>
> Just out of curiosity, you have the rescue mare: at what point was she
> exposed to the WWYLM game? Can you do it pretty much from the beginning?
>
Hi Judy,
The WWYLM game didn't turn into a more formal exercise until a few years
ago. I used pieces of it early on with all my horses, and have since done
it in a more formal manner with them all.
I'm working with a 2 year old PMU horse, who was bought by one of my
clients, last December. He had been at the horse rescue farm for about 18
months, so was a pretty friendly guy. He just didn't know anything.
I went to the rescue place to work with him maybe for 3 sessions before I
had to trailer him to his new home. I did a crash course in the foundation
lessons of clicker training with him. He's a very bright guy, so caught on
very quickly and, of course, loved the new game! We worked on targeting,
headlowering, backing in a square, and leading. We only had a very small
muddy area to work in, so it was hard to do any decent leading work with
him.
When the day came to pick him up, it was cold and raining, not the best
weather to do trailer loading. The rescue lady led him out. I think it was
the first time since he'd lived there that he'd been out of his paddock and
away from his buddies. He was understandably a little nervous and bouncing
around a bit. She tried to lead him into the trailer and he wanted no part
of it. He planted himself and wasn't going another inch in the direction of
the trailer.
I asked her if I could try to load him. I walked him away from the
trailer, did a few minutes of head lowering, backing him if he came into my
space, and and really getting him focused on me. The minute I started
clicking him, his whole demeanor changed. He knew the game. He knew it
meant good things happening. He stayed focused on me.
I asked him to follow my outstretched fist as a target. He followed me
right onto the trailer on a loose lead with no hesitation. It was so
cooool!!! All of this took just a couple of minutes! There was no pulling
at all. I led him off and led him back on a couple of times and then we
closed the door and were on our way. I just love the power of clicker
training!
We still haven't done any formal WWYLM work with him, mainly because we
haven't had a decent space to do it in. But I would do WWYLM as part of a
horse's education in leading. So, yes, you can do it very early on. Some
horses will have trouble with it, and need to do the pre-WWYLM game first.
You just have to listen to your horse.
As always, follow the principles of good training: Go to a place in the
training where your horse can be successful and break the training
increments down into the smallest possible steps. You can't go wrong with
that!
Mary
