Clicker people - advice please!

[Est]

I've started clicker training with Merrick. It was going well, but I think I may have pushed ahead too quickly.

We've had about 4 sessions now, lasting maybe 20 mins each. The treats (herbal pony nuts, quite small) are in a bag on the side, so not kept on me.

I started by "charging" the clicker, ie click and treat, perhaps 30 times. He got this bit, and by the end was pricking his ears and looking expectant when he heard the click. At first he pushed and nibbled at my hand, but I ignored this behaviour and only C&T'd when he was standing quietly or looking away. So far, so good.

Then I used my bottle of water as a target. Held it out, he sniffed, I "accidentally" brushed it on his nose, C&T. A couple of reps and now he's actively bumping his nose on it. C&T every time. Then holding it out to one side, then the other, then on the floor, then reach up for it etc... C&T every time. Then leave the bottle on the floor and point at it - his nose follows my finger and bumps the bottle, C&T. Repeated this perhaps 10 times.

Next session we refreshed on all this and I then added a cue ("Touch!") which I now think I added in too soon. He appeared to get it, and I only C&T'd when I said Touch! and he bumped the bottle. I put a green sponge on the ground away from the bottle, and whichever I pointed at and said Touch!, he bumped with his nose. I did this without any pattern, quite randomly selecting which one to point at and say Touch! and he bumped the one I'd cued each time.

I'm still C&Ting every time.

Then in the last session we went onto the generalisation bit, ie moving the behaviour into a new location. So we went round the yard, and I pointed and said Touch! for a pile of rubber matting, the mounting block, a hose reel, a yellow washing up brush etc. He got it every time. Then we came to a drain pipe... no go. No problem, we moved on to a concrete pillar, point and say Touch!, no go again. In fact he was so "absent" at this point (only after about 15 mins session) that I don't think he's truly connected the cue and the behaviour at all. So I've messed up somewhere :confused:

1. Did I take away the original target (the water bottle) too soon? Should I be using this to encourage him to touch other items?

2. Have I generalised to other items *and* other locations too soon? Should I focus on one thing, and then the other, or even stick with just the original target for now?

3. Did I introduce the cue Touch! too soon? I know the usual sequence is to introduce a behaviour, then shape it, then add a cue. I feel I've missed out the shaping stage... but what actions would that stage involve?

Any tips or advice appreciated... he seems to enjoy what we've done so far but just totally switched off last session. I really don't want to push things too fast and make this a bad experience for him. I like how it makes him feel when he gets it right (if that makes sense!) :)

[NoviceNic]

I dont think he knows what a target is..... I am only 1 lesson in but wasnt aware that I needed to change my target...I may be wrong but I think it is important to stay consistent as well as repeatetive...:)

[Est]

I have been googling away looking for help... got square eyes and a headache now :p

I think you're right, I have moved away from the familiar target too quickly. My goal was to teach a Touch! command, but I've jumped too fast from goal A (touching the target, my water bottle) to goal C (being cued to touch any object) without going through goal B.

The problem is that I can't find what goal B is... How do I build from touching the target (which he seems to understand - although I may swop to something easier to hold!) to the Touch! command?

How would you build up to this with Captain?

Thanks for your input :)

[KateWooten]

Don't panic, it's fine. It's a perfectly normal phase in training, you should go through this over and over again in all training, no matter if it's clicker or not. Yes, you've just pushed ahead a little too fast. And in fact it doesn't really matter all that much about how, where, when, what bit of it you should or shouldn't have done. You can analyse it for fun later, when you've been through the process some more ... but the way forward is simply go back. Just go back to where you were on absolutely solid ground and don't worry about it ! The easiest way for me to do this - rather than think out exactly where I was when things were perfect - the easiest way I find is start over. Start the next lesson at ground zero, back in the safe area, with the clicker and charge the clicker again. Then introduce the water bottle (or a different target altogether as 'the target' ... as long as you introduce it right, like you did the first time, he'll 'get it' at least as quickly as the first time, right ?) ... and just go from there. For the first lesson into restart, I'd not introduce anything new, just keep progressing with the lesson while you're sure he's going to get it right -aim for a 100% positive for that session. Then push ahead again the next session. You'll be fine. If on the 'restart' session you do find yourselves out of the comfort zone again, don't worry, just go back a step and find a good note and quit.

One extra little thing I would add, is the notion of the 3 minute ride. It's not something you ever see in textbooks, but it is such a powerful idea that I'd like to share it with you. It's not my idea, I first heard of it on another board. As people, we're so used to things taking a set amount of time - an hour's lesson, a lunch hour ... so we accept the time period as a normal way to communicate about things. We accept that schooling or training sessions should be kept short 'about 20 minutes' - we understand that and use it as our guide, and it works fine like that. But what we tend to overlook is that the ACTUAL amount of time we spend on the session should be entirely dictated by the actual horse we see in front of us at that time. If the horse makes a really good effort for us around the 20 minute mark, we're pretty good at taking that as a good note to finish on. If at 20 minutes we're not ina good place, we usually have no problem at all in carrying on a little while and finding a good place to stop.

However, I've found it really useful to have this 'find a good place to stop' idea right at the forefront of my mind right from the word go... and if the horse shows me something that just makes my jaw drop and want to hug him, whenever it occurs in the session - even if it's at ten minutes of a twenty minute session, or 30 minutes of an hours lesson ... I take that and reward him hugely, end of session.

This really works to encourage a real spirit of 'try' on the part of the horse. So much so, that you encounter a new problem. The three-minute-ride. Whereby the horse is so amazingly keen to impress you, all the time, to try his heart out for you all the time, that within three minutes your jaw has dropped and you just want to get off him and reward him hugely.

As I say, then you have a new problem. But it's really a lovely one to have.

[Est]

Thanks Kate :) 'Tis true, I may have got in a flap for no good reason :o I'll go back a step as suggested, make sure we finish on a good note even if that's sooner than planned, and give it TIME. I can be very impatient if things don't go full steam ahead (work, home, yard, whatever) so this is a good learning curve for me too :rolleyes: :D

[NoviceNic]

My first session with Captain lasted an hour.....4 pockets of nuts later I realised I had over done it sllightly....:o

You just go back a level if the horse doesnt seem to get what you are asking. I love Clicker you dont tell them off. You just reward the good behaviour.:cool:

[Scarlett 001]

So you are clicker training now too.

Skeet is doing well and really loves it so much. It's made him so perky around me now. He even leads more enthusiastically behind me instead of his old plodding style.

Skeeter is doing target work. He picked it up insanely quickly and I was able to move on very soon to the next tasks, although I still go back and "review" the old material! He is now working on touching his muzzle to my hand on the word "Skeeter", and instead of clicking I say "okay" and he gets the treat. We are also doing "backup" exercises and "walk" exercises with no target. He has these downpat now too. The trickiest one was getting him to stay - although he is now getting it. If I overdo the session, he does tend to get silly, so I now limit how long we clicker train for.

I assume you are doing this to pass time happily while Merrick heals. We shall soon have the most talented horses on either side of the Atlantic!

[Est]

So true! :D

We did another target session, using capalldubh's idea of a water bottle on the end of a stick. This was fine.

Then I did another session later on lowering his head when I touch his poll. He *sort of* does this already, but it is inconsistent and often takes a while for him to respond, so it seemed a good thing to focus on.

I'll keep working on these two things for the next few sessions, aiming for him to hold the touch on the target for longer, and for his head to drop lower than at present.

Backing up and staying are next on the agenda!

[Scarlett 001]

Backing up and staying are next on the agenda!

Did you see the video of Shadowlark doing "backup" with Skeeter (posted last week)?. It is very useful to watch someone who knows what they are doing clicker.

[Est]

Yes, but without sound thanks to my ancient speakers! I will get them up and running again and go watch it properly :)

[capalldubh]

Sounds like it is going great to me :)

Do you have the Karen Pryor book? She has 10 laws of shaping, they often have the answer if something is going not quite as planned...

1. Raise your criteria in little steps, so the horse always has a reasonable chance of obtaining a C/T
2. Only train one aspect of a behaviour at a time - so e.g. for head lowering, there are two criteria - how far down the head is, how long the horse holds it. Only do one at a time :)
3. Get to a variable schedule of reinforcement before going raising the criteria (so e.g. C/T every 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 2nd, 4th trial).
4. When introducing something new, temporarily relax your old rules.
5. Stay ahead of the horse - have a plan in case they get what you're doing faster than you expect.
6. Stick to one trainer per session.
7. If your shaping isn't resulting in the progress you expected, find another way to shape it. I had awful probs working out how to get horse to step hindquarters towards me - I was cueing with a stick, reaching over his back. I never use a stick for anything and he didn't like it. I read today - cue by asking him to target your hand with his hip... Will be trying it tomorrow :)
8. Don't interrupt a training session gratuituously - the horse sees this as a punishment
10.(I know but it makes more sense immediately after 8..) end the session on a high note - so if you need to, ask for something simple you know he can do, then make a big fuss and give all remaining treats :)
Oh, and 9. Everyone has said this already :) If behaviour deteriorates, go back a level to something you know works...

HTH :) Sorry if you already have Karen Pryor, this will be TMI :o

[Est]

Thanks capalldubh :) I've read everything I can find on t'internet by her, Bob Bailey and Alexandra Kurland, but further tips are always *very* welcome! Goodness knows, I need them :rolleyes: :D

Seeing as you're a captive audience now ;) can I ask how you go about introducing a cue? I've read that you get the behaviour established (in the training environment? Or after generalising it into other settings?) and then intro the cue. I've also read a suggestion of 30 reps with the cue *immediately before* the behaviour is about to be performed, 30 reps *as* the behaviour is performed, then finally 30 reps *in order to* cue the behaviour, ie as a stimulus. After that, the author suggested the cue should be firmly established and the clicks could be gradually phased out.

However this was on a dog website and I'm not sure how well that translates to horses. Merrick has touching the target established, but I started intro'ing the word "Touch!" as suggested by the last author (asking for nothing more than a brief touch with his nose - not working on duration or intensity) and he just didn't get it. He still hasn't linked the Touch! cue with the act of bopping the target with his nose. How do I make that link?

Gosh, I'm sure I said all this was fun in another thread!! :rolleyes: ;) :D

[NoviceNic]

Are you saying "Touch" before he touches????? I am asking Captain to "Touch" then the second he sniffs it, I click and treat. Being a cob he gets the hang of clicker very well.....:rolleyes:

[Est]

Yup, built up as described above and, I hasten to add, over several sessions! The cue word just doesn't mean anything to him, the sound of me saying Touch! doesn't prompt a corresponding action. If I say Touch! and he bumps the target, it seems to me that it's from chance or because it was right in front of him.

Do you think just more reps of the cue word as he touches the target would be a good idea? Go right back and stop using it as a cue for now? That fits in with capalldubh's timely reminder about going back a step if things ain't working!

[soltydog]

Hi

Never clicker trained a horse, but clicker trained my dogs and worked advanced level of competative obedience with my dogs. I would say you need to generalise with the first object you taught him on, put it in different places around the yard, when he is consistant with this then move onto different objects.

Don't be too quick to add the cue to the behavour, this is where most people fall down, they think the animal understands and add the cue too quickly. I would want the horse actively seeking out the objct to touch it before adding a cue.

Kim x

[capalldubh]

Ah, I went to bed just after I posted :o

It sounds as though what's happening is that you are cueing him - because he is touching more things than coincidental - but I don't think "touch" is what's cueing him, it's probably more the gesture or something you do while deciding what to ask him to touch, what do you think? So you are most of the way there... But I found the cue you want often doesn't attach properly until the behaviour is 100% and on a variable schedule. I still tend to attach cues by pairing them with the action first for a while, then gradually testing to see if they work in cueing...

But, hey, I'm pretty novice at this (I teach the theory, but putting it into practice has been educational - nobody told me the horse had a mind of it's own :D and all the stuff I was originally taught was about rats...).

I would also say maybe you're doing what Alex called chunking rather than splitting - so stick to one target, get it onto a variable schedule, start to introduce the cue. When the cue is 100%, then relax criteria and introduce a new target, using the same cue? How does that sound? What soltydog said sounds good...

I was thinking about your post earlier, actually, and wondering if Merrick would have actually improved overnight (a break does seem to consolidate learning)...

ETA - by the way 15 mins is a good length of session for a beginner, horses don't have big frontal lobes, they're not great on sustained attention ;-)

[Est]

Soltydog and capalldubh, thank you very much!

Combining your two answers:

I'll go back a stage and re-establish touching the target followed by C&T. Then generalise to touching the target in other environments eg round the yard, in the school etc. *Then* start re-introducing the cue. When the cue is established, start moving on to new targets (one at a time).

And capalldubh you are absolutely correct about length of sessions, in fact I would go further - Merrick seems to peak at about 5 mins. I will keep the sessions to this in future!

Thanks again guys :)

[Montana]

Hi Est,

Sorry - nothing useful to add re: clicker training, although you and Scarlett have got me interested in having a go now:D

Was just wondering where your link to your webpage went:p Wanted to see if there were any Merrick updates - how's he doing in general now?:)

[Est]

Oh gosh :o I didn't think anyone would miss it! Well, I haven't updated since 20th January, so I removed the link after a while. Merrick got lymphangitis, and then he tweaked his poll again, and now he's lame :rolleyes: in fact anyone would think he *knew* I'd been planning on riding him again :D Anyway it was far too depressing to write about!

Chiro says his back is fine now. Arthritis is under control, enough for light hacking ("see how it goes and build up slowly" says the vet). It's just the persistent lameness now. X rays have confirmed he's very flat footed, very thin sole, so taking him to a remedial farrier which we hope will be the last piece of our soundness jigsaw!

I might start updating it again now I've got the clicker to put in. I'd definitely recommend you have a go, it *is* fun, it's just I take everything far too seriously and over-analyse most things!

[Montana]

I might start updating it again now I've got the clicker to put in. I'd definitely recommend you have a go, it *is* fun, it's just I take everything far too seriously and over-analyse most things!

Hmm, that's my main concern to be honest - I agonise over pretty much everything I do with my boy, really bad habit of mine, but I'm so concerned about not doing anything to mess him up again that sometimes it gets me to a state where I'm paralysed into not doing anything at all:rolleyes: :D See, now I'm even worrying about being worried:p

Poor Merrick - can't believe you two have been through so much, but it sounds like it's all heading the right way now at last. Keep us updated, I for one am hooked on Merrick's story:)

[VickiGG]

Hi Est...
I agree - if at any time it gets to hard - remove a criteria (criterion? which is the plural?)... so perhaps carry your target (always have one target which is always a target)... and use that if he has a blank moment to help him get the right answer again quickly.

If your horse gets confused, remove one criterion, or two if needed until your horse is clear again - then slowly add the next one. Same with behaviours.

Also - I agree - the next day they seem to have light bulb moments. Horses are very clever about processing things (esp new things) overnight. :D