I do work with clickertraining.
Gypsygirl, you're talking about this women on dvd who invented clickertraining? You should not believe everything on dvd, i gues.
It was Pavlov, i think around 1904 who invented that giving a signal (a bell in this case) could create a physical reaction at a dog, if he learned food was coming.
It became the base to the box of skinner, who did had a great influence on using a signal to train behaviour.
It was used in the war, to learn piggions to strear racets and dolfins to find mines.
The balleys did even go further than that and trained all possible animals with the clicker or other signals (like lightsignal) They proved that you even could train a goldfish.
Now a days clickertraining is the way dolphins and orka's are trained for shows (even if they use a wissle... its the same principle)
Even wild animals in the zoo get clickertraining to make sure the vet can give them a injection/check on ther health without getting himself into danger
Yes, is works. Its scientificly proved that is works.
What doesn't work are a lot of trainers.
You see... its not as simple as it may seem. There is a whole science backom the clickertraining and you do need to know exacly how it works, before getting in to it.
You need to know the importense of timing, rewarding exact the right thing, seeiing what you animal is trying to do, reconizing a good trie, beein able to split up a excersize in really really smal bits, make sure your animal can succeed, understand the specific behaviour of the animal you want to train, understand how easy you can train the wrong thing if you don't understand how it excacly works, beeing very consequent and beein able to concentrate 100%
Its not about taking a clicker (or whatever) and food, and just getting starded.
You need to know what you're doing
The reasen why clickertraining goes wrong/does not work for some people had nothing to do with the training itself, but by the mistakes the trainer makes.
(And you will make mistakes att start...it doesn't mather as long as you understand its you're mistake and think about the mistake you made)
Its not only that horses won't start mugging if proper trained. On the contarary. You can even stop a mugging horse, doing so.
You just need really good training skills to do so. And thats not easy.
Actually... its hard work and you need lots of selfreflexion.
I like it .... becourse its learning me to look at the good things my horse (or dag of cat... and i even trained a chicken) does and not at the things i don't like.
Oh and i'm not always succesfull. The other day i starded a topic about behaviour from my horse witch i saw as a problem.
Later i understood i was looking in the traditional way again (i had been with horses all of my live, but starded clicker two years ago... its completly different)
I did sit down and think again and i'v solved the problem by thinking out of the box.
The principle is not thinking about the things you're horse can not do or does wrong in you're opinion, but to think in terms what he can do or wat goes right and work from that point of vieuw. Setting up for succes, even in a way far beyond parelli (i did that to for a kopple of years)
So you learn to look at the positive things in the horse and a horse can feel that.
I would not recomment to use the clicker for some excersizes and use pressure in other. In my opinion its confusing for the horse.
I should think that you have to think things over really clear before making the decission what you want to do.
Training with the clicker is not always easy and you're going to face problems, witch you have to solv. You can learn a lot, doing this, but its something you have to realise.
Clickertraining also creats animals who starting to participate, wanting to do things, starting to think for them selves, making descisions and starting to communicat. A LOT
You need to think, before getting into clickertraining, if you want a thinking, participating and communicating horse.
Becourse it meens you have a lot to work on by you're self. These horses will tell you if you're not concentrating or if you're not correct with you're bodylanguege and so on
On the other hand... horses (and other animals) love it.
My horses come running to me if they see its training time, allmost calling... me first... They love the training and put great effort in it.
Like i said... i've been with horses all of my life but this is a whole new experience,
But most importend, starting with clickertraining , is taking time to learn you're horse the basics and ground manners. You can not train correctly with a horse without this basics and manners. It takes time, but it pays back. Big time,
My horses are never mugging or pushy, even if food is about the most importend thing in their lives.
Its just a question of training
Like a clickertraining in sweden said... there ar no naughty horses, just untrained or unmotivad horses.
About the horse doining something becourse there's something in it for them....
Think about it... would you work without a salari, just to please youre bos?
You might... if you like him a lot and you know or if he's getting annoyning if you don't, but would you not work harder if you did get something you liked? Like a big time salari?
And would you not like you're bos even more if he just saw the things you do well and rewarded that, and forget about the little mistakes you made?
And ofcourse... if you're really really fond of somebody, you may do thinks just becourse you want that (but that may be a typical human-thing).
But what if you did something for this person and this person showed her of his grattitude by, f.o. inviting you for a nice meal. Ofcourse... that was not the reasen you did it. But it is still a nice gesture, isn't it. You maybe even more willing to do something for this person efter that.
Becourse its just a law. Positive reinforcement makes behaviour likely to reappear.
If you're interested, take a look at the sides of Karin Pryor (don't shoot the dog is a good book about PR), Alexandra Kurland and even Ben Hart.