Posts Tagged ‘clicker training
Pedestal Work
My weekend was filled with family, horses and dogs – those are always the best kind of weekends. On Saturday I spent time with Minnow working on new tricks – getting him ready for his upcoming performance in Chincoteague. I’m starting to feel the crunch – I have a lot still to teach him and not a ton of time.
I’m determined to teach Minnow to stand on his pedestal with all four feet before pony penning. I think it would be quite impressive, and he’s just about there…hopefully I have enough time to polish the trick. You can watch the video below of me clicker training Minnow to perform this trick.
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Make a Wish
Happy Birthday Blitz!
Today Blitz turns 7 years old! He still acts like a yearling sometimes though, I think he will never fully grow up. His younger brother Boomerang (who is 6 years old this year) is more grown-up than Blitz. But thats part of why I love Blitz, he has a playful attitude which is always fun when trick training. So here’s to never growing up!
Yesterday I went out to the farm after work to mess around with the horses. Boomer gets access to a small paddock and his stall during the day because he tends to stock up when left in. I had been leaving the ponies’ pedestal in the paddock because its an easy place to work with them on a regular basis. I had been noticing that the last couple days it seemed as if there were hoof marks on the top of it – indicating that Boomer was using it while I wasn’t there. Well sure enough when I arrived at the barn, there he was just hanging around on the pedestal. Pretty interesting considering just a few months ago Boomer was so awkward and unsure of his feet that he nearly toppled off the pedestal everytime when asked to stand on it. It was evident he was much more aware of his feet now. I was able to snap a few photos of Boomer hanging around on his new favorite spot.
Later I pulled Minnow out and worked on getting him to stand on his pedestal with all 4 feet. We had a breakthrough in that he began offering me 3 feet consistantly and I even got him to stand on it with 4 feet for a few seconds. I think its going to take a few more tries before he realizes how to balance himself – but I’m confident that I can have him doing it by Pony Penning time!
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Minnow goes to Camp
KD pictured on the right riding Niatross during a drill team exhibition at the Ludwigs Corner Horse Show
Recently I fell back in contact with my long-time childhood riding coach – an FEI rider specializing in Dressage Training. As a youth I attended camps and lessons at her local farm – where I had help training 2 of my horses, Oopsie Daisy and Niatross. Oopsie was my very first Dressage mount who always seemed to be in the ribbons with his cute fluid gaits until I moved up to my much larger mount, 16.3 hand Nitro. Nitro was a difficult ride, but with the help of my instructor I was able to school him up to 2nd Level. With a local team we pulled together we even competed in the Region I USDF Championships in 2000 and 2001 – earning Reserve Champion Overall. We did extensive drill team work as well, and we were one of the first groups in the area to be involved with drill team demonstrations. Pictured above is a photograph from a drill team exhibition we did at the Ludwigs Corner Horse Show several years back. I had to manage riding my handful of a horse, Nitro, while wearing a full daffy duck outfit – complete with giant duck butt – I’m not really sure how I managed to stay on…let alone do a sitting trot.
I ran into my old instructor at the Devon Horse Show this year – where she mentioned she had heard of my trick ponies and was interested in bringing a group of her campers to see them. We have since organized two dates where the campers will come to watch the ponies perform, and then afterward Minnow will paint each of them a t-shirt. I plan to go over a little bit about clicker training as well – I always jump at the oppertunity to teach new people about this amazing training method. It should be a fun time, and I know the ponies will love it – they love to perform, Minnow always becomes such a ham infront of crowds.
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Buying the Dachshund a Home
So today unfortunately I’m not going to post anything about The Trick Ponies of Chincoteague. (sorry). I really should rename my blog The Trick Ponies of Chincoteague and their Dachshund.
Anyway, back to my post for the day….so recently my husband and I have been house shopping for our first home. And at 25 neither one of us has any idea what we are doing! House hunting hasn’t been so bad – Mike and I are pretty good at narrowing down what we want to look at. And in the past month we’ve only looked at 4 homes. We usually study the listings then do a drive-by first before we decide if we want to set up an appointment. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted – had 
to be inbetween my parent’s new farm and my shop in town. Mike wanted to not be farther from his work, which is already a 40 minute commute. I also wanted a pretty private yard – something the dog and us could enjoy and where the neighbors weren’t up our butt.
So a couple days ago we looked at a rancher that had the perfect location, a nice 1 acre yard – which part of it was fenced so the dog could go outside at will (doggie door included), nice sized 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, a finished basement, sunroom, and to boot it was on a quiet culesaque with lots of trees and was pretty private. So that being said after looking at this home (that was pretty nicely kept I might add) the only thing I could think was its perfect for my Dachshund but its not “my home”. When my husband asked me why, I had no answer, I couldn’t pinpoint one specific thing about it I hated…there may have been a few tiny things I would of liked to change, but overall I had no clear answer.
So after a few days of back and forth on why I didn’t like, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a second look. This time I brought my father (builder extroidinaire who seems to know everything even though his day job involves computers) and my husband brought his dad (electrical expertise). So after investigating every square inch they came to the conclusion that the house was in good condition and they didn’t see any “red flags”. I found myself hoping they had some clear answer for me like don’t buy this house! So it was back to agonizing for me. My husband clearly wanted the house – I was still unsure. I just felt like I should be completely inlove with the place.
So after much debate I came to the conclusion that my Dachshund, Ammo will love the house, and I will love it if he’s there (and my husband of course). I guess you can’t go wrong there – although it still totally freaks me out! I think I will still always wonder if my DREAM home was out there and I just didn’t wait long enough to find it – but for all I know thats just completely unrealistic.
Anyway thats my vent for the day – me trying to buy a house for my Dachshund- I think I might be crazy.
-KD
www.ponypaintings.com
Gathering of the Clickers
Katie Bartlett and her horse Rosie
So on Sunday I went to my first group get-together of some local clicker trainers. I brought Minnow along as well so we could show the group what we were doing and have some fun with him. The first hour or so Katie Bartlett (owner of the farm we were at) showed us some of her horses and what she had worked on with them. Most of her horses did fun tricks, but she had also done a lot of ground work with them. Her one mare actually cantered collected on the bit while Katie walked next to her – it was pretty impressive.
Katie's horse Willy learning Spanish Walk
I then brought Minnow out and went through his little repitoire of tricks. I got some helpful suggestions from a lot of people. One suggestion was about Minnow’s trick involving rolling out the blanket. He’s really good about rolling it out all the way, but when it gets to the last little part he tends to leave it folded over. So Katie suggested I work backwards (which I had never thought about before), start with the hardest part of the trick (unroll the blanket and leave the last bit folded) – ask him to unroll that part and then when he has that mastered move onto unolling the whole thing instead of just the end piece. It was a neat concept I had never thought about before.
The other thing I learned was about cues. It was suggested that you don’t add a cue to your trick (or exercise) until your horse has given you that final product you want. So if for example I am trying to teach Minnow how to bow…as I go through the stages I would not be saying “BOW” at all (which is what I want my final cue to be) I would only add the verbal cue BOW when he successfully placed his knee on the ground like I wanted. If had said bow all along then Minnow may end up giving me different versions of the bow that he had done while he was learning it instead of that final polished bow that I wanted. I had never thought about it this way, and I admit I think when I taught Minnow to bow all along I continued to say it. Anyway now I know and I can put this to use with everything I do from now on.
Katie and her miniature horse, Buster
The final tidbit I took away was that it may be beneficial for me to teach Minnow a cue to do “nothing”. Katie told me about another trainer that taught her horse the “grownups are talking” cue (taken from Alexandra Kurland’s training methods). Where the horse learned when she folded her arms that it was to stand there quietly and still. This is a great cue for performance work because if I need a minute to gather my props I could give Minnow the cue so that he knows to stand still and not “perform” on his own while I get ready. Minnow has a tendency of offering tricks when I don’t ask for them because he gets over excited.
Later I brought out my big tuff ball so that Katie’s horses could play with it. I found it really interesting that they were willing to go up and touch it, but all of her horses opted to push it with their noses. In contrast, when I first introduced the ball to my ponies their first reaction was to kick it with their front feet. I’m not sure why, but it was neat to see the different reaction her horses had to it.
Overall it was a fun day and I hope that I can attend another monthly meeting in the hopes to learn more.
Photos courtesy of Katie Bartlett
