Have just started clicker training no-manners loan pony - we have been doing look away - click - treat (he is a dreadful nipper) , for the last couple of days. I now want to progress to standing still - my question is does he still have to look away to get the treat?
Clicker Question
- Thread starter b53
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No, if you ask him to stand and look away, he's likely to get confused and frustrated by the "lumped" behaviour.
Will he look away on cue? What does he do when he's looking away?
The way I see it you have two options.
1. You can ask him to stand. If he's nipping, he's not standing, and he won't get clicked. Start off really, really slow; as soon as all four feet are on the ground, click. Then gradually wait for them to stay on the ground a little longer. Slowly build up the duration, and when the behaviour is reliable, you can link the look away cue.
2. Assuming he is stood still when he's looking away; build duration into the looking away. A variable schedule of reinforcement keeps the horse trying as they never know just how much effort they have to put in. The downside is it may be harder to reposition his head further down the line.
Make sure you intersperse it with something simple (targeting for example) to keep his motivation up.
TBH though, I found that whilst Daffy used to be a very muggy horse, without doing the "grownups are talking" type training, he is actually very good now.
Will he look away on cue? What does he do when he's looking away?
The way I see it you have two options.
1. You can ask him to stand. If he's nipping, he's not standing, and he won't get clicked. Start off really, really slow; as soon as all four feet are on the ground, click. Then gradually wait for them to stay on the ground a little longer. Slowly build up the duration, and when the behaviour is reliable, you can link the look away cue.
2. Assuming he is stood still when he's looking away; build duration into the looking away. A variable schedule of reinforcement keeps the horse trying as they never know just how much effort they have to put in. The downside is it may be harder to reposition his head further down the line.
Make sure you intersperse it with something simple (targeting for example) to keep his motivation up.
TBH though, I found that whilst Daffy used to be a very muggy horse, without doing the "grownups are talking" type training, he is actually very good now.
Thanks for your replies - at the moment he sees the clicker/bum bag and looks away, as soon as he is clicked and treated, he turns his head again immediately. Would you say Stand, when training to stand still, or should I wait for him to get the message first (trouble is you tend to say it automatically).
I'm interested in this question and keen to read the replies as I have similar questions about clicker - ie when to change what you click/treat.
I've taught my filly to look away. Then I taught ears forward, which she automatically linked to look away via shaping - ie: She was looking away already for her treat and at some point stuck an ear forward - click. Soon stood with both ears forward while looking away. Then I wanted to teach head down and/or stand on the mat. But I have no cues for anything as I've used shaping.
I understand that offering 'uncued' behaviour is just a polite form of mugging and should be ignored. But in shaping you ARE treating uncued behaviour. Now I'm changing the 'rules' which means she is looking away, ears forward and I'm not treating her because I'm trying to shape a new behaviour - ie stand on the mat. Do you always have to link a shaped behaviour with a cue in the end?
Back to OP's question - if OP tries to shape standing still, then what happens to looking away?
Sorry to hi-jack - maybe I should have started a new thread!
I've taught my filly to look away. Then I taught ears forward, which she automatically linked to look away via shaping - ie: She was looking away already for her treat and at some point stuck an ear forward - click. Soon stood with both ears forward while looking away. Then I wanted to teach head down and/or stand on the mat. But I have no cues for anything as I've used shaping.
I understand that offering 'uncued' behaviour is just a polite form of mugging and should be ignored. But in shaping you ARE treating uncued behaviour. Now I'm changing the 'rules' which means she is looking away, ears forward and I'm not treating her because I'm trying to shape a new behaviour - ie stand on the mat. Do you always have to link a shaped behaviour with a cue in the end?
Back to OP's question - if OP tries to shape standing still, then what happens to looking away?
Sorry to hi-jack - maybe I should have started a new thread!
Alex Kurland has a discussion on this at the moment - if you have a look at this post and go down through the thread until you see the heading "Loopy Training Defined", she talks about it there.
Basically, when you're shaping, the cue evolves out of what you're doing - you may well find you have a cue in place already.
The OP's description "when I have the bum bag on etc" says that for the horse, the cue for "look away" is the presence of the bum bag (and possibly more complex, the trainer standing in a particular position wearing the bum bag". So the horse won't do the look away behaviour if you're, for example, filling their water bucket, or sweeping the aisle.
You tend to add in a new aspect once your horse offers the behaviour about 80% of the time, or on 8 cues out of 10, as a rule of thumb
If you want to add a voice cue, do it very late on, and make sure you go "voice cue" then "working cue" until the horse starts to offer the behaviour on the voice cue 
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Missed this bit in your post
OK, so you've trained look away, ears forward. She probably does this when you're standing in a specific position? That's currently your cue - so as soon as you appear with treats and stand like that, she'll start offering, because you've cued her
Sometimes, we cue them just by being there (mine offers a sort of pose when I appear at the gate).But you want to get the behaviour on a specific cue - so as above, you add this into your training loop - new cue, old cue, behaviour, click, treat, new cue, old cue etc. Until the behaviour appears consistently when you present the new cue. Then you fade the old cue (only reward when the behaviour is in response to the new cue, never when it happens at other times).
And now you want to add a new behaviour as well
You want stand on the mat? Are you near the mat when doing the look away/ears forward? If so, you start to reward for look away/ears forward/shift weight in direction of mat... You might want to get the weight shift with a slide down a lead, or just free shape it, whatever way, you're just adding a new criterion to the training. Alternatively, take horse out of look away/ears forward set up and lead them off to a different place to do the mat training, and start from scratch
However, if you use the loopy training as Alex describes, you can actually use the original behaviour (head away/ears forward) to reinforce the new behaviour (shift towards mat) and help the training along Oh dear, I really do need to go catch a train now. It's just really interesting stuff I've been doing a lot of recently
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