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Sandra Poppema, BSc
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When people learn to interact with horses it usually starts with riding lessons or they learn from a seasoned horse person. You’ll learn the ropes, which usually means the ‘rules’ of how things are done. Then one day, you discover that the rule doesn’t apply anymore… Why is that?
Over the years you already might have learned some rules don’t work for you or the horses you work with. Why is that?
Because when you’re focused on the rule, you miss the principle behind the rule. That’s why it’s not working. Learn the Principle and you discover the Gold! That’s why I teach all my clients to base their training on Key Lesson #1 for Trainers: The Principle of Learning & Motivation.
It’s like Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day (rule), if you teach him how to fish (principle) he’ll never be hungry.
That’s what I’ve been working on the past 3 decades and that’s why I can lead others to success in horse training. I don’t work with rules, I teach clients principles. They are way more worth, because it sets them up for life!
These are rules that apply to some or maybe even most horses, not to all horses!
My horse Kyra was born in a nature reserve and foals learn to eat what moms and other herd members eat. In nature horses don’t feed on carrots because they don’t grow in their habitat! Kyra literally had to learn to eat carrots, apples and man-made treats. Foals who are born at a barn have already learned that what people feed you is edible.
So what would be a principle behind this rule? The principle is that the receiver determines the reward (read: appetitive).
Some horses like to work for carrots, others prefer grain, grass pellets or something else. As trainer you have to figure out what motivates your horse.
You know that not all horses can’t be lured out of the pasture with a carrot. The carrot is simply not appetitive enough in those cases. More principles could be at work why the horse won’t come and how to determine that, is a whole other topic.
Still people are asking on the Internet: ‘What treats are best for in clicker training?’ The answer is… it depends on the horse and the situation. Appetitives can change in value.
If clicker training doesn’t work, it’s because people don’t apply the Key principles of Learning and Motivation, they try to apply ‘rules’ ~ HippoLogic
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The rule people hear is:
Look at people that have trouble loading their horse into a trailer. They apply pressure, they apply release and still the horse is outside the trailer.
In training it’s about the timing (learning happens when the aversive stimulus is released) and also about the strength and direction of the aversive (if the trailer is more aversive than the applied pressure, the horse won’t go in) or if an appetitive stimulus outside the trailer is stronger than the applied pressure the horse won’t go in. It’s about how the learner experience the aversive stimulus.
When I started to figure out the principles at work behind every rule in horse training things changed quickly. My clients got better results and problems were solved quicker and with less struggle.
This is what I was taught in riding lessons for many, many years. It didn’t make me a good rider at all. These are rules, the principle behind it (that they never taught me in the riding school), is to sit in balance.
When I took Centered Riding lessons I learned how to sit in balance. I learned that balance starts at the position of my pelvis: tipping it slightly forward it created a hollow back, legs that went backwards, heels went up and hands that were moving very much in order to keep my balance.
When I had my pelvis slightly tipped backwards, I rode with a curved back, my legs were in chair seat (before my point of gravity) and my chin was down.
Only if I kept my pelvis in ‘neutral’ (this is where your balance starts!) I was able to keep my legs in the right position, my back straight and could move with my horse instead of being before or behind my horse’s movement.
Only when I keep my pelvis in ‘neutral’ I can move with my horse. I am balanced, my hands can become soft because I move them in the rhythm of the movement of my horse’s head instead of my own body. My legs become still (in relation to the horse flank movements) because I don’t need to squeeze them in order to keep my balance. I became confident because I felt safe! That’s when I became a good rider.
Now you can see why these rules started: heads up, back straight and so on. They want to solve the symptoms of an unbalanced rider. Unfortunately they don’t work (how many times have you heard them!?) because they don’t solve the problem (balance). The principle of riding does: where does balance in a rider start? Right, in the pelvis! And that’s why it’s called ‘centered’ riding.
I you want to know more about the Principles (HippoLogic’s Key Lessons), join me for a free webinar in which I explain the 4 Main Reasons People get Stuck in Clicker Training (and solutions).
Spoiler alert: I will talk about principles!
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What is your biggest struggle in clicker training? Splitting behaviour? Do you catch yourself sometimes lumping behaviour?
The most challenging task for a positive reinforcement trainer is to ‘thin slice’ your goal behaviour into trainable steps. This process is called a shaping plan.
One of the 6 Key Lessons for Trainers in HippoLogic’s horse training system is teaching horse people how they can make good shaping plans for their horses.
Step 1 Determine your goal behaviour
Step 2 Divide it into smaller steps. And even smaller. If you can, even more baby steps.
Step 3 Write them all down
Describe your goal behaviour in a detailed way. Asking questions will help you with this description:
When you did a good job describing the behaviour you have a lot of starting points to make a good shaping plan.
In your shaping plan you write down every step you need to teach your horse in order to train your goal behaviour.
It helps to remember that your horse has no clue what you want to accomplish!
Every step in the description above can help you divide the goal behaviour ‘haltering’ into smaller steps.
The first step has to be that the horse stands still and is approachable. We all know how hard it is to halter a walking or trotting running horse, don’t we?
So all the above steps in the description of the goal behaviour can be steps in your shaping plan. If you think this is undue than you’ve probably never tamed and trained a wild horse. Also for halter shy and ear and head shy horses these steps all can be necessary.
Now you have the perfect body posture trained the next step is to bring in the halter. Some of the other steps in the shaping plan of training haltering are:
Each and every step in the above list can be divided even small if the horse needs it.
In your shaping plan you also write down when you want to move to the next step, what reinforcers you use and what the set up of the training environment is.
Studies have proven that writing your goals down help improve accomplishing it with 39%. People who share their goals and make themselves accountable (by sharing their goal with their coach or close friend) even increase their chances to 79%!
If you’ve written your shaping plan down it’s also way easier to remember. You’ve already visualized it in detail in order to write it down. Don’t underestimate the power of the pen! If you need help writing shaping plans, I happen to be a star in it! I also offer accountability for my students, so if you want to increase your chances of success, you know how to find me, right?
Smart strategy to re-train a halter shy horse with video.
Join our Happy Herd group on Facebook where you can ask questions, interact with like-minded people and get support on your clicker journey. In the last quarter of 2019 I will do weekly LIVE videos in the Happy Herd. Don’t miss out!
What is the HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy? It’s an online place where you can learn to train every behaviour you have in mind with R+. We have a small, all-inclusive community in which students can thrive and develop.
Join the HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy and become one of the 25 ‘founding members’ (those students who receive extra privileges because they are the first) .
The 25 founding members get a free 90-minute coaching session with me (value $150 CAD). There is still room for you!
In previous posts I wrote about how you can prepare yourself for riding with the clicker. I talked about the Key lessons for Trainers: Learning Theory, making a Training Plan before you start, how to set a goal, how you can track your accomplishments, how to prepare to deal with emotions (equine and human!) in riding and last but not least: how to get accountability so that you can get out of your pitfalls quickly.
Depending on the horse and what your reinforcers are, you can choose different solutions for obstacle number 1.
What you choose depends on what you like. It all has pros and cons.
I personally don’t like a bag or many belt full of (hard) treats around my waist. It also doesn’t feel comfortable trotting or cantering.
Same disadvantage has a loose bag on the saddle. The plastic ziplock bag is perfect for walking exercises or a quiet trot, for more wild rides not so much.
If your horse is young or you go on a 2 hour trail ride you might want to have more room than when you are riding in the arena where you can refill.
Where do you carry your treats while riding?
Join the HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy for personal advice and support in training your horse with positive reinforcement.
The first 25 founding members get an additional 90-minute coaching session with me for f
This month Horse Rookie published another article that I’ve written for them. It’s a shaping plan to train your horse to respond to his name so that you can get him out of the pasture effortlessly.
The better question might be, why not teach it?! It’s fun to have a horse that responds to his name, but it’s also useful.
Instead of trudging out to the back of the pasture, simply call your horse’s name and watch him come running.
If your horse ever escapes from his enclosure, whether at home or away, he will come to you when you call his name.
Icing on the cake? People will be quite impressed when your horse responds to his name!
Click the picture below to read the whole article on Horse Rookie.
Do you want to have a horse that comes trotting to the gate with a nicker to greet you, instead of a horse that requires you to go into the mud to get (or catch) him? Start small and learn a bit of clicker training. It will almost happen instantaneously. I’ve seen this happen over and over with my students.
If you have answered ‘Yes’ to one or more of the above questions, join the Clicker Training Academy for online positive reinforcement training, personal advice and support in training your horse.
Related article: How to get your horse out of the pasture. Effortlessly! (with video)
We all get frustrated in training or riding our horses. That’s a given. Horses can also get frustrated if their expectations about their training or the consequences of their actions (release of pressure or receiving a treat) are not being met.
What can you do to prevent frustration and what if you are already frustrated or your horse is, what can you do next?
If expectations are not being met it can cause frustration in your horse. For instance, you’ve clicked and now he expects a treat. If you’re clumsy or slow with your food delivery while your horse is waiting he can get frustrated. If you always offer carrots and now you’ve clicked and he gets a hay cube instead he can be dissapointed which can lead to frustration (‘Why am I not getting my favourite treat, a carrot?’).
Same can happen in traditional training and riding: the horse seeks release (relief) from riding aids and body language (pressure, pulling on lead ropes, waving whips and training sticks) and doesn’t get this release of pressure when he performs correctly.
If you, as trainer, raise the criteria in your training too quickly or make the steps too big your horse can get really frustrated: normally he immediately get a click and a treat if he goes to a mat and steps on it, but now he does not! What is going on? You might think you’re working on ‘duration’ but if your horse gets frustrated in the process his learning process will slow down.
If you go too slowly it also can cause boredom or frustration in your horse.
Poor timing of the trainer or inconsistency (lack of clarity), can cause the horse to get frustrated. You just clicked for X, now you’re clicking for something different? No, but if the timing is poor this can cause miscommunication, which can lead to frustration.
If you decide to clicker train the new horse in the barn instead of your own horse. This can cause frustration in your horse: now is is being excluded from training, choice and treats. His expectation is not being met.
All examples that can cause frustration in the horse because he can’t seem to influence the circumstances or desired outcome. I think you get the picture.
If you know better, you’ll do better
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Now you know, you’ll see this happening all around you. First you’ll recognize it in other people’s horses and if your brave you’ll see it in your own horse too. That can be painful, but it’s a necessary step in order to prevent frustration in the future. Be proud that you’re ready to acknowledge it: now you can move to the next step.
This is a tricky one because I haven’t found any scientific research on recognizing frustration in horses, yet we all have seem in in horses. Haven’t we?
I am willing to take the risk not being scientific and base my story on anecdotes and experience of my own observations.
Next time you observe a person training (riding) a horse look for these behaviours. They cannot taken out of the context but in order for clarity’s sake I have to. Here a signs that the horse is irritated or (getting) frustrated:
Horses may not all use these and many are also to express other emotions and messages. Here is a picture of a horse that expects breakfast and was pawing. Instead of giving food, I made a picture to capture her expression.
In order to prevent frustration you have to offer clarity. What to do if your horse is already frustrated?
Frustration is not always preventable but you can prepare yourself and your horse in training and set both of you up for success. Clarity provides frustration in training. #animaltraining
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Read more about preventing frustration in training and riding.
If you have answered ‘Yes’ to one or more of the above questions, join the Clicker Training Academy for online positive reinforcement training, personal advice and support in training your horse.
Emotions are an important part of being with your horse. You have a horse because that makes you happy or that is how you’ve envisioned it, right?
In reality your horse does make your heart sing, and it can be difficult at the same time have a horse:
There are also other emotions:
Then your horse has and expresses emotions and feelings, too.
How do you handle those, the emotions and feelings of your horse? Do you recognize all of them or only some of them? Most of us never learned to pay attention to them.
When I expressed fear in riding lessons, I was quickly shut down. ‘Get over it’, ‘Just do it’ (jump over the jump, canter whatever I feared) and ‘Don’t be a wimp’, are things I was often told. I learned to suppress or at least shut up about my fears, frustrations and other negative feelings. What about you?
That’s what this month theme is in the Clicker Training Academy. “Emotions in training’ is one of the Key Lessons, Your Key to Success in horse training. If you can recognize, accept and deal with them, you’ll be a better trainer. I would love to share a few of the insights here, too.
Frustration is an easy one to prevent and to handle. Do you have a way to recognize this quickly (it all starts with awareness) and handle it?
What do you do when your horse is frustrated?
What do you do when you are frustrated in training?
These are questions that traditional training never answered but positive reinforcement comes with the solution almost instantly.
What do you do in order to prevent frustration in your horse when you load the clicker/bridge? You break it down and you encourage your horse to keep trying to find the answer by reinforcing him.
What is the jargon for it? This is called thin slicing or making a shaping plan What is that called in normal language? Take baby steps.
This is also true to prevent frustration in yourself. If you have a clear goal for today’s training and thought of what would be reasonable then you can think of the baby steps you can take to set you and your horse up for success.
My pitfall used to be that I had no clear goal (only a vague one) and then instead of feeling content if I (almost) reached my goal, I raised the bar! This is one way to create a feeling of failure and cause frustration, I can tell you!
It was only when I started to set a (small) goal and made a clear plan, that I really got results. I started to feel good about myself and my accomplishments. This is what I want for all my clients too. I see so much frustration and fear in horse owners. Yes, fear! This is a taboo, too: to feel afraid of your own horse. Even if it is sometimes or just briefly. It’s not accepted as equestrian. Well, I have strategies for those, too and I will be happy to share them with you.
Let me know if you need strategies to handle fear in your horse or yourself, frustration, anxiety and other emotions that keep you from doing what you want to do or want your relationship with your horse to look like. You can ask for a strategy in the comment section or contact me directly. I am here to support you.
If you have answered ‘Yes’ to one or more of the above questions look into one of the online programs HippoLogic has to offer.
Join the Clicker Training Academy for online positive reinforcement training tips, personal advice and support in training your horse.
Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.
I am playing with this idea for a long time and I finally found the courage to take action!
Currently I am doing market research to see what equine clicker trainers really want from their online horse community.
My dream is to create a supporting learning environment where horse owners can learn everything they want to know, develop their skills and get feedback on their videos, have a place where they will be encouraged to try out new approaches and be cheered on if they reach their goals. (I am already looking forward to cheer these action takers on and support them on a daily basis, create video courses and more.) But…
do they want that?
What would you like to see in a membership?
Can you please help me? I came up with 12 short questions about what you would like to receive in a membership. It will only take a few minutes.
I’ll appreciate your feedback. Click here to go to the questionnaire.
If you want to get to know me or have a question about clicker training your horse, you are stuck and want a tip to move on? Book your free discovery call. Plan your call in my calendar.
Do you have an equestrian dream that you never seem to accomplish? Something every now and then you think about, maybe even try to do it and after a while you realize you’ve stopped again? You might not even know why?
You can achieve your equestrian dreams in these 5 simple steps. There is one thing that most people don’t realize. I want to share it with you, so you too can start making your dreams come true. The one step that most people don’t take seriously enough…
Pitfall of accomplishing equestrian dreams for most people is that nobody keeps encouraging you if you drop the ball. Here is the step that most people skip:
An accountability partner is part of your Success Team. He or she will help you keep you accountable and will encourage you on a weekly bases to keep working on what it is you want to achieve.
Sometimes your riding instructor is a part of your Success Team, but only if he or she knows what your dream is. You have to share your dream so your accountability partner can help you keep on track.
Here is the thing: other goals in life have a ‘build in’ accountability. That is why it is easy to accomplish your goals in almost all other fields than your hobby.
If it comes to accomplishing your equestrian dreams, no one is pushing you every day to take a small step towards your goal.
No one is even asking you about your progress every week. Even if they did (maybe in the beginning, because you bought a new horse), it surely fades away quickly and you’re on your own again. That is why it is so difficult to make your equestrian dreams come true. Who is telling you what your next step must be?
There always seems to get something ‘more important’ in the way (doing barn chores instead of clicker training your horse for 5 or 10 minutes), helping your friend or supporting your children or doing some work at home instead of spending time with your horse.
Before you know it, you haven’t been working on accomplishing your equestrian goals for a month… Then you might even get the feeling that your dream is stupid or that you simply ‘never can accomplish it’. Or you start forgetting all about it because it is too painful. Does that sound like you? Here is how you can reverse it.
Do you remember what you wanted when you got your horse? What did you wanted more than anything out of that relationship? Even if you forgot about your dream or someone talked you out of it, I can help you retrieve that dream.
Now you found some one that will support you. I love to see horse lovers accomplish their dreams so much I turned it into my livelihood to help horse people like you! I have helped countless equestrians in the past 2 decades find their joy back being with their horse.
Share your equestrian dreams in the comments. I love to hear about yours!
I want to invite you to get on Zoom with me. Book your free 30 minute connection call today to find out which of the 5 steps to accomplish your dreams you need help with. Once you booked your time slot online, I will contact you. I can’t wait to hear from you!
If you have answered ‘Yes’ to one or more of the above questions look into one of the online programs HippoLogic has to offer.
Join our community for online positive reinforcement training tips, personal advice and support in training your horse.
PS Did you know HippoLogic has a membership (accountability) program to support you?
You would think that if one knows better, they will do better. Right? I think it is a bit more complicated than that. Here is why.
Natural horsemanship (NH) and traditional horse training are based on negative reinforcement. Negatieve reinforcement is strengthening behaviour by taking away an aversive (= something unpleasant). Pressure-release is an example of negative reinforcement. The pressure (aversive) is taken away to increase or strengthen a behaviour.
Clicker training is based on positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is strengthening behaviour by adding an appetitive (=something the horse wants). After the marker signal (the click) the horse receives a treat.
If you sit on a pin what makes you stand up? The pain? Or the release of pain? Would you sit down on a pin next time if you see one lying on a chair? Or would you have learned to avoid it and check your chair before you sit down? This is how an aversive works: you learn to avoid or escape.
If you find money on the street, you will be checking the streets or wherever you found the money the first time more often for money, until it wears out.
Positive reinforcement is strengthening behaviour by adding an appetitive, something pleasurable. In animal training we make use of a bridge signal, to ‘bridge’ the time gap between the desired behaviour and the appetitive. This is also called a marker signal, to ‘mark’ (click) the desired behaviour.
The difficulty with the use of positive reinforcement in training is that you have to let go of all traditional ways you’ve learned to train horses in the past. If the horse doesn’t perform the desired behaviour, more pressure is applied or even coercion until the horse does what he has to do.
When a trainer uses positive reinforcement, he has to stop and think when a horse doesn’t perform the desired behaviour. He can’t simply ‘click louder’ or ‘give a bigger reward’ before the desired behaviour has happened. R+ is not bribing. Bribing doesn’t give long lasting results.
A trainer has to investigate why the horse doesn’t do the exercise he was cued for: Is it physical? Can the horse perform the exercise? Is it a psychological reason? Is he fearful, does he have a negative association, is another behaviour more reinforcing, is he performing self reinforcing behaviour and so on.
In other words; a positive reinforcement trainer is always investigating the horse’s motivation. Is it internal (eg hunger) or external (something outside the horse). He wants to understand the reason the horse isn’t cooperating, so he can solve it.
This takes takes skills: you have to have knowledge of the natural behaviour of the horse, his natural needs (how his body works) and recognize his physiological state (interpret body language). On top of that you have to have patience and know how you can motivate a horse with appetitives (things a horse wants to have and is prepared to work for).
Training a horse with positive reinforcement takes more skills than training a horse with negative reinforcement. If a horse doesn’t respond with the desired behaviour, the first reaction of the trainer is to apply more pressure, make the signal aversive in order to motivate the horse to move.
If you have been told over and over again to apply ‘more leg’ or ‘a light tap of the whip’ you have not learned to think about the reason the horse is not motivated. You just do as you’re told and that is what you keep doing.
Only if you run into real problems with the horse you are ‘forced’ to think about another solution.
1. The most obvious reason is that riders in general still are not taught about positive reinforcement. The horse world is still very set and traditional.
2. Another reason is that negative reinforcement used on the horse, is positive reinforcement for the handler/trainer.
Let me explain. Every time a rider applies an aversive leg aid (one that is trained traditionally with pressure-release until the horse reacts in the desired way) and the horse responds with the desired behaviour, the rider is reinforced positively.
Photo: Nelda Bogado
The word ‘desired’ behaviour already tells you. It is the outcome the trainer/rider/handler wants. So every time a trainer applies pressure-release and the horse responds positively it is the trainer that feels rewarded and reinforced by the outcome of his action.
It is only when the trainer has to apply so much pressure that it becomes uncomfortable for him/herself that people start to question negative reinforcement. That is the moment training is not positively reinforced by what the horse does, that is the moment people start to search for ‘other ways’.
Hopefully they find positive reinforcement and discover that developing a relationship with a horse and training him can go hand in hand. Training can be a win-win situation!
Positive reinforcement for the horse is also positive reinforcement for the trainer: the trainer gets the desired behaviour from the horse and (s)he gets to feed the horse. Feeding an animal from our hand is something we all love to do!
If you have answered ‘Yes’ to one or more of the above questions look into one of the online programs HippoLogic has to offer.
Join our community for online positive reinforcement training tips, personal advice and support in training your horse.
Shape the community
If you’re interested to become a member of the HippoLogic tribe, please tell me what you want in this short questionnaire. Thanks a lot!
Book a free 60 minute Discovery Session to get a glimpse of a new future with your horse. In this conversation we’ll explore:
Your Key to Success
At the end of the call I’ll give you some ideas and advice for your next step and if it looks like a fit, we can explore what it looks like to work together.
Simply check the best time for you in my online calendar and click to reserve your free call today.
A training diary can be a valuable tool in achieving your training goals if you know how. A logbook is not ‘just a diary’ where you describe what you did that day. In order to get the most out of your training diary keep these tips in mind.
Purpose of journaling
The reason to keep a logbook is to keep track of your achievements and learn from it. Therefor you need to write down your goal(s) and your progress. If you don’t write these down, it is hard to remember them correctly. You can get the feeling of ‘never achieving’ because your mind will adjust your goals and your achievements like a horizon. You will never arrive… As soon as you write some of your goals down, your subconcious will start looking for ways to get there. Keeping a logbook can help you keep motivated.
Learn from experience
If you want to learn as much as possible from your experience you have to be honest and write down the things that you can learn from.
Keep it positive
Practice writing everything down in a positive way, so it is nice to read back. Instead of writing down ‘I was impatient and lost my temper’ phrase it like this ‘I became frustrated because my steps were too big. My horse didn’t understand what I wanted and I became impatient.’
In this way you will find a solution to handle the situation in the future: you ‘lumped’ your criteria. Next time you can decide to stop your training and take a moment to figure out how to ‘split’ the criteria in smaller steps or adjust the context of training so your horse will understand quicker what you want. In this way you set yourself and your horse up for success.
Read here to read 4 easy ways to start a training journal (opens in a new window).
Lessons learned
It is also a valuable to write down all the things that went right. This makes you aware of the lessons you’ve are already learned. It also makes you aware of your strengths as a trainer. After updating your logbook for a while you will see a pattern: the points of learning have turned into things that went right. This is very motivating.
Keep it balanced
Make sure the points for improvement are not outbalancing the things that went right. We all have the tendency to focus too much on things that went ‘wrong’, but that won’t help you form a realistic picture of you as a trainer. There are always a lot of thing you have already mastered. They are important, too.
If you write down three things to change in your next training, also write down three things you are content about. This may feel uneasy to you in the beginning, but positive reinforcement is all about focusing on the things that go (in the) right (direction), in order to get more of it.
You can also split it between the things your horse did well and the things you, as trainer, did well. Example: ‘my horse was interested in my training for half an hour’, ‘my horse made progress in exercise X’, ‘I have set my horse up to succeed by keeping my criteria clear’, ‘I kept my training sessions short and sweet by counting the treats in my pocket before I started’.
Goals achieved
Celebrate achieving your goals: make a picture or video to remember, share it with friends, your coach or your accountability partner. Enjoy your achievements big and small!
Timeline
A training diary also helps you to keep track of your timeline and practice hours. Did it take as long as you expected? You can write how long your training sessions are. Maybe you are used to thinking in ‘weeks or months’ to achieve something, I think it is more useful and realistic to think in the amount of training sessions or training days.
Example: Instead of ‘It took me 3 months to teach my horse to lift his legs for the farrier’ a logbook can help you see ‘it took 12 weeks: each week we practiced 4 days. Each day consisted out of 5 training sessions of 6 minutes max.’ Now you know you only practiced 28 days (not three months/ 90 days) and each day you practiced a maximum of 30 minutes a day. The training took 14 hours in total to achieve your goal. That sounds different than ‘three months’, right?
A training diary is all about making yourself conscious. Keep it motivating and phrase things in a positive way so it will be pleasant to read back.Tell me about your training logbook!
Here is the clicker training logbook I use and give away for FREE:
Free Clicker Training Logbook – Pdf file: free_training-logbook-made-by-hippologic-2016
NOTE: I made this training journal template in 2016. I am always learning and shaping my training methods. I would like to change:
If you have answered ‘Yes’ to one or more of the above questions look into one of the online programs HippoLogic has to offer.
Join our community for online positive reinforcement training tips, personal advice and support in training your horse.
Shape the community
If you’re interested to become a member of the HippoLogic tribe, please tell me what you want in this short questionnaire. Thanks a lot!
Book a free 60 minute Discovery Session to get a glimpse of a new future with your horse. In this conversation we’ll explore:
Your Key to Success
At the end of the call I’ll give you some ideas and advice for your next step and if it looks like a fit, we can explore what it looks like to work together.
Simply check the best time for you in my online calendar and click to reserve your free call today.
DIY Target stick for Horse Training
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Happy Horse training!
Sandra
In my previous post I talked about the key lessons safe behaviour around food and taking the horses’ emotions into account during training.
Today’s two key lessons are natural behaviours and therefor easy to put on cue: head lowering and backing.
Head lowering as key lesson
Although it is not proven that lowering the head calms a horse down, it still is an indicator if the horse is relaxed or not. How? A nervous horse keeps its head up, if a horse is startled the first thing he does is lift up his head, if a horse hears a strange sound he will… yes, lift his head up to listen. Horses always lift their heads up just before they run. So in a way it is an indicator for nervous behaviour.
Teaching a horse to lower his head on cue comes in handy if you have a tall horse to halter or bridle. If a horse is scared by an object on the ground, you can ask your horse to lower his head in order to invite him to investigate the object. If a tall horse has to lower his head in order to prevent bumping it, it is handy if you have this on cue. There are so many situations in which it is handy to ask your horse to lower his head.
Head lowering can also help during medical care, like eye care or inspecting ears or during deworming. Head lowering is also a good exercise under saddle in all gaits. Head lowering can also help in teaching your horse a specific cue to graze during a trail ride or while hand grazing your horse.
Head lowering as default behaviour
Head lowering is a good behaviour to allow as ‘default behaviour’. A default behaviour is a behaviour you can teach your horse to do whenever he doesn’t know what to do or if he wants your attention. Head lowering is a safe behaviour. You can establish a default behaviour by reinforcing the behaviour with and without a cue.
Key lesson Backing
Backing is a behaviour that helps increase the safety in many ways. If you can ask your horse to back up he can’t reach you, so he can’t bite, step on your toes or push you around.
Backing is a valuable exercise in safe food handling skills: if you teach your horse to backup if you (hand) feed him, he can’t get the food out of your pocket or dive into the bucket your holding.
If you teach your horse to backup first if you open the stall door, he will wait for the bridge and reward instead of pushing you over and walking out of his stall. What about unloading your horse from a trailer? Backing is essential in some trailers.
Last but not least, backing is also a good exercise to help your horse become more athletic, in hand and under saddle.
Links to other key lessons
Thank you for reading. Let me know how what your favourite key lesson is and why.
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What is a keep-going signal (KGS), why do you need it and how can you teach it?
What is it?
A keep-going signal is used to tell your horse that he is doing the right thing and that he should keep doing it in order to earn a click and reward.
Purpose
A keep-going signal can be very useful in building duration of an behaviour. Not all horses ‘need’ a KGS. Sometimes withholding a click will work, too. Just experiment with it.
A KGS can also be used as encouragement and signal that the horse has to keep doing what he is doing.
A KGS can help prevent frustration. Some horses will get frustrated if they don’t get a click soon enough and will give up. If they hear a keep-going signal, they will know that the click will follow.
A keep-going signal also helps you get more behaviour per click. So basically you click & reward less often. Which can make the clicks even more desirable for the horse, since he doesn’t get them as often anymore.
How do you train it
Horses are smart and they quickly learn to anticipate cues. They will learn that after a keep-going signal, that has no meaning yet, the click & reward follows.
Choose a word that you would otherwise not use in either training or speaking to your horse. Choose a word that can be extended easily.
Introduce the keep-going signal in a behaviour that already has a duration of a few seconds, so you have time enough to introduce it. Slowly you extend the time between the keep-going signal and the click:
Cue behaviour + keep-going + click & reward (repeat several times)
Cue behaviour + keep-going + 1 second + click & reward (repeat several times)
Cue behaviour + 1 second + keep-going+ 2 seconds + click & reward (repeat several times)
And so on. Make sure your horse doesn’t get too frustrated by the removal of the click. Later on you can also extend the time before using the keep-going signal.
Cue behaviour + 1 second + keep-going+ 1 second + click & reward (repeat several times)
With a keep-going signal you can help prevent the horse from getting frustrated, since you can indicate what he has to do to earn his reward.
Related post: Reward-based training is…
Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.
Would you like to hear more about a keep-going signal or do you have a question about clicker training your horse? Click here to connect and I will be more than happy to help another horse-human relationship blossom.
In clicker training we use a ‘click’ as bridge signal to communicate to the horse that he has done something wonderful. Immediately after the click we deliver a reward to the horse. How do you start teaching what the click means?
Tools
You need a bridge signal or an unique sound, like the click of a clicker, a tongue click or a unique word. I prefer a clicker because that always sounds the same and it is very quick to deliver. The bridge signal connects the click and the time it costs to deliver the reward.
Rewards. Choose your horses favourite treats. Even if they are not very healthy, you want to choose a treat that has a high value to your horse. Something that will get their attention.
Reward pouch/bucket. You need to stash your reward in a place where you can access them quickly but in a place out of reach of your horse. A money belt or an accessible pocket will work, or a bucket. Place the bucket on a chair so you don’t have to bend over every time you need to reach for a treat. Make sure your horse can’t reach it or start training ‘ignore the food bucket’.
Barrier. If you want set up your horse and yourself for success, start training with a barrier between you and your horse. A fence or stall door prevents the horse coming into your space to get the treats himself. You set yourself up for success if you don’t have to handle your horse or a lead rope and a clicker and the treats, all at the same time.
Lesson 1: introducing the bridge
When you want to start clicker training you will have to introduce the click sound to the horse. You also need to teach your horse that this sound has a meaning.
You can just start with a click & reward your horse. Deliver the reward as soon as possible after the click. The quicker the reward is delivered after the click the sooner the horse will associate the click with something positive coming. With ‘soon’ I mean within 3 seconds or even faster. It can be almost simultaneously: click&reward.
Tips
In general it takes 30 – 50 clicks until the horse has learned that the click has a meaning and it means something positive. Most horses show interest in the click much sooner and you can already start to work on specific (easy) behaviours. The horse now wants to figure out if he can influence the click by his behaviour and that is the point where you can start clicking purposefully for a certain behaviour. Now you can give your horse a break until the next training session.
Read also 5 Tips for Starting Clicker Training.
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When I put a picture on Facebook of Kyra pooping next to the poop bin in the indoor arena, a lot of people asked me how I potty trained my pony.
Clicker training
Kyra was already clicker savvy, so she knows really well that after a click of my clicker, she will get a reward. The click pinpoints the behaviour. In order to get more of the wanted behaviour, the best results are obtained by rewarding the animal while (s)he is doing the wanted behaviour or within 3 seconds after the wanted behaviour.
A clicker acts as a bridge between the wanted behaviour and the moment of giving the reward. So I didn’t have to reward her within or during the wanted behaviour, I only had to ‘bridge’ (click) during the behaviour that I wanted to capture and then bring her the reward. That came in handy at liberty.
Start easy
In the beginning my criterion was really low. In my mind I divided the indoor arena in two halves: the half with the poop bin (light green rectangle) in it and the other half.
Every time she needed to poop I asked her very gently to maintain gait until she was in the “proper half” of the arena if possible. Often we didn’t reach that half. Maintaining a trot was never possible, but at least she kept walking. A few steps.
It wasn’t really about maintaining gait, but more about making the wanted behaviour easy.
If she needed to go poop and we were in the half of the arena where the poop bin is located (green striped area), she was allowed to stand still to take her washroom break. Why? Because pooping while walking, trotting or cantering leaves a long trail of poop.
Like I said, I don’t like to waste time on poop scooping in the arena. On top of that I clicked and rewarded her with a handful of treats during pooping. She learned that pooping was rewarded sometimes, whereas other times it was not. It was up to Kyra to figure this out. And she did!
Raising my criteria
After a certain period I realized that Kyra was 100% of the time pooping in the half of the arena where the bin is located. That was a sign for me to raise my criterion.
I divided the “designated poop area” in half again (pink striped area). So now the space where I let her stand still to poop and click and reward her for pooping was about a quarter of the arena size.
After a while she discovered that the had to go poop in a certain corner of the arena. Every time I had the feeling that she “got it”, I raised the criterion and made the “allowed area” a bit smaller in my mind (dark blue striped area).
Correcting my mistake
The poop bin is located in the same corner where the shavings are stored. Kyra thought she had to poop in the shavings, which was an obvious mistake (yellow/orange area). After all, her stall is full of shavings where she poops in. So I began to watch her closely, because she usually pooped in the shavings when she was in the arena all by herself. This was a learning point and failure is the best way to success (I decided to ‘fail forward’ and adjusted my training).
Under saddle I could catch her going in the shavings one time and gently let her out of it. She only had to take one or two steps (towards the bin). Then she pooped next to the bin and not in the shavings. She had earned herself a jackpot. [read here more about -> “rewards and jackpots“<-] After a few times she learned that “in the shavings” wouldn’t get her a reward.
Goal
Now my goal is to let her poop in the bin, so I don’t have to clean up at all. Wouldn’t that be awesome? I’ll let you know when we get there.
Here is the sequence on this blog: I accomplished my shittiest goal ever! In which I tell you about how I taught Kyra to poop in the manure wheelbarrow. It even has a video! Go on and check it out!
What’s holding you back?
4 Main reasons people get stuck in training their horse (free training)
Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.
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