This article was originally written for the Natural Horsemanship List. It explains how to condition a horse to the clicker using target training, and then shows how you can use the clicker to halter train a foal.

     The following query was posted to the list from a subscriber who was working at a breeding farm:

     " I have a 4 month old foal that has never had a thing done with him. He will let you touch him anywhere if he is busy eating, but otherwise he prefers you don't. I have the job of trying to halter him, yesterday I got as far as putting the halter over his nose. This is a big accomplishment as the owner's husband went in sometime before I started working there and tried to halter Charlie, which ended when he reared. She says her husband left after that but judging by the way Charlie shakes at the mere sight of the halter I think her husband didn't go so quietly.

     To which I replied with the following post:

     This is a perfect place to use clicker training. You've already told me he's a chow hound, and he's food motivated. You're going to use that to teach him basic handling skills. The first step is to condition him to the clicker. A simple way to do this is to put the horse in a stall with a stall guard across the door. This lets the horse interact freely with you, but keeps you safe on the other side of a barrier.

     I use target training to introduce the concept of the clicker. My goal at this stage is simply to get the horse understanding the link between behavior, the clicker, and food. I use a small plastic cone as my target, but you can use all kinds of things. Anything that's easy to handle, large enough to see, and horse-safe works great. Lids off of supplement containers, or small plastic buckets will do.

     Your goal is to get the horse to touch the cone consistently. Hold the cone up within easy reach. The instant he touches it, click him and give him a treat. Your horse may reach right out and touch the cone just out of curiosity. Click, he gets a tablespoon of grain. Now he'll probably be more interested in the food than the cone. He'll start nuzzling your hands and bumping your arm. Keep yourself safe, but don't let yourself get distracted by this.

     Set your horse up for success. Position yourself so that he has to bump into the cone on the way to get to your pockets. Click, he gets a treat. The click lets you mark the exact moment when he touches the cone. As you repeat this you will see your horse begin to deliberately orient towards the cone instead of your hands. He's beginning to catch on. He learning that he can get the vending machine to work just by bumping the cone with his nose. That's going to change dramatically the relationship you have with your horse. He's also learning that mugging you directly NEVER gets results. I walk around my clicker trained horses with a fishing vest filled with treats and I am never mugged. If you have a mouthy horse, this is a great way to establish some rules and eliminate unwanted behavior.

     How long will it take for your horse to catch on to the clicker? It can vary from less than five minutes to several sessions. Once your colt is consistently touching the cone, you can incorporate the targeting into his training. You can begin by borrowing some ideas from Parelli's Friendly Game, and Lyons concept of sacking out.

     Raise your hand slightly as you hold the target up. You're giving him a choice. He can scoot away from your hand, or he can step forward and touch the target. He's learned that touching the target gets him a reward. He's going to want to control his fear to get to the cone. As he comes forward past your hand, click, *immediately* take your hand away, and give him a treat. So now he's learned two things. Touching the cone gets him a treat, and it also gets him something else he wants. It's not very flattering, but at this juncture the removal of your hand is reinforcing to him.

     How far you reach out that first time will depend on how skittish your foal is. If he's very nervous, you may have to really chunk this step down. This is a great technique to use with foals, aggressive horses, any individuals who are having trouble with basic handling. (I've also used it with llamas which are even more skittish than horses about being touched.)

     What will happen is the horse will come forward to touch the cone, and you'll be able to rest your hand briefly on his neck, click, take your hand away, give him a treat. Then gradually you'll be able to leave your hand there longer and eventually stroke it over more and more of his body before you click and reinforce (C/R). I use Lyons sacking out concept. If I think the horse will only stand still for four seconds, I take my hand away in three. That way the horse knows exactly what I was going to do. If he walks off before I can take my hand away he's left with a question mark. He doesn't know what else I was going to do.

     With the clicker the horse also learns something else. He learns that if he leaves before he hears the click, he doesn't get a treat. He's going to be working really hard to control himself so he can get reinforced. Even at this early stage in the training you'll see the real power behind the clicker. The animal is really working with you to figure out each step in your lesson plan.

     So now you have a horse who will touch a target, and who will let you reach over the stall guard and stroke his head, neck and shoulders. You're ready for the halter. You can begin by asking him to touch the target while you touch his nose with a cotton rope, a sponge, a towel, a brush, all kinds of things, until he's very comfortable having things around his face.

     Now you can do something really fun. Teach him to put his own halter on. Hold the halter up in front of the target. Click him for touching it. Since you're starting with a horse who trembles at the sight of the halter this will be an excellent approach to use. Instead of forcing the issue, you'll be building trust and teaching him how to handle his fear.

     Once he's touching the halter, take the target away and hold the open noseband up. Click him first for approaching the halter, and then gradually increase your requirements for clicking. You're going to teach him to put his own nose into the halter. You'll do this in small steps, but when you're done, all you'll have to do is hold the halter up where he can see it, and he'll walk over and put his nose through the open loop. You aren't just halter breaking him, you're also teaching him to come to you out in the pasture.

     The next step is to fasten put the halter on over his ears. You'll use the clicker and the sacking out principles I described earlier to accomplish this.

     So now you have a horse who understands the basic idea of the clicker, who is learning to accept handling, and is halter broke. The next step is leading, and you've already got a leg up on that. You can use the target and the clicker to teach him to lead. Or you could use the clicker in conjunction with Parelli's Porcupine Game, and with Lyons' College Level leading to show him what you want.

     One final comment in what is already an over-long post. Clicker training is new, and that means that there will be people who will push against it. Feeding horses treat during training is something most of us have been taught not to do. I know there was a long thread on this several months ago. People will tell you that feeding horses treats during training just gets horses distracted. Horses get pushy. You'll be teaching them to bite.

     We've all heard these arguments. And they're right. Without the rules imposed by the clicker, horses can get out of control. It's just that we've learned the wrong lesson from our horse's rude behavior. The horses are trying to tell us what a good motivator food is. Instead of avoiding treats, we should be trying to find a way to use them. If I can harness them into my training program, I'm going to gain a very powerful tool, one I'd be foolish not to use.

     It's like using an old-fashioned typewriter in the age of computers. Yes, I can get the job done using outdated technology, but not nearly as well. That in a nutshell is what clicker training represents. It gives us the technology to take one of the most powerful motivators in a horse's life and put it to work for us.

Copyright 1997 Alexandra Kurland
All rights reserved.

Reprinted with permission of the copyright holder.

Please visit Clicker Training For Your Horse website for addtional information at crisny.org/users/kurlanda