Classical or Operant When Fear is Involved? When I train equines that have a lot of fear, or are unhandled, feral or traumatised in some way, I’m always very aware of how powerful Classical Conditioning and Counter Conditioning are and how they can serve me in helping these types of equines. This is in conjunction […]
Classical or Operant When Fear is Involved? Read More »
Equine Therapy – You don’t have to sit on me Most equine assisted therapy programs have a riding component. Did you know they also ride donkeys and mules, not just horses. Did you know that donkeys are even better suited to non ridden therapy than horses, due to their very curious, friendly and sociable nature?
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Clicker Training – Don’t Rush When you start clicker training, take your time. Don’t be in a rush, enjoy the journey. There’s so much to learn AND to enjoy and if you rush, you’ll miss that enjoyment and that learning. If you rush, you’ll also skip the opportunity to really refine what you are doing.
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Separation Anxiety – (“Buddy Sour”) Separation Anxiety, also known as being “Buddy Sour”, “Barn Sour”, or “Herd Bound”, is not a vice. It’s not something to punish or ignore, or worse, keep them alone to prevent the unwanted behaviour. Doing that makes their worse nightmare become a reality and then they live it day in,
Separation Anxiety – what not to do Read More »
Feed for Position I find that when I clicker train a new equine, I focus on feeding *out there* and work on delivering the food with my out-stretched arm, away from my body and my food pouch. This is to prevent a horse trying to sniff, nudge or forage on you or try to
Self Haltering Your Horse It’s always nice to re-visit simple but important behaviours such as self-haltering. It’s nice training to do if you don’t have much time, the weather’s not great or you’re not feeling great yourself, but would still like to do something with your horse. All Positive Reinforcement training is money in their
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End of Session Signal or “Jackpot” I hear a lot of discussion about using end of session signals and I’ve heard them described as jackpots as well. End of session signals and jackpots are controversial and there is not a lot of science backing up their use. There is lots of reasons not to use
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“Consent Training” versus Horse Training I love this photo of Mercedes and me. It was the first clicker training session we filmed. I can see Mercedes’ body language, she was not sure what was going on and I was naively confident it would all go well. It was a bright new clicker training world back
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The Downside to Negative Reinforcement Negative Reinforcement (R-) also known in the horse world as “pressure and release” training does work, no one is denying that. But we have to be honest with ourselves about how it actually works in the context of horse training and put ourselves in our horse’s hooves. If someone squeezes
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Don’t Hit Your Brother Imagine a world where we said to children, we’re not going to force your beautiful pony with kicks and crops like those other people!! We are going to train them in a way that you BOTH have fun, by using Positive Reinforcement training, with clicker training, by training with food and
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