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- Published on Tuesday, 18 February 2014 11:05
Training with the “Soft Whip”
I have been around horses my entire life and have been privileged to work as a professional marine mammal trainer for the past 19 years. One of the best lessons the dolphins have taught me is that there is always another way to ask for the same thing! There is a kind, gentle and efficient way to communicate what you as a trainer need the animal to do.It is called clicker training! The clicker is simply a little plastic goodie that makes a click sound when pressed.
But like all training it is not a magic quick fix solution to a problem. When used properly clicker training is a valuable tool to complement any discipline of horse training and shape the desired behaviour in the animal. This training method is especially beneficial in training “husbandry behaviour” like standing for body inspections, having ears and feet worked with, standing for injections, being backed for the first time, etc. Horses with severe phobias are usually able to come to terms with their fears, becoming fairly bold after only a few clicker sessions. And the wonderful part is that the communication between handler and horse suddenly becomes a whole lot clearer. In all the years I have been applying the principles of dolphin training to horses I have never encountered a horse that was not willing to try to do the right thing.
Absolutely no surprise! Why on earth would an animal that is programmed for open spaces and flight want to be confined in a horse sized box. It doesn’t make any sense from the horse’s point of view. All his centuries of survival instinct go against it in every fiber of his being.
Transporting horses is always a stressful situation as so many things can go wrong. We are working with horses which are by their very nature claustrophobic flight animals in the extreme and unpredictable at the best of times. Transporting horses also means we have to share the road with people that have no idea about towing animals, especially when the pull in front of you and brake! The majority of horse’s travel fairly easily but very few are totally relaxed and comfortable in transit. Numerous times I have heard the comment “My horse always used to load perfectly, I never had a problem. Now he won’t get in! I think he is just being stubborn”…..and so the perfect horse becomes a problem horse as everyone tries to fix it……