http://www.clickertraininghorses.org/
When it comes to teaching an animal to behave well, or to perform certain desirable actions, clicker training is one of the cheapest and most effective options available. Rather than paying for expensive lessons at an obedience school, with a clicker and a little knowledge you can just train your animal yourself during your free time. Click on the above link to learn more about clicker training for horses.
2. Clicker Training for Horses
Clicker Training Information
When it comes to teaching an animal to behave
well, or to perform certain desirable
actions, clicker training is one of the cheapest and
most effective options available.
Rather than paying for expensive lessons at an
obedience school, with a clicker and a little
knowledge you can just train your animal yourself
during your free time.
Clicker Training for Horses
3. Clicker Training for Horses
Technically speaking, clicker training is a
kind of operant conditioning.
It is not a form of classical conditioning.
Unlike classical methods, which make use
of aversive control (i.e., punishments), the
emphasis with a clicker is on getting the
animal to behave in a certain way through
positive input.
In other words, clicker trainers encourage
the target behavior.
Clicker Training for Horses
4. Clicker Training for Horses
A clicker trainer will use nonverbal
signals, verbal signals, clicks, and rewards as
encouragement to perform target behaviors.
Rewards are important, because a reward is
the clearest way to indicate to an animal
that whatever it just did was desirable to the
trainer.
With consistent training, the animal learns
that a reward will always come if it performs
that action.
Clicker Training for Horses
5. Clicker Training for Horses
Of course, it’s not the case that clicker trainers never make use
of punishments.
In order to get an animal to learn, some type of corrective action
is necessary.
However, scoldings and physical pain are not among the choices
used by a clicker trainer. If an animal fails to correctly do some
intended action, the trainer gives a neutral verbal sign to let the
animal know that it has not performed well enough to receive a
reward.
Clicker Training for Horses
6. Clicker Training for Horses
Simple, but powerful and effective
The simplicity of this system makes it easily understood by any
animal.
The reason?
All animals have and understand the concept of reward.
Clicker Training for Horses
7. Clicker Training for Horses
Clicker training (operant conditioning) is
also distinguished from classical
conditioning because it will require quite
a bit of patience during training.
There is no step that cannot be broken
down into smaller steps, and small steps
are the soul of operant conditioning.
Also, no step is so small that it cannot be
rewarded.
Clicker Training for Horses
8. Clicker Training for Horses
So if, for example, you want your horse to trot out and fetch an
orange traffic cone from the middle of a field, you will need to give
it a reward for any action that seems like it might be a step in the
right direction – even just looking at the target during the initial
attempts.
Clicker Training for Horses
9. Clicker Training for Horses
Teaching any sort of complex target behavior will require you to
break it down into smaller steps or segments that the student (i.e.,
your horse) can handle.
You can then lead the animal into successive phases.
Clicker Training for Horses
10. Clicker Training for Horses
Every success, no matter how small, is to be met with the positive
reinforcement of a click and a reward. Incorrect or extraneous
actions (non-targeted behavior) should receive a neutral word or
gesture.
This way, the animal gets the idea and will eventually opt for the
target behavior over other actions.
Clicker Training for Horses
11. Clicker Training for Horses
Clicker training is effective, and remarkably so,
because it is founded in this sort of positive
reinforcement.
Through positive reinforcement, you can quickly
enable your animal to understand what specific
actions result in a reward, and weed out those
actions that do not.
An animal will always naturally choose the action
that results in a treat; it’s simply in the animal’s best
interests to do so.
Clicker Training for Horses
12. Clicker Training for Horses
If your horse has already received classical
conditioning, you can still use clicker training to
make further progress.
In fact, the progress may well be faster. Research
has shown that equines crossing over from
traditional methods of training still enjoy
excellent results.
Clicker Training for Horses
13. Clicker Training for Horses
This is particularly true when the trainer
assists the animal during the initial
sessions (which can take as many as
twenty to fifty training cycles to achieve
success).
Later, when the horse has acquired
sufficient mastery of the target
action, training can be augmented with
both verbal and non-verbal signals.
Clicker Training for Horses