Steps to Train a behavior

Often, the first step for many people when learning R+ is to just add a click and treat to their already learned behaviors or use their known pressure/release training but add a treat. This can work for many well adjusted horses, but did you know you can take the pressure/release out entirely? In all your training up to riding, driving, agility at liberty, wild tricks and anything you can think of.

See pressure/release isn't just pressure, the pressure must be aversive to the horse for the pressure to stimulate a reaction and for it's removal to be reinforcing. So while it's an effective training tool, it can be kinder and provide a more honest conversation by chosing to let go of this tool.

How do we get behaviors without any physical contact? When someone asks “how do I train…” your answers should fall under one of these.

Antecedent Arrangement – first and most important is arranging the environment to make the right answer as easy to stumble upon as possible. With the use of ground poles, targets, stations, mats, grass, other horses, fences, toys, anything you can think of, you can make it really obvious what behavior you want from the horse.

Shaping – free shaping is what most people think of when they think of clicker training. This is where you mark and reinforce every incremental step towards the goal behavior. It’s pretty straight forward and you can create just about any behavior the horse is capable of doing. But this requires careful timing and careful increase of criteria to keep progress smooth, effective, and not frustrating for the learner. Increase the criteria on the behavior only as you’re sure they’re ready to take that next step.

Capturing – This is another typical thing people think of when they think of clicker training. This is as straight forward as clicking for when the horse does the goal behavior naturally. Like catching when the horse is lying down, rolling, sniffing the air, or anything! Just catch it often enough until the horse offers it and you can put it on cue. Except for this method we need to know when a horse does these behaviors naturally – like rolling after a bath or in a nice sandy area, or smelling the air when given an essential oil to smell. Use those antecedents to get those behaviors!!

Targeting – Using a target is one of my go-to favorite ways to get the behaviors I want. It’s quick and easy and my horses sort things out quickly. We can use a nose target to lure the horse into any position or into any movement. We can use body part targets to teach the horse to move different parts of themselves independently. And we can use stationary targets to teach the horse to stay still or send away from us.

With these methods at our disposal there’s no behavior you can’t teach and get on cue!