Clicker and biting.

[OliverG]

How can I use clicker to stop a horse biting that has obviously been fed treats? It needs to be simple and effective, she has young children so its a bit of a worry that small fingers may go missing. Horse has developed this habit recently.

Can anyone point me to an article or "Dummies guide" so I can point someone to it?

[lisaNW]

Probably teach an incompatible behaviour e.g. if you teach him to turn his head away he can't bite...otherwise I'd say its more along the lines of treating the "being good" ie. standing still and not biting, but the former is perhaps easier for someone not that experienced with clicker. Give Johanna a nudge too (Pikku-Karhu) she'll have some thoughts as will the other CT'ers on here 

[Jane C]

My concern with this is consistency. It is important that you delivery the treat so that you are not encouraging the horse to come into your space or accidentally reward mugging/nipping.  With little ones around, it is going to be far more difficult to maintain this consistency and given the horse has already has a biting issue from being fed treats, I would recommend for safety sake that the children do not hand feed the horse.

Having said that, I have found CT really useful with a youngster ( not mine ) who was really prone to getting over excited by food treats and would start to snatch and bite at you.

What I did was ALWAYS make sure that my treat delivery involved me stepping into his space and placing my closed hand between his nose and chest so that he had to step back out of the space in order to get his treat. Only then did I open my hand to release the treat.  I also worked with him on the "adults are talking game" where I stood at his side, folded my arms and ( my choice of behaviour )  he had to move his head way from me to earn a click and then get a treat - you just have to build up the duration of them staying actively out of your space so that they get the idea that muggling/crowding/nipping etc does not get them the treat they so want.  Rossi really responded well to this during the session but the next time I saw him he still initially tried to grab the food so it is not a quick fix.

Alex Kurland's website may have something about how you start off CT'ing.  I know in her books she spends time talking about this and how effective CT done with correct food presentation is with horses who bite to change their behaviour.

[OliverG]

Thanks guys. I'll pass that on.

[flintfootfilly]

Oh, it's a b***er when people don't handfeed properly right from the start!

With one horse who was way off the scale in terms of acceptable behaviour, I chose to squirt lemon juice into his mouth each time he went to bite.  This is something which Richard Maxwell has done with confirmed biters, and although I prefer to opt for positive rewards, I did just find this one occasion when for safety's sake I needed to do something different.  He very quickly began to consider the consequence of his behaviour, and soon opted for keeping his lips together.

Once back on the scale of politeness, or with other ponies who are not "dangerous" as such, then I'd just opt for holding the food in a closed fist, and only opening my hand to offer food once the pony is standing calmly with nose either touching the hand, mouth closed and calm.  Any hint of a snatch results in fist closing again.  If necessary, this can be done with horse behind a stable door, if invading personal space is a problem.  Done this way, you just have to ignore the initial attempts at grabbing food by biting, nudging, licking or whatever, and just wait for the attitude and behaviour you really want.

Once trained, it should then mean that the pony will only "mug" by calmly touching the hand, but nothing more than that.

Sarah

[Flyingfox]

Oh, it's a b***er when people don't handfeed properly right from the start!

With one horse who was way off the scale in terms of acceptable behaviour, I chose to squirt lemon juice into his mouth each time he went to bite. 
Sarah

My big horse Flying Fox was a naughty mugger for a little while, who was eager to please and eager to get his reward when he was about 3 or 4 years old, and he had a mouth like a crocodile and a tremendous reach but I found it very successful to use a plastic Jif lemon squibber filled with water. I kept it ready in my pocket. The surprise of water squirted on his muzzle and lips put him right off grabbing or mugging and he became very polite and restrained really quickly and I rapidly was able to discard it. You would have to be very careful not to squirt too near an eye with lemon juice of course.

Without question, to be on the safe side, the children must have it made clear never to feed treats to that horse, or feed treats to any other horse if they are in his eyesight, or they will be at risk of being bitten.