https://wp.me/p4VYHH-5TT)
Horse can smoothly U-turn into a recall when the handler changes from walking forward to walking backwards. (https://youtu.be/XuBo07q8g24)
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Halter and 10′ (3m) or longer lead.
A safe fence or other barrier. For this challenge, we ask the horse to back his butt against the barrier, so something solid like a wooden fence, a wall or a hedge is best. We could also use a line of barrels or a raised rail.
VIDEO CLIP
NOTES
Be sure that the horse is confident with each task before starting to link them together. We never want to make the horse feel wrong. He can’t be wrong because he doesn’t yet know what you want. Do a quiet reset and start again if things don’t go to plan.
It is usually helpful to link pairs of tasks at first, then add the first pair to the second pair, and so on.
I like to memorize the sequence of events by walking the pattern without the horse and then visualizing the sequence often (a good substitute for counting sheep to go to sleep!) If you have a human friend, take turns walking the sequence being both the horse and the handler.
TASKS
Use a rate of reinforcement (how often you click&treat) that keeps your horse being continually successful as much as possible. As he learns the routine, ask for a bit more before the next click&treat but always be prepared to increase the rate of reinforcement again if the horse needs you to clarify your intent.
Walk along shoulder-to-shoulder with the handler nearest the fence.
Gently change to walking backwards, asking the horse to make a U-turn toward the fence, so he is walking toward you.
Stop walking backwards and ask him to halt in front of you.
Move to the side that allows you to easily walk a half-circle together, with you on the inside of the circle.
Halt when you have walked a half-circle away from the fence. Ask the horse to yield his shoulder 90 degrees so his butt is toward the fence.
Ask the horse to back up until his butt (or tail) is against fence.
Ask the horse to take two steps forward toward you, then ask for one step back.
Now ask for one step forward, followed by one step back; repeat once.
Ask the horse to yield his shoulder 180 degrees so he faces the fence and morph that movement into stepping away from you sideways.
Ask the horse to sidestep toward you or move to his other side and ask him to sidestep away from you.
Finish with a big celebration (e.g. a Triple Treat).
Repeat from task 1 walking on the horse’s other side.
GENERALIZATIONS
Practice in different spots and/or different venues.
When it is super smooth with rope and halter, play at liberty.
Move away from the fence to do the routine. Change task 6 to ask for a set number of back-up steps or have a ground rail as a back-up destination.
Photo: Walking concentric circles is part of this routine.
INTRODUCTION
For Movement Routine 3 we are back to using a fence as a focal point to initially build the routine. A fence helps the horse maintain straight movement. It also makes it easy to establish beginning and end points for each circle in this sequence of tasks.
AIMS
Transitions from walking forward into finesse back-ups.
Walking concentric circles.
Stay and Wait.
PREREQUISITES
Smooth ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ transitions staying shoulder-to-shoulder. (See Related Resources 1 at the end of this post.)
We have taught the finesse back-up. (See Related Resources 2 at the end of this post.)
Handler has developed a clear ‘Zero Intent’ signal so the horse knows when standing quietly is what is wanted. (See Related Resources 3 at the end of this post.)
While walking shoulder-to-shoulder, the horse follows the movement of the handler’s body axis away from the horse to move into a circle. (See Related Resources 4 at the end of this post.)
We have taught the horse to ground-tie. (See Related Resources 5 at the end of this post.)
ENVIRONMENT AND MATERIALS
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Halter and 10′ (3m) or longer lead.
A safe fence or similar. A safe fence or barrier is one the horse can’t put his foot/leg through if he suddenly steps back. Tape fences can work well with some horses – NOT electrified.
Memorize the sequence of tasks by walking the pattern without the horse and then visualizing the sequence often.
The number of steps you take walking forward is not important. I tend to not take many steps when making the video clips to keep the viewing time short. I sometimes suggest a number of steps, but please suit that to your horse and your environment.
However, the number of steps I suggest for moving backwards is significant. Horses don’t naturally do a lot of stepping backwards. We want to stay with only 2-3 steps at first, and gradually, over many short sessions, build it up one or two additional steps at a time. We want to avoid making the horse sore.
While teaching this routine, or revisiting it after a long time, I generally click&treat for each part of each task. When the routine feels familiar, I move the click point along so we are doing more before a click&treat. Each horse will be different and each time doing the pattern will be different. I like to move the click points around a bit to stop the horse anticipating a treat at a specific point every time.
The key to all these tasks is to keep a continuous drape in the lead rope, using halter pressure via the rope only momentarily for additional guidance. Most of our guided shaping comes via our body position, gestures, breathing, energy level and voice signals.
TASKS
On the horse’s left side, with the horse nearest the fence, walk forward maybe ten steps, halt for a second or two, then turn into a finesse back-up – asking for 2-3 steps back. Repeat two more times (three times in total).
Walk a large circle (handler on the inside). At the point along the fence where you began the large circle, switch to walk a medium-sized circle. Reaching the same spot again, carry on walking a small circle. The circle sizes will depend on the space you have and how flexible your horse is. Start with large circles and gradually make them smaller as indicated by the increasing suppleness of the horse.
Ask the horse to HALT alongside the fence, either ground-tied or put the rope over his neck/back. Then ask him to WAIT while you walk away about ten steps with your back to the horse. Turn to partly face the horse and take up your ‘Zero Intent’ body position for x number of seconds. Then walk back to the horse; click&treat. Gradually (over lots of short sessions with this routine) work up to a WAIT of ten seconds or more.
Walk forward shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse, then turn into a finesse back-up without a halt first. With practice this can get lovely and fluid.
Repeat the whole sequence of tasks walking on the horse’s right side.
GENERALIZATIONS
Practice alongside different fences/walls/hedges if you can.
Once the horse shows that he knows the pattern, play with it at liberty along a fence using the same signals you have used all along.
Once the routine is smooth along the fence, play with it out in the open first with a lead rope, then at liberty. Alternate on which side of the horse you begin the routine.
Note that during backing up, horses usually push harder with one hind leg, so their hind end tends to veer away from the stronger leg. You may want to teach a gesture signal that allows you to regain straightness.
Experiment with how your position to the right or the left of the horse’s head affects his backing up.
At one point a friend and I came up with 29 different ways of backing up a horse, including groundwork, long-reining and riding. This Finesse Back-Up is one of my favorites when I am leading a horse and we need a prompt back-up.
I learned the essence of this process from Alexandra Kurland, a true pioneer of equine clicker training. I’ve added the idea of using corners to teach because it arranges the environment so that stepping back makes sense to the horse right from the beginning.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse understands putting his nose on a target results in click&treat. (See Related Resource 1 at the end of this post.)
Horse walks confidently between the handler and a safe fence or similar barrier.
Horse understands ‘Walk On’ and ‘Whoa’ voice and body language signals. (See Related Resource 2 at the end of this post.)
Handler easily slip into and out of ‘zero intent’ so the horse easily knows when he can relax in a ‘wait’ and when he is being asked to move. (See Related Resource 3 at the end of this post.)
Horse understands the handler’s body axis orientation as a signal for bending. (See Related Resource 4 at the end of this post.)
ENVIRONMENT & MATERIALS:
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
A safe fence or barrier which leads into a safe corner.
Halter and lead.
Mat (optional). A mat can make it easier for a mat-savvy horse to settle into standing in a corner.
AIMS:
Handler uses clear, consistent orientation, body language and voice ‘back up’ signals.
Horse smoothly shifts from walking forward to stepping backwards on request when the handler turns to face him.
Once the horse readily parks calmly in the corner, we can begin to teach the Finesse Back-Up. I call it that because it requires gently running our hand or fingers up the rope toward the halter, until we reach a point of contact to which the horse responds.
Each horse will be different. I had trouble having Boots demonstrate clearly because she knows the task so well that she reads the very beginning of my body language sentence and steps back right away. If we teach this well, the horse will step back as soon as we begin to turn and use our voice signal, so that even our hand on the rope eventually becomes redundant.
This is tricky to explain in words. Hopefully the video clips and still pictures will make it easier to understand.
Two terms explained: Outside hand refers to the hand furthest away from the horse. Inside hand refers to the hand nearest the horse. These obviously change depending on which side of the horse you are on, and whether you are shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse, i.e. both facing the same direction, or you are facing the horse front-on.
SLICES:
A: Getting Comfortable in a Corner
Walk with the horse and halt in a corner set up with a gate or a barrier. The handler is on the open side of the corner. It the horse finds it hard to stand relaxed in the corner, and you have taught him to love standing his front feet on a mat, use a mat for your ‘halt’ position. Click&treat for the halt.
Relax into zero intent and ask the horse to ‘wait’ for a little while in the corner. Click&treat the ‘wait’ task a few times.
Turn the horse 90 degrees toward you so he can walk forward out of the corner. Walk a loop and come back to park in the corner again. Click&treat the halt. (This bit is not on the video clip but when first teaching this, we want the horse totally comfortable standing in the corner. It’s helpful to generalize the task to several corners if you have them available or can build them.)
Teach relaxed standing in the corner on the horse’s left and right sides.
B: The Back-Up Maneuver
To ask for the back-up, you are going to smoothly pivot 180 degrees, so you face the opposite direction to the direction the horse is facing, but you are a bit to one side of him.
BUT: ***In the moment before you pivot…***
Gently reach across your body with your ‘outside hand’ and slide it quietly up the rope to a point of contact to which the horse responds.
At first, this may be right up to the snap on the halter (or if using a rope halter, even beyond the snap to hold the bottom of the halter) so you can give the horse a very direct backwards feel on the halter.
As you pivot to face the horse, what was your ‘outside hand’ becomes your ‘inside hand’ — the one nearest the horse.
Then simply keep a ‘hold’ tension on the rope and bring up your energy and intent for the horse to step back. This stance causes the horse slight discomfort by making him feel unbalanced. We want him to work out that he can regain his balance/comfort by shifting backwards. Our first click point is the moment he thinks of moving back. Because he’s in a corner, his easiest choice is to step backwards to regain his balance.
When first teaching this task, release your ‘hold’ and simultaneously click&treat at the horse’s smallest inclination to shift his weight back. After the treat, walk a circuit, return to the corner, and ask again.
When you can feel the horse readily shifting his weight back, release the rope pressure, but then, right away, slide up the rope again and ‘hold’ a bit longer to get a whole step back. Drop your signaling hand off the rope as soon as you get backward movement. Walk a circuit, return to the corner, and ask again.
As he begins to understand, eventually ask for two steps, then three steps and so on, before the click&treat. The horse will soon know that when you relax your intent and take your signaling hand off the rope, he can stop backing.
Ask for two or three back-ups (of several steps each) in a row, with release, click&treat for each one. Then ask the horse to step forward into the corner again; click&treat.
Build a little dancing rhythm of movement: back up = click&treat. Forward into corner = click&treat. Back up = click&treat, and so on. After about 3 of these, go away for a bit of relaxation or doing other things.
Gradually, over many short sessions, ask for more steps back until the horse willingly offers as many as you like.
Generalizations
Move away from the corner and use just a fence on the far side.
Move away from the fence and use just a low raised rail on the far side.
Repeat with just a ground rail along the far side of the horse.
Check to see how well the horse can back with this signal (turning to face him) out in the open. If you lose straightness at any point, return to using a fence or rail on the far side. If the horse begins to swing his hind end away from you, you can straighten his body by touching his neck to move his head away, which will straighten his body.
Back through increasingly narrow spaces; e.g. two barrels, gates, into and out of stalls, always being careful that the horse does not catch his hip on an upright.
Back through lanes set up with higher sides.
Back along a track or trail.
Back down slopes and up slopes. Start with gentle inclines.
Back into a trailer or trailer simulation.
Weave backwards (you need to create signals to direct his butt to the right, to the left and to keep it straight). If you are asking the horse to back up while you face him front on, moving his head a bit to his left (your right) will cause his butt to move to his right (your left). And vice versa if you move his head a little bit to his right, his butt will move to his left. If you want him to back straight, ask his head to stay straight.
We don’t need fancy or specialized gear to initiate conversations with our horse(s) about foot awareness, signal clarity, precision, synchronization and flexion. We can use a set of rags.
This routine uses a collection of rags. Rags are great to use because they are so easy to carry around and set out in different places and in different configurations. My rags are chunky pieces of old clothing. It’s a great way to use clothes that are no longer favorites to wear and too worn to pass on to other people. Chunky pieces are best if there is wind about.
If your horse loves mats (as I hope he does), our first challenge is teaching that our rags are not the same as mats. The rags take the place of cones, barrels, rails or other items we might use to set out a pattern.
The purpose of this series of ‘Routines’ is to provide a platform that encourages handlers to refine their intent via body language, gesture signals and a clear ‘no intent’ posture. What usually happens is that as the handler’s movements become clearer and more consistent, the horse magically improves.
The more we can take the ‘noise’ out of our communication, the easier it is for the horse to understand our intent. Once they understand our request, most horses are keen to comply to reach the next pause, click&treat, or time of relaxation.
The more time we spend playing with this sort of exercise, which look relatively simple on the surface, the more positive spin-off we’ll notice with other things we do with the horse.
Clicker savvy horses seem to enjoy short routines like this because they quickly work out the order of tasks and know when the last one is finished. If we use a jackpot or triple treat on completion of the little chain of tasks, they are usually keen to follow through the pattern or routine. It’s another form of ‘destination training’. The horse knows the destination (the end of the final task).
With Boots I often do routines we’ve learned in the past, and she seems to remember how each one flows (her memory is probably better than mine!). We vary which ones we do over the days. Sometimes we do two of them separated by other activities.
This morning I was short on time, so I checked to see if Boots wanted to walk with me at liberty. She did, so I decided to play with our May Challenge routine. We’ve done it a few times with halter and lead. To my delight, she remembered all of it and was setting herself up for each task with minimal gestures from me. It probably went well mostly because I had no expectations and I wasn’t filming.
AIM
Smooth execution of the routine walking on either side of the horse: Routine: Walk a circuit around all the rags; circle each rag in turn; halt together beside each rag.
PREREQUISITES
We have stepping on a mat strongly ‘on cue’ or ‘on signal’ or ‘under stimulus control’. (See Related Resources 1 at the end of this post.)
Smooth ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ transitions staying shoulder-to-shoulder. (See Related Resources 2 at the end of this post.)
Handler has developed a clear ‘Zero Intent’ signal so the horse knows when standing quietly is what is wanted. (See Related Resources 3 at the end of this post.)
Change of direction plus changing side of horse the handler on, is smooth. (See Related Resources 4 at the end of this post.
While walking shoulder-to-shoulder, the horse responds to the handler moving his/her body axis toward the horse or away from the horse. (See Related Resources 5 at the end of this post.)
Have a familiar ‘jackpot’ or ‘triple treat’ procedure for the end of the chain of tasks. (See Related Resources 6 at the end of this post.)
ENVIRONMENT AND MATERIALS
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Halter and 10′ (3 m) or longer lead. The idea is to strive to keep the rope draped at all times.
A set of chunky rags. I use 5 rags and 3 rags in the video clips for easier filming and to avoid boring viewers to death, but you can use as many as you like.
VIDEO CLIPS
#179 HorseGym with Boots: ROUTINE 2 – Rags with halter & lead.
#180 HorseGym with Boots: ROUTINE 2 – Rags at liberty.
NOTES
I like to memorize the sequence of events by walking the pattern without the horse and then visualizing the sequence often (a good substitute for counting sheep to go to sleep!).
At the beginning, have your rags much further apart than shown on the video. We want the tasks to be easy to accomplish. Once the horse knows that rags are not the same as mats, put the rags closer together to increase the skill level.
How often you click&treat depends on where you are with each skill. I always begin with click&treat for each portion of each task. As the horse gets the hang of what we are doing, I move the click point along so the horse does more for each click&treat. I work toward being able to do the whole sequence with one click point at the end, but it doesn’t really matter.
As with everything, I keep the sessions short, tucked in among other things we are doing. I often do it just once, sometimes twice and rarely three times in a row.
Be aware that your body language and gestures may be less clear when you are using the non-dominant side of your body. Think brushing teeth or raking with your non-dominant side.
There is no need to rush through the sequence of tasks. Walk slowly. Give the horse time put the pattern into his mind and from there into his muscle memory.
To begin with, I like to change sides after each segment of this routine because it creates a natural click point. As the horse enjoys his treat, we can move to his other side to organize ourselves for the next part of the task.
To change which side of the horse we are on, we can simply halt a little distance away from the rags and move ourselves to the other side of the horse, or we can do a change of direction and sides in motion as in Related Resources 4 at the end of the post.
Later we can generalize to doing the whole routine first on one side, then again on the other side.
Work on each prerequisite on its own until it feels smooth.
Lay out the rags in a straight line with enough space between them to make it easy for the horse to circle each one. Use as many rags as you like. Three can be good to start with. To extend the routine, add more rags one at a time. Seven rags give a pretty good workout without asking too much. If you listen, the horse will tell you if you’re asking too much too soon.
TASKS
With the handler nearest the rags and on the left side of the horse, walk a circuit around the rags, staying as close to the rags as you can without the horse thinking he needs to stand on them. Make a U-turn at the far end.
Repeat 1) above walking on the right side of the horse (handler closest to rags).
Walk a circle around each rag on the left side of horse. As you come out of the circle from the first rag, move forward to get into position to circle the second rag, and so on.
Repeat 5) above on the right side of horse.
Handler nearest the rags: ‘walk on’ beside the row of rags, as you did in 1), but this time come to ‘halt’ beside each rag. Do one length of the rags walking on the right side of the horse [where you were for 6 above], then change to the left side for the other direction. Stay far enough from each rag to avoid the horse thinking they are mat targets. Once he realizes they are not foot targets, halt right beside each rag or even stand on it yourself for the halt. In the video clip with halter and lead, I did all this task on the horse’s right side.
Finish off with a jackpot or triple treat on completion of the final task in the routine..
GENERALIZATIONS
Generalize by doing more of the routine on one side of the horse until you can do all of it on the horse’s left, and all of it on the horse’s right. Be sure to give both sides attention and spend extra time on the side that feels harder.
Lay out your line of rags in as many different venues as you can find. If you have a route between barn and turn-out, you could lay them out and use them coming from or returning to the paddock.
Once the horse shows that he knows the pattern done on a totally loose lead, play with it at liberty if you have a safe area. Be careful to use the same signals you have used all along. Sometimes I add a neck rope to make it easy to give extra momentary guidance, but if the routine does not stay smooth, I go back to halter and lead (lead kept loose except as used for momentary guidance).
If you find it hard to wean yourself off a lead rope, start with wrapping it around the horse’s neck or draping it over his back. It might be that the handler is more dependent on the rope than the horse is. They key is too keep all body language and gestures the same.
Photo: Standing with ‘no intent’ at halt is part of these five chained tasks.
INTRODUCTION
This is the first of a series of movement routines we can do with only a fence and an open working area. The routines put together many of the individual skills and movements that my resources have looked at so far.
The key purpose of these routines is to encourage handlers to work on the precision of their signals in a relaxed manner. The routines require the handler to pay close attention to refining his/her signals to improve timing, clarity and softness. A horse can only be as precise as we are precise. A horse can only be as soft as we are soft.
Each routine has five elements that are chained together into a pattern of movement. Horses are pattern learners and, like all of us, like to know what will happen before it happens. We tend to forget that horses living natural lives in the wild are totally in control of all their actions.
We can increase the positive feeling of ‘certainty’ by teaching these routines in a light-hearted but methodical way. Boots usually picks up a new pattern after three-six repeats over three days. Some horses will be quicker, and some will take longer.
Other reasons for playing with these routines:
They are a way to keep skills we have already taught current in our repertoire.
They give a way of interacting with our horse when time is short, we don’t have time to set up objects and obstacles, we don’t have access to objects and obstacles, or we are past the point of lugging around heavy rails and other objects.
They include movement tasks we can do between working on stationary tasks, so giving the horse a good mix of activities.
They make excellent cool-down routines after energetic riding or groundwork.
I’ve called them ‘routines’ because gymnasts first learn the individual elements of a performance and then form the elements into a ‘routine’. First each element is mastered emotionally, intellectually and physically. Then the routine is put into brain memory. Then it is practiced until it is also in muscle memory.
All this is a little bit tricky because doing a routine with a horse involves two brains and two sets of muscles.
After jotting down a plan for a possible routine, I try it out with Boots multiple times. The feedback I get from Boots and myself always shows that the initial plan needs a lot of changes. Most of the changes concern my body position plus when and how I give the signal for each part of the action.
AIM
Smooth execution of a series of five individual tasks chained together:
‘Walk on’ and ‘halt’ repeated three times;
Change of direction and side of horse (so horse remains nearest the fence);
‘Stay’ while handler backs away from the horse to the end of rope (keeping a drape in the rope);
Horse Waits for ___ seconds;
Recall.
PREREQUISITES
Smooth ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ transitions staying shoulder-to-shoulder. (See Related Resources 1 at the end of this post.)
Handler has developed a clear ‘No Intent’ signal so the horse knows when standing quietly is what is wanted. (See Related Resources 2 at the end of this post.)
Change of direction plus changing side of horse the handler is on. (See Related Resources 3 at the end of this post.
Horse and handler agree on clear ‘stay’ signals. (See Related Resources 4 at the end of this post.)
Horse has learned to ‘wait’ until handler gives a new signal or clicks&treats. (See Related Resources 5 at the end of this post.)
Handler and horse agree on a clear ‘recall’ signal. (See Related Resources 6 at the end of this post.)
ENVIRONMENT AND MATERIALS
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Halter and 10′ (3 m) or longer lead.
A safe fence line to work alongside. It can be straight, curved or the inside or outside of a round pen fence.
Since I don’t find memorizing a sequence of tasks easy, I use a ruler as a fence and practice the movements with my small toy hippopotamus. Then I walk the sequence outside by myself, practicing the signals I will use, accompanied by an invisible unicorn.
While working out the plan with Boots’ help, I’ve usually managed to confuse her to some extent, so once the plan feels right, I wait a few days before starting to do the final version with her. Meanwhile we have been practicing the tasks separately.
For the first task, walk as few or many steps as you like. I walked only a few steps in the video to make it easier to film. Vary how long you stand at halt before asking for the next walk transition. Work to get the ‘walk on’ transition with raising your chest, breathing in deeply plus your voice signal. Work on refining your body language and voice signal for each halt.
How often you click&treat depends on where you are with each skill. I always begin with click&treat for each portion of each task. As the horse gets the hang of what we are doing, I move the click point along so the horse does more for each click&treat. I like to eventually be able to do the whole chain with one click point at the end.
As with everything, we keep the sessions short in among other things we are doing. I often do it just once, sometimes twice and rarely three times in a row.
There is no need to rush through the chain of tasks. Walk slowly. Give the horse time put the pattern into his mind and from there into his muscle memory.
Stay’ means that the horse understands that you can walk away while he stays put. ‘Wait’ means that the horse is able to keep standing still for a specific length of time until you click&treat or give another signal. They may appear to be the same at first glance, but teaching/learning ‘Wait’ with duration is a skill set that goes beyond the idea of ‘stay’ for a short period.
For the ‘wait’ task, gradually work up to ten seconds, but be sure to stay well within the time the horse is comfortable with. Better to recall sooner rather than after the horse moves. If he moves, go back to working on the ‘wait’ task by itself for several days. In the video clip, you will note that on the day we filmed at liberty, Boots found it hard to relax into the ‘wait’. There was a lot of commotion including a huge noisy hedge clipping machine working close by.
The more time we spend playing with exercises like this, which look relatively simple on the surface, the more positive spin-offs there will be to the other things we do with the horse.
SLICES
Memorize the sequence of tasks.
Play with each of the skills separately until you and the horse feel fluent. This might take one session or a long time if some of the tasks are new to you.
Walking with the horse nearest the fence, chain the first two tasks together (3 x walk & halt plus change of direction and sides).
When 3 is smooth, chain the last three mini-tasks together (stay plus wait plus recall).
When both 3 and 4 are going well, chain it all together.
Always adjust your rate of reinforcement (how often you click&treat) to what the horse is able to offer on the day. If he seems unsure, click&treat more of the slices. If he is showing keenness and understanding about what comes next, use your voice to praise and move the click&treat further along the chain.
We can’t expect our horse to be the same every day, just as we are not the same every day. Good training adjusts what we do to what the horse is telling us. Some days it will feel very smooth. Other days parts will feel sticky. This is normal ebb and flow.
The day will come when you do it all with one click and treat at the end, but it may not happen again the day after that. Horses read our tension or relaxation in a nanosecond. Often what is happening with the horse relates to ourselves, our emotional state, and how the horse perceives us that day.
Other times, the horse may be tired or anxious due to rough weather or other changes in his external and/or internal environment.
GENERALIZATIONS
If you usually start walking on the horse’s left side, start instead walking on his right side. Be aware of keeping your signals equally clear on the side you use less often.
Practice alongside as many different fences as you can.
Once the horse shows that he knows the pattern, play with it at liberty along fences using the same signals you have used all along.
Once the routine is smooth along the fence, play with it out in the open, first with the lead rope and then at liberty. Alternate on which side of the horse you begin the routine.
Having a horse stop and wait when his lead rope is dropped onto the ground is useful for management around home as well as out on the trail. It pops up occasionally as a challenge in Horse Agility competitions.
SAFETY
When first teaching this I prefer to use a wide webbing or leather halter. If the horse moves he may step on his rope and react by jerking his head up. With a wide halter there is less chance of spinal trauma. Alternately, we can attach the rope to the halter with a bit of wool that will break in such a situation.
I also suggest using a soft, thick rope not longer than 12 feet. If something causes the horse to move, it’s better if there isn’t a long, thin rope chasing him.
First we must of course make sure that the horse is totally relaxed with ropes dragging all around his body and legs. He must be cool with ropes moving in front of him, behind him and dragging alongside while attached to his halter.
PREREQUISITES
Rope relaxation and rope calmness in various situations. (See ‘Additional Resources’ 5, 6, and 7 at the end of this post.)
Able to stand still in relaxed mode while things are happening around him. (See ‘Additional Resources’ 8, 9 and 10 at the end of this post.)
Stop willingly to target his front feet to a mat. (See ‘Additional Resources’ 1 at the end of this post.)
Smooth ‘walk-on’ and ‘halt’ transitions staying beside the handler on a draped lead rope. (See ‘Additional Resources’ 2 at the end of this post.)
Willing response to a “Whoa” voice signal. (See ‘Additional Resources’ 3 at the end of this post.)
Smooth ‘back-up’ with the handler beside the horse or in front facing the horse. (See ‘Additional Resources’ 4 at the end of this post.)
ENVIRONMENT & MATERIALS
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry; he’s had ample time to graze or eat hay right before the training session.
Halter and lead kept loose (draped) as much as possible, because as much as possible, we want to use body language for communication, not rope pressure.
Two or more familiar mats.
A second rope.
AIM
When we drop the lead rope and give our horse a ‘wait’ hand signal, we would like him to stay parked in that spot until we return.
VIDEO CLIPS
#72 HorseGym with Boots: Ground-tie Clip 1 GETTING STARTED:
#73 HorseGym with Boots: Ground-tie Clip 2 ANOTHER VENUE:
NOTES
Boots’ demonstration on the video clips is the sum of many short sessions over a long time. When teaching something new, we stay with each slice of the task over as many short sessions as necessary until it feels ho-hum (easy and smooth). Then we link in the next slice.
Teach the whole process from the horse’s left side, then teach it again walking on his right side. Alternatively, teach each slice on both sides before adding in the next slice.
SLICES
Walk on the horse’s left side with a loose lead toward a mat. Hold the horse’s lead rope in the hand nearest the horse. Carry a second rope in your other hand.
Halt with the horse at the mat using your halt voice signal and body language.
Drop your second rope on the ground under the horse’s nose.
Allow him to satisfy his curiosity about it (sniff it, put a foot on it, and so on); relax (click&treat.)
Keep a drape or ‘smile’ in your actual lead rope.
Pick up the dropped rope and walk together to another mat, or walk a large loop that returns you to the same mat.
Looking for: Horse halts with front feet on the mat and remains relaxed when the second rope is dropped and picked up again.
If you set up a circuit of several mats, you can move from mat to mat.
Remember to do something easy the horse already knows and build in ‘down time’ in between bursts of activity with this new task.
If you have a circuit of several mats, do the circuit once. Then do something else that’s easy and come back to the circuit again if it feels right to do more.
As 1, but without using mats. Everything stays the same except that we have removed the prop of the mat or mats. It may help the horse at first if you walk the same circuit as you walked when you were using the mat(s). Halt and drop the second rope where the mats were during the previous lessons.
Once the horse seems to recognize the dropped rope as a place to stop and stand, gradually generalize to dropping the second rope in new places.
As 2, but now drop the lead rope itself: relax as the horse halts; pause for a second or two, with neutral (no intent) body language. We want to begin building duration into the time the horse stands quietly after the lead rope is dropped. Be sure to click&treat well before the horse shows any tendency to move.
Looking for: Horse halts when you use body language and voice signal plus drop the lead rope and relax (click&treat). Horse relaxes too.
It’s helpful if we can ground-tie the horse after we’ve asked him to back up. Ask the horse to back up and while he is backing drop the lead rope and at the same time use your halt voice signal, relax (click&treat) when the horse halts. Intersperse these requests with walking forward.
Looking for: Horse backs up on request and halts with the handler’s voice halt signal plus the dropped rope.
Experiment to see what happens when:
Walking along you slow to a halt and gently drop the lead rope without using your voice signal as well.
If you have developed clear body language to communicate that you are going to stop, the horse will respond to just your body language and the dropped rope.
Relax (click&treat) at the first sign of a halt.
If the horse finds this difficult, leave it out for now and maybe return to it as part of your generalization when he knows the ground-tying task better.
Looking for: Horse brings himself to a halt when the handler halts and the rope is gently dropped in even in the absence of a voice signal.
Bring back the matsand the second rope. Ask the horse to jog (or trot) with you and halt with you when you halt beside the mat. Use your voice signal plus drop the second lead rope from the jog.When it feels smooth, phase out the second rope and drop the horse’s lead rope.
Looking for: Horse willingly halts at the mat from jog/trot when the handler halts, gives the voice halt signal and drops the lead rope.
Slices 1-6 above have the handler stopping with the horse. Now we want to generalize the skill so the horse stops when rope is dropped plus stays parked while handler keeps walking. Ask the horse to halt at a mat, drop the lead rope, and use your ‘wait’ signal to let the horse know you want him to remain parked while you walk away from him. For the ‘wait’ I use a gesture and voice signal at the same time.
For the early lessons with this generalization, it’s good to use a circuit of mats again, until you see that the horse understands the new nuances of the task consistently over several sessions.
Walk with a loose lead toward a mat. Halt with horse at the mat using:
Halt voice signal
Dropped lead rope
Give your voice and gesture ‘wait’ signals Then walk forward a few steps away from the horse.
Turn to face the horse and take up a neutral (no intent) body language position – place both hands flat over your belly button, drop your shoulders and have a soft focus not looking at the horse.
Wait a second or two, be sure to return before the horse even thinks about moving. Count the seconds. Start with one second and don’t wait longer until one second is completely okay with the horse.
If the horse moves, gently return to him, pick up the lead rope, walk together in a relaxed manner and start again. This is a re-set. Don’t make the horse feel wrong. He can’t be wrong because he doesn’t yet know what you want. Next time don’t go as far away and return to him sooner rather than waiting that extra moment.
Pick up the lead rope and walk on to the next mat to repeat, or walk a loop to return to the same mat.
Looking for: Horse halts at mat and remains there confidently while the handler walks on a few steps, turns, pauses, and walks back to the horse.
Gradually walk a few more steps away from the horse and increase how long you wait before returning to the horse; relax (click&treat). Click&treat after you return to the horse.
If he loses confidence, immediately return to the distance and time he can cope with. Add distance and duration very slowly – one second and/or half a step at a time over many, many short sessions.
Looking for: Horse stays with the mat and the dropped rope until the handler returns.
This slice asks the horse to halt at the mat while you keep on walking without stopping first. You drop the lead rope and use your voice & gesture ‘stay’ signals but you don’t halt yourself – you keep on walking.
If the horse has been mainly watching your body language as his signal to halt, it could be hard for him at first until he realizes that,
the mat
dropped lead rope
voice signal
all mean he still should halt, even if you keep moving.
The Task: Walk toward a mat with a loose lead. When you reach the mat, simultaneously:
use your halt voice signal
drop the lead rope
give your ‘wait’ signal without stopping your feet when the horse stops
walk on a few steps.
Turn and face the horse, then:
wait a second or two
return to the horse
relax (click&treat).
Pick up the lead rope and walk on to the next mat.
Looking for: Horse stays halted on the mat while the handler walks on, halts, turns, pauses and walks back to the horse.
Play with this by gradually moving further away from the horse.
Still using a mat, play with 9 above at the trot. Handler keeps jogging forward while the horse halts on the mat.
Repeat 9 above without the mat, at walking pace.
Repeat 9 above without the mat at jog or trot.
Make sure the horse is comfortable when you leave from his left eye and from his right eye. Spend a bit more time with the harder side, if there is one.
Further Generalization
Generalize ground-tying to new venues and around new distractions, as long as it’s safe. Include mats initially if it helps the horse, then phase them out.
Horses have an inbuilt action pattern for moving in synchronization with each other. One way to play with this wonderful ability is to devise an exercise where the ‘walk on’ signal balances rhythmically with the ‘back up’ signal.
First, we ensure that our ‘walk on’ and ‘back up’ signals, used individually, give us fluid movement together staying shoulder-to-shoulder. Then we link these two tasks together to form a sequence of dance-like steps.
While walking forward, we pause momentarily before shifting our energy to step backward. The pause gives the horse time to re-organize his body to step back with us. The message to shift gears must travel a lot further in a horse than in our smaller body. Also, the horse has four legs to organize, so it is important to build in a pause long enough for the horse to accomplish the change.
It can look and feel rough at first, but by spending a short time with this exercise often, the shift from forward to reverse gear can become fluid and polished. The two video clips below show the stages of training that Boots and I went through.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
Horse responds willingly to ‘walk on’ signals and walks in a relaxed manner with the handler beside his neck/shoulder. (See ‘Related Resources’ 1 at end of this post.)
Horse responds easily to ‘back-up’ signals and walks backward willingly with the handler staying in position beside his neck/shoulder. (See ‘Related Resources’ 2 at end of this post.)
Horse and handler understand the ‘Zero Intent’ dynamic. (See ‘Related Resources’ 3 at end of this post.)
ENVIRONMENT & MATERIALS:
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry; he’s had ample time to graze or eat hay right before the training session.
Halter and lead (kept draped as much as possible, as we want to use body language for communication, not rope pressure). If the horse already backs up easily with the handler in the shoulder-to-shoulder position, you can teach this task at liberty.
A selection of barriers which we walk toward and ask for a ‘halt’.
A safe fence or similar to work alongside.
Supports and rails to build a dead-end lane.
AIM:
To smoothly change from walking forward ten steps to backing up ten steps in a straight line, staying together in the shoulder-to-shoulder position.
VIDEO CLIPS:
Balancera Clip 1 of 2: #173 HorseGym with Boots
Balancera Clip 2 of 2. #174 HorseGym with Boots
NOTES:
The slice numbers on the clips don’t correspond to the slice numbers below.
Boots’ demonstration on the video is the sum of many short sessions over a long time. When teaching something new, we stay with each slice of the task over as many short sessions as necessary until it feels ho-hum (easy and smooth). Then we move on to the next slice.
SLICES:
Ensure that you can ‘walk on’ together fluidly toward a destination, staying in position shoulder-to-shoulder (as for this whole exercise).
Ensure that you can ‘halt’ together fluidly, staying in position shoulder-to-shoulder.
Set up a lane and walk the horse through it in both directions. The horse walks inside the lane, handler walks on the outside.
When 3 is ho-hum, walk the horse into the lane and ask for a halt about halfway along; click&treat. Do this in both directions.
Repeat 4 above, asking the horse to wait a second longer before the click&treat, until he can comfortably wait 4 or 5 seconds while you relax with Zero Intent.
Block off one end of the lane with a barrier placed about half a horse’s length inside the lane. Walk the horse into the lane and halt at the barrier; click&treat.
Hold the rope in the hand nearest the horse. Lift your rope hand straight up and jiggle the rope lightly to put a distinctive touch signal on the halter. If your horse already understands a voice ‘back’ signal, use this as well. Watch for any movement backwards, even a body shift back; click&treat. If your horse already responds reliably to a back-up gesture and/or voice signal, you can probably teach this at liberty.
Walk the horse into the lane again, to halt at the barrier; click&treat. Repeat 7 above, gradually building up to several steps back.
Block off the lane a little further along so the horse is halting with his whole body inside the lane. Repeat backing out, aiming for a fluid, confident back-up of 5-6 steps. Make sure the handler remains shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse during the backing steps.
Now we want to switch the halter jiggle signal to a hand signal. As you lift the rope-hand straight up to jiggle the rope, also lift your outside hand to the horse’s eye level and make a backward gesture with it. And use your voice signal. Click&treat for any stepping back.
When 10 is good, repeat, using the outside hand and voice signal BEFORE you lift your rope-hand to put jiggle energy into the halter. The moment the horse begins to step back, stop jiggling the rope but ask for another step or two with the outside hand and voice signals.
When the horse moves back readily with your outside hand gesture and voice signal, fade out the rope-jiggle. You have taught what it means, and it is there as a reminding-signal in times of need.
Now we want to combine walk forward, pause, back-up with one click&treat after the whole task. This is the Balancera. Walk into the lane, halt at the barrier, signal for the back-up; click&treat for any back-up that is offered. Because we are introducing new complexity, we relax our criteria for number of steps back.
Gradually, over many very short sessions that always end on a good note, ask for more steps back after the halt before you click&treat. 5-6 steps are good during the learning process.
Practice with a lane of ground rails. Most horses will tend to veer right or left when they back up, due to the natural asymmetry of their bodies. One hind leg pushes off harder, so their hind end veers away from the stronger leg. By frequent backing through a lane of ground rails or between barrels, we help the horse organize his body to stay straighter. I often practice this slice as part of our regular gymnastic work.
Practice with one barrier on the far side of the horse but still halting at a barrier. This gives you another opportunity to note which way his hind end tends to veer.
Work on all the above on both sides of the horse. Each slice has two parts – handler in the left eye and handler in the right eye.
When you feel the time is right, repeat 15 and 16 without a barrier at the end of the lane or along the fence.
Play with halting facing a fence followed by a back-up without the prop of a lane or rails.
When you feel the time is right, ask for a halt away from any barriers, followed by a back-up. Celebrate hugely when you get this. Done with finesse, the horse becomes light and keeps his full attention on your body language so he can maintain the synchronization. I always click&treat after this task.
Gradually build up to 10 steps forward and 10 steps back but vary the number of steps each time you do it. He will be listening for your click to know when he can stop backing.
Whenever it feels ‘broken’, go back to whatever slice the horse feels confident with and work forward from there.
Ask for two ‘forward & back’ repeats before the click&treat.
Ask for three ‘forward & back’ repeats before the click&treat.
GENERALIZATIONS:
Adopt doing the Balancera between two ground rails as a regular part of your gymnastic warm-up and cool-down routines.
Play with this in new venues.
Play with it around new distractions.
Play at liberty.
Play with it to and from paddocks or while out on a walk.
Play with it on slopes, both backing down and backing up the slope.
Play with it long-reining using your voice and hand signal from behind the horse rather than beside him.
If you ride, play with it ridden. You can use the straight upward jiggle of your rope or rein to remind the horse about what you want, along with your voice signal and your body weight shift signal. If you use a cordeo (neck rope) while riding, you have probably already taught a touch signal with that for the back-up. If you begin by riding into a corner, it will easily make sense to the horse that you want him to back up.
This task continues the attention we gave the ‘halt’ and ‘walk on’. We also add a ‘back up’ and pay a bit more attention to ‘wait time’.
There are five different tasks, but since we do them in the horse’s left and right eyes, they are actually ten tasks. Then we consolidate the tasks by doing them in two directions, so we have a total of 20 tasks, or 10 tasks which each have two variations.
Once all the tasks are going smoothly, we can mix them up in any order, which teaches us to be crystal clear for the horse and has the horse watch us carefully to pick up our next signal.
When confusion arises, it is because we are not clear enough. Horses working for a food reward are usually super-observant of all our body language as well as carefully taught voice and gesture signals.
When we use our less dominant side, it’s common for our body language and gesture signals to be less clear until we become more conscious of what we are doing. If you haven’t usually done much on your horse’s right side, there will be a lot of learning going on.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse leads smoothly beside the handler’s shoulder. (See Additional Resource 1 at the end of the post.)
Handler and horse agree on clear ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ signals. (See Additional Resource 2 at the end of the post.)
Horse and handler agree on a ‘back up’ signal. (See Additional Resources 3 & 4 at the end of the post.)
ENVIRONMENT & MATERIALS:
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Horse is not hungry.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
Halter and lead or liberty.
A rail. I use a round rail in the clip, but using a half-round rail that doesn’t roll is ideal to teach this. Or we can put blocks under a round rail. In the clip, I put my foot on it to stop it rolling.
One or two of these tasks during one segment of a training session is plenty. If it’s all done quietly with no fuss or drilling, the horse will think on it and remember what behaviors will earn a click&treat. It works best to do a little bit often.
AIMS:
Handler works on smooth ‘walk on’, ‘halt’ and ‘back up’ signals using a single rail as a focal point.
Handler builds small pauses into the work to encourage the horse to relax while waiting for the next set of signals.
Horse develops confidence with standing over a rail under his belly.
Horse has practice to place his feet carefully in response to handler signals.
VIDEO CLIPS:
With halter and lead:
Liberty
NOTES:
In the video clip, I change between left eye and right eye for each task. An option is to teach them all smoothly with the handler on one side of the horse and then teach them again from the other side.
I didn’t film the tasks using a mat destination between repeats of the task, but when first beginning to teach the tasks, it can help to have a familiar mat some distance from the rail and head to it for an extra click&treat between repeats.
For challenges like this with multiple parts, I find it useful to carry a written memo card in my pocket.
SLICES:
Walk right over the rail, halt a few paces beyond the rail (or at a destination mat/target), click&treat.
Halt with the rail under the horse’s belly, click&treat; pause, walk on forward over the rail.
Halt before stepping over the rail, click&treat; pause, walk on over the rail.
Halt after all four feet have stepped over the rail, click&treat; pause, walk on.
Halt with the rail under the horse’s belly, click&treat. Pause, ask the horse to back his front feet over the rail, click&treat; pause, walk on forward over the rail. If you have not taught backing up, add this slice later when the horse already backs confidently in different situations.
GENERALIZATION:
Approach the rail from different directions.
Put the rail in different venues.
Use different rails.
Do it at liberty or add halter and lead if you taught at liberty.
Work on a slope.
Use a similar exercise to get a horse comfortable with stepping into and out of a hoop on the ground with front feet, then with back feet.
This is a superb flexion exercise because it causes the horse to become super aware of what his feet are doing. It also encourages the horse to pick up his feet and stretch his stride, so it aids muscle lengthening and hock flexion.
It is also an example of how we can gradually build the complexity of a task until eventually the whole task is done with one click&treat at the end.
Sadly, not all horses are aware of exactly where their feet are and what their feet are doing. Horses raised in flat paddocks or those who spend much of their life stabled have not had opportunity to develop good proprioception. Horses who can move freely in rugged country will have a much stronger sense of where their feet are.
We can purposefully teach tasks that encourage foot awareness. See ‘Related Resources’ 8 at the end of this post.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
Horse responds willingly to ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ signals when the handler is beside his neck/shoulder. (See ‘Related Resources’ 1 at end of this post.)
Horse knows about nose and/or foot targets as destinations where a click&treat occurs each time. (See ‘Related Resources’ 2 at end of this post.)
Horse confidently steps over rails, ropes, logs or similar. (See ‘Related Resources’ 4 and 5 at end of this post.)
Horse confidently walks onto and over unusual surfaces such as tarps, boards, and so on. (See ‘Related Resources’ 6 at end of this post.)
ENVIRONMENT & MATERIALS:
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Five or six hoops. Make hoops with ropes laid into circles or make hoops using plastic water pipe pieces held together with a strip of large or smaller diameter pipe so the hoop can come apart if the horse gets in a muddle.
A destination where the horse will receive a click&treat after negotiating the hoop(s). Put the destination, either a mat or a nose target, at a spot an equal distance from either end of your (eventual) line of hoops so it works in either direction of travel.
Halter and lead kept loose as much as possible, as we want to use body language for communication as much as possible, rather than rope pressure.
AIM:
To smoothly walk (and maybe jog) across a series of five (or more) hoops staying together in the shoulder-to-shoulder position.
VIDEO CLIP:
#172 HorseGym with Boots: Building Task Complexity using Hoops
Boots’ demonstration on the video is the sum of many short training sessions over a long time. During the teaching or acquisition phase, we played with one hoop for a long time before adding the second hoop. As she gained confidence, we added more hoops one at a time.
It’s good to first build confident stepping over things such as rails and as many other safe objects that you can find.
Remember to keep each session short. We don’t want to drill this. We want the horse to learn that stepping through the hoops cleanly earns him a bonus click&treat.
When we have accomplished the task fully, we will be able to cross a series of hoops cleanly in either direction with the handler on either side of the horse.
Some people like to teach everything on both sides from the beginning. Others prefer to get it all smooth staying on one side of the horse and then teach it again from the beginning on the other side of the horse.
Be careful to keep the shoulder-to-shoulder position intact so you are consistently moving in a synchronized way.
SLICES:
Lay out one hoop and set up your destination (mat or nose target) a good distance away from the hoop so it is not immediately distracting.
Approach the hoop with the horse; click&treat for any interest he shows in the hoop. Allow him to sniff it and paw at it for as long as he wants. Click&treat when he finishes sniffing and/or pawing, walk away from the hoop to the mat or nose target destination; click&treat at the destination.
When the horse is ho-hum about the hoop, ask him to step his front feet into the hoop and halt; click&treat. Walk on to your destination; click&treat.
Ignore any clipping of the hoop with his feet as he steps into it or out of it. Most horse will correct themselves with practice. It is addressed in 8 below.
When 3 above is smooth, ask him to walk through the hoop with his front feet and halt with his hind feet in the hoop; click&treat. Walk on to your destination; click&treat.
Alternate between 3 and 5 above, walking on to your destination each time for a second click&treat.
When the horse feels confident about halting with either his front feet or his hind feet in the hoop, begin to ask him to walk right through the hoop and on to your destination.
At this point, ignore any clipping of the hoop with his feet, BUT when he walks right through CLEANLY, CLICK right after he has cleanly exited the hoop, and deliver the treat. When he does clip the hoop, there is no extra click&treat. You simply move on to your destination; click&treat.
Repeat 7 and 8 until the horse can walk across the hoop smoothly without touching it most of the time. The first time he walks through without touching the hoop, celebrate hugely with a bonus click&treat or a jackpot before walking on to your destination for another click&treat.
When the horse walks across the hoop cleanly almost every time, add a second hoop. Allow him time to investigate if he wants to.
Repeat as above with two hoops, then three hoops, then four hoops, then five hoops, then more if you want.
Be sure to stay with each number of hoops until the horse is super confident and moving across them cleanly almost every time. The easiest way to make it all fall apart is to go too fast or to try to do too much during one session.
By keeping the sessions short and fun, he will be keen to do it again next time.
Ensure that the horse is confident working in both directions.
Ensure the horse is confident with you on his left side or his right side.
When it feels ho-hum to walk across five or more hoops, start the whole process again with one hoop and ask him to jog or trot across it.
GENERALIZATIONS:
Set up hoops in new venues; slopes can make it more challenging.
Set up hoops where there are different distractions.
If you have a friend that trains in the same way, ask them to do the exercise with your horse.
Use the exercise regularly as part of your warm-up or cool-down gymnastics.
See ‘Related Resources’ 7 below for more ways to play with hoops.
These activities are all based on equine clicker training. Please see my book, How to Begin Equine Clicker Training: Improve Horse-Human Communication if you would like to investigate clicker training with horses. Details of my books are on the ‘BOOKS’ page link above. The books are all available via Amazon.com. Topics in the books contain free links to relevant YouTube video clips.
I keep the clips short – most are under five minutes. Each relates to a specific skill. Keeping them short makes them easier to find and review.
Each of the activities listed below has one or more accompanying video clips. Depending on the reason a horse is on stall rest, some tasks may be a more useful than others.
Nose to Target
This is fully discussed and explained in the book mentioned above. It is usually one of the first tasks when we introduce clicker training with horses.
Once the horse understands that touching his nose to a target held out by the handler earns him a click&treat, and he has a strong history of reinforcement for the task, we can use it to gradually develop flexion.
This clip shows a way to introduce the ‘nose to target’ task with the handler in protected contact (i.e. on the other side of a barrier). It’s good to use protected contact until we know how the horse responds to food being part of the training process. https://youtu.be/Rat3P1pGKjU
Head Lowering (and Head Up)
This illustrates the process of free-shaping a behavior. Free-shaping means that we wait for the horse to do something it naturally does (e.g. lower the head) and ‘mark’ that behavior with a click&treat. It’s important to accurately ‘mark’ and treat each little approximation toward the final behavior we want, so timing of the click and smooth treat delivery are necessary. It’s helpful to work on these away from the horse by asking another person to stand in for the horse.
This clip shows an overview. Each body part would be taught separately following the outline for targeting chin or shoulder to our hand, as in items 7 and 8 above. https://youtu.be/tFGvmRRYdHQ
This clip shows the final task. It was thin-sliced to first teach it. Be aware that some horses might generalize this bit of fun to pulling off their saddle pads unless you put it on cue or ‘on signal’. https://youtu.be/M8vzn1JsR_k
Bursting Balloons
This clip shows Smoky after a few sessions when he is just beginning to get the hang of it. https://youtu.be/Md7ui1DejaI
A horse training area without obstacles is like a playroom without toys. When we have a collection of obstacles, each one allows us to have a conversation with our horse.
It’s much easier if our horse lives with us and we can set up and change obstacles as convenient, as opposed to having to book time to use a training area.
However, we can amass a collection that is relatively easy to set out, pick up, transport and store. Rags make excellent markers and can be set out to weave or act as a rail or delineate a lane. Smaller cones are easy to set out, collect and store.
Tarps can be folded to different sizes or rolled up to stand in for a rail. If you have use of an indoor arena or it is not a windy day, a collection of cardboard boxes that can be nested for easy storage are useful to act as destinations, create novel gaps, outline lanes or act as rails.
Ropes can take the place of rails to create lanes. Hoops are light and easy to move and store. I prefer hoops made of hose and joined with doweling (or a twig the correct size).
If your horse is boarded, there may be available gear that is not too heavy to move to create a circuit. If you have a grazed area for training, tread-in posts have many uses and can be paired with tape to create reverse round pens or high-sided lanes. Some people may have trees, banks, ditches, bridges, stumps, slopes and/or natural water to incorporate into circuits.
Circuit activities like this are great as warm-up or cool-down exercises, or just to give our horse a stretch of continuous movement and a bit of mental stimulation.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
Horse responds willingly to ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ signals when the handler is beside his neck/shoulder, on both sides of the horse. (See LINKED RESOURCE 1. at the end of the post.)
ENVIRONMENT & MATERIALS:
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Halter and lead (kept loose as much as possible, as we want to use body language for communication, not rope pressure).
A circuit of objects and obstacles. Ideally some to step over for hock flexion, lanes to walk through, gaps to negotiate, unusual surfaces to walk across, slopes if possible, hoops to step into, markers to weave, pedestals to put one or two front feet on, and so on. If your horse likes to pick things up, add that as an element of your circuit.
AIMS:
To have the horse and handler and horse fluidly navigate a circuit of objects and obstacles at the walk with the handler on the LEFT side of the horse.
To have the horse and handler and horse fluidly navigate a circuit of objects and obstacles at the walk with the handler on the RIGHT side of the horse.
VIDEO CLIP:
NOTES:
The horse in the video clip is an old hand at negotiating circuits and the circuit in the clip is a basic one.
This activity refines ‘walking together shoulder-to-shoulder’ with a draped lead rope or no lead rope. A key is to first establish solid, mutually understood, ‘walk on’ signals that ensure you step off together. It is a common habit for the handler to begin walking without ensuring that the horse is stepping off at the same time. (See LINKED RESOURCE 1. at the end of the post.)
SLICES:
Make a list of obstacles available and draw a diagram of where you might put them in your training area.
Experiment gently to find your horse’s response to each obstacle: Either one a day or a couple each session, whatever suits your time and facility.
For horses new to this sort of activity, introduce one obstacle at a time and add a new one when he his totally confident with the previous ones.
If the horse is an old hand at this sort of activity, set up your designed circuit. Move on to generalizations once walking around the basic circuit is fluid on both sides of the horse.
Sometimes I use three, four or five obstacles and do various things with each one, or sometimes I set up a longer circuit like the one in the clip which has twelve obstacles.
If new to the activity, stay with each new obstacle until the horse is ho-hum with it. For example, if it takes one session for the horse to be comfortable with a new object or obstacle, and you add a new one each session, you can have a circuit of twelve obstacles after twelve sessions. Or you can do two different things with six obstacles.
But: some obstacles will be harder and take longer than one session to establish comfort and willingness. As long as we always start where the horse shows confidence, and we proceed in small slices when he shows he is ready to do more, things usually progress well.
Success breeds success. Over-facing and going too fast destroy confidence and the willingness to try again. If you notice you’ve done this, simply relax and go back however far you need to go to where the horse is confident and slowly work forward again.
When it all flows smoothly while you are on the horse’s left side, start again on his right side.
GENERALIZATIONS:
Add in the occasional halt, either between obstacles, in a lane, across a rail, on a pedestal, in front of a rail, just after stepping across a rail, between uprights, with front or back feet in a hoop. Decide beforehand how long your halts will be. Start with one second and work up gradually to five or ten seconds. Once you have duration, ask the horse to ‘wait’ while you move away and/or around him. (See LINKED RESOURCE 4. at the end of the post.)
Add in the occasional back-up between uprights, through a lane, before reaching the next obstacle, backing front feet over a rail, backing all four feet over a rail. (See the LINKED RESOURCES 5. and 6. at the end of this post for training plans relating to backing up.)
Ask for sidestepping away from you or toward you along a rail. (See LINKED RESOURCE 1. at the end of the post.)
Walk a small circle to do the same obstacle twice.
Change your leading position so you are in front of the horse and he walks behind you. See the LINKED RESOURCES 8. at the end of this post
Add the occasional trot between or over selected obstacles.
Long-rein the circuit. (See my Long-Reining book on the ‘Books’ page.)
If you lunge, ask for continuous trot through a series of obstacles set up so your rope doesn’t catch on them. I like to trot an obstacle, then have horse trot a circle around me while I move into position for trotting over or through the next obstacle. This is an exercise that allows continuous sustained movement without being dead boring or stressing the horse’s joints and dulling his brain with continuous small circles.
How do we become truly fluid with a specific task or series of tasks?
How can the handler practice a clear, consistent signal or group of signals?
How can we engage the horse to willingly carrying out tasks confidently at our request?
It’s natural to want to ‘practice’ to get better. It’s especially challenging when it’s the handler that needs/wants the practice in order to improve:
Optimum body orientation.
Moving easily between ‘no intent’ and ‘intent’ body language.
Gesture signal clarity.
Consistent voice signal.
Timing of the click to truly mark the desired behavior.
Prompt treat delivery.
The temptation is to get the horse to ‘do it again’ so we can practice. However, if a horse had carried out a complex task to a good standard, does it make sense to him to have to do it again right away?
Probably not. He may instead think that he didn’t get it right the first time. He may try a different variation in good faith and become confused if it does not result in a click&treat.
We acquire a complex task by teaching it via thin-slicing. The ACQUISITION STAGE is finished when our signals are relatively consistent, and the horse’s response is accurate about 90% of the time. Then we enter the STAGE OF BUILDING FLUIDITY with the task. (There is a link at the end of this post about ‘The Four Stages of Learning’.)
Gaining fluidity, with new thought processes or with new movements, means building up nerve connections. The only way to build up nerve connections is to apply our full attention to repeating the learning process.
Once we have a general idea about what we are learning, we focus our attention on the detail by reviewing the new skills often enough to put them into our long-term mental memory and our muscle memory.
This involves repetition. How we do the repetition can vary.
Not recommended – DRILLING:
Drilling involves repeating something over and over. Good point: it will become habitual. Bad point: it can kill enthusiasm for both that task and learning anything else by drilling.
For example, horses who are routinely made to move endless circles in a round pen, or constantly repeat dressage movements, often form an aversion to going into a round pen or arena.
Recommended – CHERISHING EACH MINI-OBJECTIVE:
To put a behavior into the horse’s long- term memory and have it ‘on signal’ or ‘on cue’ seems to be best done with 1-3 repeats each session over the number of days, weeks, or months that it might take, depending on the complexity of the final objective.
If the horse does a behavior to a pleasing standard the first time we ask, it is often a good idea to wait until the next session or later in the same session before asking for it again.
Helpful – Visualizing:
There is evidence (human studies) to suggest that if we focus on clearly visualizing the muscular movements needed to achieve an outcome, the brain views this as almost as good as actually doing it.
We can’t know whether horses visualize things, but my experience with teaching horses in mini-sessions (1-3 repeats) suggests that they do seem to ‘mull over’ new learning and bring a brighter response the next time we do it.
This is especially noticeable if we can have a short repeat most days. Once the horse shows a good knowledge of a task, a break of 2-3 days between requests often brings even more keenness to have ‘another go’ to earn a special high-value treat.
My horse, Boots, has a distinct little smug expression when she nails something especially well, earning approbation, applause, and a triple treat, jackpot, or special treat like a peppermint.
Helpful – SIMULATION:
To improve our expertise with the task, we can ask another person to stand in for our horse so we can practice developing clear signals and build up our mental and muscle memory for our part of the equation. The horse can only be as smooth in his responses as we are smooth and clear (fluid) with our signals.
If we are lucky enough to have an older, more experienced horse available, we can practice with him so we can be more coherent for a young or new horse.
A Possible Solution
To have a way of steadily improving the fluidity of challenging tasks, I decide on what mini-objectives I want to play with today, before we begin a session.
I pocket the exact number of higher-value treats to cover those objectives; usually one peppermint for a spot-on effort. In addition, I have unshelled peanuts or carrot strips for good attempts. This stops me from being tempted to ‘do it again’ once we have a peppermint-worthy response.
I also carry (horse pellets) for getting organized with resets and for when we do more relaxing things between the main mini-objective for that day.
In a way, it’s an example of getting more by doing less.
The video clip below shows three examples. They are either fun tricks to keep us amused, moving and supple, or they are Horse Agility tasks that are getting rather tricky because we have reached the higher-level ‘walk only’ class. Instead of increasing task difficulty with trot or canter, the tasks get more convoluted.
I’ve chosen relatively complex tasks. To reach the point shown in the video, the prerequisites for each task were taught with thin-slicing over a long time.
Example One
One peppermint for a 180-degree turn and back through a gate. Previously she learned a 360-degree turn by following the feel of a rope, then learned hand and voice signals and willingly did it at liberty during a recall. Some people teach this using a target. Boots also has had lots of practice backing up when I stand behind her, including months of long-reining training.
Example Two
A jackpot of five rapid treats for backing 8 steps in a straight line to end up in a 2.5-foot space between a barrel and me on a mounting block or between two barrels. In one session I did this once in each direction, so she could earn two peppermints. She knows ‘park and wait’ thoroughly, as well as backing up with me behind her. She also has a strong history of backing out of narrow dead-end lanes as part of trailer loading preparation, which is how we started training this task. I simply added the barrel on one side and me on a mounting block on the other side.
Example Three
Boots earns an unshelled peanut for our line-dancing move while I’m on the right side of the horse and another while I’m on her left side. We’ve been doing this for only a few months. She already understood yielding the shoulder to touch or gesture as well as targeting her shoulder to my hand before we started. She had also learned to target her knee to my hand, so I had to be careful about developing a distinctly different hand signal. For a long time, I asked for only one repeat before the click&treat. We are now gradually building in more repeats before the click&treat.
Video Clip:
#163 HorseGym with Boots: Gaining Fluidity without Drilling.
In Addition:
If our first attempt at a task is a bit sketchy, we do a quiet reset and try again, looking for improvement, click&treat for the improvement and usually we don’t repeat it again until later in the session or next day.
Instead, we go on to one of the other things we are working on, or just do activities that are well-established.
It seems that after a few weeks of repeating a complex task once daily, the horse often begins to look forward to doing it, knowing that a higher-value treat follows.
Cherishing each mini-objective set for the day’s session and rewarding it with a higher-value treat keeps alive the fresh desire to do it again tomorrow.
Extra:
If you are really keen, you can watch the whole filmed video series from which I took example two in the clip above, showing Boots backing eight steps to end up between a barrel and me on a mounting block. This is what we did for the first 30 days. During days 31-38 we practiced Boots backing up to stand between two barrels when I stood in front, facing her.
I filmed each of the first 30 training sessions. Over 38 days we trained an average of 5 minute on this task per day, so the total training time was 3 hours, 10 minutes.
She already knew about backing up when I stood behind her, so we were adding more detail to the task. She had to learn to stay straight and to target her withers to my hand.
The clips clearly show how we were both learning stuff each day. I was learning how to be clearer in my teaching and she was figuring out exactly what she had to do to earn the click&treat. Before and after each short session we did other things.
This is the first clip in the series. They all follow in a playlist called Backing Up to a Mounting Block. Each clip is quite short.
Chaining behaviors refers to linking together individual tasks into a flow of activity. The photo above shows how we chained repetitions of the task, “Go touch the cone” in order to build confidence walking down the road away from home. Once the horse understands this game, the cones can be put further apart, less in number and eventually phased out and replaced with items naturally found along the route to use as click&treat spots.
We might aim for one click&treat at the end of a series of behaviors. Alternatively, we might click for each specific behavior in the chain, or for two or three behaviors within the chain that easily link into each other.
We can also back-chain, where we begin with the last behavior in the series, and gradually link in each previous behavior. If we specifically want the horse to do a series of behaviors with only one click&treat at the end, this method can work well.
People who have spent more time studying ‘chaining’ in detail prefer to start with a concept called ‘sequencing’. They then describe different kinds of sequences.
Tandem Units – when each part of the sequence is exactly the same. Examples are the ‘cone-to -cone’ exercise in the photo above and the 20 Steps Exercise outlined below.
Conjunctive Units – when there is a sequence to be done, but they could be done in any order. For example, if we have a selection of obstacles set out to do gymnastic exercises with our horse, we can do them in any order.
Chained Units – step one of the sequence must occur before step, 2, step 2 before step 3, and so on. For example, saddling or harnessing a horse. Another example might be walking into the pasture, haltering the horse, walking back to the gate with the horse, opening the gate, asking the horse to walk through the gate, closing the gate, which is outlined in one of the clips below.
When we train by splitting a goal behavior into its smallest teachable units (slices), we link the slices together as the horse becomes competent with each bit of new learning. In most cases, the sequence is important, so each slice is part of a chained unit. The example below about Head Rocking illustrates.
Something like a dressage test, horse agility course, jumping course or western equitation course is made up of discrete units or behavior (conjunctive) but the competition requires them to be done in a strict order, so they become ‘chained’. We can train each unit in a ‘conjunctive’ context, then present them in the required chain for the competition.
CHAINING FORWARD TO CREATE DURATION (A sequence of ‘tandem units’)
This clip clearly shows how we can create a chain of ‘duration’ of the same behavior (tandem units). 20 Steps Exercise
This clip is the same as the one above but done with halter and lead and a handler new to the exercise. #30 HorseGym with Boots: Leading Position Three Duration Exercise. Increasing duration of a behavior is basically increasing the number or duration of ‘tandem units’ before we click&treat. The units might be steps, as in this exercise, or they might be increasing time staying parked or they might be the number of times your horse lifts his foot if you are teaching him to count.
CHAINING THIN-SLICES TO CREATE A COMPLEX TASK
This clip shows how we first train, then chain, tiny components of a task (slices). As the horse understands each slice, we ask for a bit more or a new variation before the next click&treat. This clip is an introduction to building confidence with pushing through pairs of horizontally set pool noodles. We start with the simplest unit and gradually work up to more complexity, so this is an example of mostly chained units
This clip is an introduction to head rocking. The slices are quite tiny and are steadily chained together to accomplish the final task. Since the order of units matters, it is a true chained sequence.
CHAINING A SERIES OF TASKS THAT OCCUR IN A PARTICULAR ORDER
This clip looks at how we chain a series of tasks when we do something like bringing our horse in from a paddock. Usually I would do the whole process with one click&treat after putting on the halter, and another when I take off the halter. The horse has previously (separately) learned each of the tasks that make up this chain of events.
The clip below looks at using a mat to help chain a series of tasks. #12 HorseGym with Boots: CHAINING TASKS. This could be seen as an ‘artificial’ chain because we have decided on the order of the tasks. They could be done in any order, making it a conjunctive chain.
The clip below shows a series of more difficult tasks. Each task is individually taught to a high standard. Then I forward chain or back-chain them according to the requirement of that month’s competition. The order of the tasks has been arbitrarily set for the competition, so this too is an ‘artificial’ chain made up of a series of unrelated tasks.
TRAINING PLAN FOR BACK-CHAINING ROPE-FREE CIRCLE WORK
Back-chaining simply means that we begin with the final behavior in a series and work backward toward the eventual starting point.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
ENVIRONMENT & MATERIALS:
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
The horse is not hungry.
Halter and lead to introduce the idea to the horse.
Safe, enclosed area for working at liberty.
Objects to create the circle outline, as in the video clip or set up a raised barrier.
AIMS:
The horse moves willingly on the outside of a circle of objects, firs to mat destination, later listening for a ‘whoa’ signal.
Back-Chaining Circle Work with a Mat (see video below)
If we want to teach a horse to move in a circle around the outside of a round pen, we can use a mat as the horse’s destination and back-chain a whole circle at walk and a whole circle at trot (energetic horses may offer a canter).
The set-up requires a round pen of ground or raised rails or tape on uprights or a collection of items to outline the circle. The horse walks around the outside of the barrier and the handler walks on the inside of the barrier.
SLICES:
Note: Keep the sessions very short – just a few minutes. We never want to turn anything into a drill. Five minutes a day over a few weeks will give a lot of results.
Stay with each slice until both you and the horse are totally comfortable with it.
With halter and lead:
Lead the horse around the circle and have him target the mat with his feet; click&treat. Repeat until the horse has a strong association with the mat due to always receiving a click&treat there.
Walk the horse and halt a few steps away from the mat. (Horse is on the outside of the barrier, handler on the inside.)
With a looped rope (or unclip the rope if you are in a safe, enclosed area) ask the horse to ‘walk on’ to the mat; click&treat. Snap on the lead rope, walk around the circle and repeat 2 at the same distance until the horse keenly heads to the mat. Walk along with the horse, at the horse’s pace, inside the barrier.
Gradually halt further from the mat before asking the horse to go target the mat. If he loses confidence, return to a smaller distance. Better to increase the distance by very small increments rather than ask for too much too soon. Click&treat each arrival at the mat.
If the horse offers a trot at any time (or a canter) and stays on the circle, celebrate hugely. Such willingness is precious.
When the horse willingly offers a whole circle, celebrate large with happy words and a jackpot or triple treat.
When it is good in one direction, teach it again, from the beginning, walking in the other direction.
Make the task more interesting by putting the mat in different places on the circle.
Once you have whole circles, and you are in a safe area where you can work without the lead, leave it off. This allows you to gradually walk a much smaller circle as the horse stays on his big circle on the outside of the barrier. Click&treat each time the horse reaches the mat. He will soon realize that even if you are a distance away from him when you click, you will quickly walk to him to deliver the treat. Some horses get anxious when they can’t stay right next to the handler.
Play with 9 until you can just rotate in the center of the circle as the horse walks around.
If you’d like to work with trot, and the horse has not already offered it, start again with slice 2 and use your body energy to suggest a trot. If your horse knows a voice ‘trot’ signal, use that too. Celebrate if he trots to the mat.
If you like, gradually make your circle larger.
This is back-chaining because you have shown the horse the final result which will earn the click&treat (targeting the mat) and then added in the previous requirements, which in this case were increasing distances from the mat. In the final behavior, the mat is both the starting point and the end point.
If you are wondering about how we can get multiple circles this way, we can eventually use our ‘halt’ signal to replace the mat and ask the horse to do more than one circle (in gradual increments) before asking him to halt for his click&treat.
Example 2: Back-chaining a 10-task Horse Agility Course (based on the clip before the one immediately above). Each of the tasks has already been taught to a high degree of proficiency.
Consolidate the final task: Trot through the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a click&treat.
Back up seven steps, halt, then trot over the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a treat.
Trot through the curtain, back up seven steps, halt, then trot over the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a treat.
Trot through the z-bend, trot through the curtain, back up seven steps, halt, then trot over the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a treat.
Through the pool noodles, trot through the z-bend, trot through the curtain, back up seven steps, halt, then trot over the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a treat.
Trot through scary corridor of flags, through the pool noodles, trot through the z-bend, trot through the curtain, back up seven steps, halt, then trot over the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a treat.
Drag the bottles, trot through scary corridor of flags, through the pool noodles, trot through the z-bend, trot through the curtain, back up seven steps, halt, then trot over the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a treat.
Weave five markers, drag the bottles, trot through scary corridor of flags, through the pool noodles, trot through the z-bend, trot through the curtain, back up seven steps, halt, then trot over the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a treat.
From halt, trot off the tarp, weave five markers, drag the bottles, trot through scary corridor of flags, through the pool noodles, trot through the z-bend, trot through the curtain, back up seven steps, halt, then trot over the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a treat.
Walk onto the tarp and halt, trot off the tarp, weave five markers, drag the bottles, trot through scary corridor of flags, through the pool noodles, trot through the z-bend, trot through the curtain, back up seven steps, halt, then trot over the plastic bottles and halt on the tarp for a treat.
Back-chaining works well when we want/need to consolidate the place and time for the click&treat at the very end of a sequence of events.
Photo: Mats laid out in our training area make good destinations to encourage willing movement to the next destination to earn a click&treat. First we can have them close together, then further apart. Once the horse understands the game, we can use small ‘mat’ targets like plastic lids.
Destination Training
Destination training adds an important dimension to a horse’s ability to understand what we would like him to do. We have to remember that the horse is captive to an alien species. Unless we take him through a careful, thin-sliced training program to teach him what we would like him to do, he has no way of knowing what we want.
While we are trying to figure out how to communicate with our horse, he is trying even harder to figure us out, and work out what we want him to do.
Giving the horse destinations helps him to make sense of many of our signals, because he sees a purpose to what we are asking him to do. He is not forever locked into a mystery tour. Like us, to remain confident, horses like to know what is going to happen before it happens.
Photo: Here we have set up a series of white target disks along a track. Boots earns a click&treat for targeting each one with her nose (or foot). Gradually we would spread them out further and further, eventually attach them in appropriate places along a longer walk or ride on a road or trail.
Once the horse eagerly targets hand-held targets, we can tie similar targets around our training area and ask the horse to walk with us from target to target. This gives us many opportunities to seamlessly show the horse that walking with us (being led) is a fun thing because we are always reach a destination that results in a click&treat.
We can ‘stretch the value of each click&treat’ by gradually putting the targets further and further apart and/or in more challenging places. Doing this, we continue to build the horse’s willingness to come along with us because he knows that we know where these magic ‘click&treat spots’ are.
For horses that are barn/buddy sweet (they are not confident about leaving home) we can set out targets in a curve that gently goes away from home and then returns home. As the horse becomes more confident with the game, we can make the curve further and further away from home.
Once the horse is keen to hunt out the next target to earn a click&treat, we can set the targets in a straight line leaving home, being careful to stay within a distance that allows the horse to remain comfortable. We click&treat at each target going away from home and again on the way home. Eventually the targets can be a long way apart.
Once the horse is keen to walk forward to target a familiar object, we can use something like a Frisbee to toss ahead of us, walk to it, target it to earn a click&treat. Then toss it forward again, and so on.
More About Foot Targets
When we introduce mats as foot target destinations, we open up further possibilities for seamless teaching/learning. Once the horse is eager to approach his mats because he knows he will earn a click&treat, the mats can serve the same purpose as the nose targets — desirable destinations.
But that’s not all. When a horse learns to line up his front feet tidily on a mat, he will generalize this to a tidy approach to the mat so he can step on it elegantly. We have given him a reason to line up his body and use it with more precision. An energy conserving horse will be motivated to speed up to reach the mat. A rushing horse will be motivated to calm and collect himself to reach the mat. For teaching the leading positions, the mat helps sustain the horse’s attention and focus. We can also use a mat as a positive destination or ‘relaxation spot’ to visit periodically while we work on more complex tasks.
Once the horse has established the habit of moving on with us to find the next target, we can introduce targeting of natural objects like trees or rocks, bushes, particular fence posts. We can also teach ‘target places’ like corners of paddocks or favorite grazing spots.
Video Clips Available
My video clips are available on YouTube by searching for HorseGym with Boots or Herthamuddyhorse on the YouTube search engine.
In this clip the targets are close together for ease of filming. I eventually tied rags to fences and hedges far apart so we did a lot of walking between a click&treat upon reaching each target.
Clips #3 – #14 of HorseGym with Boots go through the detail of using destinations to give the horse a sense of purpose when we are asking him to walk along with us.
Number 16 in my Blog Contents List (link at the top of this page) will take you the blog that has details about teaching smooth WALK ON and HALT signals.
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