Hi Karen, >>>The horses who become click-aholics worry me. The horses who seem to become so addicted to getting clicked that they will try anything and everything for praise, offering one behavior after another. Sometimes I like for a horse to stand quietly and trying to think it through before simply "doing".
There are definitely horses that I have seen like that. With a person good at clicker training you can click them for the thinking process, which I was very surprised to see. What I see with any training method if you have to keep repeating the same patterns over and over - ie with the 7 games for example - some people can forget and never go forward or just keep counting on the repetition even if they are creating worse habits of posture or balance. >>>Just as with any training idea, I know of horses that have developed bad habits through misapplied c/t. There are horses that have been made absolutely unbearable by inappropriate c/t. And I'm sure there are successes due to c/t. No question. I personally only use C/T for specific things and then move away from it so they don't get into the 'click o holic' mind set - that being said I have never worked with anything that horses or dogs, remember so immediately even if you don't use it for years. For me the whole idea of the TTEAM work is based on classical ways of working with horses (other than the TTouch work which came from the Feldenkrais philosophy rather than methodology) and is as much of a philosophy, or thought process, than a technique. Whenever I look at anything I put it through a sieve to see what I could use and what and why I wouldn't use other things rather than just reacting that I do or don't like something. I would hope that the longer people are around horses the more they can look at, and incorporate, different ideas into their training of horses so that it is really what they are comfortable with. I get the feeling that is what many people on this list do. Robyn Icelandic Horse Farm Robyn Hood & Phil Pretty Vernon BC Canada www.icefarm.com
