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.

What do you do with a 2 year old?

I was recently admiring someone else's monthly goals for their horses and pondering doing that myself. It seems I have nebulous yearly goals but as she said, putting goals into months makes them more pressing and increases her chances of getting them done. I'm not sure if I'm just wishy-washy but when I thought about making monthly goals, I couldn't figure out how to combine that with being flexible and dealing with things that come up (opportunities) and adjusting my goals to suit the training needs as opposed to getting it done...(which somehow sounds like "make it happen" :)!

So I guess instead I have "projects" with each horse- what I am working on at any given time. Take Percy, for instance. A very long term goal is to get on him! I don't expect to do that until he is three, but it is a project I am working on now, even though he's only just turned two on July 1. One of the steps in this big goal is to get him used to a bit. I could stuff it in his mouth and let him wear it for a few hours and he'd get used to it. But I choose another route. I like Alex's "self bridling" technique and used it to introduce the bit to both Rumer and Percy last winter, when Percy was only 18 months. So, if my goal was to get the bit in his mouth, you could say I've already done that. But as I've worked with Ande and Rumer, I see more and more ways to break that lesson down, even though both Ande and Rumer self bridle.

Another piece of the "getting on Percy" goal is getting him used to me all over him, getting used to touch, to weight, etc. I honestly see grooming as part of this goal. Especially with a youngster with Thoroughbred blood as they can be so sensitive to both touch and fears.

Today, while Percy was eating his breakfast, I took my grooming box into his stall and thankfully, he chose to eat his lovely second cut hay rather than take everything out of the grooming box and dismantle it. I like to be able to groom him on cross ties or loose- I think there is value in both situations. As I groomed him, I was happy that I could use the grooming mitt and brush from head to toe without any concern or squirminess from him: around his ears, under his tummy, all the way down each leg, the inside of the opposite leg I was near, between his hind legs, etc. I was not worried about being kicked or startling him at all- he was completely relaxed. This tells me both that he is comfortable with me doing these things AND I know how much pressure to use without pushing him over any threshold. The ponies are happy with a rubber curry comb and pretty stiff brushes. But with him I use the mitt and a soft dandy brush. I can scrub enough to get the dirt up, but not so hard to make him dislike it. I did not click or treat at all- we are beyond that. He did listen and look for a CT when I picked out his feet because I do still occasionally click for foot manners, but I'm weaning him off it.

After that, I got out the little headstall thing my niece gave me for bitting. It's like a bridle but no noseband or reins and has little snaps to clip the bit on rather than complicated leather and studs. When I worked with him last winter, he had learned to take the bit into his teeth happily. The further steps I have found are:

• front teeth
• incisors
• bars of mouth
• holding it in the proper place, rather than immediately spitting it back out
• being comfortable with the bit coming back out
• the headstall approaching his eyes
• headstall approaching his ears
• headstall going over his ears
• the feel of wearing the entire contraption for any duration

Today, Percy willingly took the bit to the bars of his mouth and held it there for a couple seconds. The best part of the whole experience was I started thinking about the ideal of a dressage horse seeking out the bit- ideally reaching for the bit and the contact. That's exactly what Percy was doing. I had gone through the process with the others of teaching myself to anchor my elbows to my sides and not raise my hands at all when they are taking the bit. That is me putting it in the mouth. I want Percy to put it in his mouth, not me. I loved the image of him reaching out to grab it and pull it up in.

So those were today's little lessons- didn't take long. But baby steps on the way to being a riding horse! Tomorrow we'll do something different.

Clicking for Grooming

The weather has been really nasty here for the last several days but in the days before this I spent a lot of time with the shedding blade. I found myself using the clicker for many different behaviors while grooming.

Starting with the youngest, Percy got clicked for letting the shedding blade touch him all over his body. This is his first experience with it and he was happy to sniff it and bite it and showed no fear of the thing itself. As a result, I did not feel the need to click for just touching it and did not want him to think that was the purpose of the exercise! But I did click for standing still while I used it on his neck, and then progressed on to the rest of his body. When I first began with clicker training, it was hard to always think in terms of clicking FOR a particular behavior. I found myself almost clicking for MY behavior. In other words, if I was able touch a horse with the blade, then I clicked. Then if I was able to touch him twice with the blade, I clicked. This was very unproductive because I wasn't pinpointing a specific behavior of the horse. The horse might have been standing, might have been fidgeting, might have actually been pulling away. So the horse was getting rewarded for all these things. I am better now at deciding what specific behavior to look for...and knowing that I have to teach that behavior before I can expect the horse to do it in difficult circumstances. So in this case, I knew Percy already knew the rules for standing still (no moving feet) and for head down. I did a quick review of these behaviors so he knew what track I was on, and then began to use the blade, clicking after 1 swipe with the blade, then 2 swipes, then 3 etc. When I moved to a different part of the body, I began again with clicking for 1 swipe...being willing to stand still for having your neck worked with is different than standing still for having your tummy tickled! I think the most difficult thing for him was that at times it felt really good and he wanted to lean into it and his little nose would screw up as he tried so hard to hold still!

With Ande, I did the same basic exercise but required stillness from more of his body. I had done Percy just loose in his paddock, but Ande is familiar with cross-ties and I am trying to do it a lot so it becomes very natural for him to stand on them and not fidget with his head or bite the ropes, etc. He is really quite good, but more practice and reinforcement never hurts. I was also much more random with the clicks with him. I basically just worked away on him and clicked about once on each general body part (neck, barrel, rump, upper leg) when he was in the ideal position. He didn't move much but sometimes his head was up, or looking around at me. I chose the times that his head was low (as low as the cross ties allowed) and he had a relaxed expression on his face.

Rumer needs a lot of work on her feet. I clicked for the shedding blade as well- somewhere between the frequency of Ande and Percy, but I focused a lot of time on working with her feet. She is quick to pick up her feet like her mom. It almost seems like she is snatching them away from you but since I know Kizzy does the same, I don't try to change it. But that's her front feet. With her back feet, she does snatch them away and can kick out...she has been quick with her hind feet since she was a day old foal! I have always reasoned that she was different from the colts in this way- the boys bit, the girl kicked...seemed like a natural response. Luckily, Rumer gave up kicking when I started clicker training her- she began offering her front end instead of her hind end! But she is still sensitive to someone else touching her hind feet. The farrier tends to just hold on when she does that, but I want her to learn to relax and not have to go through that bit. So I am clicking her for leaving her foot down when I touch it. Then I gradually proceed to letting her just rest her foot and I will work up to having her rest it and letting me actually pick it up, rather than her doing the lifting.

Kizzy is the one who had me giggling because with all the cone work I've done with her, she is really getting into this game! For such a timid mare when I got her, it's great to see her putting herself out there and try things. With her, I wanted to teach her to stand with her nose on the cone for a duration of time so that I could groom her without tying her. I had taken her out of her paddock so there was the whole barnyard to explore and bits of hay just begging to be vacuumed by Kizzy the professional cleaning woman! I got her enthusiastically bonking the cone with her nose and then progressed to waiting a fraction of a second before clicking to give her the idea that she needed to leave her nose there as opposed to just a quick tap. She was pretty quick and pretty accustomed to just having touch it so it took several tries but she got it- sort of. The reason I got laughing was because she was so enthusiastic that she kept trying to do different things to the cone- smacking it with her nose to send it teetering like one of those punching clowns. But- she did get better at it- and in the process, I was able to give her a thorough shedding while she never left the cone. More practice to come with that one!