Equiosity Equiosity

I’m always delighted when I get to talk about balance and why it matters. At this year’s Expo I had both a presentation and a Balance matters lab. We talk about both of these in this week’s episode. We end with a discussion of equipment - what halters and leads do I favor and why.

This week we’re talking about the April Clicker Expo which was held in Portland Oregon. We start by talking about a panel discussion on working with aggressive animals. Then we move on to a presentation given by Ken Ramirez on the training terms which have emerged over time. Which of these terms have staying power and why. This was the perfect lead in to my own presentation on constructional training which I talk about in detail in this episode.

At the very end, just for fun Dominique shares her experience of the solar eclipse on April 8.

This is Part 3 of a three part conversation Dominique and I had in March, 2024. In part 1 we talked about puzzle solving and this led to a great real life experience using back chaining that Dominique shared with us. e between forward chaining and back chaining.

In Part 2 the spotlight was on rope handling.

This week we are changing topics yet again. Dominique wanted to talk about agility. I begin this episode with an overview of clicker training.

Clicker training has three phases. These phases don’t have clear distinct lines separating one from the other. You aren’t in phase one, and then you come to a demarcation line and you’re in phase 2. Instead they merge one into the other.

The first phase introduces the horse and the handler to clicker training. I use the six foundation lessons for this.

Horse and handler learn are introduced to the use of marker signals; food as a reinforcer; loopy training; cues; chaining, and many other important concepts, principles, and teaching strategies.

In phase 2 you use the foundation lessons to help teach the universals. We’ve talked about this in many of the podcasts. The universals are those activities which horses need to understand and be comfortable with regardless of the performance goals a handler may have. It doesn’t matter if you ride English or western, or you don’t ride at all, we all need to take care of our horse’s feet. So foot care is an obvious universal. It’s easy to think of other universals, activities we want our horses to be comfortable with - such as grooming haltering, and other husbandry activities. The foundation lessons make it much easier to teach these skills.

Phase Two merges seamlessly into Phase Three. Phase Three begins to look at performance goals. What do you want to do with your horse? For some people what they want is a great relationship. Just being around their horse and taking care of him, is what they want. Using clicker training to create cooperative care is the main goal of training. Basic ordinary grooming becomes elevated to the level of performance. Medical care isn’t something the horse tolerates. He becomes a consenting partner in whatever needs to be done. The goal is deep friendship. The training transform everyday tasks into Grand Prix level performance.

In Phase Three we’re also looking at skills needed for specific performance-related goals. One person may be interested in jumping, another dressage, a third person may like reining. All three riders need to know the basics of riding walk trot canter. And there may be many overlapping skills as you begin to explore your chosen sport, but if you are interested in jumping you may want to go to someone who specializes in this sport to help you set up gymnastic grid patterns that can teach a horse how to jump well. That’s true for all the different sports.

My area of interest is balance. If someone is starting into my work with an interest in classical dressage, they will find that our interests and goals are very much aligned. But that doesn’t mean that you have to be interested in dressage to work with me.

Those first two phases are designed to prepare you for your long term training goals. By the time you have taught your horse the universals that are important to you, you will know how to teach your horse new skills. You will know how to approach your performance goals constructionally.

My role is not to direct you to a specific performance goal, but to support you as you explore a wide range of activities. Some of these may require specialized knowledge so you will need to seek out trainers who can help you with these goals. You may also discover that clicker training has already given you the teaching skills you need to succeed. That’s what this week’s conversation is about. Dominique wants to talk about agility. Let’s see how that fits into this overall view of the three phases of clicker tr

Toward the end of March Dominique and I met for an afternoon’s conversation which I’ve divided up into three episodes. Last week we talked about puzzle solving. This week rope handling is in the spotlight. Dominique is going through my on-line rope handling course. She’s just reached a section which describes what it means to turn a lead rope on and off. This is involves what can seem like a very fussy rope handling skill but the horses have shown us this use of the lead makes a difference to them. That’s especially true when you’re working with nervous horses.

This detail emerged through the in-person clinics. We were looking for differences that made a difference and helped horses to settle. That’s when I spotted this little turn of the hand that I was doing when I shifted from an active use of the lead to a more passive use during an at ease version of grown-ups. The lead signaled to the horse that he didn’t need to pay close attention or try to offer behavior. The lead was switched off which meant he could switch off as well.

Once we spotted this simple turn of the hand that turned leads on and off, we could test it with A/B reversals. What happens when we use this signal? How does the horse respond when it is not used? The horses all told us they preferred the clarity that activating and deactivating the lead provided.

Okay the horses liked it. The handlers didn’t. That’s because this simple turn of the hand was anything but. It’s only simple once you have the pattern in your hands. Otherwise, it can become a head spinning puzzle that could easily put someone completely off rope handling - especially since turning a lead on is a first step in whatever you are about to ask.

I’m not going to try to teach you via this podcast how to turn a lead on and off. What we are going to talk about is reversibility because that’s the teaching strategy that you’ll use to learn this finger twisting puzzle.

Toward the end of March Dominique and I met for an afternoon’s conversation. I’ve divided up into three episodes. In part 1 we talk about puzzles. So much of training success revolves around a handler’s ability to set puzzles which engage the learner. You want to make the puzzles easy to start out with to build the learner’s confidence that this is a puzzle he can solve. Then you gradually add elements so the training progresses.

In this episode we talk about treasure hunts and why some people grow up loving puzzles and others want nothing to do with them. We explore strategies for developing both eager, confident puzzle setters and eager, confident puzzle solvers.

Dominique talks about how she is realizing that many of the strategies that she uses to teach her horses she’s also using on herself. She shares a story about back chaining which I think will help many people understand the difference between back chaining and forward chaining.

We begin a discussion of rope handling which will continue into Part 2 of the conversation.

This is Part 4 of a 4 part conversation with Svenja Sawinski. Svenja has a horse who has been giving her a master class in teaching stillness and relaxation.

In Part 1, Svenja introduced us to Daryan her Arab barb cross. When Svenja began with a very young Daryan, she was still using traditional, pressure-based training methods. That worked fine with her older horse because he would always back down from escalating pressure. But not Daryan. In Part 1 Svenja described her discovery that you could teach a horse to stand still using clicker training. For both Daryan and Svenja that was a transforming experience.

In Part 2 Svenja shared how she taught Daryan not just to stand still, but to settle into relaxation. We ended with stillness becoming a default behavior.

In part 3 Svenja expanded on the usefulness of default behaviors. She described how she used Daryan’s standing in stillness to clarify cues for him. Instead of guessing what she wanted or trying to throw behaviors at her in the hope that something would work, the default of stillness gave him the clarity he needed to avoid frustration. I’m sure Svenja’s description of the process made many of you sit up and take notice. It is a very useful strategy. You were probably hitting the replay button so you could listen again to her description.


Part 4 is packed with moments like that where you will want to hit the replay button to listen again. We’ll be covering a lot of ground - who knew that there was so much to be said about standing still!

So enjoy!