Using a clicker, or battling dragons the easy way

Since I couldn't ride today, I started leafing through a new print acquisition: Clicker Training: Colt Starting the Natural Horse by Leslie Pavlich. No babies to fool with this year, but it wouldn't hurt to work with the mares on a few things, and the three-year-olds are still baby enough to work on lots of things.

A fellow LibraryThinger uses the handle "Puddleshark", which she defines as follows:

• Puddleshark (n) the largest British freshwater predator. Inhabits shallow bodies of water and preys on part-bred Arabian horses.

I've ridden numerous horses over the years, several of which have parked my behind on the ground at unexpected moments. (There's at least one bluff/ravine/gully sort of thing out by Kennebec, SD that's known to my friends as "my" hill since I beat the horse down it.) But other than one particularly dramatic drop-out-from-under-and-spin gelding that I rode everywhere as a kid, I've never been on anything that can notice all manner of normal and odd things quite like a Arabian. One too many sudden stops and spooks from mailboxes, large rocks, horse-eating plastic bags and scary bushes convinced me that I needed to do something or I was going to be walking home more often than I'd like.

Enter the clicker. Anyone else use one? I was initially skeptical -- horses that get treats bite, after all, right? And who wants to be mobbed in the pasture by mouthy, pushy horses? Well, I decided to try it anyway, and I've discovered it makes a great way to positively reinforce curiosity. Curiosity rather than fear of new things translates to "touch" the scary object rather than high-tail it in the opposite direction.

There's a great book Clicker Training for Your Horse byAlexandra Kurland, that I'd highly recommend. She also has a helpful website.

I've used a clicker to help teach haltering, feet handling, loading, whoa, over and all manner of other useful behaviors. What I really like about it, though, is that using a clicker really seems to stimulate inquisitive behavior -- if Sunny sees something new, he doesn't immediately assume it's going to eat him. And he's engaged and focused on me while we're working.

Admittedly, I've found it most useful on the ground -- it doesn't translate as well to riding, but it's not a bad tool for starting & backing.