Why clicker training?

First thoughts: January 2004

With so many training resources and books out there, what makes clicker training different? This is a question I think about every time I try to explain clicker training to someone new. I live in an area that has a lot of horse activity and good professionals. I could choose to work on a regular basis with someone local who is a well known professional. Instead I work by myself, getting along on 3 or 4 clinics a year (if I’m lucky) which are 5 hours away.  Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. Then I go out to the barn and look at my horses and the answer is “yes.”

So why? The horses tell me.  They are all happy to see me. The horses in the fields come right up to the gate when I go to catch them. Everyone is always eager to come out and play. And yes, I no longer think of horse training as work, I think of it as play.  Some of this is because I tend to mix in some non-traditional lessons with my regular work. I do a lot of tricks and games with my horses.  They seem to enjoy the chance to do something different and it gives them a break from the more difficult work.

            Rather than give you a scientific explanation for why I think clicker training works better, I thought I would just share a few stories of times when it really became clear to me why I love clicker training.

            I have had many “ah-ha” moments, but a few really stand out in my mind. When Rosie was learning to work in the ring, she became scared of the far end. As a result, if I was coming across the ring and wanted to turn at the rail, I could turn towards the gate, but not towards the far end. I experimented around with all different kinds of rein and leg aids and I could make her turn, but it was still clearly not willing on her part. Finally, I spent about 2 sessions where I only clicked her for turns away from the gate.  Problem solved.  Even after I went back to clicking for better turns, and these were not always towards the back, she continued to turn either way for me.  Early on, before I started just clicking her for turns toward the back, I experimented one day with riding her down the center line toward the back.  She would get about 2/3 of the way down, and then refuse to go.  I decided this was silly and decided to make her go there, even though she was clearly uncomfortable with the idea.  I was very clear in my intent and kept her facing the back and kept asking her to go forward until she took a step.  I didn’t use a whip or any undue force, but I gave her no choice as to where she was going. Well, she went. Her head was up, back was down, she was walking stiffly and she was poised for flight at any moment. I hated it!  So we went back to the “safe” end, and later in the session, I tried just clicking her for walking toward the end, and then letting her choose whether or not she wanted to continue in that direction, or turn away. It was a different horse. She chose to go the “scary” end, and although she didn’t march bravely down, her whole body posture was different and she chose to go that way.

            Another one with Rosie was when I taught her to canter. I rode her for a whole year at walk and trot, just playing around before I tried the canter. It seemed like a good idea at the time as she had a very unorganized trot and I just didn’t feel she was ready to canter. But then when I wanted her to canter, she had no clue. She canters in the field all the time, but it just hadn’t occurred to her that she could canter in the ring. I tried it first on the longe, or in my temporary round pen, and she just trotted faster and faster when I asked for a canter. If I pushed her beyond that, she would get upset.  So I left it for a while, and then when I tried it again, I used a ground pole. If I sent her forward over the ground pole, she sometimes picked up a canter so I clicked for that. Within a few sessions, we had a canter. This was cool, but the real “ah-ha” moment came for me one day a bit later. I had her in my temporary round pen and she was learning to canter without the pole. She had just figured out what I wanted and she was so funny.  I would send her out, ask for canter and she would canter. I would click and she would come in for her treat. Then she would go right back out quickly so she could try it again.  It was so clear that she thought this was wonderful. And all I could think was that this was wonderful too. It was such a fun way to teach a horse something new.

            Willy’s canter has given me some “ah-ha” moments too. As an ex-racehorse, his canter has always been an issue. He tends to be stiff to the right and it’s always tough to regulate his speed.  When I rode him on a strong contact, I was able to keep things under control. But when I started working on a looser rein, his canter became more difficult. If I went back to cantering with a strong contact, he was upset because he was no longer used to it. If I tried to canter him on a looser contact, he had no idea how to organize his body and would get unbalanced and go faster.   And, for as long as I have had him, downward transitions had always been difficult. He never wanted to go from canter to trot and it always took a few requests and too much rein.  With all the single rein work and softening, his canter is starting to change.  Recently I have been able to ask for a few strides of canter, click, drop the reins and have him come back to the walk. What an amazing thing.

UPDATE: September 2005

    The original content for this page was written in the winter of 2004 when I first created this web site. Since then, a lot has changed, but my fascination with clicker training has not, and I am now clicker training more than ever.  At my house, we have 6 horses which are all clicker trained to various levels.  I have learned a lot about using clicker training to train a foal from day one, to start a horse under saddle, and also about how to use clicker training to train a horse for more advanced ridden work.  I have used my clicker training skills to figure out how to maintain the focus and enthusiasm of my horses as the work gets more complicated. Both my riding horses are doing great and we have made a lot of progress. I find the precision of the clicker has been invaluable in teaching them to respond to my rein, leg and seat cues and to "catch" those moments when they get their bodies in correct alignment. 

    But more than that, I have found that the "clicker mindset" has made me a different rider. Every time I ride my horses, I learn something new, either about their bodies or mine, or about how to become a better trainer. I no longer have "bad" rides when my horse is uncooperative. This doesn't mean every ride goes the way I planned, but I have learned how to be flexible during my ride so that I work on what is needed that day, not what I had planned. I would not be able to do that if I hadn't learned to pick out the elements of prior training that were available to me that day, and use them to build and progress. 

    The more I think about clicker training and how I work with my horses now, the clearer it is that clicker training has made me a better trainer, not just a clicker trainer, but a horse trainer.  There are some key elements and skills that make good trainers and I feel that through clicker training, I have developed those qualities and improved my ability to communicate and motivate my horses to learn new things.

    Some of the skills that I have learned are:

        1. good timing

        2. lesson planning

        3. emotional control

        4. patience

        5. persistence

        6. the power of a strong mind (intent) over using muscle

        7. problem solving

        8. creative thinking

        9. increased powers of observation (awareness of my horse's body language and body alignment) and attention to detail

        10. a better understanding of how animals learn and how to use this to my advantage (the power of latent learning)

    This has led to a better relationship with my horses and a better understanding of how to build and maintain desired behaviors.  Because I work on my own most of the time, it is important for me to do my own problem solving and deal with training issues as they arise. Now, instead of getting frustrated, I am able to work through a training process to get the desired result.  I am so in tune with my horses, that I can pick up on their confusion and anxiety before it gets to be a problem.  

    And, of course, since I am a better trainer, my horses benefit too. Instead of being subjected to long repetitious sessions, I tend to keep the sessions short and varied. If I work for a long time,  I break it up into sections. I no longer repeat something many times to make sure they "get it." In most cases, as soon as they make a significant improvement, or offer the correct behavior once, I will end the session or move on to something else. I am always amazed at the power of processing time. In addition, if I only have a short period of time, I can still find something fun and interesting to do with them. If the weather is bad, or my schedule is tight, I can spend 10 minutes training them and it gives them some interaction and variety to their day.

    It is very clear to me that the horses enjoy this training and if I miss a few days, they are asking for me to come play with them. It is addictive for the trainer too. Once you open the lines of communication between you and your horse, you will never want to go back. Unless you spend some time with a clicker trained horse, I think it can be hard for people to understand that there are no limits to what you can train with clicker training.   Because clicker training is new for horses, there are not a lot of clicker trained horses out in the public eye, but that doesn't mean that it is not a valuable tool and that more clicker trained horses are not going to be out there sometime soon.  I think the value in clicker training is that it is so flexible. It is a great tool because it can be used to train a horse for the public or competition, just as well as it can be used to train a family horse for its owners own pleasure and enjoyment.

    This question of the versatility of clicker training came up on the clickryder list (yahoo groups) in September 2005 when a new member posted a question on clickryder asking if there were high level performance horses out there that had been clicker trained. She was looking for examples of performance or demonstration horses that showed that clicker training works for behaviors beyond basic care and handling. The following response was written by Peggy Ferdinand in response to that question. Peggy has been clicker training dogs for about 9 years and has attended three of the Bailey & Bailey chicken camps. She teaches some classes on clicker training and is developing a series of workshops for first-time horse owners on some of the things they may not have picked up relative to horse-keeping. In her teaching, she is firmly committed to helping people understand the "whys" of clicker training so that they are not limited to trying to follow someone else's "recipe"---which may or may not work for their horse, or their situation. She has her own horse and is clicker-re-training him (he had a few small "issues" to be addressed when she got him). Horses have always been her "first love," and she is hoping to be able to do more horse training.

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Here is Peggy's reply:

I've been thinking about your request for serious/high-level (not your words) training projects that have proven the usefulness of the clicker for training all sorts of behaviors. I wasn't sure whether you were asking whether there was sufficient evidence to justify "switching over" completely to clicker training, or whether you were just starting a discussion for some other reason--but I have enjoyed thinking about it all, and reading the various posts.

As far as evidence goes, I think it's useful to remember that most people who have horses as pets/companions train to the level that they need, given what they do with their horses on a regular basis. Most folks do train behaviors like picking up feet, for instance, or calm behavior when in the arena or on the trail, or standing still for mounting, or riding/showing disciplines (for those who know enough about the sports to do that--for example, I love dressage and have had lessons but would not be capable of training a dressage horse because *I* am still learning the "rider" part; I don't have any doubt about my training skills per se, but I wouldn't know how to chunk down the horse's job enough to train those things effectively).

I've been inspired by Beth's scentwork training with Ao and am planning to start Sass on the same stuff once I can get on him without two assistants (I ride with a bareback pad, and till I finish training him to stand still, in order to get on I would need one person to hold Sass and one person to give me a leg up).

To me, the acid test of the clicker method is not whether clicker training can be used to create extremely high-level behaviors, but whether it works "on the ground," for lots of different people with lots of different challenges, rather than only for the "best" trainers/those in the 'Master' category. Since people on this list are working on AND succeeding with a wide variety of training tasks---often based on **e-mail coaching** for heaven's sake(!!!!!), and/or experience with another species (often dogs), and/or occasional opportunities to interact with other clicker trainers---there is solid evidence that clicker training is VERY effective, on an *extremely* broad basis, AND very accessible (i.e., you don't have to go to Spain or Germany for years and apprentice with one of the masters to benefit from using it---although that would be an incredibly cool experience, IMHO!!).

And when you add the fact that many folks on this list are, as Beth phrased it, "refugees" who have in many cases tried the other methods and found that they wouldn't work for their horses (i.e., we are dealing with a population of "difficult" animals)--that says a lot to me, too!

Finally, the variety of species that can be clicker-trained is another thing in favor of clicker training. Elephants, big cats, wolves, horses, domestic cats, dolphins, killer whales, coatimundi (sp?), pigeons, ravens, vultures, rats, dogs, goldfish, raccoons, chickens, fiddler crabs . . . all of these and more have been trained to do things using the clicker, and many of them learned tasks that *did* have to go on the road in just the way you were asking about. (Not the goldfish, and not the chickens, BTW <ggg>.) This says to me that clicker training isn't limited to this or that animal, or this or that task: it's a question, rather, of how far the trainer wants to go in learning to use the techniques, and of what training projects s/he is willing to take on.

Well, this got longer than I expected, so I'll stop now, but I found your question was very thought-provoking and answering it allowed me to put into words a lot of things I've been mulling over, over the years.

Best,
Peggy Ferdinand
Minnesota

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And as Alexandra Kurland likes to say "There are no limits with clicker training."



I’m sure many people have had moments when they just think, “wow, this is why clicker training is so great.”  If you have a story you would like to share, please email it to me at katie.bartlett@att.net.  I think stories like this are part of what makes clicker training so special, what keeps people going and encourages new people who are just starting. 

Thanks, and happy clicking,

Katie