What is Clicker Training?

What is Clicker Training?

It's no secret that I am a avid clicker trainer.  I trained Cole with clicker from the start.  I learned how to do it by teaching Thunder to go into, over around and through obstacles, and it saved my relationship with my dog, Maggie.  I don't think we would have made it without clicker training.  It was the only thing that got through to her.

Clicker training is a way to use positive reinforcement to train our animals.  The clicker marks the desired behavior and tells the horse he will get a treat for that behavior.  This helps with our timing, and that is why I think it is so helpful.  If you just try to give a horse treats for doing a behavior, depending on the behavior, it can be hard to be precise.

For example, I used clicker training to teach Cole to side pass.  I asked Cole to step sideways with my legs and weight.  He didn't know what I meant, but eventually he took a step sideways.  I immediately clicked him while he was taking the step.  He then stopped, I leaned over and gave him his treat.

Without the clicker, his next step might have been forward, backwards or maybe he wouldn't have taken another step.  If I gave him a treat for any of those things, he wouldn't have known that it was the sideways step I wanted.  I could have stopped him after the first step, but then he may have thought that the treat was for stopping.  Poor Cole would have been confused, and it would have taken us longer to sort it out.

Of course, I could have said, "Good boy," but I say that all the time.  It doesn't have the power of a click that is paired in his mind with a treat.

He got good at taking one step on command.  One day, I didn't click him for it, and he was puzzled.  Since he is a brilliant horse, he soon guessed that he might get a treat if he took another sideways step, and he did.

Now all of this could have been done the standard way of training with negative reinforcement.  I could have put pressure on his side, and when he stepped--I would release the pressure.  Most people do teach their horses this way, and it works, but I doubt if their horses will perform lateral moves with the joy that Cole does.  He just loves to do laterals!  We will do sidepass, turn on the haunches, leg yields--just for the fun of it.  Sometimes we even do it for practical reasons like moving out of the way on the trail for someone to pass us.

And that is why I really like to train with a clicker--because Cole likes to be trained with a clicker.