Jazz is a young Zebra and is shown here targeting her famous "cottage cheese" container and also with her britching on.
Savannah is a young Zorse ready to start clicker training. And here she is after starting.
Note from Jann:
We've been training Savannah, the zorse, with the usual methods and started
having trouble with her wandering or running off when we go to mount her. I
decided to try ct to teach her to stand still while we approach and begin to
mount her. I am so amazed at how smart she and Jazz, the zebra are. Within
minutes I taught her to stop, then to stand on her own. The previous day we
had to use a metal noseband to prevent her from running off or dragging us
wherever she wanted to go. In only about 20 minutes she went from running off
whenever the rider approached or brought the mounting block near her, to
standing perfectly quietly while he brought the box up, set it down, climbed
it, put his hands and weight on her back - movements that the previous day had
sent her determinedly charging off. We did not even put the noseband on her
and never needed it from the minute I started the ct.
The thing I like most about this ct is that it makes the horse, or zorse or
zebra, responsible for their own behavior. Savannah especially is so strong
there is no way I can make her do anything she doesnt want to do. With ct,
she is responsible for making herself stand still, for overcoming her fear (of
which she has absolutely none!!) or her impatience or whatever.
I am absolutely sold on this stuff. I am also teaching my Peruvian Stallion to
do some of the things I"ve had a bit of resistence on. It is a wonderful
training technique. Jann
Teaching to Stand
I'm pretty new to c/t (I am a veteran of only a couple of weeks) but I'd be happy to tell you what I did. I'm sure others who are more experienced than I am will have even better ideas. Savannah, a zorse (zebra horse hybrid) was running off when we approached to mount her. I started with c/t training her to "whoa." I would give her a verbal command to whoa, when she stopped she got a c/r.
I then walked her to the mounting block, gave her a whoa command and c/r when she stopped in the place I asked her to. If she didnt stop immediately we walked away and reapproached the block or I backed her up to it. Again, when she stopped on command she got a c/r.
Then I asked her to whoa and "stand." We went from a stand for just a few seconds, to a stand long enough to bring the block to her, walk up it, and prepare to mount. When we first started it I gave her the command to stand then c/r her after only a few seconds, then progressed up to a long period of time. We progressed very quickly but not until I felt that she really understood what I wanted her to do as opposed to it being just luck that she stood there. We are now at the point where she will stand while we do this whole process twice before she gets a c/r. If she moves from the spot, she doesnt get a c/r and I walk her away and reapproach the box or the area and start over. If she has missed one, I usually do a much shorter one the next time so she has a better chance of succeeding. I think if they fail you need to make sure that they succeed the next time even if you have to go back to an easier level.
This is as far as we have gotten, but it has only been less than a week. She was part of a seminar last weekend and she did it almost perfectly (only one walk off) even in a new place with people watching her.
BTW, Jazz (the zebra) has progressed to where she is sticking her head into the halter and letting me rub her forehead with the crown strap. She is the one who a couple of weeks ago couldnt be approached with a halter and couldn't be haltered at all unless she was in her "stocks." Now when she sees the halter she comes running and sticks her nose through the noseband all on her own.
I am absolutely sold on this training. I dont think there is anything
we wont be able to accomplish with our c/t.
Special thanks to Jann for allowing us to share in her training of these gals.
