Hi Everyone,

We had a nice, inaugural California clicker get together on Saturday,
July 11 in Carmel Valley. The announcement came out a bit late, (mea
culpa) but two intrepid clicker trainers came to visit, and we had a
great time.

Caeli Collins brought Sebastian, her 12 year old Andalusian, almost 3
hours to play. Roxanna Vickrey came, sans horse, due to truck/trailer
availability issues. (We've ALL been there, done that.)

We had a nice introduction and chat while Sebastian settled down in
his stall, and we talked about our background, experiences, progress
and issues we are working on. I did my best to explain Alexandra
Kurland's Why Would You Leave Me Game: what it is, what it's for, how
you do it and the benefits from it. Sebastian is a charming "old
fashioned" Andalusian (per Caeli) with a History. His biggest issue,
he doesn't respond well to the leg and doesn't want to go forward
under saddle. She has made great progress with him, especially in
ground work. His head lowering and backing are quite good.He does and
impressive leg yield on the ground, yielding his shoulders away on
cue. I am excited she is coming to the clinic with Alex in October,
because I know Alex will share great ideas for Sebastian.

We threw Caeli into the deep end, having her go out and try the
Pre-Why Would You Leave Me Game, where you walk around a cone circle,
with the horse in a halter and lead rope, stop at each cone, clicking
and rewarding, and feeding where you want the horse to be. One thing
we all have found confusing over the years has been, "Where exactly DO
I want the horse to be?" Unless you see it, as on the DVD, that's not
easy to figure out from posts on the list. But we realized it means
his shoulder next to your shoulder, with his head and neck out ahead.
Since the ultimate goal is to have the horse beside you and his neck
curving to put his head in a space in front of you, the shoulder has
to be beside you.

Rox and I had good fun noticing how Sebastian changed as he made his
way around the circle. Roxanna made a great suggestion to Caeli,
reminding her to walk along as though there wasn't a horse with her.
In other words, don't focus on the horse, focus on where you are going
and expect the horse to come with you. Although he still seemed "speed
challenged," Sebastian began to move off with Caeli before there was
tension in the lead rope. We observed how you could modify the circle,
putting in more cones, so the distance was shorter (and the rate of
reinforcement higher and more frequent,) for a horse who didn't do
well with 5-6 strides between cones. We played around with how the
handler pivots to get a smooth direction change, and both Caeli and
Sebastian caught on after several tries. It was really apparent, too,
how much the food delivery affects the outcome. After a good mental
workout, Caeli put Sebastian away for some "processing time."

During that time, I also showed Caeli a little exercise I learned from
my local instructor. Her mentor does dressage, but worked personally
with Tom Dorrance for some years and incorporated much of his
philosophy and many of his techniques in her work. They call this
exercise the "Tom turn." It's really just a "give of the hip."
Teaching the horse to yield his hip in response to light presure on
the halter, or the bridle. With Sebastian, we set up the mild pressure
and waited for a response. He shifted his weight, I clicked and
treated. Again. Again. Finally, he moved, and actually crossed his
inside hind leg over the outside one. Click, treat. Repeat. Then I
held the pressure after one step and clicked after two. He caught on
quickly, on both sides. I shared with Caeli how this "turn" helped me
get our "stuck" young horse to move sometimes when he wasn't familiar
with leg pressure. I also explained how this allows you to truly "ride
from back to front" as dressage people put it. If the horse
understands that pressure on one rein, or one side of his face means,
"Cross that leg over," you can begin to make the request more subtle
and get a subtler response. To cross the leg over, he must shift his
weight back a bit, and bend his hock further. So a gentle request can
lead to "Just shift your weight back" and steady your stride. It has
worked well with the green horse, who is built to go like a semi-truck
with failing brakes, but is now very light and responsive. I hope this
move will give Caeli an alternate way to ask Sebastian to "move" since
he resents leg pressure. It really sounds like leg is a poisoned cue
for him. So he needs another way to get there....

Rox was playing with one of our horses. BC is a 14 year old Clydesdale
TB. He's a big guy, super smart and super sweet. He's been idle
lately, getting a new diagnosis of bilateral front ringbone. We are
trying to find ways to make him comfortable and see what he will be
able to do for a job with this condition. I hadn't done much clicker
training with him, because he was fine at his job and he was my
husband's horse. (Hubands are harder to train than dogs, horses,
co-workers.....) He had learned some head lowering, always handy with
a 17.2 hand horse, and months ago, I had walked the cone circle with
him a few times.

BC started out fidgety and a little grabby about the food. Rox set him
straight on that in just a few minutes. She also built some nice
duration in his head lowering, up to about 5 seconds. Then she brought
him out to the cone circle and they walked around a bit. It was
amazing how much the process of walking the circle helped him settle
down. He stopped making faces, sticking out his tongue and
overshooting Rox at the stops. He began to shift his weight back more
onto his hind end, rather than plowing along on his forehand. The
frequent stops made forced him to be ready to stop before he could
fall into forward motion.

We had a good laugh about the stops, based on a story Rox had shared
earlier. She had tried the Pre-WWYLM game with her mustang mares a few
weeks ago. One, Nikki, is so smart, she overshot Rox and swung her
haunches out at one particular cone. Rox dutifully fed her and walked
on, but Nikki figured that little dance step was part of the drill AT
THAT CONE. She did all the others the regular way, but she kept
overshooting and swinging her haunches out each time she got to that
cone. Rox said she finally resorted to skipping that cone and not
rewarding Nikki there. This extinguished Nikki's extra little flair at
that location. I was impressed at how Rox thought on her feet. I
probably would have agonized over that little variation and sought a
more complicated way to "fix" it.

Anyway, Rox and BC did an impressive job. BC was delighted by the
attention and the treats, and we got to see the changes in his way of
going, even in a few minutes.

Then both guests told me it was my turn to get in the fish bowl. :) I
pulled out my "old grey mare." She has some soundness issues and is
very much a TB, prone to spooking and reacting. Head lowering has
helped her a lot, as did free-shaping "step on a mat." She is the only
one I've introduced to Alex's Microshaping Pilates, to help her build
up her back muscles and strengthen her top line. Caeli hadn't seen it
before and was amazed to see her offering to shift her weight back and
lift her neck out from her withers. Even better, Roxanna watched her
from the side, and clicked her when she engaged her abdominals. I
shaped the behavior by watching her flex her pectoral muscles, and
haven't had a lot of success getting her to do it with me off to the
side. I suspected that sometimes she is just lifting her neck up and
shifting her weight back only a tiny bit. Sure enough, Rox confirmed,
sometimes she was doing that, other times she was really doing her
Pilates. So Rox watched her abs, I watched her pecs, Rox clicked and I
fed. She did much better.

Suddenly, we realized almost four hours had passed. Caeli had a long
drive home, and we all felt it had been an enjoyable, productive
session. Caeli asked us to come over and click Sebastian for keeping
his feet on the ground while she applied his shipping wraps. This
activity goes much better with more than one person! Rox clicked and
fed him for "feet on the ground," while Caeli wrapped. Sebastian is
VERY smart, so I'm sure the lesson left an impression. He loaded up
and away they went. Rox headed out the gate, and I felt so grateful to
finally interact (in person) with fellow-minded clicker trainers. We
all learned from each other's observations and ideas and felt
motivated to keep on, despite pressure from those near and dear, to do
things differently. I felt like I had known both of them for a long
time and wanted to keep it that way for many years to come! I wish
more of the wonderful voices from the lists could have been there with
us. You, and all your suggestions and ideas over the years were there
in spirit.

Our next get-together will take place Saturday, August 22. Everyone
is welcome. I think some folks would be interested in car pools,
especially from the SF Bay Area. I hope the next get-together will
serve as a chance for new folks, and those curious about clicker
training horses (or donkeys or other equids) to join us and interact.
I know BC will enjoy the attention! Anyone interested in details,
please email privately, maddogranch@.... We have room for
several horses for the day. Come join us and make the California
clicker community a personal experience, beyond online connections.

Cheers,
Cindy Martin