Tag Archives: thin-slicing

Leading Position 4 – Beside Ribs

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If we have first taught and consolidated and generalized Leading Position 3 (beside neck/shoulder), it’s usually easy to move from LP3 into LP4 (beside ribs).

This leading position encourages the horse to move with us with his shoulder well out in front. The handler is where he or she would be when riding. In fact, riding is Leading Position 4 sitting on the horse rather than walking on the ground with him.

I sometimes use a body extension to clarify the task for the horse from a distance. A light touch signal just behind the withers for ‘walk on’, (as well as all the ‘walk on’ body language – big breath in & raised energy, step off with outside leg, voice cue) helps to make our intent clear – ie. we want to stay beside the horse’s ribs while we walk along together. The other use of a body extension is to indicate, by bringing it forward, that we don’t want the horse to turn toward us, but to walk on straight.

We also ensure walking straight by using a lane (horse in the lane, handler outside the lane) and by walking in straight lines between a series of targets. Once the horse understands the task, a small finger tap behind the withers and our voice signal, are usually all that is needed.

to summarise, if we have taught the horse that a tap behind the withers (with our fingers, eventually phasing out the body extension), the tap, a deep breath in and a voice ‘walk on’ – are all signals to move forward, these will continue to make sense to the horse when we mount up if we intend to ride.

The main concern for the horse when we ride is that most of our body language suddenly becomes invisible to him. Here Boots is intent on targeting the body extension which I’ve left on the ground.

The rider suddenly disappearing from view is a big deal for horses because horses are, by nature, strongly tuned in to visual body language. Body language plays a key role in equine culture. An empathetic trainer will give the horse ample time and opportunity to adjust to the new touch and weight shift signals, plus the many balance adjustments that the horse has to learn.

Riding has us in Leading Position 4, behind the horse’s withers. If we teach moving forward in this position on the ground, we are building the horse’s confidence in having half his body out in front of us. For timid horses, this can be challenging. The cues/signals we teach on the ground will stand us in good stead if we intend to ride. If we are working with a young horse which will be ridden, this training gives him a major head start with the ridden experience.

Training Plan 18

Aim:

To have the horse comfortable walking along with the handler when the handler’s position is behind the horse’s withers, alonside the horse’s ribs.

Environment:

  • Horse in an area where he is usually relaxed and confident.
  • Herd buddies not able to interfere but in view if possible.
  • Horse in a learning frame of mind.
  • A safe stretch of fence or a waist-high lane.
  • Series of destination mats or nose targets for the teaching phase, .
  • Body extension to clarify signal as necessary.
  • Halter and lead.

Slices:

See clips #55 and #56 in my HorseGym with Boots playlist. Clip 55 also looks ahead to when we want to walk alongside the hindquarters, which is the topic of the next blog.

Click here for Clip #55.

Click here for Clip #56

  1. Ensure the horse is comfortable walking between you and a safe fence (or in a lane) in LP3 (beside neck/shoulder).
  2. When the horse is relaxed in LP3, glide back so you are walking just behind his withers. After a step or two, relax (click&treat). Be sure to let the lead rope flow out to keep a float (smile) in it as you drift back, so you don’t give him a ‘slow down’ text message up the rope without realizing it. Move promptly up to the horse’s head to deliver the treat so he is not tempted to turn toward you. Walk on again in LP3 and glide back into LP4. It can be quite difficult for us to remain in LP4. For some reason, most people, including me, have a tendency to creep up toward the horse’s neck and shoulders.
  3. This smooth letting out of the rope is another skill it’s good to practice first with another person standing in as the horse.
  4. Repeat 2, adding a few more steps in LP4 each time before you relax (click&treat).
  5. If we are working along a fence rather than in a lane, using a body extension makes it easier to keep our position behind the withers because we can bring the body extension forward to gently block any tendency to turn toward us. The instant he goes straight, put the body extension back in neutral by your side or lying lightly behind the horse’s withers.
  6. It can help to keep our hand behind lying gently behind the withers as we walk with the horse, as Bridget is doing in the final photo of the blog. This might not be an option if the horse is very small or very tall.
  7. If you use mat or nose targets, set these out and ask the horse to walk between them, stopping for a click&treat as he reaches each one. Return to LP4 after delivering each treat and ask for the ‘walk on’ with a gentle tap behind the withers.
  8. If the horse tends to move his shoulder toward you rather than stay straight along the fence, use your body extension to disturb the air alongside his neck.
  9. If the horse has a habit of moving his shoulders into you, create an Individual Education Program to address just this issue. It would include a release (click&treat) the instant the horse responds to the signal pressure from the body extension swung forward in the air next to his neck, inhibiting his shoulder movement toward you. Once he realizes that the release/click point is when he stays straight, you can begin to gradually add more steps forward before you relax (click&treat).

LP4 asks the horse to have his eyes, nose and shoulders well out ahead of us. That can be worrying for an anxious type horse who is more comfortable following than being out in front. Bolder, more confident horses will may find it easier. If you are developing a riding horse, it is important to understand this lack of confidence to ‘be out in front’.

By setting up mats or nose targets, we can make this a much more interesting game. The horse will begin to look for the next target so he can earn his next click&treat.

For horses who are anxious about leaving their home area or their herd mates, this is a great exercise to give them a brand new focus for going out and about with their handler.

We can collect plastic drink bottles for nose targets and hang them around our training area. Then we can devise different walking patterns between the various targets, including turns and weaves. A series of rags hung on fences or shrubbery can also make interesting targets (be aware of horses who may try to eat them).

The activity of walking along together with the hand or stick behind the withers needs to become comfortable and ho-hum for the handler and the horse.

If we want to ride out or walk out, setting up a series of nose targets along the way gives the horse something to seek out. His mind will be engaged in the next target rather than the fact that he is moving further away from his friends or barn area.

At first we’d have the targets close together. As the horse gets keen on the game, we can gradually spread them further and further apart. It also works to use something like a Frisbee or a ball as a target. We can throw it out ahead of us, move to target it, throw it again, and so on.

If the horse is very barn or buddy sweet, we can lay out the target destinations in an arc. The arc will first guide the horse away from where he sees his ‘safety’, and then closer again. Over days and weeks, we can gradually set the top of the arc further and further away. One day the horse’s desire to seek out his targets will eclipse his need to get back to the barn or his buddies.

If the horse has developed the habit of rushing home or rushing to the field, we can slow the rushing by having him seek out targets on the way home or on the way to the field.

Summary of LP4

Leading Position 4 became important to me when I was preparing my horse for riding. When I came to teach long-reining, it was an excellent intermediate position to having the horse comfortable with me walking right behind.

Mat or nose destinations enable us to play the nose or mat target game, which gives the horse an incentive to move smoothly from halt into walk (or trot) and back to halt at the next destination. Since ‘go’ and ‘whoa’ signals are the backbone of all of our communication with horses, the targeting games have many positive outcomes.

When we move the horse around us on a long line (lunging), our position usually moves between LP3, LP4 along with LP8 when we face the horse’s side.

Walking out and about on the road in LP4.

Using Lanes

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Lanes are incredibly useful for teaching horses about:

  • *leading without the horse blocking you (i.e. movement work in protected contact)
  • *trailer loading
  • *careful foot placement
  • *building suppleness for turns
  • *backing up straight
  • *recall
  • *sideways (lateral movement)
  • *backing up toward handler
  • *confidence with unusual narrow spaces, eg. walking between parked vehicles or narrow tracks
  • *backing harness horse between shafts
  • *lateral movement

Leading without Blocking the Handler

We are walking toward a mat where a click&treat will happen. This keeps the horse focussed on moving forward and he knows what will happen on reaching the mat.

Charging direction with this set-up is great for developing supple turns in both directions. Obviously the arrows in the lane should have an arrowhead on either end LOL.

Trailer Loading Prep

Getting the horse used to walking in a narrow space for pre-trailer loading confidence. We’ve set the lane up right next to the trailer and walk through it many times in both directions. Evenutall ask for a halt in the lane, then walk out. Evenutally ask for a halt and then back out.

Here we are stepping over a rail into the lane and out of the lane. Again, building in a confident halt plus forward again. Followed by a halt and backing up over the rail to get the horse used to seeking where to put his hind feet, as he will have to do when backing down a ramp. The next step would be to block off one end of the lane so it becomes a dead end space like the trailer.

Backing up Straight

This includes backing up out of trailer.

Walk into a dead-end lane, click&treat, and pause for dwell time.

Raised rope and signal with outside hand are our cues for backing up out of the space.

We have graduated to the same movement using just ground rails. Once that is solid, we can use just a fence or a line of single rails on the ground to avoid the hind end swinging away from us.

Backing up with the Handler in Front

The white markers make it easier for her to see the entrance to the narrow lane. Sill using halter and rope here.

A raised lane and she understands my raised hand signal for backing up.

Eventually we could back up from in front with great accuracy. This took a while to achieve, doing a little bit most days.

Backing through a series of pool noodles for a Horse Agility task.

Another way to set up a lane.

Backing Prospective Harness Horse Between Shafts; i.e. tight spots

Confidence with unusual narrow spaces

It pays to start wide and narrow the lane gradually.

Long-reining

Walking into the lane and backing out with long-reining.

Careful Placing of Feet

Careful foot placement with long-reining. We can start trotting poles in a lane to make it and easier for the horse to know our intent.

Weaving a series of parallel rails for careful foot placement and supplesness.

Using a lane to teach Back-Up to Target my Hand with her Withers.

Eventually we no longer needed the rails and she is learning to back up with a signal when I am behind her.

Lateral Movement

Once it’s easy with a lane, use just one rail to help the horse keep straight.

Recall

First I teach the ‘wait’ game at the end of the lane. Probably started by using a mat.

My recall body language signal is bending forward slightly and making a circle with my arms.

Would love to hear in the comments what you have taught, are teaching, or intend to teach using lanes.

Signal Opportunities

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The photo above illustrates a moment when it would not be a good idea to give the horse a signal/cue, becaue her attention is strongly focussed on something happening on the road.

Horses are generally co-operative beings. Most horses are happy to comply if the message is clear for them and if what we ask is within their emotional, mental and physical capability.

On the other hand, if we send mumbled or mixed messages or use non-natural signals that the horse has not learned, or which he physically can’t do (perhaos due to pain) the horse is in a real bind. A horse in this situation may react in one of the following ways.

  1. He may try to fill in with what he thinks the handler might mean, best as he can.
  2. He may give up trying to understand and opt out mentally.
  3. He may opt out physically by moving his feet to escape the situation, if he can. 
  4. If he can’t escape, he may ‘take over’ physically by pushing on, through or over the handler.
  5. He may ‘freeze’ into a catatonic state. Some horses simply collapse.

Choosing the right opportunity to ask our horse to do something is important. It’s pointless to ask our horse to do something unless there is a 99% chance that he can and will do it. Otherwise we are teaching him to ignore our requests because they are too hard to understand or beyond his physical ability at the moment.

Setting Up Opportunities

Do we set up lots of occasions for the horse to practice learning what we want him to learn?

By playing with picking up, then walking, carrying her feed bucket every day, Boots became adept at it.

In other words, do we give the horse ample opportunity to learn in a controlled environment where he can gradually build his confidence and expand his comfort zone as he comes to understand each new thing we are teaching?

Traditional training was geared to what the human wanted right now, and proceeded to demand it with force, coercion and body extensions designed to inflict increasing discomfort. 

Since what people want is usually not part of a horse’s natural repertoire of behavior, the horse is often catapulted into a state of bewilderment.

How much more comfortable and safer all around, if we thin-slice a large task into its smallest parts, teach each part and then chain the parts together to achieve the whole task?

When we do this, we allow the horse opportunity and time to master each small part before moving on. Please see Blog Numbers 13 and 106 on the Quick Contents Page for lots of detail about thin-slicing.

We want to allow the horse to keep his integrity and we want to keep his goodwill. We allow him to adjust to the strange life he must live with us. We earn his trust so that he is willing to put the placement of his feet into our hands. For an animal, whose sole defense is the ability to flee from perceived danger, this is a big ask.

To build the horse’s knowledge and confidence, we need to first get (and reward) the behavior that we want, then we can add a specific signal to it. Often a signal arises naturally out of the way we initiated the behavior.

The desired behavior here is for the horse to target a specific object. We make it easy at first and set it up with the least distractions, so we can quickly click&treat the behaviour we want. Once it is good 99% of the time with a simple set-up, we can add verbal and gesture signals to ask for the behavior. Then we can start to ask the horse to touch all kinds of things with his nose, so building his confidence and courage.

Because Boots had a long history of touching unusual objects with her nose, she willinging targetted the cart.

Once the horse understands the key signal, we can layer in other signal types. We can also replace a signal by adding a new one and fading out the earlier one.

Most horses don’t seem to have any trouble understanding several signals for the same thing. For example, my horse will ‘walk on’ with a verbal signal, a ‘breath-in’ signal, an arm gesture signal and an ‘outside leg steps forward’ signal. If we are doing work on a long line or reverse round pen, she understands the verbal, breathing and arm gesture signals from different angles and distances.

Additionally, horses can understand one signal in a variety of different situations. My horse understands the verbal ‘whoa’ signal when walking beside me, when she is behind me, when I am walking behind her as in long-reining, and from the riding position.

It’s also essential to be aware of the ways that our horse signals to us. Often, we are so immersed in working out what we want the horse to do, we miss the signals the horse is sending us about what he need us to do so he can remain confident.

By reading the horse, we can decide whether we should:

  • Carry on with what we are doing.
  • Go back a step or more to regain confidence.
  • Have a break and do something that’s already easy.
  • Stop for the day or for this session.

Free-Shaping

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following clip with the bicycle is much later.

The next clip is a demo of tummy crunches.

I learned this from Alex Kurland.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Free-Shaping Boots doing a STRETCH:

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

What sort of things have you free-shaped?

Part 2 of Relaxed Foot Care – the Hind Feet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Checklist

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

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

Part 1 of Relaxed Foot Care: Front Feet

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In the photo above, Boots noticed that Bridget has the hoofpick and spray bottle in her hand, so she knows it is foot care time, and offers her foot.

‘All behaviors rest on an emotional ediface.’ I don’t know the source of this quote, but it underpins just about everything.

Our aim is to have the horse confidently lift each foot on signal and keep it up for as long as we need it.

Environment:

  • Work in a space familiar to the horse, where he is usually relaxed; buddies in view but not able to interfere. Horse is not hungry.
  • Horse at liberty or wearing halter and lead (not tied up). Halter and lead allow us to help him stand square. If the horse can’t stand quietly without being tied, that is a skill to work on first. A familiar mat gives the horse a destination spot for standing quietly. See Number 9 in the Blog Contents Quick Links ( at top of page) if you need to establish confident parking on a mat first.
  • Ensure the horse is warmed up a bit so it is easier for him to stand on three legs.
  • Ensure the horse is in a learning frame of mind. If not, encourage activity to use up adrenalin or do relaxing activities he knows well before starting.

It pays to remember that if you are nervous about picking up a horse’s foot, your anxiety pales into insignificance compared with how worried a horse might be if he has not been introduced to foot care with thought to his feelings.  

Some horses may have had a bad experience with a particular leg. Be aware that a reluctance to lift a foot, or keep it up, can be due to pain from an old injury, current sore muscles/joints and/or arthritis. 

Horses know that if their feet are compromised, they are close to death. It pays to teach ‘picking up feet’ carefully and thoroughly and not leave it to other people. By going through all the steps outlined below, we can also overcome our own natural fear and anxiety about getting hurt.

Our first job is to make sure we can rub and massage the front legs down to the heel with the horse able to stand still in a relaxed manner, totally confident that we are not going to hurt him. With some horses, to keep everything safe and low key, it’s a good idea to use a body extension to rub the legs. We can keep our body erect, stay relaxed, and use a high rate of reinforcement. If we are tense, the horse will be tense.

I’m using a pool noodle to get the horse used to having things rubbed on her legs, the back and front of each leg as well as up and down.

The rate of reinforcement must allow the horse to be continually successful. At first it might be a barely touch of the body extension to a front leg. We start where the horse is, and work forward from that point. See Number 5 in the Blog Contents Quick Links (link at the top of the page) for The Four Stages of Learning.

Use advance and retreat. That means start up high and move down a leg until one of you feels uncomfortable. When you reach either you or the horse’s threshold of comfort, retreat by moving back up to the withers, relax, then advance again. This is called a re-set. You know you have reached a threshold if you feel tension in the horse’s body or you begin to feel anxious or uncomfortable.

Every time we do a re-set, we have a new opportunity to clarify our signal and our intent.

The mindmap below looks at the the tasks involved with front foot hoof care. Note that the first stage, rubbing the length of the leg, is omitted – my mistake.

Stand Square: the prerequisite task of stepping forward and backward, one step at a time, ensures that the horse understands our request to stand squarely. It helps if we routinely ask for square halts in a variety of situations. Each square or almost square halt, on request, earns a click&treat.

Using a mat makes it easier because, as the mat-savvy horse approaches the mat, he knows he will halt with his front feet on the mat. In other words, he has time to mentally and physically prepare himself and often halts squarely to earn his click&treat. Remember, he has four limbs to organize!

When asking the horse to square up, slightly tilt his head away from the front foot you want him to move. Moving his head away frees up the shoulder so he can move the leg.

Knee-Lifts to Touch a Target

Always start by asking the horse to stand squarely. This will help him remain balanced when he lifts a leg.

If we touch a target item gently to the front of the horse’s knee, accompanied by a click&treat, most clicker-savvy horses will quickly learn to raise the knee to touch the target. First, touch it to his knee, click& treat. When that is well established, hold the target a little tiny bit above the knee. He will work out that raising his knee touches the target and earns a click&treat. If he doesn’t, go back to touching the knee gently, click&treat until he makes the connection.

A pool noodle, a plastic bottle attached to a light stick (e.g. bamboo), or a light stick with bubble wrap taped around it, are the sorts of items we can use for knee targets.

#89 HorseGym with Boots demonstrates. Work with just the front feet until you are both totally solid with them. More detail about hind feet will be in the next blog.

Front Feet

If you’ve taught your horse to target his knee to your hand when you stand near him, facing him, he will have already shifted his weight so he can lift his foot, and you can catch hold of his foot while it is in the air.

Some people choose to touch the chestnut as a signal for lifting the foot. If you start with your hand at the withers each time, the horse will most likely soon learn to shift his weight and be already lifting his foot when you reach the chestnut.

It can be handy to teach a concurrent verbal signal such as, ‘Lift’. This is also helpful when we ask the horse to step cleanly over a rail, forwards and backwards.

Before we can gain the horse’s confidence about trusting his foot to our care, we must build up our own confidence. The best way is to do it in short, 3-minute segments, working through a series of thin-sliced questions that might look like the list below for the front feet.

As you play with the slices listed below, you will be collecting feedback on how you feel about each slice, and how your horse feels about each slice. You stay with each slice until the answer to the question is, ‘Yes.’

It could take five minutes to get all ‘yes’ answers with one horse. With another horse, it could take a week or a month of brief 3-minute sessions to get all ‘yes’ answers.

Remember, warmed up muscles will find the strain of standing on three legs and holding up a leg easier.

The rate of reinforcement must allow the horse to be continually successful with what you are asking.

  1. Can I: gently & confidently rub his leg & foot all over with my body extension (stick, pool noodle)? If you can, practice on an experienced horse (or practice on a person) to get the feel for it, if this is new to you.
  2. Will my horse: let me rub his leg and foot with my body extensions? Make sure he is already comfortable with being rubbed over the rest of his body.
  3. Can I: confidently rub his leg & foot with my hand? Start at his withers and rub down only as far as you feel comfortable at that time. Over many tiny sessions, you will get the confidence to rub all the way down.
  4. Will my horse: let me rub his leg and foot with my hand?
  5. Can I: get him to stand so he is balanced before I want to pick up a foot? Have I taught him how to line up squarely to target his front feet to a mat, and/ormove forward and back one step at a time? If not, you want to teach that first.
  6. Will my horse pick up a foot when I ask him to target my hand with his knee … OR slices 7.-9.
  7. Will my horse: take the weight off his right front leg when I run my hand from his withers and down his leg?
  8. Can I: confidently ask him to pick up his foot by touching his chestnut?
  9. Will my horse: pick up his foot when I touch the the chestnut?
  10. Can my horse: keep his balance okay standing on three legs?
  11. Will my horse: let me hold his foot for one second before I release it back to the ground? (Click just before you release, then move to his head to deliver the treat.)
  12. Can I: let my hand and arm holding the foot swing freely with any movement the horse makes with his leg until it stops swinging, at which point I click, gently release the foot and move forward to deliver the treat? (I do this only if I’m feeling safe.) If you feel whole body tension in the horse wanting his foot back, I would release the foot and work on earlier steps. The horse has an emotional block somewhere and we need to winkle it out. (All behaviors rest on an emotional ediface.)
  13. Will my horse: gradually let me hold the foot longer and longer (one second at a time) and stay relaxed until I click&treat?
  14. Will my horse:  hold his foot up in a relaxed way for as long as I need it up, waiting for the click&treat?

Boots is targeting her knee to my hand. For the next slice, I would change my body orientation to stand beside her shoulder so when she lifts her foot it is easy for me to ‘catch’ it in my hand.

I build duration of keeping the foot up one second at a time, before I release it gently, followed by a click&treat.

It’s also possible to build duration by reaching back to deliver the treat while holding up the foot. Some people set up a raised tub into which they can toss the treat.

To Make Your Job Much Easier…..

Check out Number 59 in the Blog Contents Quick Links (see top of page), for Counting with the Front Feet. This exercise has the added benefit of developing the horse’s skill of organising his weight to stand on three legs, to a high level.

Successive Approximations and Resets

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

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

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

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

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

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

Putting Head-Lowering on Signal/Cue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

General Key Points

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

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

Here are some questions we have to ask ourselves.

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

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

Here is the definition of thin-slicing again.

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

Resetting a Task

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Successive Approximations for Learning to Put on a Halter

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

From the Hoop to the Halter

Thin-Slicing Explained

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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.

Thoughts about Clicker Training Horses

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In the photo above, we are working on building duration staying on the mat while I move around. Note her ear and eye on where I am and what I’m doing.

Creating resources to help people learn more about training horses is tricky for several reasons.

When we start out with horses we learn from the people nearest us. We tend to absorb their ideas and their way of doing things.

This morning my granddaughter, almost five, excitedly brought two library books about horses for us to read together.

They were about children learning to ride and going to shows, featuring standard British riding paraphernalia and methodology.

She has been riding Boots for over a year and shows great interest in how we clean her feet and she makes a good effort at brushing her.

It was an interesting challenge for me to explain that we don’t put things in Boots’ mouth (other than food). I explained that it is easy to teach a horse to change directions with a halter or bitless bridle using clicker training, body language and words.

She is familiar with clicker training because that is all she has seen. We play games where we pretend to be either the horse or the handler.

Her question, of course, was, “Why do these people do it this way?”

All I could say was, “This is the way they were shown how to do it, but there are other ways too.”

When it came to explaining the picture with the horse who had his mouth tied shut with a cross-over noseband, I found myself lost for words. Yet in the distant past I used one of these – what was my rationale at the time? To keep the bit in place?

Thankfully, the other book she brought outlined gymkhana games that I can adapt for her and her sister to play on their next visit.

For many horse owners, especially those involved in horse sports (sport for the rider) the concept of training with positive reinforcement is still something to be discovered.

It is common for people moving toward positive reinforcement at a traditional horse facility to be mocked, told off, ridiculed, and told not to spoil their horse.

My hope is that my work helps open the door to being with horses in a way that respects their intelligence and willingness to take part in the weird things that humans expect of them.

Writing a detailed plan and keeping track of where we are in the plan, tweaking the plan as we get feedback each session from the horse and ourself, is the way forward. Below is one way of keeping a record with a 5-point outline. It can be used with anything we want the horse to master.

At the end of this blog is a video clip on the importance of setting up the learning environment for the horse.

Spiral Learning with Linear Resources

Another difficulty with teaching and learning is that usually materials must be presented in a linear manner, such as in a book, video, or online course.

However, we don’t learn in a linear way. Learning is more a spiral process. We begin and get side-tracked. As we learn more about one aspect of training horses, other things suddenly begin to make sense.

We leave a difficult task or challenge and come back to it later. As we get better and better at reading our horse, what was once a mystery becomes obvious.

We become more aware of our body language and what it might be saying to the horse, so our signals become clearer.

Realization dawns that what we thought was a simple task for the horse actually has a whole series of mini-behaviors the horse must be comfortable with before he can confidently achieve the task we want.

We move forward with our training but learn to recognize when slowing down and consolidating are more important so we can maintain the horse’s confidence and interest.

A book forces the author to present ideas one after the other. But improving handler skills and good training come about by frequent returns to revise key concepts. We learn continuously as we gain feedback from the horse and our own actions.

Each training experience gives the text of a book, or the ideas in a video, enhanced flavor because we return with different insights.

Becoming adept with this new way of communicating is an exciting business, but it takes commitment to learning new information and letting go of information and habits that no longer fit with what we’re now striving to do. It can require a significant rearrangement of a person’s belief system. 

Change is always a challenge. It is especially hard if we are trying to change against the stream of what the people around us do with their horses. It takes a fair amount of belief and stick-ability to persevere to the point of proficiency when we hear unpleasant comments from colleagues.

But we can also find kindred spirits. There are equine clicker training tribes on the Internet. Facebook groups allow us to share ideas and give support to people new to clicker training.

The science behind clicker training is straightforward. All people and other animals are motivated to do more of whatever makes them feel good or gains them a reward.

However, gaining skill with the mechanics of clicker training and understanding its layers of possibilities are not simple processes.

Once the handler is proficient and the horse is clicker-savvy*, we can use clicker training to build complex chains* of behavior*. Terms with asterisks (*) are explained in the glossary you can access at the top of this blog page.

When it is truly adopted, the click&treat dynamic infiltrates every corner of the relationship and becomes the backbone of the horse’s Individual Education Programs (IEPs)*.

In other words, clicker training becomes the mainstay of a holistic approach to educating a horse to live in captivity.

Precision Leading

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Synchronicity is a fundamental horse behavior. Horses living naturally stay in visual contact and move together. A warning snort by one horse will immediately alert all other horses within hearing. One horse startled into action will immediately be joined by the rest of his group. The body awareness of horses, like that of schooling fish and flocking birds is so acute that even at top speed on uneven terrain they don’t run into each other.

Horse body awareness is so well developed that even in full flight they do not run into each other.
Photo by Gigi on Unsplash

It’s possible for us to become part of this incredible sensitivity if we train ourselves to become clear and totally consistent with our body language. Once a horse realizes that our body language is significant and reliable, he tends to watch it closely. If we systematically strive to improve our body language, we will reap the benefits when we lead our horse.

We inevitably need to lead our horses from A to B. We might be leading our horse:

  • Between paddocks.
  • Between stable and paddock.
  • Into and out of stalls.
  • To and from our training area.
  • Along a road or track for a walk.
  • Alongside other horses.
  • On the uneven road verge or ditch if large or unusual traffic comes along.
  • Through gates of varying width.
  • Through a narrow space.
  • In a new area the horse has not seen before.
  • Into a familiar area which suddenly has new things in it.
  • Up and down slopes.
  • Around obstacles.
  • Through water.
  • Across ditches or gullies.
  • Into and out of a truck or trailer.
  • Around a vet facility.
  • Between cars and horse trailers.
  • Past or among strange horses and strange people.
  • Past pigs or donkeys or other animals unfamiliar to the horse.
  • Past loud or aggressive dogs.
  • Near children.
  • If we take our horse for walks, we may be in bush or forest with logs to step over, water to cross, other trail users to meet and pass.
  • If we trail ride, we may have reason to dismount and lead the horse in narrow, unusual and sometimes dangerous places with poor footing.

I’m sure this is not an exhaustive list, but it makes the point that it is definitely in our interest, and in the horse’s interest, to make precision leading part of our horse’s repertoire.

The ‘gates’ in this exercise are pairs of markers set up in a random pattern. The task is to organize the approach to each gate, so the horse can navigate it fluidly. We start with the gates well spread out and roomy to walk through.

I’m using a variety of markers to create a series of ‘gates’. The direction of our body axis is essential information for the horse to know whether he will be going straight, turning toward us or making a counterturn to head toward the next gate (as in video below).

This first short video looks at how we can use clear, consistent changes of our body’s axis as a major signal for the horse.

As always, there are quite a few PREREQUISITES. If you want/need to review any of the key prerequisites, I’ve put direct links to them at the end of this blog.

PREREQUISITES:

  • Horse responds willingly to ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ signals in a relaxed manner.
  • Horse responds to soft rope signals.
  • Horse backs up willingly with the ‘finesse back-up’ and/or ‘shoulder-to-shoulder back-up‘
  • The horse understands the significance of the handler clearly changing his/her body axis to indicate direction.

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. A shorter 8-foot lead makes it easier to keep a soft drape in the rope.
  • A series of five or more gates made with pairs of markers such as cones, tread-in posts, pieces of firewood, rocks, containers of water (5-liter plastic containers of water are especially useful), barrels, jump stands, rags – anything that is safe to use.
  • Each time we set up this exercise, we can put the gates in a different configuration. The number of gates is only limited by the size of the training area.
  • Once well established at home, we can expand the idea to new venues.

AIMS:

  1. Handler uses clear, consistent orientation, gesture, voice and halter-touch signals that allow the horse to smoothly navigate through each gate.
  2. Horse begins to seek out the next gate by reading the handler’s body language and gesture signals.
  3. Clear communication for:
  • Walk on through the gate.
  • Halt between the ‘gate’ markers.
  • Halt and back through the gate.

VIDEO CLIP:

#158 HorseGym with Boots: PRECISION LEADING

NOTES and SLICES:

  • Very short frequent sessions work best. Stay with each slice until it feels ho-hum to both of you.
  • Before asking the horse to negotiate the gates, walk through them yourself and visualize the order in which you will ask the horse to do them. Also explore the best way to approach each gate from various directions. The less hesitancy in your actions, the easier it will be for the horse to read your intent*. It’s fun, and hugely helpful, to have a second person be your pretend horse. Even better is for you to be the horse and have a friend guide you through the gates using body language only.
  • Set out five or more gates well spread out, with a good-sized gap for each gate so it’s easy for the horse to walk through.
  1. Walk to each gate in turn and ask the horse to halt between the markers; click&treat each halt. If he wants to stop to sniff and investigate any of the markers, allow him all the time he needs to satisfy his curiosity. Wait with zero intent* for an ‘okay to proceed*’ signal. [Terms with an Asterix (*) are defined in the glossary which you can access through the link at the top of the page.] In this situation, the ‘okay’ signal is when the horse brings his attention back to you. He may also sigh or breath out audibly.
  2. When 1 is smooth, halt in every second gate you come to; click&treat.
  3. When 2 is smooth, halt in every third gate you come to: click&treat.
  4. As the horse shows he is ready to do more, carry on adding one more gate before the halt followed by click&treat, until you can do a whole series with one click&treat at the end of the series.
  5. When 4 is good on one side of the horse, start again with slice 1 on the other side of the horse.
  6. When 4 and 5 feel smooth and light, ask the horse to back up two or three steps after a halt in a gate. Work up to a series of occasional ‘halts followed by a back-up’, in-between walking forward through the gates.
  7. Mix up:
    • Walking straight through gates.
    • Halting in a gate and walking on.
    • Halting in a gate and backing up.
    • Trotting through some or all the gates.
    • Put gates in different venues and/or use different markers.
  8. We can also use the gate as a stopping place to practice the WAIT.
Pausing in a ‘gate’ to play with increasing the duration of the WAIT GAME.

LINKS TO PREREQUISITES

Zero Intent and Intent: https://herthamuddyhorse.com/2018/11/30/dec-2018-challenge-no-intent-and-intent/

20-Steps Exercise: [#68 in the Blog Contents List] https://herthamuddyhorse.com/2020/09/05/20-steps-exercise/

Smooth Walk-on and Halt Transitions: [#16 in the Blog Contents List.] https://wp.me/p4VYHH-5TT

Soft Response to Rope Signals exercise: [#86in the Blog Contents List.] https://herthamuddyhorse.com/2022/01/03/developing-soft-response-to-rope-rein-pressure/

Smooth 90-degree Turns: [#31 in the Blog Contents List.] https://herthamuddyhorse.com/2019/06/29/smooth-90-degree-turns-handler-on-the-inside/

Smooth Counter Turns: [#35 in the Blog Contents List.] https://herthamuddyhorse.com/2019/09/30/smooth-counter-turns/

Weave Prep – more detail about using our body axis orientation. [My YouTube playlist called Weave and Tight Turns contains more clips about how I gradually developed these skills]: https://youtu.be/dQ4Qkz74pcQ

Finesse Back-Up: [#40 in the Blog Contents List.] https://herthamuddyhorse.com/2020/02/02/finesse-back-up/

Mat Madness

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In the photo above, I’ve asked Boots to put all four feet onto our plywood mat.

With so many new people taking up equine clicker training, I will find some of my favorite blogs from years ago when I started sharing them. The first video clip below demonstrates 22 different tasks we can play using a mat as a focal point. A mat allows us to have a specific conversation with our horse. If we have an exact idea of what we’d like, it is easier to shape the horse toward our goal and reinforce him for each small slice toward the goal behavior. Some further relevant YouTube clips are listed at the end.

Different types of mats are best suited to particular tasks. In this clip we use a plywood board, an old bath mat and pool flotation mat. Rubber door mats are good in that they don’t bunch up like the bath mat does.

The challenge for you is to choose one task and create a training plan to teach the horse as seamlessly as possible. When your first task is mastered, choose another one. Some tasks are much more complex than others. Most of them (but not all) require the horse to know the task before adding the mat into the picture.

Hints: Start with what the horse can already offer. Work in multiple mini-sessions. Three attempts are often ample for one mini-session. Stop when you get a good response or ‘try’. Maybe you can fit several mini-sessions into one longer session when you are doing chores other things with the horse. Work on new tasks one at a time.

Experiment until you and your horse agree on a clear signal for each task. Pay attention to your consistency using the signal. I struggle with staying consistent, but when I achieve it, things suddenly get much better.

Some people life to teach everything at liberty. I like to start most things with halter and lead so I can easily give the horse more clues about what will earn the click&treat, causing less frustration.

List of 22 Tasks: The list below is in the same order as shown on the clip.

1. Horse targets mat as his own idea, at liberty. https://youtu.be/xMaZWt5gK2o

2. Use a gesture to send the horse to a mat.

3. Walk together around the mat before asking the horse to target the mat.

4. Person asks horse to wait, goes to stand on the mat, then returns to the horse.

5. Person asks horse to wait, walks to stand on the mat, then asks horse to recall to the mat.

6. Mat moved to a different venue, encourage horse to target the mat at liberty.

7. Short recall to the mat, handler facing the horse but not standing on the mat.

8. Short back off the mat; handler facing the horse.

9. Back off the mat; handler shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse.

10. Back off the mat; handler behind the horse.

11. Handler on the mat, horse circles to the right and left and halt on the circle.

12. Front feet stay on the mat, yield the hindquarters, from right and left sides.

13. Walk across mat and halt with hind feet on the mat.

14. Yield hindquarters off the mat, from right and left sides.

15. Yield hindquarters onto the mat, from right and left sides.

16. Yield forequarters off the mat, from right and left sides.

17. Yield forequarters onto the mat, from right and left sides.

18. Left front foot onto a mat.

19. Right front foot onto a mat.

20. Right hind foot onto a mat.

21. Left hind foot onto a mat.

22. Handler in front of the horse, ask horse to back both hind feet onto the mat.

These clips may also be helpful or interesting.

#9 HorseGym with Boots, Putting the Mat Target on Cue (on Signal). https://youtu.be/eEGayCdECeQ

#10 HorseGym with Boots, Generalizing Mats. https://youtu.be/wdptBQ0EtK4

#11 HorseGym with Boots, Mat-a-thons. https://youtu.be/Lj9xrwVtRUQ

#15 HorseGym with Boots, Parking with Duration & Distance. https://youtu.be/CYJwu-CyIVE

Starting with a Shy or Timid Horse

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Introduction

It’s tempting to think of horses as big, strong creatures – which they are. But in reality they are just giant squirrels, constantly on the lookout for danger and aware that flight is their best response to anything unusual. So building confidence with every new situation is everything.

Eternal vigilance is what keeps prey animals alive.

A Familiar Feed Dish

Using a familiar feed dish can help if we are working with a shy or timid horse, or one unused to humans. We can use free-shaping to capture the behavior of taking a treat from the feed bucket. If he is not yet interested in eating carrot or apple strips, use handfuls of soaked chaff or whatever bucket-food he is getting, or twists of good quality hay, or freshly plucked long-stemmed grass if you have access to this.

Here is the Thin-slicing for a Possible Training Plan.

  1. Place the feed dish between you and the horse. The horse’s response will show you how close you can be without causing him to move further away. 
  2. While watching the horse, be careful not to stare directly at him, but to turn a bit sideways to him and observe him discretely with your peripheral vision.
  3. Wait in a relaxed manner until the horse looks at the feed dish – click and quietly move to the feed dish and toss in a treat. Then immediately move twice as far away as your former position, giving the horse more than the personal bubble size he needs to feel safe enough to approach the feed dish. It’s good if the treat makes a sound when it hits the dish. If the wait time is quite long, take a chair. Sometimes a person sitting in a chair is less threatening than a standing person.
  4. Wait for the horse to retrieve the treat. If he can’t do it yet, move further away or go do something else and come back later. He’ll usually check the dish while you are away.
  5. Approach the feed dish until the horse moves away (if he hasn’t already). As soon as the horse stops moving away, stop as well and shift your body sideways so you are not directly facing him. Watch for him (without staring at him) to look at the feed dish – click as soon as he does and quietly move to the food dish and toss in a treat, then glide away again to a distance that respects the horse’s current personal bubble.
  6. Repeat 10-20 times or as long as the horse shows interest. He will gradually begin to connect the click with the food treat about to be tossed into his dish.
  7. Each horse is different. Some horses easily shrink the size of the space they need to feel safe and soon approach the dish readily. Others will find it harder to build confidence.
  8. It’s possible to do this procedure on the other side of a fence from the horse. This is protected contact for us, but it can also make the horse feel safer from his point of view.
  9. Gradually we can shift the ‘click point’ to wait for a step toward the food dish, then sniffing the food dish. At the same time, we may be able to gradually decrease the distance we have to move away before the horse will retrieve the treat.
  10. Eventually we can sit in a chair with the bucket near us, then right beside us, then on our lap and the horse will come to retrieve his treat from the bucket.
  11. From there, we can introduce our hand into the bucket and get him used to the idea that he can pick food off our hand.
  12. Eventually we can dispense with the bucket.
  13. It’s essential to work with each horse’s timeline, no matter how long it takes. Each horse is unique. If we give him the time it takes to make up his own mind that approaching the dish (and eventually us) results in good things, he will have a positive outlook to our presence.

The treat has been dropped into the green bowl and now the person will move away just a step or two because the horse is confident enough to come to the bucket as soon as he knows a treat has been put into it.

Putting Slow Dancing Together, plus Extras

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When I teach these maneuvers, I teach them one at a time. Then we begin to link two of them together. For example, I do the Do-Si-Do so I can repeat the Line Dancing in Position with the Front Feet on the other side of the horse. But doing the line dancing on the other side could easily fit in after one of the Recalls to Heel, presuming we remember which side we did the first time – something I tend to forget.

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 Not in the Equation

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.

Simple Bow

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.

SUMMARY OF THE TASKS

This is a review of the ten Slow Dancing tasks we developed over the year. I’m sure there are others you can also incorporate.

This video clip shows an example of the whole routine. #282 HorseGym with Boots: Whole Slow Dance Routine at Liberty.

Accurate Placing of Feet

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.

We have halted with one front foot over the rail.

Line Dancing in Position with the Front Feet

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.

Do-Si-Do

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.

Recall and Back-Up in Rhythm

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.

Sidestepping Face-to-Face

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.

Recall to Heel

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

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.

Balancera

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.

Line Dancing Shoulder-to-Shoulder

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.

The Twirl

This brings us to the tenth Slow Dancing task, which is The Twirl. 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.

Extras

The Twirl and the Whole Sequence

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INTRODUCTION

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

  1. 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.
  2. As the horse recalls at liberty, we have a signal for the horse to do one or more twirls during his approach.

PREREQUISITES

  1. As usual, we must have each of the prerequisites in excellent shape so we can smoothly build this multi-part task.
  2. 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
  3. 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).
  4. Horse responds readily to handler’s ‘recall’ signal. Number 90 in my Blog Contents List. This training plan details mainly teaching the recall. https://herthamuddyhorse.com/2022/05/01/recall-back-up-in-rhythm/. Also: Simple Recall Part 1 at https://youtu.be/XuBo07q8g24. And #240 HorseGym with Boots: Wait and Recall. https://youtu.be/_gxXZ7J7eAE

VIDEOS

#256 HorseGym with Boots: Teaching the Twirl. https://youtu.be/tenhwp6tQmI

MATERIALS AND ENVIRONMENT for THE TWIRL

  • 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

  1. 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.
  2. Two or three repeats each training session is plenty. Over weeks and months, it will become a solid part of your repertoire.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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).
  4. 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.
  5. Ensure that your basic RECALL is smooth (Prerequisite 3).
  6. 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

  1. Play in different venues.
  2. Play on a slope.
  3. 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.
  4. 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:

The Whole Sequence Clip

#281 HorseGym with Boots: All the Slow Dancing Tasks https://youtu.be/mDjUAH6jzbA

Line Dance Shoulder-to-Shoulder

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INTRODUCTION

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

  1. 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.
  2. The horse understands body language, gesture and voice signals to sidestep toward us.

PREREQUISITES

  1. 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.
  2. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. A horse with arthritis and/or past injuries may have restricted or severely limited movement for this type of work.
  4. 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.
  5. For the slow-dancing routine, we only need a few steps away and a few steps toward us.

SLICES

Sidestepping Away

  1. 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.
  2. 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

    1. Set up as for 1 and 2 above.
    2. If the horse finds one side easier, start on that side.
    3. 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.
    4. When 3 is coming along nicely, teach it all again from the beginning on the horse’s other side.
    5. 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.
    6. When 5 is smooth, remove both barriers.
    7. 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

    1. When the task is sound in a familiar training area, play in different places.
    2. Work on a slope horse facing uphill.
    3. Work on a slope horse facing downhill.
    4. Work with the horse parallel to a gentle slope.

    The Balancera Exercise

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    INTRODUCTION

    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.

    AIM

    To fluidly change from walking forward to backing up, staying together in the shoulder-to-shoulder position.

    PREREQUISITES

    1. 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.)
    2. Horse understands touch, voice and gesture ‘back-up’ signals. See Number 40 in my Blog Contents List: Finesse Back-Up.
    3. 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.

    VIDEOS

    There is a third video at the very end of the blog.

    #173 HorseGym with Boots: Balancera Clip 1 of 2.

    #174 HorseGym with Boots: Balancera Clip 2 of 2.

    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 8-foot lead (kept loose as much as possible, as we want to use body language for communication, not rope pressure).
    • A selection of barriers toward which we can walk the horse and ask for ‘halt’.
    • A safe fence or similar to work beside.
    • Materials to build a simple dead-end lane. You may have a corner or a fence and an open gate to use as two of the three sides of a dead-end lane.

    NOTES

    1. * 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.
    2. * 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.
    3. * 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.

    SLICES

    1. Check you can ‘walk on’ together fluidly, staying in position shoulder-to-shoulder.
    2. Check you can ‘halt’ together fluidly, staying in position shoulder-to-shoulder.
    3. Set up a lane and walk the horse through it in both directions. Horse is in the lane, handler on the outside.
    4. When 3 above is ho-hum, walk the horse into the lane and ask for a halt about halfway along; click&treat.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Repeat 6 and 7 above, gradually building up to several steps back.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. 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.
    17. 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.
    18. Generalize by halting facing a fence or any free-standing barrier, then backing up without the prop of a lane.
    19. 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.
    20. 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.
    21. 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.
    22.  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.
    23. 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.
    24. Most of all, keep it fun. Stay within the horse’s ability that day.

    The Spiral

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    INTRODUCTION

    Horses on their own tend to move in straight lines unless they are engaged in play or disputes. But they move a lot as they graze and to access water. A study of wild horses in Australia found that mostly they walked. Sometimes they trotted. Occasionally, they cantered or galloped.

    Horses in captivity often have restricted freedom of movement. Anything we can do to encourage movement adds color to a horse’s day. This spiral exercise is an interesting task we can make part of our repertoire. It encourages and maintains flexibility.

    Horse can only bend laterally (to the side) in three places on their body. (1) from the junction of head and neck and along the neck muscle. (2) at the base of the neck. (3) Between the final lumbar vertebra and the sacrum which consists of five fused vertebrae. Bend in this last area is extremely limited.

    The bending sites.
    Bending mainly the head.
    Extreme bending of neck .
    The ‘haunches in’ exercise develops the little bend possible between the last lumbar vertebra and the sacrum by the horse learning to stretch a hind leg to step well under the belly as in the next photo.
    Horse doing her best to keep her whole body on the arc of the tiny circle she is walking around me. She is placing her right hind leg as far under her belly as she can.

    As with all the other tasks that we teach, the key is to do a little bit often. Over weeks and months, the horse’s suppleness will gradually improve and can easily be maintained with frequent short repeats of a variety of stretching tasks.

    AIM

    The horse moves in a tight curve around the handler who turns on the spot.

    PREREQUISITES

    1. Horse and handler smoothly walk together in the shoulder-to-shoulder position with the handler on either the right or left side of the horse. See numbers 16 and 68 in my Blog Contents List at the top of this page.
    2. ‘Rule of Three’, which is a way to organize training sessions to maintain high interest and motivation. See Number 46 in my Blog Contents List.

    VIDEO

    #273 HorseGym with Boots: The Spiral. https://youtu.be/sQ-ELVlIzZA

    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 and handler in a relaxed frame of mind.
    • Halter and lead for the teaching phase.
    • An object to mark the center of a circle.

    NOTES

    1. * Start with as large a circle as the horse finds comfortable. If he starts to swing his hindquarters out of the arc of the circle, the circle is too tight for the horse’s current ability to flex laterally.
    2. * Short sessions as often as possible, as well as exercises such as weaving obstacles, figure 8’s, 90-degree turns (Number 31 in my Blog Contents List) all help with lateral flexion.
    3. * Playing with 180-degree turns also helps (Number 23 in my Blog Contents List).
    4. * Click&treat as often as you need in order to keep the horse interested and engaged.
    5. * The horse may be much stiffer in one direction. If one side seems especially difficult for him, check out the possibility of current soreness or historical injuries.

    SLICES

    1. Set a marker (not a mat that the horse expects to stand on) into the center of your training area.
    2. Walk the horse in a large circle around the marker with you on his left side, which means your circle will be walking anti-clockwise.
    3. Very gradually reduce the size of the circle each time you come around, in a gradual spiral fashion.
    4. Watch carefully for the point at which the horse’s hind end is no longer following the arc of the circle. That tells you when he is beginning to find it too hard. We don’t want him to develop the habit of swinging his hind end out, so when you reach this point, spiral your circle outwards again.
    5. With frequent short repeats, done amongst other things you are doing with your horse (see Rule of Three – Prerequisite 2), you will be able to gradually achieve tighter circles with the horse keeping his whole body aligned on the curve.
    6. Remember, horses have extremely limited bending at the hip area. In the video you can see how Boots moves her outside leg way to the side so she can draw her inside leg well under her belly to keep herself on the curve of the circle.
    7. When you can turn on the spot beside the marker with your back against the horse’s shoulder, while the horse curves around you, you have achieved the task.
    8. Repeat from the beginning on the horse’s right side. As mentioned in the Notes, you may find one side much stiffer.

    GENERALIZATIONS

    1. Play without a marker but in the same area.
    2. Play at liberty.
    3. Play with it in novel venues.
    4. Play on a slope.

    Recall to Heel

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    INTRODUCTION

    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.

    PREREQUISITES

    1. Horse and handler have developed a good WAIT. Number 65 in my Blog Contents List which you reach via the tab at the top of the home page.
    2. Horse responds readily to handler’s ‘recall’ signal. See Number 90 in my Blog Contents List: Recall and Back Up in Rhythm.
    3. 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.
    4. Horse has perfected the 180-degree turn. See Number 23 in my Blog Contents List: 180 Degree Turns.
    5. 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.

    VIDEO

    #274 HorseGym with Boots: Recall to Heel. https://youtu.be/Giut6wim9KE

    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.
    • Halter and 12′ (4m) light lead-rope to start with.

    NOTES

    1. * Have the horse warmed up before asking for 180-degree turns.
    2. * 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.
    3. * Check that your WAIT is in good shape.
    4. * Check that your RECALL is in good shape.
    5. * Check that your WALK ON gesture and voice signals are in good shape.
    6. * Check that your WHOA is in good shape.
    7. * Check that your 180-degree turns are in good shape and the horse knows your voice signal for turning (I use “Around”).
    8. * 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.
    9. * 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

    1. Halter and light lead on the horse.
    2. Ask the horse to WAIT while you walk a few steps away in front of him. Turn, pause, then ask for a RECALL.
    3. 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.
    4. Teach it consistently on one side and when that is smooth, teach again from the beginning on the other side.
    5. 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

    1. Work at liberty.
    2. Work in new venues.
    3. Work on a slope.
    4. Recall across rails or through a gap/tunnel or over a tarp.
    5. Teach moving into the heel position after a recall without stepping around behind the handler.

    RECALL & BACK UP IN RHYTHM

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    INTRODUCTION

    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.

    PREREQUISITES

    1. Horse has learned a solid WAIT. See Number 65 in my Blog Contents List at https://herthamuddyhorse.com/2020/12/16/the-wait-game/
    2. 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/

    VIDEO

    #271 HorseGym with Boots: Recall & Back with Rhythm. https://youtu.be/7TVgr6_oXlI

    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

    1. Before starting this task, we need a solid WAIT (Prerequisite 1).
    2. 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).
    3. The slices in this training plan outline teaching the recall and then putting the recall and back-up together in a rhythmic way.
    4. Teach everything on both sides of the horse.
    5. Use a rate of reinforcement that keeps the horse continually successful.
    6. Essential to keep a float (smile) in the rope unless using it momentarily to clarify our intent for the horse.
    7. Keep sessions short in among other things you are doing with the horse.

    SLICES

    1. Set up your rails (or hose or rope) as in the photo in the Introduction. Use a fence on one side if you can.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. As he makes each U-turn, add a consistent voice signal. I say “Around” for the turn.
    5. 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.
    6. When it all feels smooth, use a pair of rails away from a fence.
    7. When 6 is ho-hum, use just one rail.
    8. When 7 is ho-hum, use just a low marker to send the horse ‘around’.
    9. 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).
    10. 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).
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Once 15 is smooth, chain together one back-up and one recall before the click&treat (or one recall and one back-up).
    17. 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.
    18. 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

    1. Play with it in different venues.
    2. Play on a slope.
    3. Add one or more rails which the horse crosses during the recall and back-up.

    The Simple Bow

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    INTRODUCTION

    It’s fun to teach a simple bow to use at the beginning and end of a movement routine. The bow itself becomes a clue for the horse that a chain of tasks is about to begin and equally it tells him when the chain of tasks is finished.

    We can teach the simple bow by capturing any downward movement of the head with a click&treat. Or we could use ‘luring’ while changing our posture as we put a treat on the ground, plus add a voice signal.

    AIM

    The horse mimics the handler’s bow from the waist by lowering his head, then raising it again.

    PREREQUISITE

    Horse and handler are clicker savvy.

    VIDEOS

    This clip uses the process of luring, which is detailed in the thin-slicing steps below.

    #269 HorseGym with Boots: Simple Bow. https://youtu.be/vwtxTdWaRRQ

    These two clips show the process of free-shaping.

    #257 HorseGym with Boots Head Lowering 1. https://youtu.be/AoqtJj2X1bU

    #258 HorseGym with Boots: Head Lowering 2. Putting it on signal. https://youtu.be/Ol-BHB1QCnw

    MATERIALS AND ENVIRONMENT

    • A training area where the horse is relaxed and ideally can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
    • It can help to park the horse on a mat, if he knows about mats, to let him know that moving his feet is not required. 

    NOTE

    When we use the luring with food system, we will be placing a treat on the ground and we don’t want to put it on sand or loose dirt. If that is all you have available, perhaps use a mat or similar on which to put the treat.

    SLICES (for teaching with luring)

    1. Stand the horse in a spot where he feels comfortable; click&treat. Maybe have his front feet parked on a mat.
    2. Stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the horse; click&treat.
    3. Practice a bit of duration standing quietly together at zero intent with head forward; click&treat for x number of seconds, depending on where you are with developing this task.
    4. Quietly remove a treat from your pouch or pocket, ideally during a moment the horse is busy eating his previous treat, so he doesn’t notice you getting the treat.
    5. Show the horse the treat in your hand then bow from the waist to put the treat on the ground for the horse to find.
    6. Wait until he lifts his head and has eaten the treat. Repeat, adding a voice signal to go with your body language. If you’ve previously taught head-lowering you may already have a voice signal.
    7. Once the horse responds to your body language and voice signals, click as the head goes down, but feed the treat as the head comes up again as you straighten your body. For this we don’t want ‘duration’ of keeping the head down.
    8. Teach on both sides of the horse.

    GENERALIZATION

    1. Practice in many different places.
    2. Practice around different distractions.
    3. Incorporate into any routines you do as ‘begin’ and ‘end’ points.

    Placing the Feet using a Single Rail

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    INTRODUCTION

    In the photo above we are using a line of 5-liter containers as our ‘rail’.

    This is another exercise that helps a horse with proprioception – knowing where his feet are, what they are doing, and how much energy is required.

    Equally, it is a superb exercise for the handler to refine communication skills. All training with a horse is about building a mutual language. If we are consistent with our body language and energy changes, the horse will use these as his main cues for following our lead. For further refinement we add gesture signals and perhaps voice signals.

    Sometimes people think, “Oh, I’ll try that”. They do an exercise once or twice and think that it’s ‘done’. They totally miss the point that exercises like this are little workouts for both handler and horse that need to be done often, always stiving for more refinement of handler communication until it feels like magic with the horse at liberty.

    For this exercise there are five different basic tasks, but since we do them in the horse’s left and right eyes, we have ten tasks. Then we consolidate the tasks by doing them in two directions for each eye, giving us a total of 20 tasks.

    Once the five basic tasks are mastered, there are eight refinements we can add. Doing these on either side of the horse gives a total of 16 refinements.

    This series of tasks also makes a good warm-up or cool-down exercise. And they can be stretching and accuracy exercises if time is short to do other things.

    AIMS:  

    1. Handler works on using clear, smooth ‘walk on’, ‘halt’, ‘wait’ and ‘back up’ signals using a single rail as a focal point.
    2. Handler uses ‘Intent and Zero Intent’ body language to create short WAIT times between requests.
    3. Horse develops confidence with walking across a rail (or similar).
    4. Horse gains confidence standing with a rail (or similar) under his belly.
    5. Horse practices placing his feet carefully in response to handler signals.

    PREREQUISITES:

    1. Horse leads smoothly beside the handler’s shoulder. See Number 68 in my Blog Contents List. The link for my Blog Contents List is at the top of the page.
    2. Handler and horse agree on ‘Intent and Zero Intent’ signals. See Number 10 in my Blog Contents List.
    3. Handler and horse agree on clear ‘walk on’ and ‘halt’ signals. See Number 16 in my Blog Contents List.
    4. Handler is aware of The Rule of Three. See number 46 in my Blog Contents List.
    5. Horse and handler agree on a back-up signal, either with the handler turning to face the horse – See Number 40 in my Blog Contents List, or the handler staying in the shoulder-to-shoulder position – See the first clip in Number 32 in my Blog Contents List.
    6. Handler knows to stay with each small task until it is ho-hum, before asking for a different task.

    VIDEOS: 

    #267 HorseGym with Boots: One Rail Basics. https://youtu.be/wMwBqiaBruI

    #268 HorseGym with Boots: One Rail Refinements. https://youtu.be/L1fdlegEHFo

    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 single rail or several single rails (or similar) laid out a good distance apart.
    • Halter and lead or liberty. A light, shorter lead is easier to manage.

    NOTES:

    1. A little bit of these tasks during one 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 earn a click&treat. The Rule of Three can be useful.
    2. Asking a horse to lift a front foot to back across a rail means that he is moving it back against the pressure of his whole body which is not easy. Ignore any touching of the rail at this stage as the horse draws a leg back. Frequent short practices will strengthen the muscles and ligaments so lifting the foot up and back becomes easier for the horse.
    3. To help the horse strengthen, and maintain the strength, to lift his feet easily, we can lay a raised rail or similar in a gateway that the horse uses regularly during his everyday life. I’ve done this with two gates, and it seems to do a good job at helping to maintain suppleness. I leave a small gap for my wheelbarrow to squeeze through.
    4. When confusion arises, it is because we are not clear enough or are going faster than the horse is able to absorb the new learning. Horses working for a food reward are usually super-observant of all our body language as well as carefully taught and executed voice and gesture signals. We must continually strive to ‘speak’ clearly with our body language, orientation and gestures every time we request an action (or inaction). Otherwise, the horse will only ‘hear’ a mumble and be confused, just as a person mumbling to us is frustrating and makes us give up trying to understand.
    5. 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 the next signal that will lead to a click&treat.
    6. When we use the less dominant side of our body, our body language and gesture signals tend to be less clear until we become super conscious of what we are doing. If you are right-handed and haven’t usually done much on your horse’s right side, there will be a lot of learning going on for both of you.
    7. I find it useful to take written memo cards out with me when first doing a series of moves like this.
    8. In-between moving, build it WAIT time before asking for the next movement. I.e., MOVEMENT – WAIT (x number of seconds) – MOVEMENT.
    9. In the video clips I only show each request once to keep the clip short. When in the teaching (acquisition*) phase, three repeats in a row is usually a good number to work with.
    10. If the horse finds one of the slices difficult, spend as many short sessions as necessary to build his confidence before asking for anything new.

    SLICES:

    1. Walk right over the rail, halt a few paces beyond the rail, click&treat. Walk a loop and repeat a couple more times. Or you could have more than one rail laid out in your training area and walk to each rail in turn to get the repeats. I used one rail in the video clips for ease of filming with a set camera.
    2. Halt with the rail under the horse’s belly, click&treat; pause for a WAIT, walk on forward over the rail, walk a loop (or move to next rail) so you can repeat a couple of times.
    3. Halt and WAIT before stepping over the rail, click&treat; pause and WAIT, walk on over the rail and into your loop or on to the next rail.
    4. Halt immediately after all four feet have stepped over the rail, click&treat; pause and WAIT, walk on into your loop or to the next rail.
    5. Halt with the rail under the horse’s belly, click&treat. Pause and WAIT, ask the horse to back his front feet across the rail, click&treat; pause, walk on forward over the rail. Be gentle teaching this. If you have taught a ‘Lift’ voice signal for foot care it can be useful here.
    6. Repeat 1-5 above but this time approach the rail(s) from the opposite direction.
    7. Repeat 1-5 above walking on the horse’s right side.
    8. Repeat 7 above (on his right side) in the opposite direction.

    GENERALIZATIONS:

    1. Work in different venues.
    2. Repeat slices 1-5 trotting.
    3. Play at liberty once you’ve built up good communication for each task.
    4. Work on a slope.

    ONE RAIL REFINEMENTS

    1. Walk all four feet over the rail and halt. Back only the hind feet over the rail; wait; walk forward again.
    2. Walk all four feet over the rail and halt. Ask the hind feet to back over the rail, then the front feet.
    3. Approach the rail but turn in front of the rail to set up the horse to halt/wait with his hind feet at the rail but not over it.
    4. As 3 above, then ask the horse to back all four feet across the rail.
    5. If you’ve taught sidestepping (see Number 29 in by Blog Contents List), ask the horse to step his front feet over the rail at one end and sidestep along the rail. If you are facing the horse’s ribs ask him to sidestep away from you. You can also ask him to sidestep toward you if you’ve taught this previously. You can also build a signal for sidestepping along a rail while you are face-to-face with the horse.
    6. Straddle the rail. See Number 67 in my Blog Contents List.
    7. Ask one front foot to stand across the rail and WAIT. See if you can do it with either foot. Then either ask the horse to lift the foot back over the rail or walk on forward.
    8. Back one hind foot over the rail and wait in that position; walk forward. Work to be able to do this with either hind foot.

    Mainly, HAVE FUN developing your communication skills.

    Developing Soft Response to Rope/Rein Pressure

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    Photo above shows how we started teaching voice signals for turning right and left using a target. When the voice signals were established, I added a light rope touch – creating a multi-signal.

    INTRODUCTION:

    It’s not uncommon for a horse to have bad feelings or mixed emotions about halters and ropes. My book, WALKING WITH HORSES has a detailed section about developing a horse’s willingness to put his nose into a halter. This is a task that needs thoughtful teaching.

    Confidence with halter and lead rope is critical to help horses deal well with life in captivity. Essentially, we want putting a halter and rope on our horse similar to putting on our ‘work clothes’ – an outfit or uniform suitable for the type of work we do. When we work for an organization or with other people, we adjust our behavior to what is appropriate at our job.

    In the same way, a horse carefully educated about halters and ropes will recognize that he is wearing his ‘uniform’ and relate it to certain ways of behaving. Mainly, it limits his behavior choices. Ideally it also encourages him to pay careful attention to requests made via messages send along the rope.

    We can use the rope to send text messages. But, obviously, we must first carefully teach the horse what the ‘letters’ of our text mean. The lighter the pressure of our ‘texting’, the lighter the horse’s responses can be. In other words, the horse can only be as light in his responses to rope messages as we are light in sending them.

    A rope is a way of ‘holding hands’ with our horse, not a tether kept tight to stop the horse escaping our influence. There is nothing so heartbreaking as see a gasping dog at the end of a tight leash or a horse struggling to understand why the tightness of the rope won’t go away, no matter what he does.

    The key to lead rope handling is that the rope is always slack except for the brief moments it is sending a message to the horse. The instant the horse complies with our request, the slack is returned to the rope. It is the instant release of rope pressure plus the simultaneous click (and the accompanying treat) that enables the horse to understand which task we are requesting.

    AIMS:

    1. To have the horse comfortable standing in a safe corner.
    2. To teach a ‘head straight’ anchor task that precedes our request to turn the head.
    3. Use a target to teach head flexion to right and left; no rope.
    4. Add ‘right’ and ‘left’ voice signals to the task.
    5. Teach soft lateral flexion (turning the head right or left) using gentle touch on the halter via a rope until it feels equally smooth to the right and the left.
    6. Generalize the task to different places and situations.

    PREREQUISITES:

    1. Horse is comfortable wearing a halter. (See Number 7 in my Blog Contents List. The link is at the top of the page.)
    2. Horse is comfortable with a lead rope.
    3. Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
    4. Horse understands standing on a mat with duration. (See Number 9 in my Blog Contents List.)
    5. For the early sessions, it’s helpful to have the horse standing with his butt in a safe corner so that backing up and swinging the hind end away are not options. The first slices will therefore involve making sure the horse is comfortable and relaxed standing in a corner.

    ENVIRONMENT & MATERIALS:

    • A work area where the horse is relaxed.
    • Ideally, the horse can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
    • A safe corner the horse can stand in confidently. A safe corner is one where there is no chance of the horse putting a leg through wire or rails if he steps back or sideways. Hedges, sides of buildings or a corner made with barrels or jump stands plus rails tend to be safest. Even a raised rail or a log behind the horse with a small barrier on the far side of the horse might be enough of a corner.
    • A familiar mat to ‘station’ or ‘park’ the horse.
    • A familiar hand-held target.

    GENERAL NOTES

    1. When eventually using the touch signal via the rope or rein, be ready to click&treat for even the tiniest turn of the head at first. If we miss the horse’s first attempt to solve a puzzle, he can think his idea was wrong, and it can take a while for him to try it again.
    2. When we lead, long-rein or ride a horse, it does not take much movement of the head to cause the horse to change direction. What we are doing here is not an extreme flexion exercise. It is an exercise to see how softly we can give what will become our ‘please change direction’ signals once the horse is moving.

    SLICES:

    A: STANDING COMFORTABLY IN A CORNER

    1. Introduce the horse to each corner in small, easy steps. Thin-slice the process to what your horse needs. Use a familiar mat to indicate where you would like his front feet to be. Three kinds of corners are shown in the videos clips.
    2. If the horse readily yields hindquarters and forequarters we can use these to adjust his position (see Numbers 83 and 84 in my Blog Contents List).
    3. Or we can lead him through the corner and back him into it.
    4. If using a rail, we can walk him over the rail and halt with the rail behind him.
    5. Play with as many safe corners as you can find or set up, to generalize the ‘corner task’ to different situations.

    B: TEACH AN ANCHOR TASK

    Video clips

    Clip 1: on right side of horse

    Clip 2: on left side of horse

    NOTES:

    In the same way that music is made up of notes and the pauses between the notes, we must have pauses between asking the horse to repeat the same task. Because the horse is at halt for this challenge, the anchor task creates the pauses between our requests.

    We begin teaching the anchor task once the horse is comfortable standing in a corner, on a mat, with reasonable duration.

    An anchor task is what we do to ‘set the stage’ for what we will do next. For example, when I play with targeting body parts to my hand with Boots, our anchor task is lifting a front knee to my hand. It tells her what game we are about to play. Another ‘stand quietly waiting’ anchor task might be to always hang a special nose target in the spot you would like the horse to stand (park) while you tack up.

    As an anchor task for this behavior, I’ve chosen to rest my nearest hand lightly on Boots’ withers while she keeps her head forward. It is the position my hand would be if I were to lift the reins in preparation to giving a signal while riding. You might prefer a different anchor task.

    In our case, this is a bit tricky because I use the same anchor position I use when we do belly crunches while standing beside the horse. The handler’s body orientation is often a large part of an anchor task.

    I decided that Boots is far enough along in her training to learn to pause in this anchor position and wait for the next signal to find out whether a crunch or head flexion is the hot topic of the moment. You’ll see that we have a couple of conversations about this.

    SLICES:

    • Stand beside horse’s withers.
    • Lightly rest your near hand on the withers.
    • Click&treat when the horse’s head is straight, or he is in the process of moving his head into the ‘straight’ position.
    • Step forward to deliver the treat so the horse keeps his head straight, then step back into position beside the withers.
    • Repeat until the horse confidently stays facing forward until you click&treat for 3-4 seconds.

    C: LATERAL FLEXION TO A TARGET and D. THE VOICE SIGNAL

    Covered in video clips 1 & 2 as above. Clip 2 is on the left side of horse.

    1. Hold the target out of sight behind your back and review the anchor task.
    2. When the horse stands reliably with his head forward in the anchor position, bring the target forward so he has to turn his head a little bit to touch it: click&treat & step forward so the horse straightens his head to receive the treat, putting the target out of sight behind your back.
    3. Step back beside the withers and put your hand back on his withers: click&treat for head forward until that is firmly established again (3-4 seconds). Be patient about establishing (and frequently re-establishing) this step because clever horses will want to skip straight from your anchor (hand on withers) to telling you that they know what to do – turn toward you (as Boots does in Clip Two).
    4. Repeat 2 and 3 above until the horse reliably waits for you to produce the target before turning his head. If he turns without your signal, spend more click&treat on facing forward. Make sure you keep the target out of view behind your back. If bending is harder, spend more click&treat on asking for the bend.

    D. ADD VOICE SIGNAL

    NOTES:

    You will obviously want different voice signals for right and left. Voice signals need to be short, clear, and sound different from other voice signals you use. I use “and Gee” for right. I use “and Left” for left. “Haw” for left sounds too much like “Whoa” which we use a lot. The “and” in front of the key word is a bit of a preparatory signal that lets the horse know a request is coming. My voice emphasis is on the key word.

    • Some horses do better if you teach something thoroughly on one side, then repeat from the beginning on the other side.
    • Some horses may cope well with doing a little bit on each side from the beginning.
    • Some handlers do better when teaching the task thoroughly on one side first.

    E. RESPONSE TO ROPE OR REIN SIGNALS

    Video Clip 3 introduces the rope:

    1. Stand beside the horse’s ribs just behind the withers, facing forward, rope in the hand closest to the horse. Keep a drape or ‘smile’ in the rope. Ensure that the horse can stay facing forward with relaxed body language for 3-4 seconds in the presence of the rope: (click&treat).
    2. When 1 above is ho-hum, say your voice signal and gently use both hands to ‘milk’ the rope, putting light pressure on the halter, looking for the slightest ‘give’ of the horse’s nose toward you. Release (click&treat). Step forward to deliver the treat in a way that has the horse straighten his head again.
    3. Work with 1 and 2 above until the horse waits for the touch signal on the halter and willingly yields his nose. If he turns before you give the rope signal, spend more click&treat time on keeping the nose forward.
    4. If he begins to turn his head as soon as you move back into position behind his withers, also go back to click&treat for a straight head.
    5. Some horses catch on very quickly. Others may need multiple short sessions.
    6. Teaching a horse with no rope experience is usually easier than teaching a horse who has had rough treatment with ropes. In the second case, you must adjust your training plan to help overcome any anxiety the horse carries from previous handling.

    GENERALIZATION

    Video Clip 4 includes generalizations:

    1. Once the whole task is smooth and ho-hum on both sides of the horse, move away from the corner but still use a mat. Do the task in a variety of different places.
    2. Once 1 above is good in a variety of places, omit the mat and again work in a variety of places and spaces.
    3. Replace the rope/halter touch signal with a distinctive hand signal that can be used to draw the horse right or left at liberty.
    4. Once the horse understands the halter touch signal via the rope, plus the voice signal, the anchor task can morph into just standing quietly together.
    5. Use the touch and voice signals while in motion to change direction, keeping the pressure on the rope as light as possible.
    6. Building a strong history of response to directional voice signals is most helpful if you are planning to teach long-reining and if you take part in Horse Agility.
    7. These five short clips called Soft Rein Response give further ideas about how we can generalize the task further using reins but without being mounted.

    Line Dancing with the Front Feet

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    Introduction

    An interesting aspect of horse anatomy is that their shoulder blades are not linked to each other with bone. Horse shoulder blades are embedded in muscles, tendons and ligaments. The spine passes between them. In other words, horses have no equivalent to our collar bone.

    This ‘line-dancing’ exercise helps keep the muscles and ligaments in the shoulder area supple.

    We can introduce this task once our horse knows the tasks of yielding the forequarters on request and targeting the shoulder to our hand. We ask for one movement yielding the near front leg away from us and a second movement bringing the near front leg back into its normal position.

    AIM

    When we cross our leg toward the horse we’d like him to move his near front leg across in front of his far front leg. When we uncross our leg and draw away from him, we would like him to bring his leg back into normal position.

    PREREQUISITES

    1. Horse and handler understand ‘Intent and Zero Intent’ body language. See Number 10 in my Blog Contents List – the link is at the top of the screen.
    2. Handler and horse have worked out Consent Signals so the horse can tell the handler when he is ready to repeat the task. See Number 11 in my Blog Contents List.
    3. Horse and handler agree on a signal to yielding the forequarters. See Number 85 in my Blog Contents List.
    4. Horse and handler agree on a signal for asking the horse to target his shoulder to our hand. See Number 27 in my Blog Contents List.
    5. Handler is aware of the Rule of Three to help set up training sessions that don’t turn into drilling. See Number 46 in my Blog Contents List.

    VIDEO

    #262 HorseGym with Boots; Line Dance Front Feet.

    MATERIALS AND ENVIRONMENT

    • A training area where the horse is relaxed.
    • Ideally he can see his buddies, but they can’t interfere.
    • Horse is not hungry.
    • Handler in a relaxed frame of mind.

    NOTES

    1. When first teaching a task like, this it helps to always do it in the same place until our signals are consistently smooth and the horse is fluent with the task. I started in our open-fronted shelter because it meant that we could do a short daily practice even when the weather was unpleasant.
    2. Ensure the prerequisites above are all well established.
    3. Once the horse understands the concept, I introduce the voice signal “Across” for moving away and “Return” for bringing the leg back.
    4. Be aware that when we give signals with the non-dominant side of our body, we tend to be stiffer, less precise, and therefore less clear. Awareness of this means we can work on improvement.
    5. It’s important to only do a few of each of these per training session. The Rule of Three, as in Prerequisite 5, is a useful guideline. The brain consolidates new nerve pathways during times of rest. We never want training to become drilling. We want the horse keen to try something new we are teaching because he is keen to earn his next click&treat. If he loses interest we have gone too fast or for too long.

    SLICES

    1. Do a few repeats of click&treat for standing quietly together in your chosen area, using your ‘no intent’ body language during the ‘wait’ time. We need to remember to include this task in every session with our horse, no matter what we are doing.
    2. Cross your feet to model the behavior you want and gently touch the horse’s shoulder to ask him to move his shoulder over, so his near front leg crosses in front of his far leg. Click&treat this movement and at the same time uncross your legs and lean away from the horse to encourage the horse to return his leg to its starting position – feed the treat.
    3. If the horse steps away with both front legs or goes straight into a full turn on the haunches, we probably need to reduce the energy of our signal and time our click exactly to when the near leg lifts and begins moving in front of the far leg.
    4. Once the horse has the idea, shift the timing of your click to when the horse returns his leg into the start position – two behaviors chained to become the complete movement we want.
    5. Pause at zero intent for a little while before asking again. We can click&treat for standing quietly at zero intent any time it seems helpful.
    6. Repeat 2 above. If you get two or three good repeats. Pause. Then teach it again from the beginning standing on the horse’s other side. To maintain suppleness in both shoulders we must work hard to get both sides moving equally freely. If one side is stiffer, it is valuable information for us. Do a few more repeats on that side. And be aware of Note 4 above.
    7. When our signal is smooth and the horse is responding easily most of the time, ask for two ‘Across & Returns’ before the click&treat. Stay with two until it feels ho-hum.
    8. When two is easy, ask for three. You can gradually ask for more if you want to. I tend to stick with three or four on each side as our daily shoulder-stretching exercise.

    GENERALIZATIONS

    1. Do the task in different places.
    2. Work on a slope, standing either uphill or downhill.
    3. Add another element such as standing across a rail.

    Yielding the Forequarters

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    Yielding the front end is an act of polite submission between horses. Bold, confident, imaginative horses especially, or fearful horses, may however not be keen to yield their forequarters. They may want to stand their ground and ask, “You and who else is going to make me move?”

    Horses engaged in games nip at each other’s legs and neck in an attempt to make the other horse ‘give way’, so scoring an advantage. This can be good-natured play or in the case of stallions, it can be a serious dispute drawing blood. When young horses living a natural life play this game it teaches them where they stand in the social order among their peers and this knowledge stays with them. A predetermined social order results in a more harmonious group life with reduced confrontational behavior.

    Depending on your horse’s character type and the relationship you have, he may be reluctant to move his front end away, or he may do it easily. By using clicker training, the horse can see the instant benefit (click&treat) of yielding his shoulder.

    People teach the shoulder-yield in different ways. The process outlined below uses props and positive reinforcement by starting with mat destinations that already have a strong reinforcement history.

    Some people use a hand-held target to lure the horse into the movement. However, I use a hand-held target for stretching exercises while the horse stands still, so also using it to ask for movement would contradict the stretching exercises.

    WHY TEACH THIS?

    1. Safety. We want to develop a signal that easily moves the front end of our horse away from us.
    2. Smooth counter-turns to aid flexibility to change position easily. It also helps to create smooth weave or serpentine tasks.
    3. Aids proprioception (awareness of where feet are, what they are doing and how much effort is involved).
    4. Allows us to easily position the horse for foot care.
    5. Builds into a full turn on the hindquarters.

    PREREQUISITES:

    1. Horse keenly targets mats with his front feet. (See Number 9 in my Blog Contents List.)
    2. Horse smoothly steps across rails. (See Number 18 in my Blog Contents List.)
    3. Horse understands ‘Whoa’ signals and can stand relaxed on a mat. (See Number 16 in my Blog Contents List.)
    4. Handler clearly moves into and out of ‘zero intent’ so the horse knows when he can relax in a ‘wait’ and when he is being asked to move. (See Number 10 in my Blog Contents List.)
    5. Handler has developed the habit of holding the lead rope in the hand nearest the horse.

    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 in front of the horse.
    • Something to make a barrier to create a corner. I used plastic jump stands in the video clip, but a raised rail, barrels or a couple of big cardboard boxes would do the job.
    • Two mats. Place one mat in the L-shaped corner and lay the second mat at 90-degrees from the corner mat, a few steps away from the open side of your L-shaped barrier.
    • A rail for the horse to step over to get into the corner.
    • Halter and lead or liberty. A short lead rope is easiest to manage.

    AIMS:

    • Handler uses clear, consistent orientation, voice, touch and gesture signals.
    • Horse crosses front feet to yield the shoulder away from the handler on request.
    • Horse can eventually do a 360-degree turn on the haunches in either direction.

    Video Clip:

    https://youtu.be/eSlin8ZYcRA

    Notes:

    1. STAY WITH EACH SLICE UNTIL IT FEELS SMOOTH AND EASY FOR BOTH OF YOU.
    2. TEACH EVERYTHING ON BOTH SIDES OF THE HORSE. Remember, we often give clearer signals on one side because of our own one-sidedness, so be sure to focus on being equally clear on either side of the horse.
    3. If one side is harder, stiffer, do a bit extra on that side, over many sessions, until both sides feel even.

    SLICES: 

    1. Walk into the corner, with you on the open side of the L-shaped barrier. Ask the horse to target the mat with his front feet; click&treat.
    2. Stand together with zero intent* for a few moments (it’s good to vary how long you stay at zero intent each time), then ask the horse to turn with you to exit the corner and head for the second mat you have set at right angles to the mat in the corner. At this point, you are drawing him with you out of the corner. Click&treat the halt at the second mat. For this slice we are showing the horse that the task is to move himself over to target the second mat.
    3. Add a rail for the horse to step over to reach the mat in the corner. The rail will make it less convenient for the horse to step back when you ask for the shoulder yield. In the video, I raised this rail a little bit to make more of a barrier. Proceed as in 1 & 2 above. Click&treat each halt at the mat in the corner and every time the horse targets the second mat with his front feet. FOR THE FIRST ONE OR TWO LESSONS, REACHING THIS POINT MAY BE AMPLE AT ONE TIME.
    4. When 1-3 above are smooth, adjust your side barrier so it has a space at the front where you can stand beside the horse’s shoulder. Walk the horse to the corner mat, with you now on the the barrier side, and end up standing in the gap you made beside the horse’s shoulder.
    5. Quietly place one hand on or toward the horse’s cheek or neck and the other hand on or toward his shoulder. Breathe in and raise your energy as you do this. Send your ‘intent’ (that the horse should move his front end away) out of your belly button. You are asking him to turn away from you and walk to the second mat for his next click&treat.
    6. Repeat once or twice and that is plenty at one time. Repeat in very short bursts. Two or three times during a training session, interspersed with other thing you are doing, is good. Frequent short practices work best.
    7. Each time you walk the horse into the corner to target the mat, put your body into ‘zero intent’ and click&treat a few times for standing quietly with you. Vary how long you stay at ‘zero intent’ each time.
    8. Re-arrange your props so you can do slices 1-7 on the horse’s other side.
    9. If you can, repeat 1-7 in different locations.
    10. Replace the high side barrier with a rail on the ground. The front barrier is still high. You’ll continue to use the second mat as your ‘destination’. Reaching either mat always earns a click&treat.
    11. When the horse smoothly moves out of the corner by yielding his shoulder and heading for the second mat, we can change a parameter. We will now click for the first step of the shoulder moving away. Ideally, we want the horse to step the near front leg in front of the far front leg. As soon as you see this happening, click&treat. In the video clip you’ll see how surprised Boots is to get clicked at this point (rather than moving all the way to the second mat) and she has a little ‘jolt’ to regain her balance when she hears the click which tells her she can stop to collect a treat. Teach in on both sides. Often one side feels harder.
    12. When the horse is smooth moving his shoulder over a single step as in 11 above, remove the side rail and the rail behind. But keep the front barrier in place. Hopefully he will not have formed a habit of stepping back when you ask for the shoulder to yield. Practice without side and back rails on both sides. Click&treat once for the first step yielding the shoulder, then again upon reaching the second mat.
    13. Once the horse smoothly yields the shoulder on both sides without the side and back rails, omit the barrier in front and work with two mats. If that is too big a leap, have a low raised barrier or just a ground rail as a front barrier.
    14. When 13 is good on both sides, work with one mat. Start with the front feet on the mat, then, one step at a time, ask for a full turn until the front feet end up on the mat again. Click&treat as often as often during the turn as you need to to keep the horse successfully earning his next click&treat. Click&treat too often is better than not often enough. We want to keep the shoulder-yield movement as pure as possible, without creeping back or surging forward becoming part of the behavior loop.
    15. When 14 is good, play at liberty without a mat. Click&treat for one good yielding step until that is excellent both sides, then ask for two and stay with two until they are excellent, etc. until you can get 180 degrees before the first click&treat, then the other 180 degrees, click&treat. Keep your ‘yield shoulder signal’ ON for the number of steps you want, then turn it OFF at the same moment you click, then treat. You want to use a ‘constant on’ signal for the duration of your request. If we are really consistent, eventually just our energy toward the horse’s shoulder will be enough of a signal for many horses.
    16. The day will come when you feel ready to ask for a full 360-degree turn with one click&treat upon completion. Objective reached.

    Yielding the Hindquarters

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    In the first photo above, I am using intent and a hand signal to ask Boots to move her hind end away from me. In the second photo, she has responded by stepping her right hind leg under her belly. I have removed my signal and clicked, and am in the process of getting a treat out of my pouch.

    INTRODUCTION:

    In horse language, yielding the hind end can be a ‘calming signal*’ – one horse telling another horse that he is moving away and therefore not a threat. Bold, confident, horses may not be keen to yield their hindquarters. They may prefer to first check out the other horse’s resolve by testing the boundaries.

    (Words with an asterisk – * – are defined in detail via the GLOSSARY link.)

    In some situations it is instinctive for horses to move their hindquarters toward pressure rather than away from it. Moving the hindquarters toward another horse is a sign of assertiveness. In reaction to a predator it is fear aggression. When dealing with predators such as wolves who dash in to hamstring large prey, a hind end swing with a well-aimed kick might injure the predator and/or break his resolve.

    Your horse’s character type, his past experiences with other horses and his previous training experiences will all influence how he responds to a request to move his hind end away from a handler.

    There are a couple of ways to approach this task. The slices* outlined below suit a horse who is well used to handling and being rubbed all over. With some horses, it is common sense to build in mobile protected contact* by carrying a body extension*. Once the horse understands the task and the owner is aware of how the horse will respond, using body orientation and hand touch or hand gesture, along with intent, is usually enough of a signal*.

    To help the horse understand that we want his front feet to remain roughly in the same place, we can start with his front feet on a mat, presuming that keeping front feet on a mat has a strong history of reinforcement*.

    WHY TEACH THIS?

    1. Safety. Especially in tight places, we need the horse to understand the concept of moving his butt end away any time we ask for it.
    2. Helps proprioception (awareness of where feet are, what they are doing and how much effort is involved).
    3. Builds into a full turn on the forequarters.
    4. Handy for all sorts of specific maneuvers such as navigating gates, shoulder-in, lateral movements, staying ‘straight’ on a curved path while lunging, setting up for canter departs.

    PREREQUISITES:

    1. Horse keenly targets mats with his front feet and stands on a mat in a relaxed manner. (See Number 9 in my Blog Contents List.)
    2. Horse smoothly steps across a rail. (See Number 18 in my Blog Contents List.)
    3. Handler clearly moves into and out of ‘zero intent’* so the horse knows when he can relax in a ‘wait’ and when he is being asked to move. (See Number 10 in my Blog Contents List.)

    VIDEO:

    #260 HorseGym with Boots. https://youtu.be/AkjIT8Tjxw0

    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 in front of the horse.
    • To begin with, a rail for the horse to step over situated so it is behind him when his front feet step onto a mat. This helps discourage the idea of backing up rather than moving his hind end across.
    • Halter and lead. A short lead rope is easiest to manage.

    AIMS:

    • Handler uses clear, consistent orientation, voice, touch, and gesture signals.
    • Horse crosses near hind foot in front of the far hind foot to move his butt away on request.
    • Horse can eventually do a 360-degree turn on the forehand in either direction.

    NOTES

    1. Stay with each slice until it feels smooth and easy for both of you.
    2. Teach everything on both sides of the horse. Remember, we often give clearer signals on one side because of our own one-sidedness, so be sure to focus on being equally clear on either side of the horse.
    3. If one side is harder/stiffer, do a bit extra on that side, over many sessions, until both sides feel even.
    4. Keep the sessions short, three – five minutes maximum. This is quite a demanding, concentrated task.
    5. Always be prepared to back up to an easier slice when the horse loses confidence. This is often the hardest part of training a complex task.

    SLICES:

    1. Walk the horse across a rail to park his front feet on a mat. Click&treat.
    2. Keeping your energy as low as possible, rub him all over with your hands or a body extension; click&treat for standing still. Keep an upright posture while you do the rubbing because it makes the change into your ‘asking’ posture more distinct.
    3. When 1 and 2 are good, stand with your belly beside the horse’s ribs and turn your body axis slightly toward the rear of the horse. Drop your head and shoulders to direct your focus, with strong intent, at the horse’s hindquarters. At the same time, touch him lightly on the side of the hindquarters. Click&treat for a step over or, in the beginning, even a weight shift away from your hand or the body extension.
    4. If the horse pushes into your touch, quietly stay in position without releasing the extra pressure created by his move against the pressure. Wait in position until he works out his other option – moving away from the pressure.
    5. Each horse will be a little different. Each will have a ‘best place’ where your touch makes most sense to him. Be confident to experiment a little bit to seek out where the ‘best place to touch’ is for a particular horse. As always, try to keep your body language and signals as consistent as possible. At times I slip up with my body language in the video clip and became unclear for the horse.
    6. Once the horse understands the touch signal, it is usually easy to also teach a gesture hand signal we can use further away from the horse.
    7. Intersperse click&treat for standing still with Zero Intent* (while you rub) with the hindquarter-yield task. Try to keep your energy as close to zero as you can while you rub him. If the horse tends to escape your rubbing touch to move his hind end, do more of the rubbing = click&treat. If the horse is reluctant to move his hind end, do a bit more of asking him to move it = click&treat. We only want the horse to yield his hind end when we specifically ask him to move it, not whenever we put our hands anywhere near his back end.
    8. After one or two repeats of 3 above, walk a small circuit, click& treat for returning to the mat and begin again. We are looking for the near hind leg to step across under the belly in front of the far hind leg, without the front legs shuffling very much. (Time 4:46 in the video clip shows this in slow motion.) When you get one step like this, CELEBRATE hugely, and take a break. It could happen the very first time you ask.
    9. For a few sessions, stay with achieving one good step under and across, on both sides of the horse.
    10. When the time feels right, remove the mat, and ask for two steps. Stay with two steps (on either side) for a few sessions.
    11. At some point the rail behind and the fence in front will become redundant.
    12. When two steps is solid, begin to ask for quarter circles (90 degrees), then half circles (180 degrees). Celebrate. Stay with these for several sessions.
    13. When half circles feel easy, ask for a full turn (360 degrees). Celebrate.
    14. Ask for the task in different places.

    GENERALIZATIONS

    • Become aware of when using this task can be helpful (e.g., positioning horse for foot care, moving safely through gates).
    • Teach at liberty.
    • Teach with the front feet up on a pedestal.
    • Teach with the front feet standing in a roomy, low-sided, soft rubber tub.
    • Teach with the front feet in a hula hoop.
    • Teach from further and further away, using body language and gesture signals.

    Book Launch!

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    My new book, Horse Fun Without Riding using Positive Reinforcement, is now available from Amazon as an e-book or paperback. The photo above is the e-book cover. Look below for a free preview.

    The e-book is available for a FREE download until midnight (11.59 pm) on Monday December 13 PACIFIC TIME. Be sure to work out when this is in your time zone.

    The photo below is the cover for the paperback.

    Ringing a Bell

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    Introduction

    This is one way to teach a horse to ring a bell. It has the bell suspended at nose height so it is easy for the horse to move it with his lips. Some horses may easily pick up a bell attached to an object and nod their head to cause it to ring.

    Aim

    On request, the horse nuzzles a bell to cause it to ring.

    Prerequisites

    1. Horse and handler are clicker savvy.
    2. Horse understands putting his nose on a variety of targets to earn a click&treat.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. Revisit the Rule of Three in Chapter 1: Click here.

    Videos

    #229 HorseGym with Boots: Ringing a Bell as a hand-held target.

    #253 HorseGym with Boots: Ringing a Bell. This clip introduces the bell hanging freely.

    #252 HorseGym with Boots: Bell Ringing.

    #231 HorseGym with Boots:  This clip looks at introducing the idea of picking up the bell and walking with it.

    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.
    • A large bell that can be hung.
    • Something on which to hang the bell so it is freely suspended at the height of the horse’s nose.
    • For generalization, a bell attached to a rope or similar easy for the horse to pick up.

    Notes

    1. The horse will think about it and be willing to try again next day. If we turn it into a drill, we usually lose willingness to engage again.
    2. With tasks like this we can fit several mini-lessons of three repeats in-between chores or other things we are doing with our horse.
    3. When the bell is a hand-held target, remove the bell behind you to take it ‘out of play’ each time you click&treat. This will allow the horse time to enjoy his treat and let you know with a consent signal (Prerequisite 3) when he is ready to do it again. Also, it will be obvious to him when you present the bell into view again.
    4. 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.
    5. Click for any interest in the bell, even if it’s just sniffing the bell, then gradually click&treat for any sign of moving his lips to nuzzle the bell, even if it is not yet ‘ringing.

    Slices

    1. Ring the bell yourself, followed by a click&treat for the horse. We want to let him know that the sound of the bell results in a click&treat. We also want to be sure that he is not spooked by the sound of the bell.
    2. If you think he might find it startling at first, use protected contact. Start ringing as softly as possible and make it louder as the horse shows confidence.
    3. Attach the bell to a hand-held stick so you can hold it out as a target. Click&treat when the horse puts his nose on it. This is outlined in video clip #229.
    4. Repeat 3 above with a major celebration if the horse nuzzles the bell enough to make it ring.
    5. Once it is reliable on one side of the horse, teach it again standing on his other side.
    6. Attach the bell to an object where it can hang freely at the normal height of the horse’s nose. This is outlined in video clip #253. Click&treat for targeting the bell.
    7. Wait in ‘zero intent’ until the horse nuzzles it enough to make it ring. Time your click as closely as you can to the very first bell sound. If this is not happening, try taping a string to the bell which you can quietly pull to make the bell ring a tiny bit as the horse puts his nose on it: click&treat at the very first bell sound. We want the horse to make the connection between the bell sound and the click&treat so he is motivated to make the bell ring himself.
    8. Once the horse is nuzzling the bell enough to make it ring, gradually withhold the click&treat, one second at a time, to encourage him to ring it for a bit longer. We might consider the task ‘complete’ if we get up to five seconds of bell-ringing.

    Generalizations

    1. Set up the dangling bell in new venues and around other distractions. It could be part of a ‘circuit’ of different tasks.
    2. Once the horse is ho­-hum about ringing a dangling bell, we can generalize to him picking up a bell and walking with it as in video clip #231.
    3. Once the horse is carrying the bell attached to a soft item easy for the horse to carry, play with that in different venues. It could become part of your ‘Fetch’ games.
    4. Teach him to use his nose to ‘ping’ one of the little metal devices some shops use to let you announce that you need attention.
    5. Teach the horse to ‘play’ a keyboard with his lips
    6. Teach the horse to squeeze a bicycle horn for another novel sound.

    Kill the Tiger

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    Introduction

    This is a fun trick once your horse is good at picking up rags from the ground or off a fence. However, we have to be careful to put it solidly ‘on cue’ or ‘on signal’ so that the horse doesn’t generalize the task to pulling off his saddle blanket if he is a ridden horse.

    I call it ‘Kill the Tiger’ because we only do it with the striped car seat cover we used in the video because, again, I don’t want her to generalize the idea to saddle pads or horse covers.

    It’s another trick to keep our horse amused if it is too wet, windy, hot or cold to do more active things. The process of putting this trick ‘on signal’ consolidates our ‘wait’ signal. It’s also a lateral flexion exercise.

    Aim

    On request, the horse pulls a large cloth off his back and delivers it to our hand.

    Prerequisites

    1. Horse understands a ‘pick’ signal which we’ve taught for picking items off the ground as in Number 73 in the Blog Contents List: Picking Things Up. Click here.
    2. ‘Zero Intent’ is well established. Number 10 in the Blog Contents List: Intent and Zero Intent. Click here.
    3. Horse and handler agree on a ‘wait’ signal. Number 65 in the Blog Contents List:  The Wait Game. Click here.
    4. Horse is confident about having large cloths draped all over his body.

    Videos

    #226 HorseGym with Boots: Kill the Tiger.

    #254 HorseGym with Boots: Kill the Tiger 2.

    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.
    • A large cloth or similar easy for the horse to grab.
    • Perhaps a mat for parking the front feet to clarify that we don’t want the horse to move his feet.

    Notes

    1. Ensure that the horse has a sound understanding of the prerequisite tasks. Give them the time it takes rather than focus on the end behavior too soon.
    2. Three repeats are usually plenty to start with. The horse will think about the task and be willing to try again next day. If we turn it into a drill, we usually lose willingness to engage again.
    3. Click&treat with a frequency that keeps the horse being continually successful with the slice of the task you are working on.
    4. Decide on a specific cloth or gunny sack or similar that you will always use for this exercise. It’s a task we don’t want to generalize to anything we put on his back.
    5. It’s probably easiest to teach this thoroughly on one side of the horse, then begin again on the other side.

    Slices

    1. Ask the horse to pick your chosen cloth off the ground; click&treat. Repeat a couple of times to ensure this prerequisite is smooth and reliable and that he understands your ‘pick’ voice and gesture signals.
    2. Ask the horse to take the cloth from your hand when you give your ‘pick’ signal.
    3. Make sure the horse is relaxed with your chosen cloth draped all over his body.
    4. Lay the cloth over his back and ask the horse to ‘wait’, using your zero intent body language.
    5. Gently pull the cloth forward with your hand so it is easy for the horse to reach with his mouth and ask the horse to ‘pick’ it off his back. At first you may need to pull the cloth partially off. Click as soon as he grabs it and treat after he releases the cloth to your hand.
    6. Repeat 5 above a few times each session. As the horse gets to understand the task, gradually use your hand less but make sure the cloth is relatively easy for him to reach. We want him to be successful each time.
    7. At this stage you will often get the horse keen to ‘pick’ the cloth as soon as you put it on his back (or even before you can get it on his back), so we must emphasize the WAIT GAME from Slice 5 and frequently put the cloth on his back for a few seconds and take it off again without asking him to ‘kill the tiger’.
    8. When the task is ho-hum for the horse on one side of his body, teach it again from the beginning on the other side.
    9. Since this is a flexion exercise, routinely do a couple on each side of the horse. If one side feels stiffer, do a few more on that side.

    Generalizations

    1. Ask the horse to walk along with the ‘tiger’ on his back before you ask him to ‘kill the tiger’.
    2. Gradually extend the ‘wait’ time before asking him to pull the cloth off his back.
    3. Generalize to pulling a rope off his back.
    4. Generalize to other venues.

    How We Introduce Something New is Critical

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    Before We Start

    Ideally, we consider the following points before we start.

    • We have thin-sliced the task into its smallest teachable parts and have an idea of where the early click points will be.
    • We have organized a training environment where the horse is able to relax. Ideally, he can see his herd mates, but they are not able to interfere.
    • We have thought about which part of the horse’s body we need to influence, and we’ve planned possible signal(s) to use (energy levels, body posture, body position, gesture, touch, words, strong intent). My book, Conversations with Horses, An In-Depth Look at Signs and Signals between Horses and their Handlers, looks at this topic in great detail.
    • The environment is set up to make it as easy as possible for the horse to understand what we want (use of a ‘lane’ or a corner; where we place the mat target or a nose target; use of barriers on the far side of the horse; where we position our body).

    We want to make the desired behavior as east as possible for the horse to do. Setting up the training environment to achieve this means we are already halfway there.

    For example, if water is challenging for the horse, we can start with walking through a box of rails on the ground, then put unusual surfaces down, like a tarp or these plastic bottles, before moving on to water.

    If, instead, the horse learns evasive moves during our first fumbling with a new task, our education program has suddenly become more complex and longer. A bit of thoughtful planning can make things much easier for us and for the horse.

    Ideally, we first try out our ideas with another person standing in as the horse. Or we can trial our process on a more experienced, forgiving horse. That allows us to eliminate some of the early trial and error in relation to our positioning and body language. 

    By practicing with a person standing in for the horse, our horse does not have to put up our first fumbling as we learn new motor skills.

    It allows us to be clearer for the horse when we first introduce something new, rather than confuse him because we have not yet worked out a smooth way to proceed.

    The first step is always to make sure the horse is relaxed and in a learning frame of mind. If something has brought up his adrenalin, we do calming procedures or something active until he’s used up the adrenalin and can return to relaxation. If he is uninterested, we need to make ourselves and our treats more interesting. Or stop and just hang out. Maybe the horse is tired due to the weather or other activities.

    Or we wait to start the new thing in a later session. If the horse gets tense during a training session, we must first look closely at our own emotional state and the energy we are communicating to the horse, often unconsciously. Both handler and horse need to return to relaxation before continuing.

    We start teaching each slice of the whole task with click points determined by what the horse is able to offer already. As both horse and handler get smooth with each tiny additional slice leading toward the whole task, we gradually chain the slices together and shift the click point until the whole task can be achieved with one click point at the end.

    When we begin teaching something new, we start by finding a beginning click point. For some things, this may be a very rough approximation of the final goal behavior, e.g. just a tiny drop of the head when we begin to teach head lowering right to the ground.

    This is illustrated in the first of two Head Lowering video clips in my Free-Shaping Examples playlist. Click here.

    We gradually shift the click point toward closer and closer approximations of what we want until we achieve the goal behavior.

    Good timing of the click allows the horse to become more and more accurate. Once the horse understands a task that we are free-shaping, like the head-lowering example, we add a signal (cue) so we can ask for the task and also put in ON CUE so that the horse learns that a click&treat will only follow if we have asked for the task to be done.

    When teaching something new, the focus of click&treat is on the new learning, but we can still click&treat good execution of things the horse already knows.

    Short clip about introducing water as an unusual surface.

    Consolidation of New Learning & Developing Fluidity

    The Consolidation Phase begins when the horse generally understands our intent, our signals and usually responds willingly with the move we want. 

    At this point, we can keep up interest and enthusiasm by providing an extra click&treat whenever any part of the task is done really well. 

    To put a new task into long-term memory (for horses and for people) it needs to be practiced at least 9 or 10 sessions in a row; ideally over 9 or 10 days in a row. Some tasks will take longer, depending on their complexity. If we can’t have a session every day, we need to accept that it will take longer to build a new behavior solidly. Keeping a written record becomes essential.

    How many ‘repeats’ we should do during one session is hard to pin down because it depends so much on:

    • What we are teaching.
    • The character type, age and history of the horse.
    • The skill of the handler.
    • The nature of the handler-horse relationship.

    For some tasks, a rule of thumb might be three practice repeats in a row, unless the first one is perfect and calls for a major celebration. Clicker-savvy horses are usually keen to work until you decide to stop, but even a keen horse can use a short break after 10 repeats of learning something new.

    If the horse is in the initial learning stage, a tiny improvement over last time is a valid click point, followed by celebration and doing something relaxing. During the whole training session, we could return to the ‘new learning’ task three times, in-between doing other things. 

    Generalizing walking in water out and about.

    Playing Fetch

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    Introduction

    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).

    #224 HorseGym with Boots: Picking Things Up. https://youtu.be/gis3PF7OLlM

    #255 HorseGym with Boots: Picking up Cones. https://youtu.be/pHAPExzdUPk

    • 2. Horse and handler are comfortable going for walks together.

    Videos

    #231 HorseGym with Boots: Picking Up Bell. https://youtu.be/x_Jk570Pnlc

    Short clip showing combining PICK UP with WALK TOWARD ME.

    #234 HorseGym with Boots: Playing Fetch. https://youtu.be/9L8xszYARaM

    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

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Some horses will get into this game with enthusiasm. Others will do it in a sedate manner to earn their click&treat.

    Generalizations

    1. Use a variety of item that are easy for the horse to carry.
    2. Play in a variety of venues.
    3. Add variety like walking over rails, backing up, or weaving while carrying an item.