Clicker Training Chickens and what they can teach us Going to Chicken Camp was always one of my bucket list items as a positive reinforcement trainer. But I didn’t think it would ever happen, unless I made another educational trip to the US. But then I was so happy to hear about one happening thanks to […]
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Equine Enrichment – My Journey into Arts, Crafts & Landscaping Clicker training is lots of fun for our horses, but providing enrichment opportunities is another fabulous way for humans to get creative, have fun and enrich our horses’ lives. Join me on a journey of recycling, foraging and earthworks ! I really love playing around
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Classical or Operant When Fear is Involved? When I train equines that have a lot of fear, or are unhandled, feral or traumatised in some way, I’m always very aware of how powerful Classical Conditioning and Counter Conditioning are and how they can serve me in helping these types of equines. This is in conjunction
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Equine Therapy – You don’t have to sit on me Most equine assisted therapy programs have a riding component. Did you know they also ride donkeys and mules, not just horses. Did you know that donkeys are even better suited to non ridden therapy than horses, due to their very curious, friendly and sociable nature?
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Clicker Training – Don’t Rush When you start clicker training, take your time. Don’t be in a rush, enjoy the journey. There’s so much to learn AND to enjoy and if you rush, you’ll miss that enjoyment and that learning. If you rush, you’ll also skip the opportunity to really refine what you are doing.
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Separation Anxiety – (“Buddy Sour”) Separation Anxiety, also known as being “Buddy Sour”, “Barn Sour”, or “Herd Bound”, is not a vice. It’s not something to punish or ignore, or worse, keep them alone to prevent the unwanted behaviour. Doing that makes their worse nightmare become a reality and then they live it day in,
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Feed for Position  I find that when I clicker train a new equine, I focus on feeding *out there* and work on delivering the food with my out-stretched arm, away from my body and my food pouch. This is to prevent a horse trying to sniff, nudge or forage on you or try to
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Self Haltering Your Horse It’s always nice to re-visit simple but important behaviours such as self-haltering. It’s nice training to do if you don’t have much time, the weather’s not great or you’re not feeling great yourself, but would still like to do something with your horse. All Positive Reinforcement training is money in their
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End of Session Signal or “Jackpot” I hear a lot of discussion about using end of session signals and I’ve heard them described as jackpots as well. End of session signals and jackpots are controversial and there is not a lot of science backing up their use. There is lots of reasons not to use
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“Consent Training” versus Horse Training I love this photo of Mercedes and me. It was the first clicker training session we filmed. I can see Mercedes’ body language, she was not sure what was going on and I was naively confident it would all go well. It was a bright new clicker training world back
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