I normally just blog about my fish training, but I am having a bit of an issue with my pony training...Pony is a 24 year old Appy cross (I think) gelding, and I've been clicking with him for about 9 months. I call him a faux-Fjord...because of his funny roached mane. He's extremely food motivated, and loves his clicker games. So far, he targets multiple objects (my fist, homemade target stick, cone), backs on verbal ("beep beep", he he), and we have worked on a few performance related things with the clicker, such as gait changes on verbal and increasing speed, slowing, etc. He really doesn't have any "issues". We play around with dressage, and we used to take lessons with a trainer 2-3 times a month, but when she told me I was too nice to him and proceeded to "freshen him up" for me I decided that I would go on my own. Eek. I felt so guilty after that lesson. But, I learned, and now I am a much better rider and handler with my sweet guy.
Stuck in a rut...
By operantlulu on 06/28/2007
I've free-shaped one behavior with him, and it somehow backfired and has taken a long time to extinguish. Head lowering. It's one of the skills that I read was a foundation, must teach, etc. So I free shaped it, and Pony got it in one session. And then he proceeded to go around thrusting his head up and down repeatedly and then looking for the click. Whenever I approached him he would shove his head down. I realized that I needed to put it on cue, and after a long time, it finally is. His enthusiasm for the new game was really easy to see. He was thinking, using his brain, and really enjoying it. Although it was a challenge to put the behavior on cue afterwards, I was truly happy to see this horse who had been through so much and so many owners have fun. Real fun. Anyway, that was several months ago.
I have found that Pony seems to be hesitating, and looking for the click while riding. For instance, I will ask for the canter, and he will rock back to strike off and then trot. This is obviously ignored by me, but I think it may be my fault as well. In the beginning of my clicking with him, he had a not so good canter depart, so I worked a lot on the canter, clicking half a step into the canter, and working up to cantering full circles. Most of the time, he will continue the canter, but sometimes I get this hesitation. I suspect that with time, and if I continue to ignore the hesitating, and clicking continuing on, it will extinguish.
The reason for my title is his retrieving. When I first saw in Alex's book about retrieving, I knew that I wanted to teach Pony how to do that. In 2 or 3 sessions, I had Pony taking the cone from my hand, and then by the 5 session, he would pick it up from the floor. He wouldn't hold it, he'd just drop it. After several months, I can stand in front of him, toss the cone to one side of him, and he will pivot, get the cone, and hand it to me. When I try to increase how far I toss the cone, he will either turn, get the cone and then drop it, or seem to get confused, as if he can't find it (I would imagine that it's hard to see). I have been stepping closer after he turns to get the cone so that I am right there to take it when he turns back to me, and that works sometimes, but he usually just drops the cone.
I asked a dog trainer friend who's classes I assist in, and she recommended only clicking the longer holds, but I can't figure out how to do that, because he drops the cone immediately. Should I just go back to the beginning and start over with this behavior? I get the feeling that I may have been clicking late...hmm...
I have a few pictures of Pony and I practicing with the cone in our arena. This was the first time we'd worked on this outside of his stall (and with tack on...oops).
Sorry this blog has been all over the place...
-Lulu, Pony, Gus, Rusty, and the fishes.
I'm envious of your ability
I'm envious of your ability to feel the 'weight shift/about to canter'...I was never really able to do that!
You say at the beginning that you also do targeting with the cones? How 'clean' is the targeting with them? Could there be a bit of confusion with that and the use of the cones for retrieving? When increasing the distance away the cone is, how far did you move it each time? When in the retrieve were you clicking?
Thanks for all the pictures and for sharing your adventures....I wasn't able to post a while back...but was suprised you didn't name the second greenish beta Snape!
I agree with you about the
I agree with you about the targeting of the cone vs. the retrieving of the cone. I think my problem is that I wasn't clicking for Pony giving me the cone, I was still clicking for him picking it up...so it makes sense that he isn't too interested in handing it over :)
Snape would've been a good name for Paro...he is pretty sneaky :)
Lulu
Pony (24 YO AppaloosaX), Rusty (13 YO Kitty), Gus (9 YO GSD), Dumbledore & Paro (Approximately 1 YO Betta Fish).