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’.
The concept of giving our horse a choice about whether or not he wants to do things with us is a novel idea at first. Until we delve into training with positive reinforcement, it is the norm to expect the horse to put up and shut up when we want to ride him or do anything else with him.
Horses are recreation or sport for us, but often we are not recreation or enrichment in their lives. In many situations, horses generally either learn to put up with human demands, no matter how painful or stressful for them, or they are passed over for a more ‘willing’ horse.
By learning about ‘consent signals’ and learning to wait for them, we can enhance a horse’s well-being by giving him back a little bit of the choice we remove from him when we keep him captive, away from the natural dynamics of life in the wild.
Aims
To develop the handler’s ability to switch into neutral (to show the horse zero intent) by taking up a distinct body position, removing attention from the horse and draining energy out of the body.
Improving how well we tune in to a horse’s consent signals and noticing more quickly when he shows us that he is not ready or able to proceed.
Prerequisites
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
Horse has learned to ‘wait’ until handler gives a new signal or clicks&treats. Number 9 in my Blog Contents List: Mats: Parking or Stationing and Much More. Mainly this clip: #8 HorseGym with Boots: Duration on the Mat. Click here.
Handler has developed a clear ‘Zero Intent’ signal so the horse knows when standing quietly is what is wanted. Number 10 in my Blog Contents List: ‘Zero Intent’ and ‘Intent’. Click here. This clip is also the second clip below.
Horse and handler agree on signals the horse gives when he is ready to do something again. Number 11 in my Blog Contents List: Seeking the Horse’s Consent Signals. Click here.
Handler understands ‘Trigger Stacking’: This is a situation faced by people and horses. If we are in a calm mood, we usually handle a first stress event easily. If soon after, a second stress happens, then maybe a third and fourth (as easily can happen with horses in captivity), the limit of stress tolerance for that individual is eventually reached and the person or animal reacts. The reaction can be violent outward expression of anger and frustration (tantrum). The reaction can also be retreat from interaction with the external world, as seen in horses who have ‘shut down’. Each of the stress-causing events or items is called a ‘trigger’, hence the term, ‘trigger-stacking’.
Walking shoulder-to-shoulder. Number 16 in my Blog Contents List: Smooth ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ transitions.Click here.
Triple Treat to celebrate a good effort: #16 HorseGym with Boots: Triple Treat. Click here.
Number 46 in my Blog Contents List: Rule of Three. Click here.
Videos
#243 HorseGym with Boots: Zero Intent in Action
#153 HorseGym with Boots: “Zero Intent” and “Intent”
Materials and Environment
A venue where the horse is able to relax. Ideally he can see his buddies but they can’t interfere.
Horse is not hungry.
Hand-held target to start with.
Barrier between person and horse to start with.
Once mastered, we can apply these skills to any activity.
Notes
The horse may communicate with more than one consent signal. The nature of the consent signal might depend on the nature of the activity you are doing.
The two AIMS above work together. Once the horse understands that you will wait until he is ready, he will become more and more adept at using his ‘Green Light’ go-ahead signal or telling you that he is not ready to proceed. You may pick up his earlier signals that he prefers to exit the activity (either mentally or physically).
If the horse feels he gains something from an interaction, he will tend to want to stay and play. At first we use rewards (usually treats) that he finds reinforcing. Once a horse learns a few tasks and routines, doing them also has a reinforcing effect, but we have to keep using the primary reinforcer (usually food) judiciously. This means that we have to click&treat often enough to keep the horse successfully doing what we are asking.
Video clip #243 uses an extremely specific behavior as an example. But we can develop and recognize a variety of consent signals.
Consent might be turning the nose toward the handler to indicate that chewing is finished and the horse is ready to repeat whatever we are doing. Boots demonstrates this on the video clip. Important not to confuse this with the horse mugging for treats. You’ll notice that after turning to me she turns her head away again.
Consent might be willingly staying ‘parked’ in a relaxed manner while we groom, tend feet, gear on and off, mount and dismount, ask for a ‘wait’, ground tie, stand tied up, travel or do a parked mobility task like ‘counting’ as in my clip.
Consent might be willingly walking or trotting with us on the ground, with or without halter and lead.
Consent might be willingly coming to a mounting block, lining up and standing so the handler can mount.
Consent might be putting the head down so that we can rub inside the ear or put head gear on more easily.
Consent might be dropping the nose into a halter.
Consent might be a quirky behavior like a smile or lowering the head.
Slices Part A: The Handler’s Red Light and Green Light
1. When we begin clicker training, our first task is to establish politeness about receiving treats. Even when clicker training is well established, it is useful to review this exercise regularly.
Standing on the other side of a safe barrier, we ask the horse to do something simple he does naturally, like touch his nose to a target. We click for the action and remove the target out of play (out of sight behind us) as we deliver the treat with a firm, flat outstretched hand that causes the horse to keep his head straight and away from us. Repeat over many short sessions (about 10 treats-worth).If the horse is first learning this, we promptly present the target again, until the horse clearly understands that when he touches the target and keeps his head facing forward, he will hear our marker sound and we will deliver the treat to him – i.e. he doesn’t reach toward us searching for the treat.
2. When 2 is smooth, we begin to take up a ‘zero intent’ body position for a second or two after we’ve delivered the treat and before we present the target again.
3. ‘Zero intent’ is the handler’s Red Light (relax). It means that what we want is to stand quietly together. When the horse remains standing with his head straight we present the target again as our Green Light (action) that lets the horse know we are asking him to repeat touching the target to earn another click&treat. Gradually, one second at a time, lengthen the time you stay at ‘zero intent’ (Red Light) until 5 seconds is easy.
4. We do a little bit of ‘stand together with click&treat for keeping your head straight‘ every time we are with the horse.
5. When the slices above are smooth, we can apply ‘zero intent’ to walking along together (Prerequisite 4). Walk on, halt, click&treat for the halt, take up ‘zero intent’ posture for X number of seconds. Start with one second again and lengthen time gradually. Then walk on to another pre-set destination.
6. Walking between mats is a good way to start this exercise, but soon your voice and body language will be enough, as long as you are consistent. See Number 68 in my Blog Contents List: 20 Steps Exercise. Click here.If you are not consistent with your voice, gesture, breathing and body language signals, the horse will hear you like a ‘mumble’. And we know how frustrating it is to listen to someone who is mumbling so we can’t make out the message.
7. As you get adept with dropping into ‘zero intent’ body language, you will notice more and more places you can apply it.
8. In summary, standing or walking with zero intent is our Red Light (relax). The horse knows he is not being asked to do anything except stand or walk quietly beside us. We change to Green Light (action) whenever we signal the horse to do a specific behavior or chain of behaviors that will result in a click&treat.
Slices Part B: The Horse’s Red Light and Green Light
The horse’s Red Light is different from the handler ‘zero intent’ Red Light. The horse’s Red Light is either inactivity or excessive activity due to distraction, changes, hunger, confusion, pain, boredom, exhaustion, trigger stacking. It is a caution/stop signal from the horse to us.
In the video clip, Boots’ Red Light was the distraction caused by interesting activity on the road while she was safely at home. It caused her full attention to drift to the road activity.
2. Out in other environments, a horse’s Red Light could be stopping for observation, or running the Red Light if the situation causes him to move suddenly.
3. The horse’s Red Light tells us that he is either momentarily distracted or he is out of his comfort zone. We can either wait out the distraction, as I do on video clip #243, or we can change what we are doing until the horse can return to his comfort zone.
A distracted horse is not in learning mode (responsive). He is concerned for his safety (reactive). We must organize things so he can change from reactive to responsive as best as we can in any given situation.
4. The horse’s Green Light is when he can bring his attention back to the handler and can respond to handler signals, rather than react to other things in the environment.
5. If we want to get along with our horse by listening to him, we acknowledge what is causing his distraction with our attention and body language. Then we wait (wait = our Red Light), taking up as close to zero intent body language as we can in the situation.
6. As we wait, we watch for the horse’s Green Light to tell us that he is ready to carry on with what we were doing. At that point, we can activate our Green Light – our signal to the horse for whatever activity or task we are doing which will yield a click&treat.
7. We can sometimes help the horse switch from his Red-Light alert to Green- Light readiness if we click&treat the moment his attention comes back to us. I didn’t do it in the video clip, but I often do this when we are out on the road.
SUMMARY
Handler
Red Light = standing or walking together quietly, relaxation – nothing else required.
Green Light = signal/cue asking the horse to do something else.
Horse
Red Light = I’m distracted, unable, anxious, fearful – please give me time. It might also be a question: we don’t usually do this, do we? We always stop here, don’t we?
Green Light = I’m ready to listen and respond to your signals.
Orange/amber light = first signs of the horse’s unease.
Illustrations
‘No Intent’ body posture: hands quiet on belly, attention off horse, cocked knee, energy drained from body, looking nowhere.Intent: very beginning of asking her to move her shoulder away – hands moving in a gesture signal, body upright, focus on horse’s neck, breathing in.Zero intent sitting down while teaching lip-lifting to check teeth. Note her ‘lip wiggle’ consent signal telling me she is ready to repeat.We gradually moved from touching her muzzle, putting both hands around her muzzle, momentarily lifting a lip, to holding her lips apart for longer and longer, adding one second at a time.Staying parked on a mat despite distractions can be a consent signal.This is a Red Light moment with Boots. Jogging along calmly with the bike changed into excessive energy.When I got off the bike and walked, she was able to relax and give me her ‘smile’ consent signal – her Green Light to carry on. This earned a click&treat.We were then able to finish the session with her walking calmly alongside the bike.Practice at home allowed us to eventually bike safely on the road.
Generalizations
As mentioned already, the more you practice your ‘no intent’ body language, the clarity of your signals, and the more accurate you get listening to the horse’s body language. You will notice the horse’s Orange/Amber light before it turns into Red Light. It becomes easier to apply the Red Light/Green Light concept to any activity.
When we want to give a horse the option to take part in an activity or not, we can learn to wait for the horse to give us a consent signal that tells us when he is comfortable for us to go ahead.
This task looks at setting up a consent signal for grooming. Some horses love to be groomed. Others not so much.
There are a variety of reasons why a horse may not be relaxed about grooming.
A traumatic grooming experience, e.g. punishment for restless movement. ‘One Time’ trauma learning is a real thing.
Grooming while tied up if tying up itself causes anxiety. Being in cross-ties may feel a bit like a straightjacket – we have removed all options for movement.
Grooming before activities that the make the horse feel nervous, afraid, uncomfortable, in pain, and/or exhausted.
Grooming with tools the horse finds uncomfortable.
General inexperience or discomfort with being around people or a certain person.
A combination of any of the above.
Aim
To establish the horse targeting his cheek to a brush as a consent signal that he is okay for us to proceed with grooming.
Prerequisites
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
Handler has developed a clear ‘Zero Intent’ signal so the horse knows when standing quietly is what is wanted. Number 10 in my Blog Contents List: ‘Zero Intent’ and ‘Intent’. Click here.
Horse understands the concept of targeting body parts to our hand. 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.
A venue where the horse is able to relax. Ideally he can see his buddies but they can’t interfere.
Horse is not hungry.
A soft brush.
Mat (optional).
Notes
Your horse may develop more than one consent signal. You will note in the video that Boots uses two. One is turning toward me to let me know she is finished chewing and ready to repeat. The other is moving her lips in what we call a ‘smile’ but sometimes she does it very discretely and it is just a wiggle of her lips.
Note that we are chaining two tasks. Consent for one (target cheek to brush) becomes the consent for the second task (grooming).
Notice how her body language changes when I start grooming.
If the horse is mat savvy (parks willingly on a mat) you can use a mat when you begin this exercise. But if the horse is worried about grooming, we may not want to make the mat part of a worrying process.
Slices
Begin with asking the horse to target his chin to your hand as per Prerequisite 3. This lets him know which game you are about to play.
Change to asking him to target his cheek to your hand, using the process outlined for the chin.
Once 2 is ho-hum, hold a soft brush for him to target with his cheek.
Once 3 is ho-hum, brush a few strokes after the click&treat for targeting cheek to brush. Sometimes I begin brushing while delivering the treat with my other hand, then click&treat again for accepting the brush strokes.
Gradually brush a bit more before the second click&treat (the first is for touching cheek to brush). Be super aware of thresholds of discomfort. If the horse needs to move, he is over threshold and we’ve gone too fast.
Depending on how the horse feels about brushing, it may take many short sessions for him to become more comfortable with brushing, or it might happen very quickly. Spring shedding time is often when grooming is appreciated most.
Teach the whole process from the beginning on the horse’s other side.
Generalizations
Practice in different places.
Add a variety of brushes.
Use a similar process to get the horse comfortable with cloths, ropes, sticks rubbed all over his body.
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.
Targeting body parts is fun to do when we are short on time or it’s too hot, wet, cold, or muddy to be out and about, which is often the case in January.
I’ve started with targeting chin to hand, because it is probably the easiest one to establish the IDEA of targeting a body part to our hand. It gives us a simple task to practice good timing of the click, plus consistent treat-delivery that keeps or returns the horse’s head to facing forward.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse confidently touches his nose to a variety of different targets held in a variety of positions. In other words, he seeks out the target.
Horse confidently touches his nose to our outstretched fist in a variety of positions and with us standing beside him or in front of him.
Handler has developed a clear ‘zero intent’ body language stance. (See Related Resources 1.)
Horse understands the handler’s ‘zero intent’ position, by remaining calmly facing forward for several seconds, rather than turning toward the treat pouch or pocket when the handler stands beside the horse’s neck. There are training plans for these prerequisite skills in my book: “How to Begin Equine Clicker Training” (See the link to BOOKS at the top of the screen).
I have to presume that everyone is already familiar with the basics of clicker training, since the new shaping plans I share here build on those basics. If you are not familiar, the information in the book is a great place to start.
ENVIRONMENT:
Horse is not hungry, so he can focus on what we are teaching, rather than the treats.
Horse at liberty in an area he finds comfortable.
Ideally, herd mates in view but not able to interfere.
AIMS:
The horse willingly moves his chin to touch our hand held toward his chest from his chin.
The handler becomes more confident with slipping into and out of a ‘zero intent’ posture. (See Related Resources 1 at the end of this post.)
NOTES:
Play with this in very short sessions. Stop when it feels good. Sessions can be before or between other things that you are doing.
Have the short sessions as frequent as possible. Every day is good, twice a day is even better.
Stick with one body part until you and horse are totally ho-hum with it.
When you are ready to introduce a second body part, the PROCESS is exactly the same as the one outlined below for the chin.
To introduce another body part, begin each session with the one(s) you have already taught, then suggest the new spot by touching it: click&treat, and progress through the same thin-sliced process.
VIDEO CLIP:
SLICES:
Touch the flat palm of your hand to the horse’s chin; click&treat.
Repeat several times so the horse can make the connection between the ‘touch’ and the click&treat.
Hold your hand a tiny distance back from the chin (toward the horse’s chest) and wait for the horse to close the distance so he touches your hand: click the instant you feel the touch & treat plus celebrate largely (happy praise and a triple treat or jackpot).
If you do slice 3 above, and the horse does not make the connection, resume with slice 2.
Once the horse is making the connection over a tiny distance, gradually increase the distance one millimeter at a time.
Early on in your teaching program, start each new session with a touch to the chin, to remind the horse about which task you are doing.
Once the horse clearly understands the task, take up the ‘zero intent’ position between repeats, to build a bit of ‘wait duration’ between your requests. Build up the ‘wait time’ in one second increments.
Some horses will develop a little signal to tell you when they have finished chewing and are ready for a repeat. (See Related Resource 6.) Watch out for these and value them by doing a repeat. Boots illustrates this in the video clip.
GENERALIZATION:
We can use how the chin (lower lip) feels to our touch to estimate the horse’s relaxation level. It’s easier to feel the chin (lower lip) tension than to see it when we are actively doing things with the horse.
While interacting with the horse, occasionally pause and feel his chin (lower lip). A soft, floppy lower lip suggests a horse relaxed about what is going on.
With increasing anxiety, the lip tightens, so it might be:
Very Loose
Moderately loose
A little bit tight
Quite tight
Very hard indeed.
Likewise, as anxiety reduces and relaxation returns, a tight lip will loosen up.
Add Pics of chin
A very relaxed, loose chin/lower lip.
A tighter chin/lower lip. When with the horse, it is easier to feel the difference than to see it.
Once the horse understands targeting his shoulder to our hand, we might like to teach targeting his hindquarters to our hand. If we can ask for ‘shoulder to hand’ and ‘hip to hand’ we have a way of asking the horse to bring his whole body toward us.
It’s a useful maneuver when we would like him to line up at a mounting block, fence or bank and he’s not quite close enough. It is also a gymnastic exercise and one that encourages handlers to develop their timing plus clear, consistent body language.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
Horse is comfortable standing ‘parked’ with the handler standing alongside facing behind the horse.
Handler has developed his/her ‘zero intent’ and ‘intent’ body language. To review, see the clip or blog link at the end of this post.
Signals for moving the hip away from the handler are well established. There are various ways to teaching this. A clip demonstrating one way is also added 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.
A safe, enclosed area for working at liberty, if possible. Otherwise, halter and lead (kept loose or the rope safely draped over the horse’s neck).
A hand-held target on a long stick, a mid-length target and a short target.
For generalizations, pedestal, mounting block or similar, hoop.
My current collection of targets. In the video below, I used the three on the right-hand side of the photo. The others come in handy in various contexts.
AIM:
Horse confidently moves his hindquarters toward the handler’s ‘outstretched hand’ signal.
Note: When we request the horse to yield his hip away from us, we project energy toward the horse’s hindquarters from our body’s core at the belly-button, which causes our posture to be upright.
When we request the horse to move toward us, it’s important to pull our belly-button back so that we shrink back and create a ‘draw toward me’ energy with our whole body.
Horses are so sensitive to advancing and receding energy from another body, that they easily read the intent of our posture as long as we are consistent and not sloppy.
SLICES:
Stay with each slice until it feels ho-hum and smooth for both of you.
Make each session extremely short, a few minutes. The magic is not in the final result as much as it is in the process of helping the horse figure it out.
Choose a spot where you can easily stand the horse alongside a safe fence, wall, or similar with the barrier on the horse’s far side. The barrier discourages the option of moving the hindquarters away, which is something you have hopefully taught previously.
Ask the horse to stand squarely beside the fence; click&treat.
Take up a ‘zero intent’ position standing beside the horse’s neck, facing behind the horse, holding the target down by your side ‘out of play’ and relax; click&treat. Work up to standing together quietly like this for three or four seconds before the click&treat, on either side of the horse. Have the space between you and the horse’s neck at a distance comfortable for both of you. Close is usually safer than standing away, but it depends.
Stretch your arm to gently touch the long-handled target to the side of the horse’s hindquarters. Click just as the target makes contact; deliver the treat.
Move the target down behind your leg to take it ‘out of play’ and resume the ‘zero intent’ body position. Observe to see if the horse is okay for you to carry on. If he continues to stand in a relaxed manner, he is probably okay to carry on, or you may have sorted out one or more ‘okay to proceed’ signals. A link to information about these is at the end of this post.
Repeat 4 and 5 above, watching for any weight shift the horse might make toward the target as you move it toward his hindquarters. If he does, celebrate hugely with happy words and a jackpot or triple treat. Maybe ask for one or two repeats, then wait until your next session to do more.
When you feel the time is right, hold the target a tiny distance away from touching the hindquarters and WAIT for the horse to shift his weight to make the contact; click&treat. Some horses may step over to make the contact right away. For either a weight shift or a whole step toward the target, celebrate hugely again. Maybe repeat the request once or twice more to consolidate the idea. If you have waited 3-4 seconds and nothing happens, simply return to slices 4, 5, 6 above.
It took Boots a good number of daily mini-sessions before she a) consistently leaned toward the target and b) consistently moved a tiny distance toward the target to make the contact. Then it took more days before she confidently stepped toward the target when I held it further away.
Decide whether you want to continue teaching on the side you started with, or if you want to teach slices 1-7 on the other side of the horse before proceeding.
When 7 is ho-hum, gradually hold your target a little bit further away so the horse must take a full step to contact the target; click&treat.
Whenever the response seems slow or unsure (or is missing), go back to touch the target to the hindquarters; click&treat. Then work forward again at a rate that keeps the horse being continually successful as much as possible.
This willingness to back up in the teaching is sometimes hard, but we always must go where the horse tell us he is, not where we want him to be.
When starting a new session, always introduce the task with a touch of the target (and eventually your hand) to the hindquarters; click&treat, to let the horse know which game you are playing.
Work to having the response equally smooth on either side of the horse.
You may want to introduce a voice signal to go along with your body language and orientation signals.
When all is smooth using your long-handled hand-held target, repeat the slices using a shorter target. The one I use in the clip is a soft plastic toy sword.
When all is smooth with the mid-length target, reach out with an even shorter target. You may have to move from beside his neck to beside his shoulder or ribs, depending on the size of the horse.
When 16 and 17 are smooth on either side of the horse, ask for the hindquarters over using just your arm lifted up in the same way you did when holding a target. Most horses will respond readily to the arm movement. I personally hold my hand open with my palm facing the horse. Handler body position is upright. By pulling back our belly-button area we create a ‘draw toward me’ energy.
When we ask for hindquarters to yield away, we send energy toward the horse and look down and gesture toward his hocks, so it is a very different body orientation and energy. Plus, we may have added distinct and different voice signals for each one.
It’s good to frequently practice ‘hip away’ and ‘hip toward’ as a little sequence to make sure our signals stay true and the horse easily responds to either one without confusion.
Left photo: ‘hip toward me’ signal and body language. Right photo: ‘hip away please’ signal and body language.
GENERALIZATIONS:
Clip: #165 HorseGym with Boots TARGET BUTT TO HAND:
Generalizations:
Stand the horse so his shoulder is near a mounting block, but his hindquarters are angled away. Ask him to bring his butt (hip) toward your hand. If he gets confused, return to using your long, medium and short targets, fading out each one as his confidence returns, until your outstretched arm and hand are sufficient.
Generalize the ‘bring your hip over’ skill to different venues and different mounting situations, e.g. fences, gates, stumps, banks – especially if you ride out in wider and varied environments. Before my hips gave up riding, I would often have been totally grounded after dismounting if Boots wasn’t 100% confident about lining up quietly alongside a gate or any other raised surface in the vicinity.
If you have a pedestal on which the horse puts his front feet, you can ask him to bring his hindquarters toward you in a circle while his front feet stay on the pedestal.
Alternately, if you have a soft rubber tub, ask the horse to put his front feet into the tub and repeat 3 above.
To increase the expertise required (by horse and handler) ask the horse to place his front feet into a hoop and keep them in the hoop while moving his butt to target the handler’s arm (or a target) moving in a circular pattern, both clockwise and anti-clockwise. Start with one step and a high rate of reinforcement.
Be careful not to ask too much at first. A frequent minute or two of exercises such as these is enough to have a worthwhile gymnastic effect.
Whenever you do ‘hip toward me’, balance it with ‘hip away please’.
BACKGROUND CLIPS FOR QUICK REVIEW:
Clip: #153 HorseGym with Boots: ZERO INTENT AND INTENT
In the photo above Boots is leaning her weight toward me to connect with my hand which I held a small distance away from her shoulder.
Teaching the horse a signal to target his shoulder to our hand fits in nicely after we have taught him a signal to yield his shoulder away from us.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
Horse is mat-savvy.
Horse is comfortable standing ‘parked’ with the handler standing alongside. To review, check out my ‘Using Mats’ blog.
Handler has developed his/her ‘zero intent’ and ‘intent’ body language. To review, see the clip #153 HorseGym with Boots: Zero Intent and Intent toward the end of this blog or check out the ‘Zero Intent’ and ‘Intent’ blog.
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) and a safe, enclosed area for working at liberty, if possible.
Mat.
For generalization, a hoop, ground rail, mounting block or similar.
AIM:
Horse confidently moves his left or right shoulder toward the handler’s ‘outstretched hand’ gesture signal.
Video Clip: #160 HorseGym with Boots: TARGET SHOULDER TO HAND
Note:
When we request the shoulder to yield away, we project energy at the horse’s shoulder from our body’s core at the belly-button which causes our posture to be upright.
When we request the shoulder to move toward us, it is important to pull our belly-button back so that we create a ‘draw toward me’ energy with our whole body. Horses are so sensitive to advancing and receding energy from another body, that they easily read the intent of our posture as long as we are totally consistent and not sloppy.
SLICES:
Stay with each slice until it feels ho-hum and smooth for both of you.
Make each session extremely short, 2-3 minutes. The magic is not in the final result as much as it is in the process of helping the horse figure it out.
Ask the horse to park squarely; click&treat.
Take up a position shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse and relax; click&treat. Work up to standing together quietly for five seconds before the click&treat, on each side of the horse.
Reach out the flat back of your hand to lightly touch the horse’s shoulder; click&treat the moment your hand makes contact.
Take up the ‘no intent’ or ‘zero intent’ body position and wait to see if the horse is okay for you to carry on. If he continues to stand in a relaxed manner, he is probably okay to carry on, or you may have sorted out one or more ‘okay to proceed’ signals.
ZERO or ‘NO’ INTENT POSITION
Repeat 3 and 4 above, watching for any weight shift the horse makes toward your hand as you move it toward his shoulder. If he does, celebrate hugely with happy words and a jackpot or triple treat. Avoid the urge to see if he will do it again. Wait until your next session.
When you feel the time is right, hold your hand a tiny distance away from touching the shoulder and WAIT for the horse to shift his weight to make the contact; click&treat. Some horses may step toward you to make the contact right away. For either one, celebrate hugely once again. Maybe do it once or twice more to consolidate the idea.
It took Boots a couple of weeks of daily mini-sessions before she consistently leaned toward my hand to make the contact. Then it took more days before she confidently stepped toward my hand when I held it further away.
Decide whether you want to continue teaching on the side you started with, or if you want to teach slices 1-6 on the other side of the horse before proceeding.
When 6 is ho-hum, gradually hold your hand a little bit further away so the horse must take a sideways step to contact your hand; click&treat.
Whenever the response seems slow or unsure (or is missing), go back to touch the shoulder; click&treat. Then work forward again at a rate that keeps the horse being continually successful as much as possible.
When starting a new session, always introduce the task with a shoulder touch; click&treat, to let the horse know which game you are playing.
Work to having the response equally smooth on either side of the horse.
If the horse is mat-savvy, lay a mat beside the horse to act as a destination. Place the mat so the horse takes one step over to reach it. Gradually increase the distance to get two steps, then three steps.
GENERALIZATIONS:
Turn on the haunches: ask the horse to step around to complete one/quarter of a circle (90 degrees). When that is smooth, work toward 180 degrees, and finally a full turn on the haunches (360 degrees). It can take a while to build confidence to do more than a quarter or half circle keeping the hind feet relatively in one place.
Repeat 1 above on the other side of the horse. Because our bodies and the horse’s body are asymmetrical, one side is usually easier. It helps to do a bit more on the harder side until, after lots of short sessions, both sides feel smooth.
Add a hoop (made so it comes apart if it catches on the horse’s leg) to the turn on the haunches exercise. This increases the level of difficulty, so start at the beginning with just one step and work up very gradually. Be careful not to make the horse feel wrong if he steps out of the hoop with a hind foot. If he does step out, quietly walk away together and return for a reset. The video clip demonstrates where I got too greedy, wanting too much, and it blew Boots’ confidence for a while.
Keep each session super short and celebrate each new success hugely. This exercise enhances foot awareness.
Stand the horse with his hind end nearer the mounting block than his shoulder, step on the block and ask him to bring his shoulder over so he is in the mounting position.
If you want to focus on the horse moving toward you in a straight line, rather than in a circular pattern as above, stand the horse over a rail and see if he will bring his hind end along. If not, leave moving straight for now until you teach the ‘ribs toward me’ lessons.
When shoulder to hand is smooth, start again at the beginning with ‘ribs to hand’. Follow the exact same procedure but start with a touch to the center of the ribs instead of the shoulder.
Photo: Slight turn of her head toward me is consent to lift her lip.
INTRODUCTION:
Most of horse training is to teach the horse our signals that he needs to know to keep ourselves and the horse as safe as possible in different situations. If we check human health insurance claims, a fair number are horse-related.
New Zealand, with a population in 2017 of 4.79 million people saw 7873 people with horse-related injuries. Of these, 2852 fell off a horse. Horse accident insurance claims for 2017 came to $9,669,964.00.
No one knows how many horses have a short life because they don’t fit in with the demands of their constrained domestic existence which is, in many cases, completely foreign to a horse’s natural lifestyle.
The health insurance figures above suggest that there is room for improvement in human-horse and horse-human communication.
Fortunately, more and more people are becoming aware that the best training fosters two-way communication between person and horse.
Writers such as Sharon Wilsie (HorseSpeak) and Rachaël Draasima (Language Signs & Calming Signals of Horses) and my book, Conversations with Horses (see my Books section), are helping horse people to appreciate just how much information horses impart to us with their body language.
A horse’s world view is dictated by the way he senses the environment. His vision, hearing, smell and sense of proximity are different and mostly superior to ours. He has evolved adaptations that allow him to survive in open grassland rife with predators and profound seasonal changes.
Humans have a different history with different selection pressures. We sense our environment differently. With us, verbal language has, on the surface, supplanted body language.
Horses use distinct body language. Sadly, many people are blind to this language or choose to ignore it. The magic is that once we begin to observe and pay attention to what horses are saying, we start to pick up the nuances and get better at tailoring our training to the sensitivities of individual horses.
While there are differences, there are also similarities. Both humans and horses are gregarious*. They live in groups with extensive social interaction between group members. Living in a group means that there is always a balance between competition for the same resources and the need to maintain peaceful relations.
When resources are plentiful, there is minimum competition and maximum peacefulness. When resources are scarce, peacefulness is interrupted by competition as the more assertive group members jockey for the best resources.
Although people don’t consider body language as important as spoken language, we still display it clearly. We also react to it subconsciously. Between spouses and close friends, it speaks volumes. People like scam artists, who prey on other people’s susceptibilities, are astute readers of body language, using it to single out their victims. Horses can definitely read our body language, despite the species barrier.
As well as reading each other’s body language, horses read the body language of their predators. They know when they are in hunting mode, just passing by, or resting in the vicinity.
Horses are also aware that their own body language sends messages to predators, who look for signs of weakness or lameness. That is why it is often so hard to know if our horse is in pain. They will hide pain and infirmity as much as they possibly can.
What are ‘Okay to Repeat’ or ‘Okay to Proceed’ Signals?
‘Okay Signals’ are initiated by the horse to let us know that they feel okay for us to repeat what we are doing or to carry on with a procedure that involves a variety of things.
When I’m walking on the road with Boots, I’ve become aware of her need to stop and assess things such as cows moving in the distance, a vehicle in an unusual place or something that has changed in the environment since we last passed by.
If I stop with her and wait, paying attention to what has caught her attention, we are ‘on the same page’. I breathe out loudly to show that I’m okay with this thing that has caught our attention and relax into ‘zero intent*’. Eventually Boots will lower her head and bring her attention back to me, which tells me that she has satisfied her need to notice and is ready to walk on. This is the most basic ‘okay’ signal for us to watch out for.
Once we learn to pause with zero intent* (items with an asterisk are defined on the GLOSSARY page – link at top of page) long enough to allow the horse to communicate with us, we can discover ways that individual horses will let us know when they are ready to repeat whatever we are asking, so they can earn another click&treat.
I think many good trainers are already unconsciously aware of these signals, without having given the concept a name. I think that isolating and focusing on this type of horse-initiated signal can open a new vista of training.
It is not hard to recognize horses communicating loudly when they don’t want to do something. It is not always easy, however, to know whether not wanting to do something stems from:
Anxiety or fear.
Pain.
The horse not understanding what we would like him to do.
Environmental distractions taking precedence over trainer requests.
We have to observe carefully if we want to learn to recognize horses communicating when they are not shouting loudly with their body language. Unless we train ourselves to understand the finer points of their signaling, we miss most of what they are trying to tell us.
Most horse communication is visual. Horses in an established group seem harmonious because a flick of an ear, the tilt of the neck, a single swish of the tail, a certain posture of the body, are all highly meaningful to another horse.
People are usually, understandably, so focused on their own agenda that they miss most of these signals. But we can do better. Since we remove horses from their natural life and make them captive to us, the least we can do is try hard to learn their language and use it to aid two-way communication.
The concept of waiting for a horse to give permission or consent for us to carry on with a task may be a novel idea for some people.
As mentioned earlier, good trainers probably do this subconsciously. They continuously observe the horse’s body language to gauge whether the horse is comfortable about proceeding with the training or repeating a specific task. Is it best to pause for a while, do something easy or finish for the day?
Our fondest personal memories are often of things we have successfully initiated and controlled. In the same way, horses respond positively to having control and ownership of what is going to happen next in their lives.
In other words, a sense of control is as reinforcing to horses as it is to people. We steal a great deal of their personal control when we bring them into captivity.
When it becomes the horse’s idea to initiate their handler’s next action, the horse begins to share ‘ownership’ of the behavior we are working with. Such a feeling of ownership alleviates the anxiety and tension that arise if the horse is constrained and forced to accept what is being done to him.
Much of what we do with a horse requires him to stand still. Standing still when unusual things are happening is not what evolution found useful for horse survival. lt is very much a skill that must be taught and developed.
For many activities, we’ll still have to read the horse’s overall body language to know if he is okay to proceed with what we are doing. But for some specific tasks, we can incorporate an ‘okay to repeat’ or an ‘okay to proceed’ signal from the horse. There are several ways of doing this.
‘Okay to Repeat’ Using Nose Targets
If a horse has a strong history of positive reinforcement* for staying parked in a relaxed manner with his nose on or near a nose target, we can use his willingness to stay, and touch the target again, as his ‘okay to repeat’ signal.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
Horse is not hungry.
Horse has a strong history of positive reinforcement for touching a target .
Handler is aware of moving in and out of his/her ‘zero intent’ posture.
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 familiar target tied or set at the height of the horse’s nose.
Start with halter and lead on, with the lead draped over the horse’s neck or back so it is easy to reach if the horse chooses to walk away. If he moves away, quietly walk a circuit that brings you both back to the target; click&treat if the horse touches his nose to the target, then finish the session.
If he chooses not to touch the target when you return to it, go back to a few sessions with a high rate of reinforcement for touching a series of targets hung around your training area, before returning to the task in this chapter.
You can also have the horse at liberty and if he chooses to walk away, the session is automatically finished.
Keep each session very short. Ideally always stop before the horse shows any desire to walk away, even if it means you only do one repeat. Mini-sessions where the horse is continually successful at earning his click&treat make for rapid learning and a willingness to ‘do it again’ next time.
You are also showing the horse that it is okay to say, “I don’t feel like doing that right now,” without any value judgement on his behavior. You are giving him the choice about whether he wants to keep on working for clicks&treats, or he’d rather go away and do his own thing.
AIMS:
Horse realizes that the handler will stay at ‘zero intent’ unless he touches his nose to the target.
Handler waits patiently for the horse to touch the target as a sign that the horse is ‘okay to repeat’ the task.
Horse realizes that he can move away if he doesn’t feel like playing.
Handler realizes that there are times when it is okay to let the horse have a ‘say’ in what will happen next.
VIDEO CLIP:
#156 HorseGym with Boots: OKAY TO REPEAT SIGNALS.
If the horse is wary about the object, walk away backwards (or have another person walk away backwards holding it while you follow with the horse at the horse’s pace) and have the horse follow; click&treat any sign of willingness to approach the object more closely until he is able to put his nose on it to earn a click&treat.
Horses tend to follow things moving away from them and move away from things coming toward them. Yet most horse handlers expect a horse to stand still while they approach with an unusual object.
If we allow the horse the time to make up his own mind that an object is harmless, he will accept it as so. Horses naturally use approach and retreat whenever they come across something new. Life is much easier if we use their world view to facilitate our training, rather than restrict their movement and force them to accept something.
SLICES:
Horse touches nose to target: click&treat in a position that has the horse take his nose slightly away from the nose target.
Handler allows horse to investigate any gear he is about to use (brush, spray bottle, clippers, halter, cover, saddle blanket, paste worming tube, saddle or harness, bridle): click&treat, maybe several times, depending on how comfortable the horse is with the item already.
Handler lifts arm with brush (or whatever) toward the horse keeping it at a distance that maintains the horse’s relative relaxation (under threshold): click&treat.
Horse either leaves after the treat or touches the nose target again.
If the horse touches the target again, the handler repeats approaching the horse with the brush, careful to click&treat while the horse is still under threshold, i.e. he still looks confident about what is going on.
After each click&treat, the handler resumes the ‘zero intent’ position and waits for the horse to either touch the nose target again or take the option to leave.
Ideally the handler will stop each mini-session before the horse feels the need to walk away. If the horse leaves, it is also the end of that mini-session. The handler now has useful feedback. He or she asked for more than the horse could offer comfortably at that time.
Done quietly and carefully with many mini-sessions that don’t push the horse beyond his comfort zone, the horse can usually relax into the new game which consists of the new things he has to allow if he wants to elicit more treats from the environment (his handler).
The horse’s comfort zone will gradually expand to include the new task we are doing with him. At that point, the acquisition stage is over, and we start to focus on fluidity, generalization and maintenance.
This is a video clip from a while ago which demonstrates the same idea. #4 HorseGym with Boots: Parking at a Nose Target.
‘Okay to Proceed’ with Mat Foot Targets
Another way to ensure consent or ‘permission to proceed’ is to ask the horse to park his feet on a mat. The horse’s willingness to stay parked lets us know that he is okay for us to proceed.
‘Okay to Proceed’ is a little different from ‘Okay to Repeat’. I use it for foot care which is a series of tasks rather than a repetition of the same task. Changing bandages and dealing with riding boots on and off, blankets on and off are also more in the line of ‘procedures’.
A procedure like putting on riding or driving tack could also be thought of in the same way, although I found a nose target also worked well for tacking up.
Once we have taught standing on a mat with some duration, we can use the horse’s willingness to stay there as a sign that he is probably okay for us to proceed with whatever we are doing.
VIDEO CLIP:
#157 HorseGym with Boots: ‘OKAY TO PROCEED’ WITH A MAT
If we use a mat with frequent short sessions for teaching vet procedures or foot care, the horse will soon realize that the mat coming out means clicks&treats are on the way.
If the horse feels the need to move off the mat it is critical that we don’t restrict or punish him in any way. We quietly walk a circuit together to return to the mat and halt on it: click&treat for the halt on the mat. We must ensure that the mat always remains a desirable place in the horse’s mind.
After returning to the mat, we can return to earlier slices with the task we are working on to find where the horse can still be continually successful, then end on a good note. Or we can use the mat to do something easy that the horse already knows to re-establish the mat as a good place to be.
Ideally, the handler will be able to read the horse’s increasing body tension before the horse moves off the mat and take one of the two options above or initiate a relaxation break before resuming the training.
Horse Specific ‘Okay’ Body Language Signals
To explore this concept with your horse, choose a simple task that the horse will probably find pleasant. Once the horse buys into the concept of giving us an ‘okay to repeat’ signal, we can expand to other physical care and vet procedures.
If you can choose one that is new to the horse it may be easier because it won’t have the baggage of past experiences. But we can also add this new dimension to a task the horse already knows.
Once I became more consciously aware of these signals, I realized that Boots had been using them in a variety of contexts and I had been taking note of them. Once I began observing more closely, I soon realized that she had several signals for letting me know when it was ‘okay to repeat’.
VIDEO CLIPS:
#154 HorseGym with Boots OKAY to REPEAT shows Boots’ signal for rubbing the inside of her ear, which we had never done purposefully before. It also has an interlude of belly-scratching with a new tool.
#155 HorseGym with Boots OKAY to REPEAT for TOOTH INSPECTION: shows Boots’ signals for allowing me to lift her lips to inspect her teeth. This is a very early session.
Some other possibilities are:
Targeting the eye to a cloth.
Targeting the mouth to a paste worming tube.
Simulating injections.
Comfort with spray bottles.
Comfort with scissors or clippers.
Teaching specific tasks within a chained procedure such as comfort with saddle pad put on and removed, saddle put on and removed, girth tightened and loosened, handler putting foot in stirrup, handler leaning across horse, and so on.
PREREQUISITES:
Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
ENVIRONMENT & MATERIALS:
A work area where the horse is relaxed and confident.
The horse is not hungry.
Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
Horse at liberty in a safe area. The horse needs to be free to move away if he no longer wants to take part.
AIMS:
Handler is consistent with returning to ‘zero intent’ to wait for the horse to give his ‘okay to repeat’ signal.
Horse learns that nothing will happen until he initiates it with his ‘okay to repeat’ signal.
SLICES:
The procedure is basically the same with any task.
We have to be mindful that some horses have never been given a say in what is going to happen once they are haltered or confined in a small space, so it could take a long time for them to try something brand new to their experience.
If you have played with your horse at liberty in the past, and allowed expression of opinion, it may all happen quickly.
Gently indicate to the horse what you would like to do; click&treat. Maybe repeat a couple of times to establish the task.
Then remove all signal pressure and take up your ‘zero intent’ position.
Observe the horse closely but don’t stare at him with intent. Keep your body language totally relaxed. It may take a while for the horse to make a movement that seems significant.
When the horse makes a movement that you think is an expression of his willingness for you to repeat the task, quietly activate the task with short duration, then click&treat. When I did this with ear-rubbing, I initially rubbed only once or twice before the click&treat. Eventually I began rubbing a bit longer before the click&treat.
After the treat is delivered, return to ‘zero intent’ mode and wait for the horse to repeat his signal (he may have, or develop, a variety of these signals, as Boots shows in the video clips).
As with most training, doing a little bit (three minutes or 20 treats) often is the key to rapid progress. It gives the horse time to process what has happened and often he is keen to repeat next time you set up the situation.
It could be that ear-rubbing is intrinsically pleasant for a horse already relaxed in human company. Even if it is, I want the horse to eventually relate offering of an ‘okay to repeat’ signal to any task that will earn a click&treat.
Tasks like eye care and checking teeth and allowing skin pinching and toothpick pricking to prepare for inoculations will not be intrinsically pleasant.
All horses are different, both innately and due to their life experiences. Therefore, each horse and handler will together create a unique ‘okay to repeat’ signal language that works for them.
The video clips are best at demonstrating the flow of the training. So far, Boots’ body language ‘okay to repeat’ signals include:
bringing her attention back to me after scanning the environment
dropping her head
momentarily turning her head toward me
her smile, and offering to place her nose between my hands for tooth inspection.
Over the last few years I have created a series of clicker training activities posted as clips on YouTube. They can be reached by putting HorseGym with Boots or HerthaMuddyHorse into the YouTube search engine.
If you click on the HorseGym with Boots playlist in my channel, they should line up in number order as I’ve created them through the years.
There are a number of other playlists devoted to specific topics. Clips are kept short, usually under five minutes long, to make them easy to find and review. New clips are added each month. Many are being incorporated into my blog posts.
See the Books section for books available from Amazon as e-books or paperbacks. On Amazon you can ‘Look Inside’ each one. The notes mentioned at the end of the clips have been superseded by my books.
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