Thanks for your opinion. It seems that few attorneys are disbarred just as few MDs have their licenses revoked.
I wondered after this last election why judges were allowing these people to bring this nonsense to their courts without sanctioning them in some manner. I know they were dismissed, but wow what a waste of the court’s time.
Sorry for the derail.
Is anyone else finding Romm’s chosen handle… ironically hilarious?
Yes. Captain Justice - and just what your scumbag client deserved for his abusive practices. Justice.
You should have picked something along the lines of “Captain Camelpants”.
May the fleas of a thousand camels … and all that.
PS: Also not Sarah from Missouri.
It is rather funny. 
It will be interesting to see what the CAS has to say, if Kocher decides to appeal.
(I’m not Sara either)
I believe Sarah is still in Tampa. She is a wonderful horsewoman and human being and posts on this board.
Lol.
I found clicker training highly annoying before. Now, it’s extra annoying.
The annoyance probably exceeds any entertainment value such as in observing say certain gimmicky natural horsemanship, IMO.
I literally laughed out loud when I read that official published response which I shared the link to previously above.
I’m with you on that. While I understand the idea, it gives me a headache for some reason. Why is a click supposed to be rewarding? Doesn’t the animal get annoyed when it realizes that the food treat is no longer part of the deal?
I have never done clicker training on anything but the answers to these questions are kind of obvious.
You condition the animal that the clicking noise is positive by rewarding while clicking. Then the rewards become random and variable. Sometimes the noise brings a huge jackpot, sometimes the noise brings some praise. Always a good noise.
If they get annoyed that no food treat is coming then you did it wrong.
It isn’t the only tool in the box, but it can be an extremely useful one. And one need not use an actual mechanical clicker.
A decent trainer can create amazingly complex chains of behavior with the technique, and it has been invaluable in the care and treatment of zoo animals.
I have found it to be quite useful with anxious horses.
I actually laughed out loud when I read AK’s claim that he was using a clicker - and there was precious little to enjoy about the facts in the decision. A good clicker trainer is amazing to watch; a bad one, well, yeah, ugh. We had one at my barn who I swear was treating the clicker like it was a zapper. But you know what? Even her hopeless use of the clicker didn’t make her dog frantic like AK’s horses were in every video I’ve seen of him.
Absolutely. I understand why people use clickers. It’s simply not for me. Might be a neuro-sensory thing related to ADD – the clicker literally triggers a wave of dull pain in my head. (It does for some animals, too.) I also find it destabilizes my own mind & body – probably because I’m too busy watching for an outward action from the animal – thus disrupting my normal body language.
I agree it can function well as a CBT tool for some anxious horses.
I’ve clicker trained a dog. The idea is that over time performing the skill correctly becomes the reward and you can phase out treats (or other rewards like toys). It’s extremely useful for situations where you can’t stop to treat a dog (like in agility). No reason it wouldn’t work for horses though it’s not something I’ve bothered with because I don’t care to trick train a horse.
I want to know why he still on Facebook and Instagram advertising auctions and sale horses, he is clearly an abusive Person to animals. Another question is, who in the world would buy anything from him at this point?
He has fines to pay to the FEI, and presumably attorney’s fees.
I can’t imagine who would buy a horse from him. A bargain hunter with no scruples?
Fools. Because who the hell knows what he did to them before you bought them?!
I’ve pondered how I’d use clicker training (or at least using marker words since they’re less annoying) to train a horse. I don’t have my own horse to dabble with it, but it certainly wouldn’t have to be just for trick training. There’s all kinds of very practical stuff you could use it for. Ground work is an obvious one, but it could also be used for under saddle work. Beezie Madden used it to train Judgment to jump water, and it was obviously effective.
You could. There’s no reason it wouldn’t work.
I have a fjord filly that was born with significant vision impairment. Her original owner used the clicker to train her to approach new objects with confidence. I’ve heard with horses, it’s frequently used with the “touch” command to get them to touch something with their nose that is potentially frightening or new. The click rewards them for touching the scary thing, scary thing is now a good thing, less scary things in the world. I have not used the clicker with her specifically, but I’ve on occasion encouraged her to “touch” something that she believes to be potentially scary.
I have a gelding whose response to anything scary is to bop it with his nose and then look for a treat.
I hope someone does- they need good homes.
So he can make room in his barn to take in even more horses that he can abuse, and to keep putting money in his pockets?
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