Practical Uses For The Clicker
Socializing A Young FoalBy Alexandra Kurland"Early Childhood Education." |
A subscriber posted a query about her frustrations with a colt who wasn't imprinted.
She wrote: "I still think I must have dreamed that I imprinted this foal. However, the ear imprint seems to have stuck. And he is beginning to calm down and get more adventurous. . . . Here's how I am solving the problem of the very sensitive colt: Pairing feeding by hand (from small bucket) with touching nose and gradually over many days getting to the point where he will let me touch his head and scratch behind his ears."
"A part of this was at first to grit my teeth and let him lip and suck and chew on my hand to give him some security because this is the way a young'un experiences the world at first. . . .
"This is a pain in the neck. Believe me! The next time I imprint a foal I will have a sign off list which I have up on the wall somewhere. I'd swear I imprinted this foal and worked with him two or three times at that."
"The agony of going through this lengthy stuff certainly underscores a very utilitarian reason for strictly adhering to Miller's imprinting procedure. I am having to put in many more hours than I would have if I had surely done the imprinting properly."
To which I replied:
You seem to be pushing really hard against this situation. Why not reframe it, and instead look at it as an opportunity to really advance this colt's training. As long as you are already using food, I'd suggest you clicker train him.
For those on the list not familiar with clicker training let me give a brief description. Clicker training began with the dolphin trainers. They were faced with the problem of having to train an animal that could just swim away from them. You couldn't put a harness on a dolphin and"make" them behave. You couldn't punish them. They'd just sink to the bottom of the tank and sulk. All the standard coercive training techniques people knew from dog and horse training just didn't seem to apply. So how do you get a dolphin to do anything?
The solution was to shape behavior using positive reinforcement. But even that presented a problem. How do you tell a dolphin that you liked what it just did? By the time it finds the fish you just threw in the water, it won't have any connection to the behavior you were trying to reward.
This problem was solved by introducing a high frequency whistle. Now the dolphin learns that any time it hears that whistle, food is coming. Link the whistle to behavior, and the dolphin quickly learns that certain actions will get the vending machine to work. Every time it swims near a certain part of the tank, the whistle sounds, and a fish appears in the water. If it swims anywhere else nothing happens. Once the dolphin understands that behavior leads to whistle leads to fish, you are well on the way to training very complex behaviors.
The whistle is a bridging signal (or secondary reinforcer to use the more technical term). It gives the animal very clear and precise information. It's a "right answer cue". It says to the animal the behavior you just did will get you a treat.
We can adapt this system very easily into horse training. With horses we use a plastic clicker. It's like the children's toy, only a little more sturdy. You can also use a tongue click (which is different from the clucks and kisses we use to ask for motion. And yes, the horses can tell the difference, so there's no confusion between the sounds. Can you tell I've been asked this question before?)
With older horses I begin by teaching the horse to touch his nose to a target. The lid off a supplement container works great, as do those little plastic cones Lyons sells. The object here is just to condition the horse to the clicker and teach him the connection between behavior and treats. He's going to learn that mugging the vending machine (you) to get treats doesn't work, but he can get the vending machine to work by simply performing certain behaviors.
This by the way addresses the recent thread on treats. When you add a secondary reinforcer you gain control of goodies. Without it, the horse has no rules. He never knows when you might have a carrot, so is it any surprise that he's constantly checking out your pockets or nibbling at your hands? Without the bridging signal food is a distraction to good training. With it, it becomes a powerful motivator that can produce outstanding performance and happy, can do horses.
You have a colt who doesn't want to be touched. That's a perfect place to start with the clicker. Use John Lyons' approach to sacking out. Approach the horse with your hand. If you think the horse is going to move away in two seconds, take your hand away in one second. That way he knows exactly what your intentions were.
If he moves away first, he's controlling the situation, and he's left with a big question mark. You touched his nose, but what else were you going to do? Maybe you were also going to grab him. He'll never know, since he walked off before you could show him that you were just going to brush your hand over his muzzle and then walk away.
So, you start by just rubbing your hand quickly over his muzzle, or along his neck, somewhere where he's somewhat comfortable being handled. Take your hand away before he can react. Repeat this, but let your hand linger just a split second longer. Click him. Take your hand away and give him a treat.
Your horse is going to be learning that he can get goodies just by letting you touch him a little longer. If he wants that treat, he's going to have to learn self control.
In working this you follow the rules of shaping, which, very briefly state that you:
1.) Train one criterion at at time.
2.) Raise your standards in small enough steps that the animal continues to be successful.
3.) If the behavior deteriorates, go back to a previous step in the training.
4.) Once the behavior is established, switch from a fixed reinforcement schedule, to a variable reinforcement schedule.
This last is important. The variable reinforcement schedule (VRS) is what really drives this system. On a fixed schedule, you reward on a one to one basis. One behavior/ one click and treat.
On a variable schedule the animal has to give you more. This is what drives the Los Vegas casinos. People keep putting their money in the slot machines because they keep hoping the next pull of the lever is going to be the magic one that earns them a jackpot.
If it works so well for the casino owners, it can certainly work for us. The horse keeps offering more behavior because it never knows exactly when it's going to be reinforced. Once you start getting more behavior, you can selectively start reinforcing specific criterion. The horse is letting you touch his ears for longer and longer periods. Now you click him when you also feel his head drop slightly. Pretty soon you'll have his nose in the dirt while you massage his ears.
This approach works great for helping horses to accept fly spray, clippers, saddle pads, etc.. Begin with the concept of sacking out, add the clicker to it, and you will soon have your horse standing quietly without any fear.
If you use the sacking out to accustom the horse to the clicker game, you'll be in a great position to use the clicker for other things. Introduce the colt to leading via Parelli's porcupine game. Ask the horse to move away from pressure. When you feel even the first small shift away from your finger tips, click him and give him a treat. Again follow the rules of shaping.
Once I have a horse touching a target, I usually go directly to teaching it to back up. I do this for two reasons. First, it's a simple request with criteria that are easy to mark with the clicker, and two it teaches the horse to respect my space. If he tries to go directly to my pockets, he gets no treats, but if he moves away from my hand and steps back, I'll click him and give him a treat. That's a very important lesson for him to learn. You can't get to the vending machine directly. It only produces when you produce behavior.
I work around my horses with my pockets filled with their favorite treats, and I am never mugged.
Why should you bother using the clicker? After all everything I've described using it for, you can teach without food. The clicker is a right answer cue. It gives you a very precise way to mark behavior and say to the horse what you just did, is exactly what I want. It tells the horse his paycheck is coming, and it gives him a very powerful reason to work with you. Clicker trained horses are incredible to be around.
They are enthusiastic, happy, eager performers.
So what can you train with the clicker? Since we're talking young horses, let me tell you briefly about my two year old. Robin is a Cleveland Bay/Thoroughbred cross. Until he was twenty months old, he lived out in a herd up in Canada. When I bought him, he was basically untouched. He was very body afraid. He had never really been groomed, or had his feet picked up. I started with the sacking out I described, then I used the clicker to teach him basic leading skills. From there I added lunging and liberty work and the beginnings of lateral work. I enjoy high school dressage, so eventually this horse will be asked for piaffe. With the clicker I was able to work him without stressing his young joints, very important in a two year old.
Once his basic manners were set, we started to play. This horse has a lot of growing up to do physically. I probably won't ride him for at least another year or two, but we can still have fun together. While we were iced in over the winter, I used the clicker to teach him to fetch (yes, I do mean like a dog). He's now reached the point where he'll go out over a low jump, pick up his cone, and come back to me over the same jump. He also bows, and lies down. I taught the lying down without ever hobbling up a leg. (If you want to know how this is done, you should subscribe to the Clicker Journal. I've had a series of articles about clicker training horses in the Journal, including one specifically on trick training. For more information on the Clicker Journal See: Suggested Reading.)
My older horse does more serious training. I use the clicker with him to train high school dressage. It's a great tool, and one that dovetails beautifully with the other training methods discussed on this list. I'm most familiar with Lyons work, though I've also seen Parelli's tapes. It's easy to trigger behavior using their methods, but then to reward what you like using the clicker. The combination works great.
I've noticed on several posts people who have talked about not being sure they can recognize a try. When you use the clicker and are looking for positive things to click, it becomes very easy to see the tiny steps Parelli and Lyons are looking for.
Enough rambling. The bottom line in all this is that the resistance your colt is showing you isn't a problem at all. It's an opportunity to experiment and learn more about training. It's the challenging horses that help us to learn and grow as trainers. Have fun with all this. More than anything else clicker training gives us a way to truly enjoy our horses.
Copyright 1997Alexandra Kurland
All rights reserved.
Revised March 2002
