These articles were originally written for the_click_that_teaches list. They are intended to be used in conjunction with the book: "The Click That Teaches: Riding with the Clicker".

Contents:

Know What You Are Teaching: The Importance of Good Basics   Choosing your shaping method; Contect Cues; Basics: the solution to trailer loading issues, biting, and other problem behavior.

Following Hands: A Riding Question

Basic Leading Question

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Know What You Are Teaching

May, 9, 2006

Copyright Alexandra Kurland

The last couple of clinics I have done have served as great reminders about the importance of basics. At one of these clinics I got to work with a coming two year old gypsy cob filly named Rosie. Rosie is a total charmer. I could easily have taken her home with me! What a fun horse. I always think of gypsy cobs as quiet, very mild mannered horses. Rosie is anything but! She has a sparkling, play-with-me, pay-attention-to-me energy that makes her both a joy to be around, and also a challenge.

Her owner has been letting two young 4-H students work with her. They've done a great job introducing her to the clicker, but they have run into some problems. When I met Rosie at the start of the clinic, she clearly understood the game even better than her human teachers.

On Sat. I had them show us what they've been working on. They work primarily in Rosie's stall. She isn't their horse, so they can't take her out on unsupervised walks. They have taught Rosie to back up, and they have taught the beginnings of "the grown-up are talking, please don't interrupt" lesson. Now here's the "but", and it's a huge one. They had taught "grown ups" standing in front of Rosie. They thought the behavior they were teaching was take your face away from the treat pouch. Rosie thought it was line yourself up so you are facing your human. So it didn't matter where they moved in the stall, she repositioned herself to face them.

It might have been cute seeing how hard she worked to put herself in the "right" position, except her two teenage handlers weren't aware that this is what she was trying to do. They were at times making it extremely difficult for Rosie to be "right". There wasn't always room in the stall for her to get into the position she was sure was the answer. The result was a growing level of frustration on her part. All of us watching could see the hand writing on the wall. This was not a good situation. Rosie was a hair trigger away from snapping at her young handlers.

Clicker training is such a powerful tool. You will get more of what you reinforce. So it is important to look at your training from your horse's point of view. What does your horse thinks he's getting reinforced for?

Basics, Basics, and More Basics
The first behaviors you teach a horse via the clicker are so important are so important. They will become his comfort behaviors. They will be what he defaults to when nothing else seems to be working, so choose well what you want to train. Look at what your horse is doing. Does it make you feel more confident around him? Or less confident?

Rosie loved the clicker game. When they opened her stall door, she was right there, eager to play. And when they tried to leave, she was right there again, crowding them at the door to prolong the game. Her level of anxiety was acute. When we stood outside her door, she banged on the bars, demanding attention. This was not a happy clicker scene. Her anxiety stemmed in large part from the inconsistencies in her training. It was clear that what Rosie needed were some simple rules, some structure that would make it easier for people to engage with her via clicker training. The sessions we did with her during the clinic were so much fun to watch. I wish we could have hung a video camera from the rafters of her stall. Rosie was a quick study, and the lessons she learned are so important. They are certainly ones many horses need.

Step One involved teaching Rosie a "leave it" skill. I wanted her to understand that a closed hand was not a food-offering hand, and grabbing at the hand made the hand disappear. I stood in front of her with food in my closed fist. When Rosie mugged my hand, I pulled it up to my shoulder. When she took her head away, I again offered my hand. But each time she mugged me, I withdrew my hand to my shoulder.

When she hesitated and pulled her nose away from my hand, click, I turned my hand over and gave her the food.

I repeated this until she was consistently pulling away from my hand. Then I had her teenage handlers repeat the same process. Rosie was a quick study. She pulled her nose away from their hands just as she had for mine.

With the self control of a "leave it" in place we were ready to tackle the bigger issues of space management. So step two was resolving the crowding at the door. I didn't want to have to send Rosie out of my space. I wanted her to learn to back up on her own initiative. That's so much more powerful.

Kay Lawrence who is one of the members of the Clicker Expo faculty makes the following distinction in her training manual ("Learning About Dogs, Clicker Novice Training: level 2 Clicker Trainers Course"):

"If a behavior is to be developed that the animal must be able to transfer to many situations and truly "understand", . . . it is desirable to develop this behavior through free shaping or problem solving.

If a behavior is only to happen in specialized situations, in a very particular way where there is always a controlled cue, it is best developed through controlled learning."

The distinction she makes is certainly interesting food for thought and applied well to Rosie's situation. The simple behavior I wanted from Rosie was backing. The concept I wanted her to understand was space management, so I chose to free shape the behavior. I wasn't going to trigger backing with targets, pressure, or other body language clues. I simply waited at her door and watched for any shifts of weight back.

At first Rosie turned away from the door. She was creating space by circling away to the side, but her movement was essentially forward. I wanted a clear backwards weight shift. That was the criterion. The more precise you are, the easier it is for your horse to learn. It wasn't good enough that Rosie move away from the door. She had to back away from it. At first any weight shift back was clicked. I'd crack open the sliding stall door and reach her treat inside. Then I closed the door again and waited.

Rosie caught on fast. Within just a few clicks she was backing three steps to the opposite front corner. From there she figured out how to rotate her hips so she could continue backing. She ended up lining herself up parallel with the far wall. By this time I was entering her stall to feed her. That meant that I was also practicing leaving her stall.

After delivering the treat, I often took just a step or two off to the side. If she stood still, click, she got a treat. So I was also introducing her to ground tying and the "Can I touch you?" lesson. Anytime she started to grab for her treat, my hand went to my shoulder. The time we'd spent earlier inserting a "leave it" into the mix served as a reminder that I needed quiet waiting. I used a softly spoken, "gentle waiting" verbal cue to remind her that she needed to show me self control before she would be given her treat. Note: Just a reminder - I would not require this kind of self control of a clicker newbie. The delay in treat delivery would create frustration. I can only ask for polite "table manners" after I have gone through a teaching process to teach them to my horse.

If Rosie started to follow me out the stall, I became still. I didn't send her away. Instead I gave her the time she needed to remember what to do. Backing away got reinforced. It was really fun watching her start to crowd in on top of me, catch herself, and then back herself away.

The whole process illustrated beautifully one of the fundamental organizing principles behind good training: you can't ask for something and expect to get it on a consistent basis unless you have gone through a teaching process to teach it to your horse. I couldn't expect Rosie to show me a leave it until I had gone through the teaching process. Once I had introduced the lesson, it was fair game to use it. The same was true for the backing. I couldn't expect Rosie to back out of my space until I had gone through a teaching process to show her that's what I wanted. Once she understood that backing was a possible path to reinforcement, it was again fair game to use that in other situations.

We worked with Rosie late Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning we did a couple of short sessions with her. Then in the afternoon I had her owner, the owner of the farm where the clinic was held, repeat what I had been doing. She stood at the stall door. She didn't give any active cues. There was no driving Rosie away. Her owner simply stood at the door and let the context of the situation lead Rosie to the right answer. "When people come to your stall, the best way to get attention and to get them to come into your stall to play with you is to back up." That's exactly what Rosie did. Rosie backed herself up and stood politely against the far wall. All the anxious, frustrated behavior of the day before was gone. It was a very pretty demonstration of the power of shaping and the importance of clarity.

Context Cues
We don't have to actively trigger every behavior we want to teach. We don't always have to "make things happen." For many behaviors we can let the horse figure out what is wanted, and then let them be responsible for remembering their "company manners". I don't want to have to demand from Rosie each and every time I approach her stall that she remember to back up. I want her to offer that behavior on her own. Think of it like teaching a small child to say "please" . There are all kinds of ways to shape this behavior, some very positive, some very punitive. Some children never learn good manners, but for most the behavior becomes a normal part of their social interactions. As adults we don't have to be reminded to say "please". It comes to us automatically.

I want to choose my teaching process with care because I want to be mindful of the emotional associations I classically condition in along with everything else. When I come to the stall door, I don't want my horse reacting with fear or anxiety. That's what will happen if I use punitive techniques. If my horse understands how to get a friendly reaction from me, he'll use that behavior to invite attention. So I'm going to show him how to say: "please may we play" by teaching him some people-pleasing behaviors. The appearance of someone approaching the stall door will be the cue. "If you want the human to interact with you, back up."

Cues evolve out of the shaping process. I make use of context cues throughout my training. The sooner I become aware of them, the more powerfully I can put them to work for me. With Rosie I began by leaning against the door jam of her stall. My posture was casual. I wasn't doing anything to trigger one type of response over another. I wasn't moving into her space, waving my hands, shifting my weight. I was just leaning up against the wall, watching her. I could have clicked anything: ears forward, head away, turn to the side, etc. I chose backing because that's what I needed to balance out her over-eager pushiness.

It wasn't long before going to this casual, waiting posture triggered backing. The posture had turned into a cue. Pretty neat. I didn't have to use the rope-waving, whip-cracking triggers of traditional horse training. I could just give Rosie the "mother's look", that slightly raised eyebrow that sends little ones scurrying to show you their very best behavior.

Once I have the behavior of backing I can attach other cues to it. I can add standard "horse training" cues as desired. When I use this training process, these more traditional cues won't have any unpleasant emotional baggage attached to them. That's so important when you want to develop a happy, long term relationship.

Snail's Pace: Taking the Time it Takes
You need to know what you are teaching and why. Remember the principles: Safety always comes first, and for every behavior you teach there is an opposite behavior you must teach to keep things in balance.

Early on in my clicker training experience I was working with a haflinger gelding who would aggressively charge his owner on the lunge line. He had some other equally unpleasant habits, all designed to intimidate his handlers. The first time I met him, he told me in no uncertain terms that if I even thought about getting tough with him, he'd nail me first. He couldn't have been any clearer about his intentions had he spoken English. Picking up a whip was going to get me kicked, run over, or both.

He was essentially a charmer of a horse. I think originally he'd been an enthusiastic, eager-to-please youngster, but his intelligence and his enthusiasm had intimidated people. He'd been punished for his eagerness, and the result was an angry horse.

When he came to me, I spent the first week of his training working him exclusively in his stall. I free shaped backing, just as I had with Rosie. For that first week I did all of his training sessions in his stall. I have to say that I felt guilty working at this snail's pace. I was being paid to train this horse. When his owner came for a visit at the end of that first week, all she saw was her horse backing up to the back corner of his stall.

During the next week, we progressed to the indoor arena, Again I worked with protective contact. I turned him loose and cracked the door open slightly. He backed away. Click and treat. Very neat. When he showed me that he could be polite, I moved into the arena with him, and we went through the dance steps of liberty training. From there I put him on a lunge line. He was doing great until I asked for a trot. Something in the added energy triggered his old patterns. His ears flattened, and he started to charge.

Horses are so much faster that we are. When they come at you, there is no time to react. They can be on top of you before you can do anything to stop them. This horse spun towards me with all his old fury. And just as abruptly, he slammed on the brakes and backed himself up. He'd run into a new, stronger stimulus that interrupted his old habits. When he lined himself up to face me, a new, unpoisoned cue took over. He backed himself up out of my space and turned his head away. Very neat.

And what was even neater - he never again even thought to charge me. We developed a great relationship and had a grand time together. What a fun horse! A snail's pace - I do love it. That's truly the way to train.

More Snail's Pace Basics
At the end of April I did a clinic at Katie Bartlett's farm. One of the horses at the clinic was a Belgium draft horse. His current owner had rescued him from a very abusive situation. He was a sweet horse, very gentle, but pushy. The main concern his owner had with him was he was difficult to load. Her local trainer had to load him for her, and it generally took more force than she was comfortable using on her horse.

I met Chester first in his stall. We were reviewing basics. As usual the horses were showing us some important gaps in their education. Chester understood targeting, but he didn't understand polite table manners. He reminded me of the equine version of a Saint Bernard. He had big droolly lips that sucked your whole hand up into his mouth. I wanted to use food delivery to back Chester up a step. After each click, I would step forward, fully extend my arm into his space and expect him to back up to find the food. Chester was confused. He'd never had to go hunt for his treats. They were always right out in front of him where it didn't take any effort to get to them. All this backing up was an unexpected puzzle. But I was persistent, and slowly Chester began to anticipate the treat delivery. Instead of obstructing the food delivery, he began to move back out of my way.

Now why is this important? Why not just click and feed where his head is? Because my goal with Chester wasn't just to teach him to touch targets. My goal was to get him on the trailer. By getting him to move his feet forward and back during that first target training session, I was setting him up for trailer loading success. Everything truly is everything else. I was also building a relationship. I was showing Chester how I operate. I was asking him to back, but if he didn't respond to me right away, I wasn't going to escalate the pressure. If I wanted to get him on the trailer without a fight, I would need him to trust that understanding of the parameters in which I work.

On Sunday I again worked with Chester. I used him to teach the clinic participants the "pre- Why Would You Leave Me?" game. This is a "loose-leash leading" lesson where the handler walks from cone to cone to cone on a circle, clicking and stopping at each cone. Here again food delivery is critically important. If Chester ended up barging slightly ahead of me on the stop, I sure wasn't going to feed him where his nose had ended up. That would have just reinforced the barging behavior. Instead I used the same skill I had worked on earlier in the stall to back him out of my space for the food delivery. As I stopped, I reached into my pocket, got the goody, turned towards Chester and fully extended my arm so that he had to back up to get out of my way. And when he backed, he discovered my open hand offering him the treat. Good deal. Chester was beginning to walk in his own space, to keep slack in the lead, to stop with me at each cone, and to back as I turned into him. Good deal.

That was the prep I took with us into the trailer loading. Before I go into the details of trailer loading I just want to put in a couple of quick reminders. The first is that what goes up must come down - meaning, if you take a horse off to a clinic or a show, he not only has to be able to load onto a trailer to get there, he also has to load back on to get home. I've seen some terrible trailer loading sessions at the end of clinics. The horse and the clinician are tired and cranky. Yes, the horse does finally load, but sometimes not without considerable effort on everyone's part. That's not how I want clicker training clinics to end. I want the horses that come to them to have good experiences throughout. That means that I encourage people to leave their problem loaders at home. By all means come to the clinics, but, until your horse has learned how to travel, leave him at home. Learn the skills needed to work with your horse in a clicker training context, then spend the time between clinics to teach your horse how to be a confident loader. That's my preference. That way the horse that comes to the clinic is ready to learn, and we won't be undoing a weekend of good work with a high-pressure trailer loading at the end of it.

Here's the second reminder: when you have a horse that is a sticky loader, put the trailer in a safe, fully enclosed paddock or arena. The enclosed area generally dampens down three quarters of the energy horses put into not loading. And you can be a better teacher when you know that the horse isn't going to be running out across a busy road should he get loose.

Chester would go on a trailer, with a bit of force applied. His owner knew she could get him home, but she also knew she wanted to find a different answer, so at the end of the clinic I helped her with the loading. To get Chester on the trailer, we stacked the deck in our favor. We backed the trailer into Katie's "indoor arena" - the back half of a large equipment shed that had been cleared out for the clinic and enclosed with safe panels.

With a safe work space, we were ready to load Chester. "You can't ask for something and expect to get it on a consistent basis unless you have gone through a teaching process to teach it to your horse." I had gone through a process to teach Chester about food delivery. I used that basic skills to load Chester on the trailer. I could ask him to go forward, click and back him off the trailer to get his food. What! Now there's a strange notion. Shouldn't you be feeding the horse on the trailer? Not always, not right away. Initially, I showed Chester that if he followed me forward, he would get what he wanted, off the trailer. So going forward was safe because it led to backing up, but the backing was under my direction, not Chester's whim. And it was never done punitively. I wasn't making the outside of the trailer dangerous and the inside safe. I was making all the behaviors I was asking for safe, whether they were inside or outside the trailer. I could back him and have him follow me forward for his treat. And I could ask him to target forward, then click him and have him back to get his treat. Which meant very quickly I could also have him follow a target forward, and he was comfortable staying put to get his goody. The key for Chester was we had practiced good food delivery in several different situations prior to asking him to load. He went on fairly quickly, all things considered, and without any fuss. What got him on was the review of basics back in the stall Saturday afternoon.

So the message from these clinics is basics, basics, and more basics. Before you get carried away with advanced clicker games and riding, check in with your horse. Are you both on the same page of the rule book? I want horses that are eager to play with us, love their clicker training sessions, but are relaxed about it. I don't want the anxiety of the over-eager over-achiever, or the lethargy of the shutdown learner. So look at what you are getting. Is it what you intended, or do you have some tidying up to do? Rosie is a super bright horse. I could easily tuck her away in my back pocket and take her home with me. I love her personality. She's such a bright learner and her life experience so far has not shut her down. She has all the makings of a clicker superstar. She was certainly a great teacher during the clinic. Everyone got to see how quickly she could let go of her anxious, demanding behavior and became a polite, attentive student. And Chester - what a sweet heart. With his size he could easily have turned into a frightened and frightening bully, but instead he worked with me and with his owner. He showed me how much he loves and trusts her by his willingness to go on the trailer in spite of his fear. He wanted to be with her and to please her, and that is truly the sign of a great clicker training relationship.

All the best!

Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com

Following Hands

MAy 23, 2006

Hi Everyone,

My apologies for my long absence from the list. I've been finishing up a new video on the "why would you leave me?" game. It's in the final production stages now and should be available very soon. It has a great visual that will help those of you who are pondering how to get your horse to give to the hip; how much hip to ask for; when do you have the hip?; how much hip is enough? I think I'll wait until it is available before launching into the next phase of the riding discussion which is asking for the hips and for head lowering. The mechanics of these lessons are very much dependent upon a very simple exercise which is included in the new video. I don't mean to leave you dangling with a cliff hanger, but there are times when a picture is worth a thousand words, or at least the thousand words become more meaningful when accompanied by the picture. So give me a couple of weeks and I should have the new tape. I'm hoping that it will be done before I head off for the June clinics. And yes - it will be available as a DVD.

I'm not even going to try to catch up with the list, but I have to say to Mae - you come up with the best expressions and descriptions. Your kite string image is wonderful. And: "The clicker training has become my hearing -aid." What a great line. I love the discoveries you and Tigger are making together. I remember at the clinic when Joanna was talking about all the ground work she does with Joey, and how foreign that felt to you. And now you are discovering how much fun ground work is and the connections between it and riding. Everything is everything else. The relationship that grows out of all this is so awesome. Thank you for sharing. Your posts are a delight to read.

Anna, you asked about contact.

"This maybe ties in with my problem with imagining contact . I
have to ' follow ' , yes ? But his head moves around with his
walk ,the bumps in the ground , looking at things , flies , etc
and its very difficult to track .. if there is a float , any
failures in my following are ironed out ..... If I held on harder so
his head couldnt move around - if I kicked him on so he didnt stop
when he felt pressure - wouldnt that be miserable for him ? But is
that what people do ?

One of the questions that arises is what are you following with? One of the styles of riding that is actively taught and that I see quite a bit of in my area involves a following with the arms. I'll use an old exercise from TEAM to describe this type of following. Two people stand facing one another. One person puts a bridle over her head and holds the bit in her hands. She's the "horse". The other person picks up the reins. She's the "rider". Both people then swing their arms back and forth. The swing of the arms of the "horse" is meant to mimic the motion of the horse's head. The "rider" then gets in sync with this swing by swinging her own arms back and forth. The object is not to bump the "horse's" mouth.

When this is done as an awareness exercise, you have the "horse" close her eyes and give verbal feedback on the rider's hands. It's an interesting exercise and one I recommend people try. It will forever cure you of using certain types of hand positions with your horse. For example, most people find that if they hold the reins in the "piano hands" position where your knuckles are facing up, the "horse" feels an unpleasant increase in pressure. The same thing happens when the rider's wrists are over-flexed to the outside or broken in - two very common rein-holding positions. The goal is to explore your rein-holding mechanics with feedback from your "horse" to find a following hand that creates a pleasant, clear line of communication.

You can explore other things too, such as what happens if you hold your breath, slouch to one side, change the rotation of your pelvis. And here's a fun one - what happens if you tighten your toes? It's amazing the difference your "horse" feels. If your human horse can feel these differences, you know your real horse absolutely can.

So this is a good exercise and certainly instructive. I'm glad I've experienced it. It early on made me much more conscientious about my riding. I understand how much of a difference even little changes can make, and how unpleasant I can make things for my horse without even being aware of what I'm doing. If your horse is fussing under saddle, it's well worth getting a friend to give you some feedback on what the reins feel like from his end of things. It has certainly forevermore given me a fingernails-on-the-blackboard feeling whenever I see certain riding positions. So it's a good awareness exercise, but I would not want you to transfer it directly to riding. When you do, you see the rider's arms moving back and forth with the motion of the horse's heads.

Now I know that a certain number of you reading this are thinking: "Well yes. That's right. That's the way I was taught. Are you saying that's not what we should be doing? My horse goes well like that. " I know some of you are thinking this because as common as this style of riding is, there are bound to be a number of you on this list using it. And you know from the way I am creeping sideways into this discussion that I am about to say I disagree with this style. So here goes.

. . . Except maybe I'll creep sideways a bit more to help you understand that you aren't really wrong, but that it is another cart before the horse situation, just like riding on two reins. I've written on the list that I view single-rein riding as part of a continuum, not an end in itself. It flows into riding on two reins, but the problem is most of us started out riding on two reins and were never told these other rein-handling techniques even existed. It's as though we all started out on finished, well-schooled horses. "Here," our instructors were saying to us, "here's a school master. You can learn how to ride a finished horse first." That's all well and good, except I know that the horses many of us started out on were a far cry from finished school masters. We were started out on horses that in some cases were greener than green, with riding techniques that belonged in the middle of the process instead of at the beginning. And the system gets perpetuated because when beginner riders gain a certain level of proficiency riding this type of training, they then pass the system on by becoming the next generation of teachers.

If this shoe doesn't fit, you are lucky. Don't wear it. There is good training out there, good instructors who know how to develop horses and riders. But I know from my travels that there is also a great deal of this cart-before-the-horse type of instruction going on. The instructors may have the best intentions in the world, and they may turn out mannerly, safe horses, but they are missing out on that died-and-gone-to-heaven feeling that comes from great balance.

Single-rein riding is part of a continuum, and so is the action of following with the hands. When a beginner rider is taught to follow the horse's mouth in the manner described above, they more often than not end up on a dead end path. Here's what I see in these riders. When they begin by learning to follow with their arms, they by-pass learning to follow with their seat.

And their horse - well, their horse may be content with what's going on. They can move their head and neck freely. The rider isn't bumping them in the mouth. So, if that's the case, what's the problem? Again, it's a dead end path. Just as the rider by-passes learning to use her pelvis to follow and direct the motion of the horse, the horse doesn't learn to use his back to carry the rider. He'll be pulling himself forward using the motion of his head and neck, instead of engaging his back and sending himself forward from behind. When he fails to learn to use his back to carry weight, his long term soundness may be in jeopardy.

Once a rider has learned to use her pelvis and the horse has learned to work from his hindend, following with the arms emerges. It is a by-product of good riding, connected to an educated seat. But taught prematurely it blocks good riding from developing. So if you are pondering these questions about contact, think about how you use your seat. If the answer comes back, I have no idea, that's fine. Part of the function of the single-rein riding is to clarify this for you. The process of learning to ride the geography of lateral flexions will develop a great seat and great hands.

Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com

Basic Leading Question

May 26, 2006

Gill wrote:
"I'm working on ground manners with Erry. She has quite a few issues! At present we have just started 'go forward' work as in Alexandra's second video (where she works with that lovely little stallion Sindri).

I'm finding it very difficult though! When we get a go forward response I am cr, but she tries to pivot on the inside fore, crowding and stepping in to me, even though I'm trying to move her out.

I'm sure I'm not doing this very well but its hard to co-ordinate. "

Hi Gill,

The conversation seems to have skipped over your question. I just finished watching the proof for the Lesson 2 DVD so the lessons you are working on are fresh in my mind. It is a lot to coordinate at first, so chunk down what you need into very small, manageable bits. The bits will grow into larger units. Keep a journal of your training sessions. What can feel like no progress at all when viewed within a single session will start looking like huge progress when you can track it over time.

A couple of things to check. Pockets. Make sure the pockets or pouch that you use for treats are easy to get into. Delays in getting the food out will contribute to the problem.

Begin by training your motor patterns. You mentioned Sindri. This is something I did quite a bit with him when I was working out the mechanics of a particular step. His reactions were sometimes not what I would have expected from our other horses, so I needed to make sure I was being very clear in my asking. For example, in the lesson you're working on, suppose you want to slide down the lead towards the snap with one hand as you reach back to signal your horse to move forward with the other. At first that can feel quite awkward. It involves bridging the lead between two hands. So practice a small piece of the process. Practice sliding down with one hand and lifting the other. Click and treat. It doesn't matter at this point what your horse just did. Click and treat, then repeat the tiny piece of the mechanics you're working on. You're really clicking you, but your horse gets the goody. When you feel comfortable and confident with this piece, add a little bit more to it.

You can use this opportunity to practice good food delivery techniques. If your horse wants to wrap around you after he goes forward, have him take a step back to get his goody. That will help get him off his inside shoulder. The food delivery will help him become very comfortable with the process of resetting his balance via backing.

As you practice the mechanics, your horse will probably settle in and relax. He'll start to enjoy the feeling of you sliding down the lead. After all it leads to good things. When you feel confident with the mechanics of the set-up for the asking, go ahead and ask him to take a step forward. As soon as your horse responds, even a little, click and treat. The tiny steps will let you become comfortable with the next layer in the mechanics.

And don't worry if at first things feels awkward. They often do. The clips I showed of Sindri were, as I recall, his first training session in the arena with me. As you saw, what he wanted to do initially was wrap himself around me. Icelandics are definitely contact-craving horses. It made leading in a straight line something of a challenge! When a horse doesn't know the "dance steps", it can feel awkward. I've worked with horses that made me feel as though I was picking up a lead rope for the first time in my life. They're crowding in on top of you, and it can make you feel all thumbs. When that happens, going through the chunk down of the mechanics can really help. As you go through each tiny step, the horse begins to understand where he needs to be to match the dance. And then things smooth out and become quite pretty and pleasant.

Alexandra Kurland
theclickercenter.com