What comes next?

By chicosmom on 02/05/2011
Filed in

So I am curious. I have trained hundreds of horses during my life, and I am wondering if you clicker train a horse and sell it, do you have to clicker train the buyer too?

 

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vi assistance dogs's picture

I woukd be ideal if the new

Submitted by vi assistance dogs on Mon, 2011/03/07 - 9:03pm.

I woukd be ideal if the new owner was interested in learning it but some are not. I think screening of potential owners is the issue here but not possible in all cases. So you train the horse to a level where the clicker is not needed for each known behavior any more (put on cue, treat phased out) and coach the new onwer to positively reinforce the horse for desired behaviors and hope that the new owner treats them well.

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Clicker trained horses

Submitted by SaralynSharp on Mon, 2011/02/07 - 8:37am.

 

   Because you can phase out the clicker as behaviors become set, it wouldn't be 100% necessary to train the buyer, however, if the buyer was going to continue the horse's training, wouldn't you want to introduce them to clocker training?  For an animal that has only been positively trained to suddenly be negatively trained it would be a huge shock and I would expect the animal to rebel a little.  Think about how the two types of training differ... positive training rewards innovation and trying new behaviors, while negative training punishes all except the exact correct behavior.  I try to get everyone on the positive training bandwagon.  Especially when it comes to horses.  Horses have been abused in training for so long, I love how my horse meets me at the gate, wants to come in and train and actually gets a little depressed if the weather keeps me away from the barn for awhile.  I want everyone else to experience that sense of connection.

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Clicker trained horses

Submitted by chicosmom on Fri, 2011/02/25 - 3:46pm.

Thanks for your input.  I am unfamiliar with the school of clicker training, I was only recently exposed to the ideas when I was reading one of Temple Grandin's books.  I'm always open to and curious about new ideas in training horses.

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