Clicker Training with Horses

I've been thinking my doing some clicker training with the horses for a long time, but I finally had enough reasons that I had to start. With Ria, I am mostly worried about how she reacts around treats. She gets very mouthy and I don't like that. With Quintas, my goal is to work with her and how she stands while DH is doing her feet. She tends to pull and push a lot while he's working on her and I can see clicker training could do a good job in cleaning that up.

The first lesson I want to teach them is zen. Zen is all about self-control. In any kind of animal, it's dealing with the art of getting what you want by acting like you don't want it.

I was a little nervous training this because it could be quite dangerous. The dogs when I start them as puppies are pretty limited in how much damage they can actually do to my hands. Also, both of them have learned that "OW" means back off that you're hurting me. But the horses haven't learned that. Most of the time that you working with horses your goal is to never let them find out that there actually bigger than you. It also means making an effort yourself to avoid things that will cause them to bite.

Holding out a treat in a closed hand in front of a horse's nose is very likely to cause it to bite. This is why you always feed horses with an open flat hand.

So I did some asking on my dog clicker training list because I know some people there have worked with other animals. I got some great advice as well as a pointer to a llama training book made by the author of my preferred dog training method. They also recommended a voice clicker training book, but I've kind of blown my book budget on other things at the moment.

So anyway, I started last night with my first Zen session. I took two apples and used the corer-divider on them (they got the cores too, just made pieces easier) and went over to the fence. They came right up, so I worked outside the fence. First Ria, then Quintas, etc. They already do half decent respecting each other's spaces, which made it easier to work them in turns. A step to one side or the other for a particular horse.

I held out the treats where they could barely reach them with necks stretched out as far into my space as they could. As soon as they pulled back into their own space, I clicked and treated. Using a verbal cue for eating, which I am sure they will pick up pretty fast. Both figured it out pretty quickly. They didn't quit reaching after the treat, but they got faster and faster at pulling their heads back and waiting for the click.

Not sure what I will do to continue right now. Our grass shortage got too intense, so last night we put all 4 together onto their summer pasture. We split that up for strip grazing, which means that right now they can't get near the road side of the fence. Going the other way around to them is extremely challenge for me. It is rough terrain in woods and a hay field and a lot longer walk than I am up to. So I guess sessions will be limited to when one horse is home for something, That does have the advantage of working one-on-one, but the disadvantage of rarity.