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Post by archiebrown on Dec 21, 2010 22:03:12 GMT 1
What's everyone's opinion on clicker training with food as the reward? Can you use clicker training alongside IH methods? Do you think clicker training with food could help a nippy/ bargy pony? Opinions please, it's something I'm undecided on but starting to consider it as an option for the problem above. Thanks
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Caroline
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Post by Caroline on Dec 21, 2010 22:10:37 GMT 1
I love clicker and have been really impressed with what it has done for my relationship with 2 of my horses. One was very shy and nervy, the other loves to play games. The shy one became markedly more tame and negotiable. The playful one seems to find it intellectually stimulating and generally fun.
I think you would have to be careful about using it with a nippy/bargy pony. I am sure it could work, but you would have to be very structured and disciplined in how you did it. I am not sure that sort of pony would be a good candidate for you to learn clicker with. I would take advice from a clicker expert about using it with that pony if I were you.
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Post by anastasia55555 on Dec 21, 2010 22:13:24 GMT 1
i was just having a look on the members area of the websites, where there are papers and projects you can read, and im sure there were some on there about clicker training. I have used it with our dogs before, but not with horses so cant really give you any personal opinion/experience
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2010 22:16:25 GMT 1
If your horse is nippy I'd avoid food rewards at all. Mine doesn't bite but as soon as he knows I'm carrying food he'll try to mug me despite me *never* having rewarded it.
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Post by cassiejane on Dec 21, 2010 22:52:23 GMT 1
I think clicker training done correctly can actually help to correct nipping and snatching at pockets for food etc, however your timing and technique has to be impeccable as the clicker is very powerful and can cause as many problems as it can solve if not used correctly. The key thing if you have a nippy horse is only ever to give rewards after a click, never ever otherwise and then they soon learn not to bother to mug you.
I think clicker training is compatible with IH methods although some very purist clicker trainers might disagree.
I also dont think food rewards are essential for clicker training providing you can find a treat which really means something to the horse in question. I have two horses one I reward with scratches which she loves, but the other only responds to food rewards, he is completely disinterested in anything else, but really comes alive and becomes enthusiastic with the clicker and food rewards.
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Post by archiebrown on Dec 21, 2010 23:11:55 GMT 1
Thanks for the replies.
As a yearling he was hand fed treats by other liveries without my knowledge which went on for a while and when I found out I was livid aswell as very upset as he had become extremely nippy and bargy despite me never having fed him a single treat from my own hand and to this day I still haven't. He's 3 1/2 now and over the years I've used IH groundwork/ methods with him, even worked with an RA but he is still nippy when your around him and bargy in the field, he is especially nip happy with strangers and of course I can't IH train every person he comes into contact with so I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle in a way.
I just wondered whether using clicker training I could maybe improve his behaviour, I'm quite prepared to be extremely sharp on timing and rewards just I'm kind of getting to a loss and I intend for him to one day be a child's pony and biting and children aren't a good mix!
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Post by june on Dec 21, 2010 23:23:04 GMT 1
You can teach a horse not to mug you for treats with the clicker. With a nippy horse it is best to start outside the stable door so he can't get to you easily and click for any time his head is away from you. Make sure you place the treat away from you too so he gets into the habit of keeping out of range with his teeth. Once that's established you can move to the same side of the stable door and click and treat the same head away behaviour. After the "don't mug me lesson" move onto some target training so asking the horse to touch a target and clicking and treating that. Again, make sure the target is held well away from you and the treat is positioned away from you. Once those two are established you can use it for pretty much anything.
I use clicker quite a lot and use IH methods too. I think the two mix well but if you use clicker you have to avoid punishment. The horse has to feel able to offer behaviours without the fear of being told off for getting it wrong. If the horse isn't getting what you are asking then you need to change how you are asking or break the task down into smaller steps.
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Post by Yann on Dec 22, 2010 8:17:20 GMT 1
I'd say yes to all three of your questions, but as others have said proceed with caution with the last issue. Would be worth either getting some clued up help if you can find it or at the very least having a good read of Alexandra Kurland's book on the subject.
I've been mixing clicker, food rewards and IH type methods for years and it's worked well for me and mine. I know several of the RA's use clicker training too.
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Post by Catrin on Dec 22, 2010 10:00:54 GMT 1
… Can you use clicker training alongside IH methods? Most definitely you can and many do. If you are new to clicker training, don't start with this pony - find a safe one with no problems to learn on. If you are a clicker training beginner, you have a problem that needs an expert. I would get a RA to come and help you stop the behaviour you don't want, then learn to clicker train after.
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Bay Mare
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Post by Bay Mare on Dec 23, 2010 7:14:11 GMT 1
What's everyone's opinion on clicker training with food as the reward? Excellent but make sure that you learn some basic learning theory and, if possible, get to a demo/course or observe someone who knows what they're doing. Emma Lethbridge's book, Knowing Your Horse, is a good introduction to learning theory and also has some practical applications in there too. Equi-click is a good clicker forum with lots of information (google Equi-click) You can but this is where a knowledge of learning theory is, imo, necessary as IH is a negative reinforcement based method whereas clicker is based on positive reinforcement. Clicker trainers do use some -R but it's Important to keep it as light as possible. I wouldn't, for example, use +R alongside work in a Dually as you're getting into poisoned cue territory by using the heavier -R from the Dually. Yes in a word ;D If you're new to clicker you would be better taking advice from someone who is more experienced in clicker. You would, however, have to have a strict no treats policy for everyone else who didn't use clicker but then you would no matter which method you used. Yes, Clicker is ideal for this kind of issue. I'd advise getting someone with experience (as above) to help you though. If you want to go down the clicker route then you'd probably be better asking for recommendations on Equi-Click for someone in your area who can help. Clicker is actually very good for 'muggy' horses as you teach them how to deal with food rather than withholding it. Clicker trainers to look at: Ben Hart Alexandra Kurland Karen Pryor Jenni Nellist Emma Lethbridge Becky Holden
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Post by SarahW on Dec 23, 2010 9:02:11 GMT 1
Or any of the RAs that frequently use it.
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Post by Yann on Dec 23, 2010 10:20:48 GMT 1
I can't help feeling that sometimes people stop seeing the wood for the trees. I don't think you need a head full of learning science, you just need a basic idea of how clicker training works so you can get the best out of it. Is that the same thing?
When I first started using the clicker it was as an extension of the IH groundwork I was doing, so it was all in a dually. Every single behaviour I taught is still on cue and willingly offered, so I'm not sure how much difference it really makes. It's common sense not to use a big stick and a carrot at the same time, because it spoils the effect of the carrot.
The same people who say you shouldn't use a dually or rope halter when doing CT often seem to have no problem doing so when their horse has a bit in its mouth, or whip in their hand, and that strikes me as rather inconsistent.
There's no doubt that using clicker and positive reinforcement is the most effective way of training something. It is the best way of achieving a horse that wants to do what you want to do. What I would argue is that it isn't the only way to get a satisfactory result, and it can be slow, laborious and rather impractical in some situations. Whilst it would be nice to use the best possible method for everything, most people don't have the time or necessary skill, and well applied conventional methods do still get the job done very well and in a fair way for both the horse and handler.
I think it's wrong to limit yourself (or pretend to yourself that you're limiting yourself) to nothing but positive reinforcement. One of the more disappointing things I read on a clicker forum once was someone asking for help because they had to lead their horse to the field in a dually for safety reasons, whilst deploring the use of the dually the purists had no immediate helpful advice to give at all.
I find the whole 'science' thing a little mechanistic too, horses aren't programmable robots, they are individuals just like we are, and I do think how we are with them can be as important as the actual methods we use to train them.
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lassiesuca
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The pony with the big heart
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Post by lassiesuca on Dec 23, 2010 11:00:33 GMT 1
Hi; Firstly, I'd like to say that I am a novice clicker trainer- I started in June but got in a bit of a muddle and so started from scratch in August when I'd dedicated some time to learning a little bit more and when I had a bit more time on my hands ( I am at school but I only get to see my horse a maximum of two/three times a week- due to the distance and family/school work), so breaking up for school meant that I could see Shadow every day, although I didn't work with the clicker everyday, but I could spend more time developing my feel and my understanding. My pony was VERY mouthy before we began clicker training and so I'm sure everyone thought I was a little bit mad, by training my horse with food! I think this is where the misunderstanding lies- clicker training teaches horses to be polite, using something they find naturally rewarding. Horses that mug ( so like one user who just said she refuses to feed her horse treats); I used to follow this philosophy, what changed my mind was being a little bit more adventurous and open minded. But horses who are given treats randomly- without it being targetted or pinpointed, tend to not understand; Why they've been rewarded They also could be being rewarded for a different behaviour ( i.e your horse performs a really nice ( small) step of a collected trot, but you can only reward him at the end, therefore it's going to be a lot harder to reward that behaviour again, right? If you reward at the end of the session, we're relying on predictions and guessing that the horse knows what he's been rewarded for. What the clicker does, is instead; it conditions horses to know that when they hear a click, it means they've done well and a reward is coming- but if they do stop, turn round and come running at you, that's not going to get them anyway. So your best bet is to spend early lessons doing 'Don't Mug me training', ( after you've done target training to condition them to the click), you can start Don't mug me training, by having your horse by you, and when he turns his head away, you click and reward, repeat again and again until it increases, also encouraging your horse to take a step back is another good idea to do! I think that it is unfair, though Yann, to say that all this learning theory/science is unaccountable; I agree that horses aren't robots and don't follow the text book ideologies; but; scienctific discoveries have evolved from practical observations. Do you think Darwin discovered evolution by sitting in a lab all day? A lot of science is so hands on- it's about taking observations, noticing patterns and chains. We ALL apply it to our horses- really. Science and Psychology go hand in hand and a lot of the IH philosophies are based around 'psychological understandings'. Every time your horse does something, you are reinforcing it, good or badly, subconsciously or consciously- we all do it. Some of us just chose to become a lot more aware of it- and as clicker trainers, we develop that understanding- we become familiar with the scientific terminology and we see how we have always applied it. The key is just to become aware of that and then apply it in a way that is ethical, sensible, logical and positive! I used my Dually all the time, before I discovered clicker- I found it did change my understanding of a lot of things, but the beauty of clicker is that it DOES go hand in hand with almost any method ( except brute force), but if you follow classical principles, it links it well, whether you follow Western riding, side saddle, showjumping- the whole lot- you can incorporate clicker into it! I am very proud of my pony ( understatement), and every time I talk about clicker ( every day), I always like to think abotu the change in him. I'm not kidding- but if I even entered the field holding a treat, ( before we started C/Training), he would take me out! Now look at him... he's matured into a real gentleman... www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOpyverKcs0&feature=mfu_in_order&list=ULAll the best Amy x
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lroy
Advanced Poster
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Post by lroy on Dec 23, 2010 11:16:55 GMT 1
I just ordered Alexandra Kurland's book today - I am going to give it a try after hearing so many good reports on Clicker training.
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Post by mandal on Dec 23, 2010 11:32:53 GMT 1
Of the CT books I've read Alexandra Kurland's book is imo the best starter book.
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