Intro to clicker/liberty trianing with gypsy!

Gypsy, woot! Oh man it was so darn fun! It made my day (I had a pritty bad day) I was the only one at the barn so I had the whole arena. I had turned her loose while I did her stall. Then went in and introduced the clicker and carrots.

She is one SMART cookie! I have been reading up on Carolyn Resnick's Liberty training and clicker training. So I started out...

Placing the carrot bag on a barrel and already she is like "COOKIES!" and I did what Carolyn did with Panadora well all her horses. I made Gypsy get away from the carrots and she was not aloud near them. Well she got that pritty darn fast. She in the end threw a big fit and was bucking off and jumping around. But once she calmed down I was able to walk away from the barrel and she didnt want any thing to do with the carrot bag ^_^

Then I started by having a peice of carrot in my hand and if she reached for it I would take it away, but when she turned her head I clicked and gave her a carrot! She also got that really quick. Although we need to work on her taking carrots without teeth! Man she is such a hound! So now she knows I control the carrot giving and you have to do what I say in order to get a cookie.

I just did some basic leading (without halter), you know she walks by me. When I stop she stops, I click and she gets cookie. She picked up backing REALLY fast, I didnt know she could back so well and not drag those clugs of hers. The first time I asked for her to back, I just started to back up and I raised my hand where the rein would be. Didnt touch her at all and she collected her head and backed!

Then we did some front end yeild she got sticky in that area...
After that she kinda either got to excited or was loosing intrest so she started to canter off and hopping around bucking. I didnt correct her for that cause this is play time or "fun training" so I want her to be able to express her self. So then I knew that we needed to get going. I free lunged her, well just drove her around the arena.

I clicked every time I asked for her to canter or trot,walk. So she still understands that clicking means "good girl" she's a very verbal horse, she responds much better when you talk with her. So that's our start! Im so excited about this new training methods. Im just beaming I just can't believe how fast Gypsy picked up the clicker method and how she knew when I click she did good. ^_^ Oh boy!

Does anyone els have any excersizes we can start on?

I have never done any clicker training but seems like your doing it right, sounds like that method works really well with the horse. I'm glad that your having so much fun with her too! Keep it up and keep us posted!

I will! It was so much fun. Its really neat to see the difference in my horse versus the way I was thought with ground work, "Move or els"

And I can't wait till I can start taking the treats away and just give the click so that way im not always treating her. I wasnt able to work her today cause she had a sore back :( Next week though!