When Can I Stop Clicking and Feeding? Building Chains and Sequences

A quiet and attentive Percy

I think everyone who has ever looked into Clicker Training has asked the question, "When can I stop clicking and treating?"  I know as a trainer, I have heard it more times than I can count and I also know I used to ask that same question myself.  I have heard, and given, many responses. Last week I had the opportunity to ask Percy that question. One of Alexandra Kurland's expressions is, "Go to people for opinions and horses for answers".  

Percy has learned everything in life with clicker training.  He learned how to lead, how to stand for grooming, how to get on a trailer, how to wear a saddle, how to take a bit- everything has been trained with clicker training.  Furthermore, everything has been maintained, at times, with the clicker.  I did not train him to stay by my side with a lead on and then stop using the clicker and treats for leading.  I know that behavior which is reinforced is more likely to be repeated.  I knew that if I was leading him out to the pasture, he was being reinforced by being turned out- no click and treat necessary for going forward with me.  There was, however, the occasional need for walking politely next to me rather than pulling ahead to get turned loose sooner.  If we are going somewhere new, or close to something which is scary looking, I click and treat steps forward- that's a more difficult behavior than walking with me to the pasture. I continue to refine all behaviors and that's one reason to keep clicking and treating.

I knew that by starting all grooming experiences with a clicker and treats had turned him into a horse who enjoys being groomed and so lots of times I groom him from forelock to hoof with no clicks or treats. I make sure the tools I use and the way I use them are reinforcing and so I do not need anything else.  On those days, the experience of being groomed even reinforces standing still on the cross ties.

Other days it is windy and there are noises which concern him.  Those days I click and reinforce head height as that is an indicator of his comfort level and I want him to learn that it's reinforcing to work toward relaxation.  I click and treat a slight drop of his head, then another.  I proceed to groom and watch his head.  Soon he relaxes, the grooming reinforcement kicks in, adds to the clicks and treats and he is calmly standing to enjoy his massage.  

Now it is winter.  It is cold and muscles are tight.  It's hard to stand still and he wants to move to stay warm.  There's a reason massage therapists have warm rooms and heated blankets on their tables.  It helps people to relax so they can enjoy the massage.  I do not have a heated barn aisle.  In the winter I use clicks and treats more to help him relax while I groom him.

But what about arena work?  What about ridden work? After people settle in their minds that yes, we do click and treat from the saddle, they fear they will never be able to just ride without constantly stopping to click and treat every step of the way.  When can we stop clicking and treating so often?  This is the question I asked Percy last week.  

I know I can reinforce one behavior by asking for another behavior that he enjoys doing- that's why I was able to reinforce walking with me to the pasture by releasing him to go play and graze.  One way I have ensured that I have lots of behaviors he enjoys doing, is by training them with positive reinforcement.  He likes to respond to my cues- he has had fun learning them and has gotten lots of reinforcement for performing them. This would not be so if he'd been forced, with pressure or equipment or fear.  That's why clicker trained horses offer behaviors- they like to do them, plain and simple.  

When I completed my training to earn my KPA CTP (Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner), one of the things we had to do for graduation was demonstrate this by having our dogs perform 10 behaviors in a row, with each one acting as a reinforcer for the previous one- one click and treat at the end of all ten.  The key to doing this is to cue the next behavior at the moment you would have clicked the previous one.  What this meant was these 10 behaviors were completed in about 30 seconds!  I can't remember the exact behaviors I used for Eloise but as an example, if I cued "sit", then as soon as her fuzzy butt hit the floor, I'd cue "pop" for her to leap off the ground and as soon as her feet left the ground for that leap, I'd cue "down" so she'd land and lie down immediately and as soon as her fuzzy tummy hit the ground, I'd cue something else.  You get the picture. It was fast! But I got ten behaviors, all for one click and treat.

When we received this assignment and understood it, I couldn't wait to bring it home to Percy.  And I was thrilled to be able to come up with ten behaviors I could use, and even more thrilled when I tried it and he was successful.  Those behaviors included Alex's Foundation Lessons such as head down, following a target, stand on a mat, and Grownups, in addition to a "wait" and recall I had taught him.  

But still- what about riding?  How am I going to maintain a gait around and around the arena?  One step at a time.  I had built a quiet walking next to me behavior one step at a time. Then we'd go a few more steps before a click and treat. In working with him in the arena, I have defined the "walk on" behavior by using the criteria of ten steps.  I cued a verbal "walk on", and after ten steps, I clicked and treated.  But then I linked those tens together, so that instead of clicking after ten steps, I verbally cued "walk on" so he would walk another ten steps.  Then I clicked and treated.  He was fine with that. Remember, this is a busy boy who is not just going to walk around with me ad nauseum because I say so.  He's perfectly capable of creating his own entertainment (grabbing a bite of grass, touching the electric rope with his nose just to show me he knows the part around the arena is not on, stopping to dig in the sand and roll…these are all things he likes to do and will do if I'm not clear about what it is which will earn reinforcement).  Creating his own entertainment is highly reinforcing. I don't stop behaviors or punish behaviors.  I avoid unwanted behaviors,  by being clear with my cues about precisely what they mean.  And reinforcing them when executed correctly.  

It was quite clear he understood the ten steps.  And quite clear he was comfortable with my cueing another ten.  So I added a third ten.  Not a problem, not a bobble.  No grass grabbing, no fence poking, just quiet steps.  I added other behaviors he likes.  We'd go ten steps and then do "Grownups", standing quietly at my side when I fold my hands at my waist.  We'd do that and then do another ten steps.  We'd go ten steps and then another ten and then step over a rail on the ground.  I mixed things up but stuck to clear and happily performed behaviors.  I began to build a 30 step unit of steps by leaving out one of the cues, and then another.  He did not get frustrated or impatient or bored.  He stayed mentally connected with me so that when I cued something different, he was right there to respond to a verbal or hand or body cue.  If he had not responded promptly, I would have known that behavior did not meet criteria and I would have needed to go back and do a better job of training it. 

At the end of our session that day, I had chained 6 behaviors.  Because one behavior could now be defined as 30 steps or a duration of standing quietly, it really could be several minutes between clicks.  I plan to keep building on this, working on the individual behaviors, keeping them clean, chaining more together and defining some by location rather than just duration, so we can go for longer and longer periods of time without a click and treat- but there will still be lots of reinforcement.  

Percy creating his own entertainment by stealing the fencing mallet.

Keeping Training Records

Sometimes when you keep coming across the same information/advice in rapid succession, it's a sign that you need that advice. I've been reading recently about the necessity of making training plans and keeping training records. This blog was one effort to do so and I think it has been helpful in a reflective sense. But I've been reading more about keeping detailed records, including things like the actual count in duration work and even rating the quality of responses you get in certain behaviors. I think overall, this just helps you analyze the success of your training and underscores the fact that things are improving when you might feel like you're stuck. And I know it would be helpful if I had a real plan when I worked with a horse because it would make for a more logical "lesson".

So today I wrote up a plan for working with Elly. My big goal is to have her "stay with" her handler, whether it is rider or someone leading her. She is fine with me, but can really drag a kid around if grass is available. I'm not sure if this is really a reasonable goal. The kids just don't seem to have the muscle to stop her and I worry about whether they have the mental sharpness to be quick enough to outwit her. My hope, therefore, is to teach her to pay attention to her handler- in this situation it would be me- and see if it will carry over to the kids when the time comes. In any case, I'm sure all these little lessons will come in handy for her general education.

In clicker fashion, I had to come up with things she should do, not things she shouldn't do....I need to have things that I can reward her for. It is not clear enough to a horse that they are being rewarded for "not eating". I came up with three mini-goals toward this larger goal:

1. relaxation- she needs to be relaxed with her handler, not worried about anything, nor on the hunt!
2. self-control- she needs to be able to resist the grass or other food temptations when she is being asked to work in any way- under saddle or in hand
3. attentive- she should be looking for the next cue, wondering what she could do next.

After that, I came up with one of Alexandra Kurland's foundation lessons which would address each one of these goals. I decided to use them as exercises toward each mini-goal. The following are the exercises/lessons I came up with:

1. relaxation-"Grownups are Talking"...she needs to learn to just hang out next to a person and not fidget
2. self-control- "You can't Get Me to Eat that Carrot"...this will be identical to practicing her self-control around grass.
3. attentiveness- I chose a combination of the "Cha-cha" and "Duct Tape" lessons. My thought was that by doing a combination of all these, it would keep her busy and focused on what I was going to ask for next so she wouldn't get bored.
   

So then I had to break each one of these exercises down into tiny, measurable pieces. This is called "splitting" as opposed to "lumping". Lumping is when one asks for a behavior that is just too big for the horse to figure out.....stand still on that mat and don't move your feet or your head and don't try to get treats out of my pocket and don't put your head down....etc! Splitting, on the other hand, splits all those pieces apart and trains each one separately before asking the horse to combine them.

It was easy to break down the Grownups Lesson. That was simply a matter of duration so I just continued to count as I asked her to stand and just increased the duration by a second or two at a time.

I broke the "You Can't Make Me Eat that Carrot" lesson down into holding the carrot out, approaching her with a carrot, standing in reach of her with the carrot, and then trying the same with a fresh cut apple, then with a flake of hay and then with a bucket of grain.

The third mini-goal was the Cha-Cha and Duct Tape Lesson exercises. I set up a random series of movements to ask her for to see if she would pay attention both to each request and to the long series of them as I switched from one to another. The different moves were:

• one step forward, one step back
• forward, back, forward
• forward and then back 5 steps
• forward half a circle, then back 2 steps, then forward again
• repeat all of the above from the other side
• ask for step over from hip cue from each side
  
• ask for step over from shoulder cue from each side
  

Now we'll see how this plan works!

Stowaway at the beginning

Stowaway is the newest member of Bookends Farm
He arrived at the end of last summer. I purchased him for my lesson program as a solid citizen who would be safe for young kids. Stowaway is a 14 h POA about 12 years old. He has been used as a camp pony and is very quiet and absolutely wonderful for the kids. He introduces an interesting topic for clicker training. What makes him such a traditional "bombproof" horse is that he doesn't react to much of anything. He seems not to mind what kids do on his back. However, the object of clicker-training, or at least the way I see it, is to teach horses to respond well to the lightest of aids so that harsher aids aren't necessary. So Stowaway will be an interesting project for me to see if I can make his life better without making him too sensitive for beginning riders.

I chose not to begin clicker training him when he arrived because I wanted to be able to teach him the foundation lessons when kids would not be spending time with him. The foundation lessons are about Manners and include staying calm; and being polite about food and space. I knew there could be some questions in his mind at the beginning about just how to get the treats and how pushy he could be. I did not want him to make any innocent mistakes that could endanger or frighten a child. So I waited until winter, when my lesson season takes a long break, to begin. And then we had a very cold winter so I'm really just beginning with him now!

Targeting and charging the clicker are the place to start any horse new to clicker training. Charging the clicker is simply helping the pony to understand that click=treat always. You can do this by simply standing with the horse and clicking and treating until the horse begins to perk up every time he hears the click because he knows a treat will follow immediately. You can also begin by introducing very simple targeting and charge the clicker at the same time. This is what I did with Stowaway. I use a wooden dowel about 15" long with a tennis ball stuck on the end. The ball provides a bright large target to aim for so that the pony doesn't try to target the area right next to your hand. By putting the ball right in front of his nose, he couldn't avoid touching it and each time he did, I clicked and gave him 2 hay stretcher pellets.

Stowaway has reacted the way I expected: not too enthusiastic. I think he has been taught not to offer behavior....in other words, not to do anything that he hasn't been told to do. This is generally considered the safest way for kid ponies to behave. But clicker-trained horses are far more active participants in life. This is where I am going to need to be careful. But so far, the other horses that I have clicker trained have exceptional manners.

In any case, I am spending my time with Stowaway doing a lot of targeting so that with luck, he will become more confident that this is something he can do and will be reinforced for. He will gladly touch the target, will reach up, down and to both sides for it, and will walk forward a few steps to touch it. If there is hay in the paddock, he would rather go eat that (unlike the other horses who prefer to play and interact than just eat hay) so I do keep him on a halter and lead so he can't walk away from me. He shows typical one-sided behavior. I started teaching him by standing on his left and he is much more hesitant when I move to his right. He tries to walk around behind me to put me back on his left....which technically is OK since he is touching the target and in fact is putting a lot of effort to get to it. But I want him to learn that he can work off both sides so that it will transfer over to other parts of working with him including riding.

He also likes to conserve his energy and so backing up to take his treat is not something he does willingly. I do think that will be important to teach him because if a child has a treat, I want him to back away to get it, not reach for it. He will also really benefit from the muscle building which will occur with the "rebalancing" of his weight to back up. Today he was very unwilling to back but I realized that he was a little concerned about the footing (slushy ice) and if I positioned him so that he was backing on the level or slightly downhill, he would back; it was only if he had to back up a slight incline that he refused (and so would abandon the treat rather than back up to get it.) Hopefully that shows that I am learning to problem solve!