WHY ‘Force Free’ Movement Training for Horses is important!

Let me start by giving you a bit of background information about myself, which will give you some context. I’ve always loved horses. I felt a deep soul connection with them from the age of 4 and love them with my whole heart. I wanted to ride, and be with them all the time (still do). When I finally (after years of nagging my parents) got riding lessons, I discovered it was amazing to be with horses and ride them.

No fun, using a whip

Riding could also be scary! When I was scared, the horse often didn’t do what I wanted. Then I was told to hit him with my crop! They just sugar coated it with “Give him a little tap, when he doesn’t listen”, after all it was “only an extension of my arm”, another very misleading term. We won’t do with our arms what we do with a whip. Whips are meant to cause pain! So we can coerce the horse with pain and fear.

There I was, between a rock and a hard place!. I wanted to belong to ‘the good riders’ and I also wanted the horses to love me back. The psychological mechanism to obey an authority, even when it goes against your own values, is proven in the famous Milgram experiment(s).

I believe a lot of horse owners struggle with obeying their instructor and how they really want to treat their horse. I’ve been a riding instructor for many years, and I’ll tell you a bit more about it later in this blog.

What I learned from Horses

When I got a free lease pony, I was 12 years old at the time, I could do whatever I wanted. Most Saturdays I sat there, just being with them, observing, and serving them. Want to have an itch on your bum removed? Let me help you. Don’t like the saddle? Let’s do without.

I was using force free training since I was 16, but I was not very good at it yet (Captain Hindsight). I believe that giving Sholto a friendly word ( Good boy!) or a reward (long) after training ended was the way.

I was riding with long reins instead of light contact and tried to give him choices. Until of course, he choose something I didn’t want to allow, then I fell back on traditional ways. Even though it make me feel guilty afterwards. It was the lack of having an alternative way that kept me in that place.

With a traditional background, in which he horse has to listen, or else… I only knew to coerce the horse. They had told me: “He’ll never listen to you, if you let this slide“. Or: “He needs to know whos boss. Be the alfa stallion “. (Back in my day it was believed that one stallion led the heard. Things have changed!). “Don’t let him win!” was another warning I’ve heard many, many times! However, horses told me another story.

Horses don’t think in terms of ‘winning’!

Whenever I fell off, I noticed that Sholto did not ran off without me. Even though he was a stallion. Next time I could saddle an ride him as easy as the day before.

I discovered that ‘even’ stallions don’t act as if they want to “win” from their humans. Or that they keep scores.

Sholto in his twenties

Yes, they remember the bad times, and they will anticipate with their behaviour. That’s called self-preservation. ;-)) They have good memories. They are also very forgiving, too.

I wanted to befriend my Sholto and I figured out that when I had used the whip too much (to his standards) or had been too rough (I was a teenager, with loads of hormones, just like my 6 year old stallion) I couldn’t catch him the next day in the pasture.

Normally I could approach him, but then he’s simply walk away. His dam was much worse. She had lost trust in humans long before we met and was very ‘hard to catch’.

A video of Sholto a few months after starting clicker training. Before I had to get him, after he came to me!

This way I learned a lot about ‘respecting’ horse’s nature and learned to understand them better. If I wouldn’t respect their feelings, and they had a choice (3 hectares is a lot of choice), they choose not to be with me!

In the meanwhile in the riding school, I started to find ways not to use the crop as much. The more I had to hit horses (‘He needs to listen to you!!”), the less I enjoyed riding lessons. This was the reason I quit taking lessons: too much guilt. (read more about using whips in riding schools here).

Loads of mistakes

With Sholto, I made a lot of mistakes and we still we bonded. In 1999 when I learned about positive reinforcement I started to apply force free training in a systematically way. In a way that Sholto could understand! He was 16 years old and I can assure you: You can teach an old horse new tricks!

Coercion is more common that you might realize (see protest of the horse)

Clicker training

Clicker training offered clarity! A Click meant clearly “Well done” and then an appetitive (something he appropriated and wanted to have) follows. Using a bridge signal to communicate THIS is what I would like to see more of, was such an eye opener! I think it was the best kept secret in horse training! Also thin slicing (shaping) a behaviour gives the horse clarity.

At the same time, I also learned about Natural Horsemanship, which was based only on negative reinforcement: When Sholto did something desired, I took the pressure away.

Now, Sholto had a mind of his own. He was ‘stubborn’ which just meant he had loads of patience to teach me the right way. LOL. The rule between us was: if you’re friendly to me, I will comply and be friendly to you. I didn’t make that rule, by the way. I learned the hard way about that rule.

Natural Horsemanship (NH)

The problem I had with NH (not at first, in the beginning it was fantastic that I could teach him new things so quickly using pressure-relief) was that I had to apply that aversive pressure first!

I only noticed this when I was teaching. Again, the Milgram experiment (in a lighter form) comes to mind.

I often had to pressure my clients, the horse owner, to apply enough pressure to their horse that he would comply!

The success of negative reinforcement is that it’s 100% positive reinforcement for the trainer: results!

Sandra Poppema

With results, a feeling of power can emerge: a 1000 pound animal, that can kill you with one kick, listens. To you! Horses are Power! When you ride a horse it demands respect (this is engrained in culture and history: riding is for the rich and powerful).

That’s why it took me so long to abandon NH: instant results and… without having an alternative way you still are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It makes you feel bad and it makes you feel good, but don’t know how to turn training into a Win-Win.

Looking from the outside in, as instructor

When I was teaching groundwork and riding lessons, I was looking “from the outside in” and noticed that I was not the only person that struggled with this: applying something aversive to a loved one (their horse) in order to get what they wanted (desired behaviour). It felt wrong at some level to do so. And selfish. It also did impact the horse-human relationship in a negative way. Luckily most horses ‘let it all happen’ and we don’t have to notice if we don’t want to see it. I looked away many, many years.

The easy way was to follow instructions in my natural horsemanship home study package. But since it left a bitter taste in my mouth because it impacted my relationship with Sholto in a negative way, I decided to do more clicker training. Sholto was such a different pony when he knew I would offer clicker training!

The more I used clicker training, the more I realized our relationship was changing for the better. The mutual understanding, his willingness to work for me and WITH me changed. I think he really liked me more and certainly enjoyed working with me more. I know because I used clicker training for all my trick training and in the arena it was “work” (using NH): lunging and lots of movement using pressure release (relief!). He started to be more and more reluctant to go to the arena, his way of telling me!

Kyra pushed me further towards positive reinforcement

My horse Kyra (born in the wild and super sensitive to pressure) told me the same story: it was no fun to be trained with negative reinforcement.

When I got Kyra in 2009, I had a decade of clicker training experience and teaching. When Kyra told me clearly one day “NO” to NH, I pivoted and decided to use R+ (positive reinforcement) from then on.

I still was teaching so I decided to write a manual (just like the one that helped me learn NH) that I could give to my clients for self-study. I called it the Key Lessons, your Key to Success in Clicker Training.

Looking back on my bond with Sholto, I realize that it had become the dream when I started to listen to him and give him a voice, choice and control in training. I thought I had a fabulous relationship with him before that, but when I changed my ways it improved even more!

What Force Free Horse training means (to me):

• Using positive reinforcement to train behaviours
• Using positive reinforcement to develop a two-way (!!) communication with my horse
• Not overstepping my horse’s boundaries (If he’s fearful, let’s lower his anxiety instead of ‘making him understand it’s just a plastic bag’. Fear is real! The horse thinks his life is in danger, help the horse! Make him feel safe first!)
• Steering away from using force, coercion to get ‘my way’ and finding a win-win solution.

This approach brings a horse-human relationship build on mutual (!) trust and clarity (which I couldn’t offer to Sholto without my bridge signal). This is where a friendship can develop.

Values

Now I know what you might be thinking: “You can’t give your horse choices all the time?” Yes, you can!

But, what if he’s sick and you need to give meds he doesn’t want to take?
Then you can give him still choices. Here is the key: having my equestrian values clear, help make decisions about using coercion/force easier.

My top value is not “having fun”, my top value is equine welfare. That’s why I don’t use coercion to get what I want if it’s just for me.

However, if the horses health or life is in danger, and his welfare is compromised I do whatever it takes to change that around. If I need to apply pain for medical reasons, so he can heal, I will. When such a decision is based on values, you won’t have guilty feelings about it.

I can talk hours about this. There are so many ethical, moral and emotional dilemmas around the topic of horse training and keeping horses.

Force Free Movement Training for Kyra

When Kyra got laminitis and was in pain, I had to help her lose weight and exercise her. Exercise was already aversive (it’s hard to move an obese body) and mentally her welfare needs were not met. She was in solitary confinement (no herd to feel safe in), on a restrictive diets (no 16 hours of foraging) and not freedom (a relatively small paddock).

I tried the coercion the first two days, but it impacted our carefully built bond of the previous ten years, in a negative way. Therefor I decided (again) to make a decision that I would try this (,movement training for my fat Kyra) with positive reinforcement.

Long story short: Kyra lost loads of fat, got healthy and best of all: we bonded over the whole experience! I know it would have been completely different if I had fallen back on negative reinforcement (NH/traditional training and coercion). With clicker training I helped Kyra change from a whoa-horse into an eager go-horse. She learned to love her exercises and it served our riding, long rein training and at liberty work for years to come.

I believe that you can help your horse get in shape with clicker training. How? I’ve done it, and I’ve helped many clients do the same.

Do you have a laminitis horse that is reluctant to move?

Join my Facebook group Force Free Exercising Laminitis Horses to stay in touch with me.

Force Free Movement Training for Horses

Is your horse overweight? Are you facing laminitis? Did the vet recommended: No more treats!” or “You have to exercise more” to get your horse in shape? Do you struggle getting your horse in shape with non ridden exercises, trained without coercion?

Consider my program R+ Movement Training for Horses. We’ll address your biggest struggle in getting your horse to move with positive reinforcement. You can apply to this one year program with this application form or by having a conversation with me. I tailor this online coaching program towards your horse, your situation and your needs!

To see if you’re a fit I offer a free assessment. In the assessment we’ll find out what’s holding you back and you’ll find out what you can change to get your horse in shape. There is no obligation to join my program afterwards. People have told me the assessment is a great tool and gave them lots of insights.  Book a free assessment

• Building duration in exercising your horse with R+
• Getting your horse in shape and lose weight without a crash diet
• Teach your horse to move by himself, at liberty and other non ridden exercises

Sandra Poppema, BSc

Founder of the HippoLogic and creator of Force Free Movement Training for Laminitis Horses

2-week online program to get your horse moving!

New to Clicker Training?

Get my Confident Clicker Trainer course, an high quality, extended online program that teaches you to clicker train your horse.
No matter when you’re new or already advanced (clicker training 2-6 years) this course will offer you many new angles and approaches to enhance and deepen your skills.

You’ll get:

• My proven R+ training step-by-step system that gives you predictable results (It tells you when and how to introduce a cue, when and how to strengthen a behaviour, raise your criteria and get behaviour under stimulus control and so on)
• Includes 6 Keys to Success for Trainers from creating Accountability to Shaping plans
• 8 Modules to teach your horse 6 basic behaviours, the Key Lessons for Horses, that will help you train all future behaviours faster
• Tons of instruction and step-by-step training videos
  
  

Solution to most common pitfall (quitting without results) in clicker training #4

When you do something over and over, you’ll see a pattern emerging. In this blog I share 6 common pitfalls I see people falling into when they (start) clicker training their horse. It’s not easy to train an animal 100% force-free when you’ve been raised with coercive methods. You have to teach yourself to think out of the box. Once you can do that, a world of opportunities open up.

Pitfall #4: Quitting before Getting Results

Trainers stop before they reach their goals with their horse. Sometimes this happens because they struggle with pitfall #1, #2, #3 or a combination of these factors.

In some cases people stop training simply because they feel unsupportive and sometimes they even have to endure verbal abuse. They’re getting continuously snarky remarks about ‘spoiling their horse’ or ‘bad horsemanship’ from their fellow horse owners at the barn. Or questions like: “When are you finally going to ride your horse?”. This can really be discouraging!

Many clicker trainers, who do have a goal, are clear about it, know how to train it, still don’t accomplish it. Why is that?

Sometimes something happens, and they fall out of their training routine. Maybe it’s because of their work, or their family needed their attention, or sometimes just because they went on vacation and never got back in training mode with their horse. Or the weather changed and they thought that it’s impossible to work on their goal behaviour in Winter/Summer/Spring/Autumn.

We’ve all experienced it. This is a simple pitfall to avoid and that’s what this blog is about.

How not to quit

The answer to that is preparing yourself the best you can. Flip the struggle into a positive one: How to keep going!

• Knowing why you do what you do, and why R+ is so important to you. This has to do with your equestrian core values. Force-free, getting results and bonding with your horse.
• Educate yourself about how learning takes place: Key Lesson Learning & Motivation and how you can influence the process in a positive way
• Writing a good shaping plan so that you know exactly what to do, what to reinforce and what to expect from your horse.
• Setting yourself up for success with Accountability.

How to make yourself Accountable for your Clicker Training

Accountability is taking responsibility for the outcome. One invaluable part of being successful in clicker training your horse, is to work consistently towards your goal. Starting and stopping won’t bring you results.

How to help yourself to train consistently towards your goals with your horse? Here’s where accountability will help! Some ideas to help make training easier:

• Set clear goals. When you have a clear goal is so much fun to work on it!
• Split it up into baby steps. One way is to write a shaping plan for the behaviour you want to train. When you know exactly what to do and when to raise your criterion and what to do if plan A won’t work, it will keep your enthusiams and motivation high.
• Make a training schedule, a planning. Stick to it. How? That’s next.

Tips to keep yourself accountable:

• Find a friend to ‘report’ to about your training. Set a time and day. Weekly works best! When you setup weekly accountability you have 52 accountability points in time, per year. When you think monthly is enough, think again. With a monthly accountability plan you only have 12 accountability points in time. When you don’t have someone who is interested, join the HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy where you can get weekly accountability.
• Getting coaching or lessons on a weekly basis, can also be working as a weekly accountability. Make sure you’re working towards your learning goals, with your instructor/coach.
• When you’re highly self motivated you can make a weekly training plan for your horse and follow it.
• Join a group of clicker trainers that you can report to about your training

What makes accountability successful

Accountability works best when

• You make it a long-term agreement (6-12 months, but actually you’ll need this as long as you have goals or want to improve). After a set time you can evaluate and decide to agree to go on for another 6 months.
• You have one accountability partner. Having multiple can be confusing. I’m speaking from experience!
• You have respect your accountability partner and values her opinion. Otherwise a calendar with a reminder “Train Your Horse” would work just as good. 😉 You have to find it important to show up for her. When you’re each other’s accountability partner it even has more changes to pay off. Hen you don’t have to be there for you, you’ll have to show up for her!
• Dedicate yourself to your accountability setup. Make it the most important thing! After all, you’re doing this for yourself! Keep that in mind. The goal is to become better at training and setting up support for times it will be hard!

Do more with Clicker Training!

Are you a compassionate horse owner who wants to build a strong friendship with your horse? Would you like to understand your horse better and help your horse to understand YOU better? Get access to high quality online training and a fabulous, supportive R+ community in our HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy. Check out the link!

Want to do more with Clicker Training?

Join the HippoLogic Academy! I coach and support you personally getting your dream results with positive reinforcement, so that you can bond with your horse in the process. Create a connection build on mutual trust and understanding, a clear two-way communication built on love. Click the image to go access the application form ↓

Not sure? Start with a free clicker training assessment to get taste of what it feels like to work with me. When you have a specific struggle that you want to overcome, don’t hesitate to contact me.

In this assessment you’ll discover what’s holding you back from accomplishing the things you want with your horse. After our conversation you’ll know exactly what to do, in order to move forward towards your goals.

Book here

Happy Horse training!
Sandra Poppema, B.Sc., founder of HippoLogic & HippoLogic Clicker Training Academy

Join us!

Grass Training Step 2

Is your grass diving horse the most annoying in Spring? When the grass is lush and green and enticing? Is that when you think about teaching your horse to Stop Grazing on cue? Start today! Any day is better than Spring in full action!

Read Grass Training step 1 here.

Spring Problems

Do you know why this is the most challenging time of year to start Grass Training? Right: when you need it the most!

It’s also when you need it, it’s hard(er) to take the time to train it and practise patience!

It’s also the hardest time of year for your horse: when the grass is like candy, sweet and juicy and their body’s want to store energy for court shipping, breeding and maybe even already for Winter.

Horses just can’t help themselves and then they have to deal with being pulled on their lead ropes all the time. Struggling between their owner, who they love, and juicy sweet grass which they love a bit more.

Southern hemisphere

If your living in the Southern hemisphere you might think this is not the time to start Grass Training. Winter is coming and you have other things on your mind…

I’ll let you in on a little secret: it would be the Best Time of the year! You can start with less enticing grass (or even hay!) and make the Stop Grazing behaviour already a strong habit then when the grass starts to grow YOU are prepared and your horse won’t even try to dive into grass.

Most important for Grass Training your Horse

In my previous blog I wrote about why positive reinforcement (R+) is the best way to teach your horse to Ignore Grass-cue, Stop Grazing-cue and a Graze Now-cue.

Step 2 is: Start before you need it! If you can… Just like all other training, start before you need it. Sounds unbelievable?

Grass Training works! Even for EMS horses on restrictive diets!

The year after I perfectionate my 100% R+ approach to grass training, Kyra got Equine Metabolic Syndrome. And, laminitis. I had to exercise her AND put her on a restrictive diet. Vet’s orders!

She went from 12 hours of pasture with friends to 24 hours solitary confinement. During the day she lived in a small paddock and at night in a stall, just like the other horses.

I had to hand walk her over the road at the end of Summer when the grass was just about to do another grow spurt… See picture left: Kyra with her special boots, offering Key Lesson Patience so I can make a picture. She’s ignoring the grass!

I was so afraid that I would have to struggle with a grass diving, hungry horse. I worried that I had to battle a tug of war over grass and that I would loose. I was already in pain, seeing my horse suffering. It wasn’t the case!

Kyra was so good near the grass It was truly amazing!

R+ Grass Training offers lasting Results!

Honestly, I couldn’t believe that I still reaped the benefits of the grass training we did that year before! Kyra didn’t pull me towards the grass and in the moments it did happen (occasionally) I cued her to stop and she listened! Once you a behaviour becomes a habit, it will be very, very strong!

Video: Before and After Grass Training

Start today!

Start today, making ‘heads up’ a habit on grass! You never know when this comes in handy!

Join me in Grass Training if you want to get rid of the grass diving. I show you how you can teach your horse to ignore grass, teach a Stop Grazing-cue and make this a great training for your horse and for you: both get what you want! How does that sound?

Click here to buy the Grass Training course and start today!

Happy Horse training! You are the Trainer! I believe in you!

Sandra

Want to start today?

Here is a great resource for you: my online course Grass Training that helps you train your horse to behave on grass: leading, riding and at liberty will be easy with a Grass Trained Horse. This is what people say about the course: 

Grass Training course

HippoLogic Grass Training

Grass Training Step 1

Grass Training is teaching your horse to behave on and around grass, while you’re leading, riding or working at liberty with your horse. Here is step 1 in your free mini course Grass Training.

Biggest pitfalls in Grass Training Your Horse

Do you know the biggest pitfall most horse lovers fall into, when they want to teach their horse manners on grass? They use negative reinforcement or punishment to train it .

They don’t do this on purpose. And hey, to be honest: I’ve fallen into this pitfall myself!

This is what happened:

• I held the lead rope extra short so my horse couldn’t reach the grass, if he pulled he’d feel pressure. Especially with a rope halter. Yes, it can hurt when they dive strong and quick into the grass and yet … he would dive into the grass the next opportunity he got!

So no real training (behaviour modification) there. Only prevention. And only as long as I kept the lead rope tight!

What else did I try?

• Yes, I wiggled the lead rope when my horse took a bite until he’d lift his head. In training terms this is P+ (positive punishment: adding an aversive in order to decrease a behaviour (the grazing)). This tactic hasn’t given me long lasting results…. You? (In the course I explain why this won’t work)
• I mixed these together with a click and treat for good behaviour.

It still didn’t work. With these techniques I never gotten long lasting results. Only very short -in the moment- results and my horse seemed to forget the whole spiel already after our ride. So frustrating!

Therefor I didn’t had the confidence to trust the process of pure R+ (positive reinforcement) until…

I started to be really precise and take a good look what was I doing that was R-, R+, P- and P+ in my training? Then I let go of everything NOT R+ and …. What happened? I got really, really good results!

This was a difficult process, but since I’ve been through this myself and helped hundreds of people do it, I can do this very efficiently now.

So don’t fall into the pitfall of using R- or P+ in Grass Training. Not even a little bit!

Step 1: Start using only Positive reinforcement and TRUST the process!

• Click and treat for desired behaviour
• Use high (enough) value appetitive to reinforcer the wanted behaviour
• Start small: make a shaping plan to help you start small

Here’s how you start:

Click here to subscriber to my YouTube Channel if you want more R+ training videos

In my Grass Training course I explain in detail how you can shift to 100% R+ and why you will get long lasting results. I also share 6 other reasons people are not successful in teaching a solid Stop Grazing-cue and what you can do to change it.

What do you think is your pitfall in Grass Training? Consistency, timing, a horse that’s not interested in treat while grazing?

Next step in Grass Training

Stay tuned, step 2 will arrive soon! Happy Horse training!

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

Helping horse people to bond with their horse and get the results they want.

Creator of Grass Training for Horses 

Want to start today?

Here is a great resource for you: my online course Grass Training that helps you train your horse to behave on grass: leading, riding and at liberty will be easy with a Grass Trained Horse. This is what people say about the course:

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No #1 Tip for Equestrians in Shedding Season

In one of the Facebook groups I am in, I posted a video of all the hair Kyra is shedding and I asked: ‘What is your number 1 tip in shedding season?’

Get a vacuum!

Lots of people replied with ‘shop vac’. For who don’t know what that is, it’s a heavy duty wet/dry vacuum. They are fairly inexpensive (cheaper than an equine grooming vac and also bigger). You can buy a curry (brush) to attach, so you can groom and vacuum the hair off of your horse at the same time.

I bought a curry for dogs since that was the only one I could find online. It’s a bit small with 3 inch diameter but it works great!

First I thought it was a bit snobbish to vacuum my horse, yes I admit. I thought this is only for people who want to be done quickly.

I can tell from experience: I’m spending more time with Kyra. She loves the shop vac! Since I don’t have to spent time raking and cleaning up after a grooming session that’s time I now can spent connecting with Kyra. With the shop vac I spent more time grooming instead of less, because it’s fun! It’s so rewarding to get all that hair off of her.

Training Plan to Introduce a Vacuum To Your Horse

I only needed three 5 min at liberty sessions to be sure Kyra would be good with the shopvac. This was my shaping plan in 3 steps.

I always try to incorporate 5 senses when introducing a new potentially scary object: vision (observe the scary object), then investigate the object with smell and touch (nose, teeth). They might want to taste it (licking) too. It’s all part of investigating. The sense hearing comes into play with unknown objects that make sound, like a vacuum.

1. Introducing “The Thing”

I let Kyra inspect and investigate it. Approaching, sniffing and engaging (as long as it doesn’t damage the shop vac) is all clicked and reinforced with medium to high value treats. Kyra is at liberty in the out door arena so she can determine the distance between her and the vacuum and determine her own pace of investigating and satisfying curiosity.

Then I walked around with the shop vac and I click and reinforce ‘standing still’ (Key Lesson #2: Patience). She’s at liberty and can move away if she wants. I make sure she stays under threshold and pay attention to her body language. I do this because later on I need to move the shop vac near her hindquarters, front and sides.

2. The sound

Repeat step 1 but now the shop vac is ON and makes noise.I click and treat generously so the sound only will be associated with good things happening.

3. The ‘Feel’ (suction)

Now the last part is to introduce Kyra to the ‘feel’ (suction) of the vac! Make sure the horse doesn’t get bad experiences. For me it was a bit scary when Kyra wanted to sniff the hose/curry. I prevented her nose to be stuck or sucked onto the tube/brush with my hand.

Beware of Static Electricity!

People also gave me a heads up about static electricity and using lots of Static Guard (a spray you can find in the laundry department of your supermarket to eliminate static). Kyra is already great with spray cans so that was not part of this shaping plan.

Click the FB icoon to watch Kyra’s video on Facebook.

• Facebook

Result Clicker Training

It only took a few sessions for Kyra to realize how the vac helps her to get rid of the loose hair.

She really enjoys the vacuuming and I use it as reward for behaving and cooperating while after changing the dressings on her infected hoof (see this blog).

In 30 minutes I get 10 times as much hair off of her than with currying manually! So it works GREAT!

Questions about how to train this yourself? Contact me (hippologic@gmail.com) I offer online horse training support.

If you have trouble introducing and using a vacuum with your horse you’re probably ‘lumping‘. I can help you make a proper shaping plan.

7 Reasons of why this is my no #1 Tip for Shedding Horses

1. My Horse loves it!
2. I don’t end up with dust behind my hard contacts (that really hurts my eyes)
3. I spent more time grooming than cleaning
4. No more raking after grooming
5. No more hairs flying around ending up in your mouth
6. About 97% LESS horse hair on your own cloth (just an estimate) that gets in your car and home
7. My horse loves it. Oh, yes I said that already…

 

Happy Horse training! You are the trainer!
Sandra Poppema, BSc
Founder of HippoLogic and Creator of the Confident Clicker Trainer course

Want to do more with Clicker Training?

Join the HippoLogic Academy! I coach and support you personally getting your dream results with positive reinforcement, so that you can bond with your horse in the process. Create a connection build on mutual trust and understanding, a clear two-way communication built on love. Click the image to go access the application form ↓

Not sure? Start with a free clicker training assessment to get taste of what it feels like to work with me. When you have a specific struggle that you want to overcome, don’t hesitate to contact me.

In this assessment you’ll discover what’s holding you back from accomplishing the things you want with your horse. After our conversation you’ll know exactly what to do, in order to move forward towards your goals.

Use Target Training for Horses two times more effectively

Find the blog you’re looking for, here: https://clickertraining.ca/how-to-use-target-training-for-horses-2-times-more-effectively/

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Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I make training a win-win.

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Best Clicker Training Tip for Advanced Horse Trainers

One of the first skills I teach advanced clicker trainers is to write a shaping plan. Or shall I say: as soon as they are able to write successful shaping plans, they are advanced… Not sure.

The most common pitfall in clicker training is that people tend to ‘lump’ and make the steps too big. Their horses can’t follow and get frustrated why they don’t get clicks anymore for what they offer. All kinds of undesired and sometimes even dangerous behaviour can happen if that happens too often.

The trainer gets frustrated too: why is their horse not cooperating? They have treats for them… (if they do the right thing). The solution is to thin slice your training. That’s called a shaping plan.

Break up your clickertraining so every step leads to success

Shaping Plans, Do You Think it’s Difficult?

 

The challenge with writing a shaping plan for a behaviour you want to train is that you have to think about something that hasn’t happened yet.

 

Writing a Shaping Plan is a skill

 

• You need imagination and visualisation skills, and
• You need to know how a horse moves and reacts.
• In order to write a good shaping plan for your horse you need to be a skilled horse person.

 

Why people get stuck

 

The reason many of my clients find it difficult and get stuck (or skip this process in training) is that they are new to it and don’t realize that they need to learn this skill. Mastering a skill takes time.

 

I have several techniques developed that I teach so that they can make a shaping plan on their own. The clients that went through my Ultimate Horse Training Formula, an 8-week online course with live classes became stars at writing their own shaping plans!  That makes a HUGE difference for them in becoming autonomous trainers.

 

Not many people have in person clicker instructors available

 

As we all know clicker instructors are still a rare species in the off line world and for my clients it’s really important that they can train (/play with!) their horses in a safe way. They like to bond and getting results with their horses.

 

Why a Shaping Plan is an essential Training Tool

 

Realizing why making a plan is so important helps in motivating my students to keep developing this skill. The reason is simple: in positive reinforcement you need to know exactly what you will click (before it happens) because:

 

1) The desired behaviour happens first, then you reinforce. Therefore you NEED to know what will happen.

 

In R- you can easily skip this step and if you don’t get what you want you make the aversive stronger (“just a bit more pressure, if he doesn’t listen”) to force the horse into the behaviour, then let the pressure go and VOILA: the desired behaviour.

 

In R+ you need to WAIT until you GET (= are given) the behaviour before you can reinforce it. HOW can you make that happen? By clicking and reinforcing (saying”Yes!” to your horse) and guide him with clicks and treats to where he needs to be (goal behaviour).

 

2) You get what you reinforce, so timing is of the essence.

 

If you have no clue of what your horse will do before he does it, do you think your timing will be good enough to get what you want?

 

Writing a shaping plan for behaviour is one of the 6 HippoLogic Key Lessons for Trainers. It’s their key to success in clicker training.

 

Imagine this

 

Imagine a very young child, let’s say 4 years old, with a clicker and treats training her Shetland pony. Do you think a 4 year old is able to clicker train her little horse successfully on her own? Why not? What skills does she miss?

Name one skills she misses and she needs to clicker train a horse on her own in the comments. Just name one and let other people chime in, too. 😉

 

Read more about shaping plans on my blog. Use the search tool in the menu on your right or start here.

 

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Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

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Halter Your Horse in 3 Steps with Clicker Training

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.

Key Lesson for Trainers: 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.

Shaping plan in 3 easy steps

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

#1 Determine Your Goal behaviour

Describe your goal behaviour in a detailed way. Asking questions will help you with this description:

1. How does the horse behave (describe)
2. Does your horse move slow, fast or not at all in the goal behaviour
3. Where are his feet ideally?
4. Where is is head
5. How does he use his neck
6. What about his other body parts: what are they doing and how do they move
7. Where are you: in front of your horse, next to your horse (left or right) or on your horse (riding)
8. And so on

Example: Haltering

1. The horse is calm and is relaxed
2. Horse stands still (otherwise halter becomes challenging)
3. His feet are on the ground (not on my feet), so no pawing or moving around
4. His head is relatively low
5. Neck horizontal (horses that keep their head high or moving are hard to halter)
6. Tail doesn’t move (no swishing)
7. I am in front of the horse (I know traditionally you need to stay at the left. Clicker training is not traditional. It’s OK to break some rules. I like to be in front so it’s easy to teach horses to ‘self halter’.)

#2 Divide Goal into Trainable Steps

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:

• Horse stands still and keeps his head still when he sees the halter
• Halter can move towards the horse and the horse keeps his head still
• Head is at a height that is convenient to halter
• Horse keeps his head still or
• moves slightly down when the noseband is around his nose (Key Lesson Head lowering and Key Lesson Targeting are excellent training tools to train this part)
• Horse keeps head still when head piece touches ears (for head and ear shy horses you need to thin slice this even further!)
• Horse keeps head still when head piece goes over his ears
• Horse keeps head still when handler closes the halter

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.

#3 Write it Down!

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?

Read on

Smart strategy to re-train a halter shy horse with video.

HippoLogic’s Facebook group

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!

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

Get a free 5 Step Clicker Training Plan.

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The Clicker Training Academy gives students personal support and offers online training

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.

• Professional, personal positive reinforcement advice on your training videos
• Super affordable
• Student levels are novice to very advanced clicker trainers

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!

Emotions in Horse Training

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:

• You enjoy your horse if he’s happy and healthy
• You love watching your horse in the pasture
• It’s great to ride your horse
• You feel proud of what you’ve accomplished with him or together
• You love the relationship you built with your horse

There are also other emotions:

• You want your horse to behave in a certain way and if he doesn’t live up to that expectation you might feel anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment
• You worry about his well being if he’s sick or that he might become sick or injured
• You worry about the way you (can) keep your horse and if you’re doing the right thing to move him (or not)
• You worry about being accepted by other horse people
• You worry about not getting respected due to the way you train, keep, ride your horse
• You feel overwhelmed as (new) horse owner: so many ways to keep your horse, so many kinds of hay, pellets, bedding, training, trainers, opinions of everyone else and so on

Equine emotions and feelings

Then your horse has and expresses emotions and feelings, too.

• Fear in your horse
• Play
• Happiness
• Depression and unhappiness (hard to see and accept as owner!)
• Horses that are in pain

Pay attention

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?

• How do you handle fear in your horse?
• Frustration: in your self and in your horse?
• Fear of failure?
• How can you turn this into a positive thing and grow?

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

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.

Break up your clickertraining so every step leads to 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.

Do you need strategies?

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.

Join our Community

• Are you looking for professional positive reinforcement support?
• Do you need an affordable program?
• Do you want personal guidance and advice on your clicker training journey?
• Do you want to turn your equestrian dreams into reality, but you don’t know where to start?

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 help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

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6 steps to start riding with the clicker (3/6)

‘How do you implement clicker training under saddle?’, is a question many equestrians ask themselves. The answer is simple: the same way you implemented it from the ground! Sounds logical. How do we start best?

First you have to learn the principles of Learning and Motivation, see this part 1 of this series.

Step 2 is to set a riding goal.

Now you have set a goal, it’s time to stake step 3; you have to split it into tiny baby steps. This is called a shaping plan. How are you going to shape the behaviour into your goal behaviour?

After I share the 6 basics (Key Lessons for Riders) with you, I will start a blog about how to implement all of this in practise.

Key Lesson for Riders #3: Shaping Plan

Now you’ve a clear vision of what you want to accomplish under saddle you can start breaking it down in super small increments. Those will become your stepping stones to your goal.

Break up your clicker training so every step leads you closer to success

Tip #1 for a Shaping plan that works

Each baby step must be small enough to be understood by your horse, keep your horse engaged and big enough to be a bit of a challenge (just a bit, you don’t want to frustrate or discourage him).

Your shaping plan consist everything that is going to happen in your training:

• what you will use as reinforcement
• how often you will repeat a criterion before moving on to the next one
• details about where you are going to train the behaviour
• how the set up of your training area will be
• all criteria that are needed in order to reach your goal: duration, distance and quality.

This is a very important step! It’s also difficult therefor I give all my students a template that they can use to practise.

• what bridge signal you’ll use
• your cue (verbal, body langues, props)
• duration of your session
• if you are going to use jackpots and what for
• and every other detail that is or can be important

Making a shaping plan and splitting behaviour is one of the most important steps in positive reinforcement. If you think too lightly about this and are not going to sit down and think it over, discuss it with your mentor/coach/instructor/friend you will get stuck later in your training process!

So take the time it takes to do it right, it will save lots of time (and frustration!) later!

Lumping in our training (by not making a shaping plan) is a huge pitfall for all of us (including me)! We think we can skip this step or ‘do it in our head’. That’s not true. Making a good shaping plan is the best investment you can make in your training!

I recommend training all behaviour you want to see under saddle from the ground first. Include these steps in your shaping plan, too. Example: to teach rein aids with R+ from the ground, then from the saddle in all gaits and the steps in between.

Tip #2 for a Shaping plan that works

Thinking about how you are going to split the behaviour and envisioning all the steps is great. Another success tip is to write it down.

It’s proven that this will increase the likelihood of success. When you write down your goal and your steps it will become clear if and where you need to be a little more specific.

If you’ve written something down you will remember it better. So when you are actually training and your horse leaps, you still know what your next step is going to be! Or, if you’re lumping, you know what your previous steps were suppose to be. It will be way easier to go back where your horse was still successful.

Tip #3 for a Shaping plan that works

Keep your shaping plans together in a designated place. The more shaping plans you make, the better. I recommend to make one for every behaviour you train, whether it’s a simple or complex behaviour.

After a while you will forget how you exactly trained behaviour X, Y or Z. So if someone asks you: ‘How did you train that?’ you can actually look it up and tell them!

Or when you are going to train another horse the same behaviour, you already have your shaping plan ready. You might need to tweak it a bit according to the circumstances, but it will definitely help you re-create your successes!

When can I start riding?

This is the perfect moment to go to your horse and try out your shaping plan. In my next blog I will share with you what you need to know after you’ve been riding (training).

Enjoy your ride!

Join our Community!

• Are you looking for professional positive reinforcement advice?
• Do you want an affordable program?
• Do you want to turn your equestrian dreams into reality, but you don’t know where to start?

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!

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

Sign up for my newsletter (it comes with a gift) here: HippoLogic’s website.

Start for free!

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 hopes and dreams and goals so that we can see what’s possible for you and your horse
  

  Your Key to Success

• Where you’re now, where you want to go and which path is right for you
• What’s holding you back so you can make a plan to get these hurdles out of your way.

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.

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How to Teach Your Horse to do Crunches with 100% R+

The body worker/chiropractor came by for Kyra a few weeks ago. She wasn’t walking well and her back is swaying (sags). In this blog I share my shaping plan and point out most common pitfalls in teaching your horse to do crunches.

The equine body worker/chiropractor did great work by helping Kyra’s body relax and getting rid of some blockages. Our home work was belly lifts (abs). He showed me how to do it: by placing your fingertips (using your nails) at the sternum and pushing up.

Of course that worked… He explained it was a reflex. I believe it’s a response to an aversive, not a reflex in the biological sense of the word.

I don’t work with aversives in training, therefor I had to figure out another way to communicate that I wanted belly lifts from Kyra and I did.

I thought of which behaviours we already have on cue (standing square, backing) and used those as foundation for the belly lifts. Kyra now lifts her back about 2 cm on verbal and body language cue and she is getting better at it every day.

This video is session 4 and Kyra totally rocks! She even offers duration: she flexes her abs a split second longer, and that’s all it takes to start building duration, see video below.

Shaping plan

Kyra already mastered standing square (which is part of Key Lesson Patience) and also backing up (Key Lesson Backing). The Key Lessons in the HippoLogic program are the basics you can built all other behaviours on.

Here is the basic step-by-step plan (shaping plan) I used to train Kyra to free shape belly lifts (back lifts):

• Standing square, weight on both hind legs equally divided (vertical balance)
• Minimal weight shift to hind quarters
• Add: flexing abs (belly lifts, back comes up)
• Reduce: moving backwards
• Add: head/neck position (Feeding for Position is a great help)
• Add: duration
• Add: repetitions

As with all shaping plans, each step can be divided into multiple steps and have to be trained over multiple sessions. Depending on the horse and trainer more steps can be added.

Pitfalls

Training without a system is setting yourself up for failure. Before you start, think about these common pitfalls and prepare yourself.

Shaping plan: Not making a plan before you start. What does the behaviour look like? What are my criteria? When do I stop? How long do I train? If you don’t think before you start, you have to think a lot more after you started. Reshaping a trained (reinforced) behaviour can be way more complicated and more difficult than training a brand new behaviour. A shaping plan prevents frustration in trainer and horse.

Timing: if you click too late, your horse thinks he has to back up. Click too early he thinks he just has to stand or do whatever he was doing (moving his head, tail, legs). Important to click the instant he starts shifting his weight backwards. It’s almost for clicking for ‘thinking to step backwards’.

Reinforcers: if you give your horse verbal praise or a treat he doesn’t value, you don’t get more of the marked (desired) behaviour. Find out what your horse loves to work for. If the wanted behaviour increases, the reinforcer was valuable.

Criteria: make sure you have small enough steps for your horse to understand what you wants. Make the criteria as clear as possible for yourself. Reinforce micro-movements in teaching crunches. Make criteria as clear as possible: eg don’t click for weight shifts while sniffing your pockets (go back and practise Key Lesson Table Manners first. This will safe time later. Don’t wait too long to click or you’ll have ‘too much behaviour’ (a step backwards, instead of weight shift). Goal is to lift the back, not (only) shifting weight!

Benefits of doing crunches

I think you don’t have to wait for your horse to get a swayed back before teaching your horse to do crunches (Pilates for horses, back lifts, belly lifts).

It’s a great way to strengthen your horse’s core muscles that will help him under saddle. Not only for riding but also to help him use his body in the best way he can. It keeps him healthy and strong and is a great way to create horizontal balance. It’s fun too! They learn to use their body’s in a way that benefits them and makes them more body aware.

In this video (session 6) you can see how much Kyra’s back lifts and how much it straightens.

If you need a bit of help with teaching your horse to do crunches, don’t hesitate to contact me.  That is what I do: helping equestrians get the results in training they really, really, really want.

Do you want to teach your horse crunches and don’t know where to start?

Book a free discovery call and I will help you figure it out!

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

Follow my blog  on Bloglovin

5 Steps to Accomplish Your Equestrian Goals in 2019

For those who are following my blog or my students it is obvious: I like to accomplish things! It also makes me very happy if I see other people accomplish their goals! That is why we live, right. To evolve and learn and enjoy life!

Goal setting? But horse riding is my hobby…

Not much horse owners think in ‘goals’ if they think about their horse. It’s a hobby so they don’t think it applies. I think it does!

Remember why you bought your horse in the first place: to ride, to trail ride, to drive or to have fun with (specify that). Are you?

There are your goals. They are just a bit buried and you have to unwrap and reveil them. ‘Riding my horse’, what does that mean to you? Trail riding? Winning dressage competitions? Once a week a lesson with your own horse, ride 3 times a week for 20 minutes or ride 5 days a week for an hour?

Are you living your dream?

Do you do what you had in mind when you bought your horse? Yes? Congrats and I want to hear all about it (share it in a comment)! If not, why not?

Maybe you did bought your horse to ride and you did ride him for many years, but he is a senior and you stopped riding. Or you did ride your horse, but fell off and now you’re scared to go back on. Or you bought a young horse and then got into clicker training and you simply don’t know where and how to start…

Step 1: Knowing what you want

If you know what you want it’s easy to get it. Sometimes you have to dig deeper and ask yourself at least 5 times ‘Why’? This gets you to the root of what you want. Why did you get this horse?
Another approach I use in my online goal setting course for equestrians is to find out what you dreamt about before you got a horse? Or go back to your childhood to get clues about your dreams and desires.

Step 2: Get help in order to speed things up

When you know what you want you can search specifically for the help you need to get it. If you want to ride your horse with R+ or create a stronger bond than you look for an experienced positive reinforcement instructor. If you want to ride competitions you can narrow your search for an excellent rider that has didactic skills to help you too.

No one has accomplished great things on his own! You don’t have to. If you get the help you need to accomplish your goals it is time and money well spent! It saves you time, money, frustration and making unnecessary faults (that can impact the relationship with your horse or with yourself!) if you don’t want to invent the wheel again.

Don’t worry about ‘skipping the learning process’ there is plenty to learn! I speak out of experience.

Step 3: Divide your goal into achievable steps

Clicker training improves the bond with your horse

When you know what you want you can divide your goals into smaller steps. This is one of the 6 HippoLogic Key Lessons (Your Key to Success) for trainers: make a plan.

The more steps the easier it is to accomplish them. Write them down, so it becomes very clear. Don’t forget to celebrate each step in order to stay motivated!

Step 4: Find yourself an accountability partner!

This is where I see things go off track easily. It is easy to make plans, but without coming into action nothing will happen! When nothing happens you will feel bad. If you feel bad you get paralyses and voila: procrastination happens!

An accountability partner (another Key Lesson for Trainers) is the one that will help you avoid that pitfall! He or she can also motivate you and help you get new insights and ideas to accomplish your goals.

I have helped many equestrians over the years. It works! You need to get weekly accountability in order to make it work. That is what I offer in my membership program.

Your need someone to cheer you on and celebrate with you! Who can do this better than the person who knows what your starting point was!

Step 5: Keep track, so you can look back

In order to stay motivated through the year (some goals take time to accomplish) keep track of your accomplishments. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you haven’t accomplished much. Your brain is always looking to the horizon (that what you haven’t accomplished yet) and it is very motivating to look back once in a while to see how far you’ve already came! Keeping a training journal and filming your training sessions/riding lessons is a really good way of keeping track.

Need help? Accountability or professional support?

January 1st 2019 starts HippoLogic’s online course Ultimate Equestrian Goal Formula. You will walk away with a clear goal and a clear training plan to accomplish it.
Are you going to make your Equestrian Dream come true in 2019?

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!

Sign up for HippoLogic’s newsletter (it’s free and it comes with a gift) or visit HippoLogic’s website and join my online course Ultimate Horse Training Formula in which you learn the Key Lessons, Your Key to Success in Clicker Training.

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PS Did you know HippoLogic has a membership (accountability) program?

How to Multiply Your Time at The Barn

“You multiply your time by giving yourself the emotional permission to spent time on things today that wil give you more time tomorrow”. This is a quote from Rory Vaden’s TedX talk How to Multiply Your Time.

I want to have more time tomorrow

That quote fits exactly in my description of me being a ‘lazy horse owner’. I like training and I rather spent invest my time in solving the problem than in dealing with the symptoms of a undesired behaviour over and over and over….

Time saving training hacks

Here are some examples. People often think I ride and work on long reins bitless out of belief, but I started it out of laziness:

• I started Kyra bitless long reining when she was changing teeth. This went so well I never got to the point to teach her bit aids and start using a bit. Too lazy… Now it saves me time to clean the bit, warm it in winters and spending time and money on going to the tack store and buying and trying different ones.
• I applied the Konmari method to my equestrianism which saves me tons of money and hours of debating with myself which colour saddle pad I want to add to my (non-existing) collection. And  deciding if I need a new halter to go with it. I have 2 saddle pads: a black one and a white one. I the use that is clean. Simple.
• I house-trained Kyra and taught her where to poop in the arena (next to and preferably in the wheel barrow in the corner). This will save me hours in the future of going back to the arena to scoop her poop. It was also a good investment in my relationship with my barn owner and barn friends because I often forgot to do it.
• Out of frustration I went looking for a way I could teach Kyra a ‘stop grazing’ cue. The way I reacted for decades (and how I was taught) didn’t give long-term results. Now I don’t get pulled to every single patch of juicy grass anymore (I have a clear “you can graze now-cue”) and I never have to pull her head up. I simply ask her to stop grazing and she does. I never expected this to work so well and even when she is on a restricted diet because of her EMS she still follows my cues. This saved me so much frustration and really contributed to our relationship.
• Same goes for trailer loading. I spent time practising this, so it takes less time in the future.

Watch the TedX talk to see what Rory is talking about:

Now I think of it…. I apply this to all my training. It’s just something I learned over the years when I realized that there are no shortcuts in training and a poorly trained horse cost more time, more energy and costs more of my joy than the few hours I spent in training.

Plan ahead and keep track

Using positive reinforcement, making a good shaping plan and keeping track of my process and progress taught me that most behaviours don’t take ‘weeks’, ‘months’ or ‘years’ to train. I now count training in minutes and hours, divided over multiple short training sessions. Very reinforcing!

Training time outweighs your frustration

Teaching a horse to come to you in the pasture may take a few short training sessions and some adjustments of your side, but chasing your horse every day in order to ride him will suck up more energy and time than the training costs you.

Share your hacks!

How about your genius time investments? What are they and  how much time did you end up spending on training?

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get the results in training they really, really want with joy and easy for both horse and human. I always aim for win-win!.

Book a Clicker Training Assessment when you struggle with a particular thing in clicker training that you want to solve. This assessment is FREE and it will give you valuable insights in what you can change in order to get the results you want..

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6 Things That You Might Not Know About Clicker Training (5/6)

In this series I will be sharing 6 interesting facts I didn’t know about when I started using positive reinforcement in training animals. This is part 5. I like this one!

Some of these are common misunderstandings people have about clicker training while others are facts most equestrians don’t know at all.

The goal of this blog is to help more people understand how well positive reinforcement (R+) works in training our horses. I want every one to know that clicker training offers more great benefits besides training your goal behaviour. Positive side-effects you won’t get in negative reinforcement (R-) based training methods (traditional and natural horsemanship). I wish I had known these benefits earlier in life.

#5 Positive reinforcement has many smart training strategies that I haven’t found in other training methods

In the decades that I have been using positive reinforcement training I have discovered so many smart training strategies that I haven’t heard of in other methods.

This is what I learned in the first 20 years in horses

In traditional and natural horsemanship training the aim was to create more of the desired behaviour by taking away something the horse dislikes (an aversive). Therefor, the solution I was offered ,when a horse wouldn’t obey, was to ‘ask again but increase the pressure’ (the aversive): eg more leg! If that didn’t work: a tap with the whip. Increasing the command until my horse would go. The myth I learned was: ‘He (your horse) knows what to do.’

If a horse didn’t cooperated in taking an oral de-wormer, you just tied him up so he couldn’t pull his head away. Which most of the time resulted in a bigger struggle next time. The myth I was told (and I believed) was: ‘He will soon learn that this doesn’t kill him’.

Sounds familiar?

In general the ‘solution’ was often the same (more ‘pressure’) and only aimed to short-term success (the now). Basically the go-to solution was using more coercion, often painful. Rewards must be ‘only sparingly used’ otherwise ‘I would spoil the horse’.

Positive reinforcement expands your horizon

In positive reinforcement the aim is to train the horse by reinforcing the desired behaviour with something the horse wants to receive/have (appetitive). You focus on the good things!

So, when my horse doesn’t offer the desired behaviour I immediately start asking questions. Not the “How can I make the good thing easy and the bad thing difficult?”-question (which often means “How can I -the trainer- get to my goals ASAP?), but many questions. Horse-centered questions:

• Why does my horse not cooperate?
• Has my reinforcer (my reward) lost it’s value?
• Is something else more reinforcing or urgent?
• Am I clear in what I want my horse to do?
• How can I make it easier and more fun (!) for my horse?
• Does my horse understands what I want (Am I lumping? Is there a context shift? Is he distracted? Bored? Anxious or in flight mode?)
• and so on

Training strategies

Then you have those smart training strategies that really help achieving your goals and goal behaviour, like:

• positive reinforcement: reinforcing with appetitives (something the horse really wants to have and want to make an effort for to get it)
• 5 strategies to get your goal behaviour with R+
• writing a shaping plan (detailed step-by-step approach of training your goal behaviour)
• the use of a bridge/marker signal to pinpoint exactly what you want to see more of
• the use of high and low value reinforcers to increase engagement, decrease stress levels, prevent boredom and predictability in training and so on
• ‘jackpots’
• chaining behaviour
• back chaining behaviour

Except for the use of rewards I never heard of any of the above strategies until I learned more about positive reinforcement. A few of these are really your Key to Success in Equine Clicker Training. If you want to learn more join my Clicker Training Academy where you learn all 12 Keys to Success in Clicker Training.

It makes life so much easier that I can’t picture training horses or coaching people without these strategies.

Read the other articles in this series:

part 1 of 6 Things You Might Not Know About Clicker Training
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
part 6

Sandra Poppema, BSc
Founder of HippoLogic
Enhancing Horse-Human connections through clicker training

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4 Tips to improve your Horse Training Skills

OOPS, this blog has moved to my website!

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Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

I help horse owners get results in training they really, really want. Getting results with ease and lots of fun for both horse and human is important to me. Win-win!

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5 Benefits of using a Shaping Plan in Horse Training

The blog you’re looking for has moved to my website: https://clickertraining.ca/5-benefits-of-using-a-shaping-plan-in-horse-training

Sandra Poppema, BSc
Founder of HippoLogic
Enhancing Horse-Human connections through clicker training

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram or watch a video on HippoLogic’s YouTube channel.
Don’t miss out on courses and clicker tips in your inbox or get my free online course.

8 Important Life Lessons I learned from Positive Reinforcement Horse Training

When I was a little girl learned quickly that I couldn’t boss around certain horses. I also learned that I liked it much better when I didn’t have to.

A few decades ago I learned about positive reinforcement (+R)  training and now, 17 years later I can truly say +R has become more of a lifestyle than just a training method for me.

One of the best reviews I received from a student is: “You are always very supportive Sandra and make this feel like a safe place (the Facebook support group) to ask questions. Funny, but I’ve met a lot of R+ trainers who a very encouraging and positive with their horses but extremely critical of their human trainers. Sandra you walk and talk R+ in all areas – with horses and people.”

Here 8 of the most valuable lessons and my biggest ‘clicks’ (eye openers) positive reinforcement horse training taught me:

1. The receiver determines the reinforcer, not the trainer, not teacher nor the parent. Once I learned to think from my horses’ point of view and what his motivation is, it became clear on why he did or didn’t want to do it. Same goes for humans.
2. Envisioning my goals before I start, makes it easy to keep on track and go back on track once I get sidetracked. Not only my equestrian goals, but all my goals!
3. Writing down my goals made it easier to find the right teachers. Studies prove that writing your goals down will make you see more opportunities because it puts your unconscious to work.
4. Writing down my goals helped me into dividing them into achievable (baby) steps. Whenever I feel stuck, whether that is in life or in horse training I ask myself if I am ‘lumping’ (making the steps too big) and I usually do. Once I make my steps smaller I can be successful again. This one was a biggy!
5. Different reinforcers have different values and values can change depending on the circumstances. It makes sense that once the receiver can predict when and what the reinforcer is, he can determine if he does or doesn’t want to do the behaviour.
6. I learned to think out of the box, because I didn’t have ready-made solutions for a lot of challenges I ran into. It is an amazing helpful life skill! I love it!
7. I changed my focus to what goes well and improves, rather than the things that doesn’t yet go the way I envisioned. I turned from a Negative Nancy into a Positive Polly
8. When I started to focus on my method of training, instead of only focusing on the results of my training, three interesting things happened: 1) there was now something valuable in it for the horse which made it a huge win-win, 2) the results came much quicker, easier and were way more reliable and 3) the overall relationship with my horse improved tremendously! Wow! Win-win-win!

What are the most valuable life lessons you learned in training? Please share yours in the comments.

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

My mission is to improve horse-human relationships by educating equestrians about ethical and horse friendly training. I offer coaching to empower you to train your horse in a 100% animal friendly way that empowers both you and your horse.

Sign up for HippoLogic’s newsletter (it’s free) or visit HippoLogic’s website.

 

 

 

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Tips for Clicker Training from the Saddle

It seems complicated to use positive reinforcement during riding. Most common struggle points are: ‘It’s hard to hold a clicker and the reins in my hands’, ‘Clicker training is useful on the ground, but I don’t know how to use it from the saddle‘ and ‘If you use clicker training in riding you have to stop all the time to give a treat‘. How to address these issues?

Keep it simple!

Positive reinforcement is positive reinforcement, whether you apply it from the ground, standing next to your horse, or when you sit in the saddle. Therefor you have to apply the same rules to set you and your horse up for success:

Preparing your Horse for the Farrier with Clicker Training

Being a farrier  is a high risk profession. It is not only a physically demanding job, but also the clients can be very opinionated. Or worse become defensive and kick, bite or rear. With clients I mean horses, of course. How can you help your farrier be safe working with your horse?  How can you prepare your horse for a farrier treatment? My answer is of course: with positive reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement for the professional

The first thing reinforcing the farrier to come back is that he gets paid! I like to offer a cup of tea and some cookies too, if he is really good with my horse. But the best way to reinforce your farrier to come back and do a good job is to have your horse well trained and prepared.

Feel more successful in riding and training your horse

I am reading a very interesting book. It is called Before Happiness and is written by Shawn Achor. You can look it up if you want. In this book you can find ways to improve your succes rate. The thing I like most is that I have already been using a lot of these strategies in my lessons and in my own horse training and riding.

Success strategies

One of the success strategies is creating mini goals, so you can feel good about accomplishing steps towards a bigger goal. In positive reinforcement we call that a shaping plan or it can refer to your training plan. In the shaping plan you write down the stepping stones towards a goal behaviour. Your training plan contains your ultimate goal, ten year plan, five year plan or (just a ) one year plan.

A good shaping plan creates clarity for the horse (the desired behaviour) and he can also feel successful after each click and reinforcer. It is like saying ‘yes’, ‘yes’ to your horse, so he knows he is on the right track.

Giving yourself a head start

One of the brilliant strategies in the book is giving yourself a head start. I used to skip this part, because it felt like ‘cheating’. Studies have proven that giving yourself a head start doesn’t feel like cheating for your brain. Instead it gives your brain the feeling that you are already half way there.

In horse training you can do the same thing. In a shaping or training plan you write down your goals and you divide them into smaller goals.

What I used to do is start writing down the first step I have to accomplish or teach my horse. I never thought of giving myself a head start by writing down a few steps that are necessary in the process but  that I already have accomplished.

Targeting

For me, a shaping plan to teach a green (non-clicker trained) horse would look like this:

Now I would give myself a head start and write down:

Steps:

• Safe hand-feeding (check!)
• Trust in handler and not scared by introduction of a new object (check!)
• Standing still behind a barrier and paying attention to handler (check!)

This would be my head start. The fourth step would be ‘looking at target’ et cetera. In this way the trainer can already feel successful because s/he can tick off the first three mini goals.

Try it and I would love to hear how this works out for you.

 

Sandra Poppema, B.Sc.

My mission is to improve horse-human relationships by educating equestrians about ethical and horse friendly training. I offer coaching to empower you to train your horse in a 100% animal friendly way that empowers both you and your horse.

Sign up for HippoLogic’s newsletter (it’s free) or visit HippoLogic’s website.

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