This message is from: GAIL RUSSELL <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Think of a dog begging at the table. Nose in your lap. Nose on the edge of the table. Nose nudging your leg, your hand, other unmentionable parts of your body - all hoping to make the leftover piece of steak drop into his mouth. When a horse does it, it can be even more annoying - and, worse yet, they are so busy trying to do all these things to get the treat that their minds don't focus on trying OTHER more desireable behaviors.
With clicker trained animals, they become VERY resourceful about trying to figure out what you want. However you first have to convince them that just mobbing your body is not one of the activities you want from them. Doesn't take long, if you focus on training that. At the suggestion of Alexandra Kurlanda's little book on clicker training, I just approach the pen with an apple in my open palm. When the horse reaches to take it, I close my hand and turn around and walk away. A minute later I repeat. When I can approach the horse without him reaching for the apple, I make a clicking noise, then give the apple. At first I only require that the horse control himself when the treat is a foot from his mouth. Eventually, I will only "click and treat" when the apple can be held under his nose. (It actually doesn;t work precisely that way; the horse usually learns to turn his head away and not look at the apple. Probably more manageable for them. Have yet to train a horse to hold his nose directly over the apple - and not reach for it. I'm sure it could be done though.) Anyway, the training for "no mugging" has made my other clicker training go MUCH better. Gail At 07:27 AM 8/15/2000 -0700, you wrote: >This message is from: "Denise's" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >dear gayle, i don't know what "mugging behavior" is, please explain. >thanks, denise >> I've recently discovered that clicker training works much better if I >> deliberately train away the "mugging behavior." > > > > Gail Russell Forestville CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
