DECEMBER 2005 • VOLUME 4 • HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

any riders are turned off of clicker training long before they try it themselves. They see what they perceive to be the result of clicker training, of rewarding with treats. Horses that are incredibly rude. Who will not work if they don’t get a treat. Horses that constantly mug their owners for more treats. Who become dangerous in their insistence that they WANT that treat. Who have no respect for the concept of personal space. Seeing this, they soon figure out that they never want to have anything to do with clicker training!! This is true though even of horses that are not being clicker trained. Having been introduced to the concept of hand feeding and treats, sometimes they can develop some very real behaviourial problems.

Hi my name is Josie and I teach clicker training. I remember when I was first introduced to clicker training, the horse I was with was awful. An older school horse named Bandit who thought he was smarter than his riders. And you know - I think he was! I would tell my own instructor laughing. He wasn’t awfully big, but he had the biggest brown eyes. He was a cream palomino, a beautiful light gold in colour.  The day that he learned about clicker training and had to learn to get charged to the clicker he was absolutely horrible!!