Advice for novice clicker.

[Maggie_L]

Doing well with clicking Harry  - he is now able to touch the target wherever it is and is making strides in not grabbing treats. Jan and I were practicing long reining today which we are very new to. When Jill was teaching us she was able to long rein and click at the same time as we need to get Harry to be more forward going and to listen more to us. We tried this today but found that we were rewarding him for stopping his trot as we couldn't work out when to reward him to keep the trot going. I think it is about our inexperience in both methods but can anyone help?

[Becky holden]

hi

Dont worry that he stops trotting when you click. The horse will realise that it is the forward going trot that made you click so will offer more nice trots like this in an attempt to make you click more. Dont think you are rewarding him for stopping, the click is the reward not the food and as long as you dont click the "stop" the horse will not think the treat is being given for stopping but for trotting nicely.
You will be clicking a lot at first and shaping a few strides of nice trot till you have a nice trot all the way round the school eventually you will have forward going horse which needs clicking very little. Also think of the "stops" as transitions which is the best way of strengthening and improving a pace.
Hope that helps a little

Becky

[Maggie_L]

Thanks Becky, that does help a lot. I decided to see if anyone could help before trying it again but that makes total sense so I'll give it a go again tomorrow. I guess with time I'll become less clumsy with it all. Thanks for your help  .