Clicker Horses
What can you teach with clicker training? ANYTHING you want!
If you think clicker training is about teaching tricks: you're right.
Crackers and his owner, Bob Viviano have had a wonderful time with their clicker-trained tricks. They have entertained at nursing homes and summer camps for disabled children. At Christmas Crackers has helped raise money for the Salvation Army. For years they were regulars at summer festivals. Crackers and Bob even joined an attempt to break the Guiness book of world records for the most number of people (plus one horse) in a line dance. They came close, but didn't quite break the record. Crackers' first clicker training lesson was in 1993 when he was ten years old. He is now twenty-eight and enjoying a well earned retirement.
If you think clicker training is about teaching great ground manners and emotional control: you're right.
Clicker training is FUN! Oliver is a draft cross, one of the lucky PMU foals who found a home rather than being sent to slaughter. His owner, Keri Gorman, used clicker training to help build a great relationship. In this clip he was still just a year old. As a two year old, Oliver was featured in "The Click That Teaches Lesson 6: Shaping on a Point of Contact" DVD lesson. Now he's all grown up and a clicker super star!
If you think clicker training is about teaching beautiful balance: you're right.
Robin, my Cleveland Bay /Thoroughbred cross is working at liberty. Note the beautiful balance and cadence. At the time this was filmed Robin was only three, and he was not yet started under saddle. He has never had side reins or any other type of martingale used on him. This beautiful balance was all taught with the clicker.
JUST FOR FUN!
Videos are a great way to share in the fun of clicker training. If you have a short video you'd like to share here on this web site, email me at kurlanda@crisny.org
This video is a clip from the new Loopy Training DVD. It shows Lucky, a twenty year old Connemara cross, enjoying some fabulous liberty play with his owner, Kate Graham. Lucky was recovering from a mild round of laminitis so he wasn't participating in that spring's clinic. But I couldn't resist a morning visit. I always enjoy watching Kate and Lucky working together. They are such a fun, joyful team. And I always feel inspired by the work they do together.
For this particular visit Kate wanted me to check on Lucky's walk. She'd been working hard all winter to energize it. The results were quite evident, but what Lucky wanted to show me was his canter!
This clip shows his gorgeous collected canter in-hand. It's an amazing experience to walk next to a cantering horse. The lift you feel under your hand is quite extraordinary. All that power combined with the wonderful self control you see was taught with clicker training.
We needed Lucky to have great self control for another occasion. Lucky and the Groton clinic regulars are featured in one of the photos Vanessa Wright took for her touring library exhibit the Literary Horse. We were honored when she chose him to illustrate one of her favorite quotes from C.S. Lewis' Narnia books. For the photo Lucky got to canter at liberty with a group of clicker enthusiasts running beside him. Thank goodness for all that good emotional control!