Unlimited access >

Clicker Training - Intrinzen Crunch!

Teaching Savannah via clicker training how to do the Intrinzen crunch:

https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=pnIvH5ERbwc

So this video accidentally turned out more interesting than intended… It shows both how fast learner my horse is (this progress is after literally one 10 minute session yesterday, and then I did three sample tries before I turned on the camera to display her progress today) and what a sassy baby she is (and how I handle that).

I’ll probably get some criticism for how I handled her rearing and lunging a little at me… My approach has always just been to act super unimpressed. She doesn’t get anything out of me, not a big reaction, not a punishment, certainly not what she was after. I just move her out of my space and keep asking for what I was asking for, and when she does the behavior I was asking for she gets the treat. These explosive episodes have become increasingly fewer. I find if anyone tries to correct her for doing things like rearing, nipping, threatening to kick… it escalates. She likes to fight back against pressure, so I just don’t give her anything to fight against. I take the wind out of her sails, as it were.

I have a super-long post on my blog about why I handle her outbursts the way I do. To summarize though, she is just testing/displaying the way she would with another horse, asking “Are you really in charge here? Or can I just make you step away from that food I want if I show off a little instead of waiting for a command and obeying it?” All I need to do is not back down, and continue to calmly assert myself to maintain control and respect; I don’t need to lash out at her for this (unless she is truly aggressive).

I could actually tell I was hitting her limit - you can hear me saying “just one more time, or you’ll get spoiled rotten” or something to that affect. Which was my cutesy way of saying “I see by your body language you are frustrated and about to get pushy, so I’m gonna wrap this up.” Sure enough, she got pushy right as I finished my sentence. So I regained control, made her do the behavior once more, and then released pressure by ending the exercise. Had I run out of the stall when she reared, she would have learned rearing gets her out of having to work. Instead, she learned rearing gets her nothing and nowhere, but performing the requested behavior gets her a reward and release from any further work - double reward! Next time maybe she’ll save her energy and skip the rearing =P Easy treats!

I can’t see the video because for whatever reason the link is taking me to you tube general as opposed to the actual video, but I overall conpletely agree with unflappably but persistently asking again.

I posted a video on COTH once of a youngster getting overwhelmed at a horse show and backing politely but irreversibly (or really un-irreversibly) out of the ring. I thought it was a funny babies being babies video.

Cue several pages of COTH flipping out that I “let him get away with it,” that I needed to teach him that “leg means GO” that I needed to make clear that this sort of behavior wad unacceptable, along with predictions that I was going to turn him into a flipper and get killed if I kept this up.

What actually happened was that we went back in the ring and made it further around before getting eliminated, so he got a pat for getting further. Then we went back in a third time and made it the whole way and got a big pat for being so brave.

A few years passed and I got my usdf bronze medal on that horse, and then I sent him to hunterland to get sold where he promptly started winning with adult amateurs and then sold for more than I paid for my house. I look him up pn USEF and he is consistently in the tri colors at big shows with his new older adult amatuer pilot.

If only I had beaten him more when he was a baby I wouldn’t have screwed him all up.

Me too…can’t see your video.

This is weird…I click on the link and it takes me to a google log-in.

I can got to youtube with the video ID and get to the video.

I pasted the wrong link… I’ve been trying to edit the post since I posted it, but for some reason the forum won’t let me do that. The “edit post” button just gets me stuck on the loading screen. Here’s the correct link:

https://youtu.be/pnIvH5ERbwc

I pasted the wrong link… I’ve been trying to edit the post since I posted it, but for some reason the forum won’t let me do that. The “edit post” button just gets me stuck on the loading screen. Here’s the correct link:

https://youtu.be/pnIvH5ERbwc