Horses

People ask clicker trainers the same questions, over and over. Why can't I just use my voice? Why can't I tell the animal what to do? When can I get rid of the food? Why should I bother to shape the behavior inch by inch when I can just make the animal do it?

From Pat Wolff: I have several clickers from your store and they all sound almost exactly the same. This is a drawback for my family—we have trained our horses using these clickers and here is the problem: we go trail riding, using the clickers for reinforcing behaviors we want, but often when a click occurs more than one horse stops for its reward. When we are riding close, or side by side, how can anyone tell who clicked? I have sought out different clickers, but they are very hard to find and/or unreliable (break!). I switched to a different soundmaker, a squeaky toy rubber ducky ("Why do you have a rubber ducky tied to your belt?" is an interesting, if somewhat embarressing, way to proselytize for operant conditioning), but the squeak is different each time and so it doesn't work as well.