Anybody interested in Khan's ongoing clicker training story?

[snigsby]

We started last week with a fully experienced person whom I found by personal recommendation.

First stage: me standing next to Khan having him turn his head to the front (ie not mugging me). Starboard side going well and we are now onto port side. Once this is fully established in different places,we will start touching a target.

[kas]

Yes please! I might not always comment, but I read the diaries and I know others do.

[beksnjake]

Yes I'm interested - I had started some clicker work with Rosie before her surgery & she was picking it up very quickly (once you had that connection with her she was amazingly receptive to pretty much anything bless her).

[snigsby]

Righty-o!

First off..........Khan LOVES clicker training!

We don't use a clicker,I make a  " beeeeep" sound. His rewards are measured out every day so I'm not tempted to over feed. I use a little chaff to bulk it out and mix in finely chopped celery and a bit of finely chopped carrot also a few sprinkles of his daily ration of balancer. The idea is to make it enticing enough to work for but not too calorific nor too exciting. For the end of each session, he has a feed bowl with a couple of handfuls of chaff and the rest of his balancer and usually an apple/banana/pear. This is to emphasis in his mind that the session is over.

He is very good at "face forward and don't mug me" on both sides and will now do it without needing to be tied up.

Last week,our homework was touching a target of a plastic bottle taped to the end of an old riding crop. He picked this up instantly and we have now refined it so he will touch it from above,below and both sides.

This week, he is walking forward to stand on a mat. He is doing it so this week's homework is to not reward until he has both feet on.

Our other homework this week is to do everything we have already learned but to do it around the lorry!

The reason we are doing this is that old adage "the horse has to want to do it". He knows how to load (breakfast taught him) but his emotional state is not reliable - he needs to be able to control his left/right brain balance in the loading/travelling situation so the clicker training is aimed at making the whole thing a pleasant,rewarding experience.

Feel free to comment! Good or bad,I have a thick skin and an inquisitive mind

[snigsby]

Khan has noticed that he is standing on a mat and has decided he might die from that. So, we are trying a different tack.

Our homework has gone well, He will now follow a plastic bottleonnastick for a few steps and is really good at taking a step backwards to reach it.

We introduced the small orange plastic cone,which started off at the end of the bottleonnstick and once he was used to it,is a standalone target. He has one session a day outside the lorry (which has his end of session reward bucket inside the groom's door) just doing basic touching his orange cone which I hang up on lorry. This week's homework is to start saying "target" every time I point to it (the aim is to gradually do away with entended arm pointing and put it on a voice command and be able to send him to it)

Our evening session is in the stable and the mat goes on the floor. Back to bottleonnastick and get him to keep doing all his stretches to it. Also taking a step backwards and then forwards on to the mat. If he puts a hoof on the mat,he gets treated there 3/4 times,but only once if he steps forward avoiding it.

I am really enjoying it all, as is he. I am so glad I have found something for us to do,just in case he becomes unrideable, fingers crossed he stays good but he has his "depressed" days and this medication isn't stabilising him yet.

It has improved my timing greatly! and because it is only such short sessions (10 mins or thereabouts), I can focus totally.

[kas]

Great stuff Snigs. Do you think you'll eventually clicker him into not minding standing on Killer Mats?

[snigsby]

I think the idea is that he comes to view the Killer Mat as a place where,when you stand on it,interesting things happen to engage your brain and you get treats as well. So he starts to view it as not a Killer Mat but as just a mat.

He is doing well with touching the small orange cone,hung in all sorts of places. I have introduced the word "target" every time I indicate it to him.

Smokey and Rafferty hang over the gate,making all sorts of "let ME do that!" faces................

[kas]

Sounds brilliant Snigs, very interesting.

[snigsby]

I don't mind other people chucking in their own clicker success/fails. I mean,if you are a CT fanatic (pro or against)you probably aren't one this board :)so I'm just thinking of any of you that use it as part of your toolbox.

We are improving slowly but surely at touching the target wherever it is hanging (usually about nose level at the moment). We use the fenceposts,side of the lorry, back door handle, anywhere I can hang it and he is doing it without bottleonnastick, I am just pointing at it and saying "target". Pointing very closely, mind you.

Weather is against us this weekend. 2 days of freezing non stop wind and sleet/snow/rail/hail. Ugh.

[snigsby]

I will be honest and admit that there has not been twice daily clickering. The weather and the flooded turnout and the lack of a midden to use has taken up all my energy,mental and physical.

However,what we have done has been good. The mat is still a Killer Mat,sadly but it has taken to appearing everywhere not just at training times so maybe that will help.

He is now following bottleonastick all around the lorry and also into the stable. The stable is not always great but getting better. I am getting quite skilled at telling the difference between when he is genuinely having difficulty (then we go back to an easier thing) and when he is just being a pain. When he is being a pain, I just wait and it doesn't take too long,maybe about two minutes,for him to step forward and touch the bottleonastick.

[kas]

It's all progress though Snigs, pretty positive really. It's really difficult to keep up with training stuff when the weather's bad and the work is harder. I'm doing nothing.