Self-Clipping

Self-haltering and bridling are common things to teach a horse with clicker training. Percy is very good at self-haltering....I just need to remember to give him time to do it. I hold out his halter at my waist height and he puts his nose down into the noseband and holds it very still so I can slip the crownpiece over his head.

Today I decided to do a little clipper work with him since I had gotten the clippers out to trim up bridle paths and such on the others. As he's just a baby, I'm not worried about any fuzzy bits on him, but clippers can be Scary Things so I might as well introduce them long before I ever have a need to really use them. I first let him sniff them all over. I was carrying them to the barn when he accosted me with his typical "hey, whatcha got there? What are those things? Can I sniff them? Can I eat them? What are you going to do with them?" So that was a pretty simple process.

Next I waited until he was about 10 feet away but looking at me and I turned them on. I wanted him paying attention so he wasn't startled but not so close he was frightened. At this point, I was in the barn with a panel between us. I just wanted to see his reaction. His head went up and his eyes got very big- and he came closer to investigate. As soon as he began to approach, I clicked and turned them off. So of course he came to me for his treat and to check out those clippers again. I turned them on again and he leaned away with his nostrils flaring and keeping a close eye on them. As soon as he moved toward them at all, I clicked and turned them off.

This was one of those things I didn't really have a plan for. I was just flying by the seat of my pants. The concepts going through my head were: any approach needed to be rewarded and I wanted him to feel in control of the situation rather than at risk. So by clicking and turning them off when he approached, he was getting reinforced for approaching them AND was able to make them stop being so noisy. The other thing I hadn't planned out but that worked well was the panel between us. I certainly didn't feel the need for any safety reasons, but realized that it was preventing ME from falling into my traditional training of "just get it done" and try to approach him with the clippers rather than letting him approach me. The added benefit was that I was able to sit my camera on the edge of a stall and not worry about him investigating IT instead of the clippers!

Once he got to the point where he was staying right with me and sniffing the running clippers willingly although very cautiously, I stopped turning them off. I just left them running and held them out and he began his "self-clipping". I held them in different positions so they would touch different parts of his muzzle as he investigated- C/T for each touch. Slowly, the whiskers on his top lip got trimmed pretty well! I was careful not to move them as he investigated. As it was, he got poked by them several times and startled himself but came right back. I think it was different than if I had reached toward him and he'd gotten poked.

During this time, Rumer heard the clicking and came running. I had just fed everyone their noon hay so both these guys had been eating 2nd cut hay and had left it to come play with clippers. This is just another example of how much horses love this training. Some people claim it's because we are using food but I don't think many horses unfamiliar with clicker training would leave a large pile of green 2nd cut hay out in their paddock to come in and get clipped in exchange for hay stretcher pellets being doled out 2 at a time.

Rumer and I had played with clippers last year when she was a yearling and had not been too successful....I had done much more of an "approach" method with her. So I just let her hang around and any time she touched the clippers, she got C/T'd too. It was pretty funny to see the two babies pushing each other out of the way to get at the clippers! She was not nearly as bold as he was but I just let her do as much as she felt like. She certainly had a lot more whiskers left afterward than he did. She also was not as patient when I walked away to reset the camera and would get halfway back to her hay pile before hearing me clicking again and would come hustling back.

It was a great introduction for Percy and a good re-start for Rumer. I think I'll do a little bit each day when I spend time with them.

Owie!

Well, Percy earned his first little boy stitches today :( The good news is that he was very, very good about the whole thing. I was so glad he has had the clicker training that he has so that he felt he had a choice in the whole matter (even though he really didn't!), but it made all the difference in the world to handling him. The vet repeated over and over what a good boy he was being.

My first trick was putting his halter on, considering where the wound was. And that was clicker training's first victory. Since Percy was trained to "self-halter", he does not try to evade the halter at all, but rather pokes his nose into the noseband when I hold the halter, and then holds it still while I do up the crownpiece. Very different from trying to stuff many weanlings into a halter while they try to wiggle away! And in this case, if it hurt, he could stop, rather than me trying to force it on him. He had no fear or anxiety about the situation. I did click a couple times for him putting his nose in just to reassure him but also knew it probably didn't feel good going on although once it was on, the noseband sat above the wound.

I wasn't sure at first how deep the wound was, but my biggest concern was that there were large bubbles coming out of the blood in the wound. That made me think that air was coming OUT of the wound....which made it seem like the wound must go all the way through to the inside of his mouth. It didn't look that bad, however, so I decided to see if he would let me clean it enough to get a better look at it. I took a bucket of hot water and some cotton out to him and put him in the round pen where it was bright and protected from the other horses. I let him investigate the things I had brought with me and C/T'd him for touching the various scary objects like the crinkly roll of cotton. Once he was comfortable with that, I dipped some cotton in the water and just wiped a little blood off below the wound where I hoped it was not too painful. He let me do it and I C/T'd but he didn't like it. After a couple times, I tried the other side and he let me scrub away at the other side of his face with no problem. That told me that he was reacting from pain on the injured side, not because he didn't like the feel of the cotton or hot water. I did not want to traumatize him at all before having a vet look at him so I decided it was time to call him in. I did not want the halter irritating the wound so I carefully removed it and let him out of the pen. I was glad to see he was willing to eat his hay.

When the vet arrived, I was in the barn and had Percy followed me- no halter or rope, out to meet him. He walked right up to the good doctor and stood for visual examination. He then followed me back to the round pen where I had left his halter and followed me in. Clicker training victory #2 (at least)- no equipment needed to get him where I needed him and proof that he was happy, confident and not fearful. He willingly put his head in the halter again and stood pretty well while the vet administered a sedative. Now you COULD say that after that, his excellent behavior was all due to the fact that he was under pharmaceutical effect, but considering how the vet kept telling him how good he was being and commented that he was a lot better than adult horses he had treated, and I have seen plenty of horses react like lightening even under the influence, I think his comfort levels and training had a huge amount to do with the fact that the rest of it went off without a hitch.

The vet did check the inside of his mouth and found a matching wound on the inside of his cheek, a little bit longer. He could not find any connecting hole, but said, considering the bubbles, there might have been a very tiny hole. The question was, HOW did he do it??? I think I found the culprit:

He and Rumer had been playing hard this morning and had managed to break this insulator off the panel. I guessed, and the vet agreed, that Percy had somehow gotten that sharp crack in the broken insulator into his mouth so that each side of it cut both the inside and outside of his mouth. We are hoping the inside will heal well on its own and not get full of food, etc. He got a tetanus booster and his spring shots while we were at it- stitches come out in 10-14 days.