Playground Play and Posing with Lexi

Goal accomplished: Lexi stands quietly while I
take a picture on the way back from our ride.

With these snowy conditions, I haven't been able to do much riding, but I have been able to work on small projects with Lexi that might otherwise get designated to another day. One of my goals has been to work with her on stopping and standing when we're out in the orchards. She likes going out and has a nice forward walk for a small horse, but she doesn't like to stop and stand. I've tried to convince her that if she would just hang out beneath an apple tree she'll be well rewarded, but she hasn't been convinced. And in Kevin's "playground," a part of the farm that's dedicated to fun, she gets anxious. It's a lovely spot with a small pond (though not one we can take the horses into) and some flat and hilly ground for galloping and lots of little logs for jumping. In the summer there's a water complex too, but it's full of snow today as is the playground in general. Every time we got out there, she wants to take off, which would be fine if there weren't gopher holes hiding under the snow and the potential for slipping. So my goal has been to get her listening even when she's feeling spicy.

The challenge with clicker-training Lexi in particular is that she's not food-motivated when she's tense. She has broadened her view of acceptable treats, but until two days ago I could rarely get her to eat one when we were out. When she did, she usually gobbled it down while she tried to charge off or held it in her mouth as she stared at whatever goblin might be up ahead. 

But we've been doing a lot of click/treating while walking out in the snow the past couple of weeks, and two days ago we ventured into the playground and walked around the pond and up the hill past the cross-country jumps that usually get her wired up. As usual she would start getting high-headed and "looky," but this time I asked her to walk figure-eights on the ground around me, then disengage her hind quarters, with plenty of clicking and treating for a quiet response. And pretty soon she was offering me behaviors. What if I drop my head to the snow? Click/treat. What if I stand quietly with my ears pricked? Click/treat. What if I touch this log? Click/treat. And so on.

And yesterday we rode out in the orchards and for the first time she stopped to take treats quietly and appeared to be trying to sort out what behaviors might get her a click/treat. What if I walk faster? Drop my head at the walk? Stretch my nose forward? How about a trot transition? The beauty of the click is that the response to what she's doing is immediate. She gets instant feedback. "Yes, that's a lovely walk." "Yes, rounding your neck and lifting your back is absolutely the right thing to do." And so she does it again. And again. And if I respond with perfect timing (hah!), theoretically I could make rapid progress towards whatever my goal is. 

The challenge for me is sorting it all out. Clicker training teaches mindfulness, because it's very easy to miss a clickable moment, or worse, to click the wrong thing because you're a split second late. So, for example, when tied for grooming, Lexi has her little buoy to target as I'm grooming. She has a small repertoire of behaviors which I'm working to "microshape." That is, I want to take her from touching the buoy with her nose stretched out and her neck flat and change her "shape" to an arched neck, her weight balanced and slightly rocked back so that she lifts her back at the halt. It's something Alexander Kurland calls "the pose."* We've been working on the pose over the last few days and today, as I was grooming her, I had her standing closer to the buoy, her neck lifted and her head more perpendicular to the ground than it has been, as well as her ears pricked. I was working to click her only when she gave me a more attractive look as she touched the buoy, a step closer to the pose (I'm not asking for the finished product. It's too soon!) If you were watching, you would have seen her moving her head quite a bit. What if I touch the snow? No? OK, how about wiggling my lips on the buoy? No? What about looking out across the distance with my ears pricked, with my nose almost on the buoy? Click/treat. Hurray! OK, what about pricking my ears with my nose on the buoy. Click/treat. Yeah!!!!! 

And so on. But if I mistime the click, I'm clicking her for turning her head towards me, or for pinning an ear, or for taking a bite out of the buoy, so I have to be absolutely mindful in order to click at the right moment. I don't always get it right and that's why it's a slow process, but it's always fixable. If something isn't working, I just go back to the previous step. 

Next up: Using play, and fixing as I go.

*Make sure to watch this video by Alexandra Kurland to see what "The Pose" will lead to (I hope) as my work with Lexi progresses.