RE: Spooky Horses and clicker training

[Marlene Moss <MARLENE.MOSS@WCOM.COM>]

Here's my favorite story about clicker training.
My mom and I went out and about our neighborhood on a Friday that I took off
from work.  Being trash day in our area, everyone's garbage was out in
various forms - bags blowing in the wind, cans, plastic bins, neat little
carts - and then of course there's the mail boxes and llamas.  This was our
first time out in this area.  Both horses completely flipped out over
everything.  Not too bad except for the llamas - they are devil spawn as far
as these guys are concerned!
So, later in the day I went out again with my mom's nutcase gelding and the
clicker and a bag of treats.  It only took about 3 items, but pretty soon he
was running up to everything he'd been afraid of and begging for his treat.
Truly amazing.
But the really amazing thing came the following week, when I again took off
Friday from work and went out with my mare.  I hadn't done any clicker work
with her, nor had I worked on the mail boxes or anything.  I wasn't even
asking her to walk near anything, I was aiming for a specific hill for
conditioning.
Well, she went trotting right up to the first mail box, stopped and looked
around for a treat.  I didn't have anything.  I thought it was rather
amusing and we kept on - she kept doing it.  I swear that gelding told her
that if she went up to those scary things she'd get food (and she loves her
treats!)  It only took about a minute of standing calmly for her to get over
her fear of the llamas too.  Now she doesn't even look at them.

Marlene and Venesza (who's quite sure she is still superior to llamas even
if they do hold their heads up high)

-----Original Message-----
From:	parkerk [mailto:parkerk@mail.rvi.net]
Sent:	Wednesday, February 09, 2000 11:45 AM
To:	ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject:	RC:  Spooky  Horses and clicker training

 I have gotten into clicker training recently and started working an a horse
that was scared of almost everything. I taught him to target a bucket lid
that he was terrified of. Then we started targeting everything he spooked
at. Now when he sees something scary he walks up to it, puts his nose on it
, waits for the click and treat. This took about 2 hours to achieve. I rode
him yesterday and he was a different horse, full of confidence. I am using
Alexandra Kurland's book Clicker Training Your Horse
www.clickertraining.com. There is a lot of information on the web at
clickryder and the KBR Ranch websites. I have been working with horses over
40 yrs. and this is the best method I have ever used. Karen Parker


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