October 2008 • VOLUME 38 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

Having essentially remained unchanged for thousands of years, horse training has over the last twenty years been bombarded by new methods promising the earth when it comes to understanding our equines. Some of these new ideas have already fallen by the wayside, while others will stand the test of time.

Clicker training is something that most horse owners have heard about, however conflicting stories lead to images of either a dangerous offshoot of natural horsemanship, or the gateway to a long dreamed of connection between horse and owner.

To be fair, all training methods seem to experience this same fate, and either misinformation or over-enthusiastic selling often gets in the way of learning about the science and practical application of clicker training.

Many potentially good methods of training are often lost or written off because enthusiastic trainers sometimes over exaggerate the potential of a training method and owners are then unable to fully understand the processes involved, so the method becomes less effective and is eventually thrown on the scrap heap of "not quite good enough" training methods.

The clicker is often portrayed as a magic solution to every imaginable horse problem and, excitingly, the method has that potential. However, this claim of infallibility is the biggest danger to the success of clicker training as an equine training method. Clicker training is often sold as an easy, positive quick fix, through which anyone and every equine can succeed. If it were that simple, horses all over the world would have their lives transformed and many behaviourists would happily be out of business because there would be the wonderful situation of no more problem horses to “fix”.

Clicker training does have fantastic potential to transform equine training, but only if people see that it works. If its use is oversimplified and incorrect training causes it to be ineffective, horse enthusiasts will throw the clicker in the back of the tack room along with all the other gadgets, methods and equipment that have failed them in the last twenty years.