Ranger--Partner of Kathy
My neighbor lets us use his pasture in the summer. I turn our donkeys and
mules out in it for a couple of hours each day. There's no water up there
and after 2 hours, they are ready to come home. I carry fly masks down to
the gate with me and a string of longears following close behind. They all
know that they have to stand still until they get their masks on and then
they are let into the pasture one at a time. All of them are good about this
except Noble the mule. He REALLY hates anything around his ears. He's
always the last one to get to go in the pasture. The others will walk up to
me and lower their heads and stand quite while getting the masks put on.
For the last week, I would try to put Noble's mask near his ears and he would
always walk off. I didn't make a fuss about this, just turned my back to him
and waited for him to come up to me and this would go on and on for about 10
minutes each time. Yesterday, I happened to have the clicker and some grain
with me. After everyone was in the new pasture happily grazing away and
Noble standing on this side of the fence looking longingly at them, he turned
to look at me. C/T. and that's all it took. He finally knew what I wanted.
Instead of taking 10 minutes it took 1 minute! DUH.....why didn't I think of
the clicker last week?
Unbelievable what you can do. I don't think there's anything you CAN'T do
with the clicker.
Taking off Bruce's hat:
Smiling:
Counting out his age:
Nodding his head "yes":
Learning to play donkey basketball:
Larry, has been very skeptical about clicker training. Every
time I try to explain what's happening when I'm using it, he just smiles and
says that it's only good for tricks. I have a hard time explaining how it
works to people that don't know anything about it. Even after showing him
how Noble the mule now puts his head in the fly mask didn't really convince
Larry that it's no more than a game.
Today I worked with Noble again. He hates the worming syringe. Every time
we worm him, Larry automatically reaches for the twitch along with the tube
of paste. I started clicking Noble for just standing still and looking at
the tube. Then he would let me touch the side of his mouth with the tube and
things went fast from then on. As soon as Noble would open his mouth just a
tiny bit, he would get a jackpot.
Larry was near by and I told him to come watch us. When I held the tube up
to Noble, he opened his mouth and put it on the tube! In fact, I had a hard
time getting it away from him. :) All Larry could say was "Unbelievable!"
Larry now thinks it's the greatest thing there is. I am so happy that I have
you guys to share this with. Not too many folks around here will even
consider clicker training.
More of Ranger--Serpentining Barrels
Driving and Dragging
Biscuit, Another Wonderful Donk
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