Bob's Clicker Training Diary

[Jojoba]

I thought if I put this up and remembered to update it (especially with photos/videos), it might remind me that Bob does improve  .
By doing this I hope to be able to come back and read it when I have forgotten what I was supposed to be doing as well . And also I thought it might be interesting for people to see how it goes right from the beginning (and how many mistakes I manage to make!).
Bob has done a little clicker training with me before but I have never used it as a consistent way of handling him all the time. I taught him to Look Away (which I suppose is a variation on Grown Ups), to cross his legs and step sideways away and towards me, to jambette (which I could get rid of that one now!), to back up and to Stand (this is one I just started on last week - I just mean stand still whilst I walk one circle around him, as opposed to following me). I have never had any clicker training lessons and just picked it up off friends and from reading a couple of books.

So I decided to get an instructor up to help us with some issues which had cropped up; mainly that Bob gets incredibly worked up by having treats around and quite pushy and agitated until I can't get any sense out of him.

LESSON ONE

Worked on leading calmly alongside. I had been working on getting him to halt next to me without getting ahead and spinning to face me but, as usual, I was getting ahead of myself - I need to first teach him to walk without trying to get ahead of me. Note to self; if something isn't working, you have missed something else out!
So first off all I did was one step forward and click. A few times of that and he then does two steps, three etc. I have to make sure to click and treat him BEFORE he TRIES to get ahead of me, which means being very aware of him and very on the ball myself (uh oh).
I must deliver the treats correctly and in the right place, which nearly always means a step back for Bob, but not move my hand to force him to step back. I must also try and use the left hand to turn my body into him to pre-empt the turning once he has halted.
If he does get out of position he is put back into the right place before continuing, but NOT rewarded for that; because it took him roughly 20 seconds to work out that he could get out of place and then go back into it for a treat (clever native ponies).
We did some mat work; if he paws at the mat he must be walked backwards away from it, calmed if necessary, and then try again. Once he is on the mat he must try and stand on it without moving his feet, so we did some Grown Ups when he had both feet on the mat.
The main thing at this stage is to get him to CALM DOWN. This actually was improving just in the lesson; he started to lower his head a bit and not desperately move his feet and get in my face so much. Instructor said he was extremely anxious all the time and also took it very personally when he got the answers wrong; if he offers an incorrect answer and doesn't get his treat he shakes his head and puts his ears back and gets very angry; not at anyone, but just generally. Must make sure, therefore, to make it as easy as possible to get the right answer, help him if necessary, and use as small steps as I can.
However, I must not micromanage him - for instance with the walking I can show him the right answer, but he must give it; I can't stop him with the rope. That was something I found hard so now I must walk him with my hands crossed at my waist and not have any tension on the rope to try and stop him getting ahead; relying instead on being quick enough to catch him and click him to teach him how to do the right thing himself.
I must also walk slowly and set the pace, taking long strides. I must not race him to try and stop him getting ahead, or he isn't learning anything.
I must also be sure that when he is doing Grown Ups he is actually relaxing and controlling himself, and not just leaving me alone/standing still because he is gawping at something else.
He really did get much calmer when I had a more disciplined approach (mostly towards myself) so that is something I must keep on with. I like the Bob who isn't always moving his feet with his head in the air and his attention on everything but me, he looks much happier.
So that is our homework from this session!


xxx

[Trudi]

  will be good to follow Bob's progress, lesson 1 was good, I saw myself in much of how you described yourself.

[lisaNW]

That sounds very positive ('scuse the pun!)  Are you having lessons with Amanda, by any chance?
Lisa

[lisaNW]

ps. if you report all your lessons like that it will be really useful to a lot of readers, I'm sure!!
Lisa

[Hammie]

What is "Grown Ups"?

[Jojoba]

Trudi - thanks I will try and keep it up to date!

Lisa - yes it is Amanda

Hammie - The Grown Ups Are Talking - when he has to stand politely and not mug for a treat.

xxx

[TashaKat]

That sounds like a really great start, Jo 

Thanks for the explanation of 'grown ups', it's one of the things that puts me off about AK, a bit like MW speak 


Yours is definitely going to be a blog to follow, it will be interesting to see how you progress 

[lisaNW]

it's one of the things that puts me off about AK, a bit like MW speak

Except that AK's make sense when you do them and are not about making something simple really complex (more the reverse).

[angblue]

Brilliant right up  Will def be looking forward to the next installment, you're writing style is very easy to follow 
I only say that as I sometimes find it difficult to follow things when there is a lot of technical jargon going on 

[crdodgeon]

 Look forward to hearing how you progress with this

[Jojoba]

LESSON ONE UPDATES

One thing I forgot to mention before: Im only supposed to practice one thing each day, as he gets anxious during the changes.

Okay, so Ive practised twice this week; the weather has been horrible - those gale force winds you are hearing about on the news are happening right where I live, grr. The first day I went to get him and decided to walk him from the field to the yard and back, about a 200 yard journey each way (if that). It took FOREVER. Bob was in a horrible mood, probably because he had been rained/hailed on all morning (so had I! I missed my bus and decided to walk home from uni, and got caught in a horrific hailstorm halfway. Had to squelch my way home for 35mins after that ). There were a few people around (distractions) and he just adamantly decided he did not want to stay behind me. Every time I returned him to the correct position when he overtook he threw a strop and ended up rearing up twice in anger (not at me specifically, more just in general annoyed-ness). Keeping my cool was incredibly hard. I spent a lot of time just calming him down, trying to get him to control himself a bit, and that worked well.
But I discovered a new problem - basically I am clicking Bob before he has chance to overtake me, in order that he will learn that staying with me (kind of like wanting a dog to walk at heel) produces treats. But he is SO FAST. The problem I found was that I think he has picked up an unintentional cue from me; if I shift my weight or even look like Im about to lift my leg, he has already leapt past me as he is taking it as the cue to 'go!' So he was already too far ahead before I had even asked him to walk, so I couldnt click, had to return him to position, he got fed up and angry and then ended up being a stupid emotional reary horse (who tried to kick two other horses for looking at his human).
My instructor said whenever anything like that happens to take 10mins, go sit down, and think about it. Well it was windy and I was halfway down a track with a horse attached to me so I had to think a bit faster, but I did have an idea, which I hope will turn out to be right (otherwise Ive just taught him something else Im going to spend ages trying to unteach!).
So once he was calm again I got his attention, raised my leg, he immediately started to leap forwards, and I walked backwards. He was rather suprised but immediately walked backwards next to me on a slack rope, and got clicked and treated. Then I did the same again. Then calmed him down, and walked forwards. This time he walked next to me nicely for a step and got a treat. Then he did something really funny; the next time I picked my foot up he put his head down and stared at my leg   to see which way it was going to go.
Once I had introduced backwards as well, he was much less keen to jump forwards, so that was good.
I went up again today to carry on and he was MUCH better walking next to me (I got him in during a lull in the hurricane ). He managed 4 steps at one point without trying to overtake. I took him to the yard, then tacked him up and went to the school with the intention of riding. Had a couple of setbacks as he started jumping past me again but I realised that the wind had picked up again without me realising, and he was trying to turn his bum to it. Can't really blame him too much for that - he was soaking wet and very bedraggled looking!
On the way back he had a couple of spooks but was okay and getting his energy down after. Untacked and then I decided to walk back to the field as slowly as possible, as he had been getting a bit rushy coming in again.
This was really quite amusing as well; he was being quite attentive and because I didnt want him anticipating which way we were going from the teeny tiny almost imperceptible bits of body language he had been reading, I decided to be an annoying owner. I stood him still, calmed him down so he dropped his head, then started leaning from side to side, stepping from foot to foot, basically having a very relaxed fidget. He stared at my feet intently as I did this, but didnt move. Then I went backwards a couple of times and he went with me (he really is very good at that), and then I lifted my leg and said to him 'which way are we going to go now then? What do you think?'. And he lifted his leg as well and held it up ready to go!  
I took a tiny step and so did he, I took another tiny step and he took one which was a bit too big and hurriedly shuffled back to be alongside again. I waited with one leg forward and one back and he paused in mid step, not putting his foot properly on the floor.
Bless him. He can really be quite funny when he's not just wreaking havoc. Then he walked nicely for 3-4 steps alongside twice.
Unfortunately after that it was back into the wind and he had a stupid spook and got told off for jumping into me and trying to drag me. Strange though it sounds telling him off for that (and by that I mean I shouted at him, stomped my foot and sent him back behind me with some fairly hard pressure on the rope) actually worked; he came right back down, put his head down and calmed down.
Because he kept spinning his bum into the wind he was 90 degrees from where I wanted him to be heading for the gate, so I thought I would see if he would follow me sideways. Got 3 good crossover steps, so that was good. The weather up here means you can never do what you intended, plans are always changing! :p.
So not bad, Im interested to see how he does when it's a nice still day and the wind/rain isn't affecting him. Hope Im still doing okay.


xxx

[ash]

Sounds like an adventure with all the challenging weather!

Have you tried doing the Why Would You Leave Me? exercise to help with leading?  I know I keep banging on about it to everyone, but I find it really effective.

[Jojoba]

Is that not what I am doing? It's what the instructor called it  .
What is Why Would You Leave Me?

xxx

[Jojoba]

Having Youtubed a few WWYLM videos that is exactly what we are doing. Perhaps I need to change my description if that isn't what was coming across? What should I change to make it seem more clear that we are doing WWYLM?

xxx

[ash]

Ooops, OK then, sorry, I just didn't recognise it from your description, it's always difficult when you have to battle the elements as well.

You say you had to send him back with hard pressure from the rope, have you had a look at AK's T'ai Chi rope handling stuff?  It's about using the rope handling techniques in a very clicker compatible way.  It might be worth asking Amanda about it.