I found it easier to use my mouth, I say yes with one horse and the other horse gets a click sound with my mouth. Usually my hands are busy and it’s easier, I always have it on me, and works just fine.
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Same, between a lead rope and cookies and maybe a target I’m holding, the clicker never really worked for me. I use YES! in a particular tone of voice to mean the same thing.
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While I agree that punishment = eliminating behavior and reinforcement=encouraging behavior (and apologize if I was unclear in the first post), I disagree that this example is negative reinforcement.
That is, in Operant Conditioning, the negative and positive are seen as math related, not emotion related. This is a common confusiong and similar to the “positive response” confusion in medical terms.
In Operant conditioning, positive is giving, negative is taking away.
So:
positive punishment is giving an unwanted stimulus (hit, yell,etc) to eliminate the behavior
Negative punishment is taking away a wanted stimulus (treats, freedom in the field, etc) to eliminate a behavior
Positive reinforcement is giving a wanted stimulus (treat, verbal/clicker indication of good job) to reinforce the behavior.
Negative reinforcement is taking away an unwanted stimulus (stop hitting or yelling) to encourage the behavior.
So, in the example of wanting a horse to move over at a verbal command. The scenario as follows uses all 4 quadrants:
Let’s say horse is eating and we want him to move over to get in the stall to clean it. He’s ignoring us so the first thing we do is take away dinner/hay (negative punishment - taking away wanted stimulus[hay] to eliminate behavior [not listening to use]). Now we then push/hit (postive punishment - adding unwanted stimulus [push] to eliminate behavior [ignoring us/standing in our way]). Once the horse starts to move, we stop hitting/pushing (negative reinforcement - taking away unwanted stimulus [pushing] to reinforce behavior [moving away from us/listening to verbal command]). Following it with giving him his hay/dinner back is positive reinforcement (giving wanted stimulus [food] to reinforce behavior [listening to us/moving]).
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As far as clicker training goes - I have nothing against it and if it works for you, great, but some people think it is this amazing thing and it isn’t, it’s just another way to use Operant Conditioning. We are all different people so will find doing things differently works.
I was riding a horse that within 2 tries figured out “bow” meant stick his head between his legs. I thought it would be a cute trick for this little OTTB to take with him to his future (more than likely) young rider…well…we had to stop that first day because he spent the entire rest of the untacking session, down to the stall, out to the field the next day trying to bow to get a treat…no clicker involved.
My friend’s horse begs for a treat by lifing his leg and she’s teaching the others this. My horse knows a whistle means a treat and also knows when I wave my hand at her chest she is to back up.
On the other hand - I find dressage whips difficult to use (I blame my short arms) and tend to not use them for anything other than “go”, I constantly hit MYSELF in the leg if I attempt to actually use a jumping crop and do not really lunge at all…
I also have to keep explaining to people that I have nothing against full cheek snaffles, I just don’t use them because I stuck the right side in two different horses’ mouths. The first one absolutely flipped out (completely understandable). The second one didn’t react at all and my trainer noticed it as we were walking past her.
That doesn’t mean any of these above are bad or wrong…just you know…not my skill set. Similar with clicker training - isn’t any better or worse than anything else, just another tool.
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I do do the click thing for some tasks. I talk a lot too. When I do agility they know “out” and “touch” and so on. I probably rely on voice more than I realize cause the old body is just uncooperative.
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YES!
I know the tone :grinning.
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I have done tons of ground work…not because the horse needed it but because I was physically unable to ride for large swaths of time. I had to do something with her besides endless lunging.
I dabbled with clicker training but gave up and mostly use my voice and treats for a job well done. My mare is very food motivated and it seemed all I needed.
My ground work has certainly become more refined and she seems to enjoy it and I have fun so when I can’t ride, we can still work on relationship.
IMG_1712
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After doing so much this year with Charlie, and him getting SO into it has done so much more on the relationship side. I’ve always prioritized that, but not being able to ride really gave us some time to get into a groove. Now he is actively choosing to engage with me and I feel like our shared vocabulary has really increased. Your mare seems to enjoy it too 
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Yes, she seems too. She is a cheap date though…it doesn’t take many treats for her to buy into what I am asking her to do. I don’t always use treats and she knows better than to mug me for them so we get along fine. I think she has come to enjoy a good pat or “good girl” just as much.
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A friend of mine has studied all the classic natural horsemanship people and is very skilled at groundwork and colt starting, and is also successful in the show ring in multiple FEI disciplines / has worked for and with lots of folks in that sphere, AND incorporates R+ in a non-traditional way (no clicker).
Recently they said to me they think the reason “natural horsemanship” trained horses get a bad rap isn’t because of the training itself — it’s because the horses often do nothing else and become bored and sour. Their owners learn the seven games, or a similar number of exercises/activities, and are maybe too nervous to do much else… so they drill and drill the same few things, and the horses get understandably cranky.
I’m a big fan of ‘take what you like and leave the rest.’ I learned a lot about R+ a few years ago while working with a very difficult project pony, but didn’t find I needed to be strictly R+ for it to have impact. I think it’s almost the opposite, actually - a little bit of R+ can do a lot to help your horse see you’re on their team and motivates them to invest in you and trust you.
I was getting on a horse today that’s known to be bad about the mounting block and a few people told me they couldn’t believe how well he did. I just spent a week or two giving him half a treat right before I put my foot in the stirrup and the other half when I was fully mounted and that eliminated 90% of the issue. Sometimes R+ is just stuffing a treat in their mouth.
I’ll work in natural horsemanship concepts or old-school H/J stuff or classical dressage ideas in the same way, they’re all tools in the toolbox to deploy as needed. The more the merrier.
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Yes, like how every horse who won’t stand well for the farrier was “hit with a rasp” by some unspecified previous devil farrier. It’s definitely not that the owner won’t put time/effort into training the horse to stand politely.
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this ^ - use the tools to suit the individual situation not blindly following the “one true path”
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I’m a farrier and this is oh so common - perhaps instead of letting pookie’s not standing escalate to the point he gets a smack from a frustrated farrier you deal with the root cause be it training or physical.
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I am a strong proponent of doing what works for the horse. That includes how much time you spend in each quadrant. It also includes using different types of training methods.
One Tennessee Walker years ago would run off the minute you put a foot in the stirrup. I used John Lyons - do everything 900 times, break it down, do it on each side of the horse. Up to the mounting block and down and if he stood, we took a little walk around the round pen (negative reinforcement - taking away the “work” aspect by going on a little walk to reinforce the standing still). I gradually/quickly got up to putting a foot in the stirrup, then mounting - several times on each side, get off, go for a walk. I also gradually upped the amount of times of each task prior to the walk (1 to 5 to 10, then to the next level in task completion). It took that horse 20 minutes to figure it out.
A mare I am riding now - she’s smart like that also, but in an evil villian way. She isn’t really bad - no bucking or rearing - but occasionally something will happen and she will balk/maybe hump her back…rider decides they are done. Well what do you know, next ride she tries the same trick. Treats don’t work for unsticking her. Tap tap tap with the whip with thump thump thump with the leg until she complies is what gets her to realize that trick isn’t the best bet - that’s positive punishment, followed by negative reinforcement.
The gelding I work with - he’s a people pleaser and works best with positive reinforcement. I accidentally tapped him with the whip the same degree I do with the mare when he was sucking back at the trot (he just started trotting) and he dolphined around the arena in a panic…I had to talk him off the ledge. The most I need to do with him is a little squeeze, maybe a tickle of the whip .
My mare, of course, was born perfect…no training needed there…one day she swears she will have me trained to be a decent rider but she loves me so is willing to deal with my flaws.
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Or that the horse is just a butthead and is overly concerned with its own priorities instead of staying focused on the people. 
In any case, the fix is equally necessary.
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You missed the “for some things” from the saddle. And the use of non food rewards in clicker training - some of which could be used from the saddle.
I’m a bit surprised that someone as good at clicker training as you are hasn’t been able to figure out how to use it mounted - even if it’s just a theoretical exercise for you. I can see by other posts in this thread that I’m not the only one who has been able to use clicker training for ridden work.
Just because you find a thing easy doesn’t mean it’s an easy thing to do. Don’t sell yourself short - you are quite capable of doing not easy things. Like everyone else, you too will find some things hard that others find “too easy almost.”
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I was able to teach a very fast halt from the saddle with clicker! But it didn’t persist when I stopped clicker reinforcement… Also I do use treats at the mounting block and sometimes over trail obstacles and opening gates. And for picking up dropped gloves on the trail. It is good for backing up and for fine-tuning lateral moves. What I have never been able to do is use it for modifying faster forward work.
My mare’s main issue remains getting balky and stoppy in the arena unless she is warmed up and having a good day. I used clicker for a limited time to get her out of angry balky days and stop escalating her behaviour.
But I found out when I tried to wean her off treats, she would then display the behavior that elicited a treat session. Since my main issue was stopping and balking, it was hard to incorporate clicker without encouraging stopping. On a horse with more reliable forward that might not be an issue
When maresy is warmed up she will move out, do collection and extension to the best of her ability and do her lateral work. She doesn’t need treats for that.
I’ve never figured out how to bridge for a long time, like say 5 minutes. We can multiple rounds of noseballl or walk at liberty from different mats or play fetch and not get treats every single time.
But if say we went into collected trot and I clicked, she’d likely just slam on the brakes and look round at me! I feel like under saddle once she’s warmed up, negative reinforcement in terms of fairly gentle cues that become quite still when balance is achieved, my balance, and the intrinsic pleasure of moving out do the job. And verbal praise but not a click.
I also feel like clicker works best for one cue/ one action behavior where the person does not need to modify the posture of the horse. So it’s great for teaching a fast whoa, but not enough to teach a slide or even a balanced dressage stop. You say whoa and horse stops the way they see fit that day.
Collection and extension likewise are a complex balance of cues including getting the horse forward and getting them light in front. You can certainly train a horse at liberty to do slow trot and fast trot on voice or hand cues, but you can’t really alter their natural balance like you can in the saddle.
So it’s not that I don’t use it for anything under saddle, but rather that it was counter productive for my main issue, which was being balky in the arena.
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My apologies. Now it’s obvious that this:
meant “I personally didn’t find clicker training from the saddle useful to correct my mares primary ridden issue of balking, although it was helpful for other minor ridden issues.”
Thanks for clarifying.
My greenie is a bit of a weirdo, so I had to go outside the box in a lot of ways with him. Learned a lot of things about different kinds of training.
Clicker training has been great for him. He went from a very VERY stuck, not-forward, reactive guy (loooong story there), to a forward thinking, curious, bold, willing partner in whatever I throw at him. When something makes him nervous, his instinct is to go towards it because good things happen when he faces scary things. That’s a big disconnect with people, I think. There’s a lot of talk of keeping horses under threshold, and sure, you need to when you are learning things. But what it ACTUALLY does is change the way they think about things and approach problems, as well as regulate their emotions and reactions. Correctly done, you don’t even need the treats any more, the click becomes the reinforcement, too (or whatever marker you use). And if they do get too amped up for learning, it’s pretty amazing how you can use a target or whatever other simple request they know to bring them right back down and relax them.
BUT, and this is a big but, it’s not easy. I frankly don’t like seeing so many people try to do it on their own when they dont have even the right timing for negative reinforcement training (pressure-release). It’s SO easy to reward the wrong thing, and requires a fair amount of coordination too. It’s honestly not a good method for everyone. And it’s actually very technical to do it correctly, you have to have exemplary timing and the ability to notice the slightest shift towards the desired behavior.
It also IS excellent for riding. But again, you have to be very purposeful about it. And again, not everyone will be very good at it. And the part a lot of people miss is that you have to teach the horse how to take the rewards while riding (no slamming on the brakes swinging the head around for a treat, but responding calmly to your request to halt, waiting with their head straight until you offer the treat, changing which side you feed from, etc). Just like anything else with riding, most people really need to have an instructor teaching them to use it correctly on a horse that already knows it.
Basically, I love it as an extra training tool to have. Horses understand it really well, you can really clarify exactly what you are looking for and it’s so fun to watch them problem solve to find the right answers. While it is possible to train 100% with it, I feel like that’s more experimental than really practical and I don’t foresee that becoming the norm. I’d love to see more people willing to incorporate it in their regular training though, WITH the help of someone who knows how to do it. But I disagree that everyone and their grandma need to go out on their own and start doing it.
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Yes I agree with all of this!
