>>> I think it works great, there might be a little mugging at first, but that goes away when they figure out this isn't the way to get a treat. Clicker training really gets them on board with whaterever you are trying to do really quickly, you can just see those wheels start to spin.
That's the part I rarely hear discussed re: c/t - when those wheels may start spinning to the point that the horse offers behaviors one after another, almost as a click-aholic. Or when you need to do something simple, like say, check the pulses in the horse's foot, and he/she wants praise for picking up their foot, or decides to "count" by pawing, whatever. That simply wears on my nerves. I haven't clicker trained many horses - and none extensively. I'm talking about horses I've seen others train, and whom I've occasionally had to deal with. Eagerness is a good thing...up to a point. I honestly don't worry about the mugging for treats as much as I do when you can't get a horse to pay attention to what you're asking him to do because he/she is trying SO hard to offer one behavior after another. I'm sure there are ways to avoid this syndrome...but I don't hear it discussed much, and I think people should be thinking about where they are going with the clicker when they start it. But then, I guess that applies to ALL training we do. Karen Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED]
