This message is from: Janet McNally <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Thanks to Jean and Marsha for the explanation as to how clicker training works. It appears the key is breaking down training into small parts and a destinctive sound that signals a reward.
I was fortunate to have learned from someone who got me in the habit of only using 'good boy' only as a destinctive signal when the horse performed correctly, and also, I am not usually a very verbal person around my animals, every thing I say is for a purpose. So hence my confusion why a clicker would be useful. I have witnessed where the clicker training concept was very helpful to a beginner llama owner. I shear a few hundred llamas every spring. Llamas think very much in the same way a horse does, and most methods that work well with horses work very well with llamas. However, many people that own llamas, do not realize that llamas have all the same herd related behaviors as horses, and should be taken just as seriously. I am often better off to shear completely 'wild' llamas that are never handled, than to shear for an owner who's llamas have learned to walk all over them, and this lady's llamas had learned exactly that, every one was a big fight. She attended every clinic offered on training with no results, and finally one day took in a workshop on clicker training. That year her animals were --much-- easier to work with. The only snaffu, she'd keep forgetting where she put her clicker, and we spent a lot of time running for it. My surmise is that the workshop must have broken down the training method into information that was easy to use and remember, so it is not that the method is new, but the way of teaching the human was very succesful. Also in her case, she was a very talkative person around her animals, so I can see how the clicker provided that unique sound that could be destinguished from all the babble. Janet
