We've seen so many storms I wasn't worried, except a very large pine fell on our fence, happily not destroying our fence or letting our animals out. Worse is that our greenhouse started to fall apart, and we had to fight hurricane winds on a ladder to take it apart. Holding the plastic panels in that wind, it was ridiculously dangerous and we quickly gave up.
The horse and donkey were fine. In fact, I used them like I use flight attendants in turbulence. Are Bellis and Mag OK with the storm? OK, then we're safe. This is also how I use my boss in the back of the ambulance when I think we're gonna lose one on the way to the hospital.
Mag is bored. He's grabbing the wheelbarrow as I work, he's standing right there in the way as I clean, he tries to follow me into the feed room.
In the feedroom I put together their breakfast buckets (only hay pellets now, no more energy feed of any kind!). Mag cranes his head in the door and as often, he picks up whatever is in reach.
Today he picked up the sweat scraper and held it in his mouth the entire time I was preparing the buckets (adding salt and vitamins). His cheek muscles were twitching as he gnawed/sucked on the thing he held. He was not letting it go.
I thought OK time to train this again, so I got a few snacks and my clicker.
Instantly Mag was only snack focused, and he didn't care about the chew toy anymore.
Frustrated, I pointed to it, right in front of him, and said, Pick it up!
He pushed it over and asked me for a treat. No, he knows that pushing is not picking up.
He picked up my manure cleaner, no, not that.
He tried the other side of the entryway, and picked up a piece of kindling in our firewood stack. No, no that.
He grabbed my grooming kit in his mouth and picked it up. No.
He finally picked up the sweat scraper again but only briefly held it. Good boy. I clicked him and gave him treats.
And Bellis too, cuz she was standing right there thinking, "stupid horse" the whole time.
Our next go was only slightly better, but when he finally picked it up and held it long enough to hand it to me, I rewarded him a lot and quit for a while.
20 minutes later he'd forgotten everything and I had to remove all my tools and such to keep him from grabbing other things, rather than the scraper that he had shown such attachment to on his own, but with me/clicker/treats, it faded to nothing.
I wonder what I'm doing wrong. Or if he's just playing around.
Finally I had him picking it up again, only twice before we quit for the day, but I wonder why it's so hard for him to pick it up when I ask, when he'll hold it in his mouth indefinitely if it's his decision.
I'm sure it's the food involved. I'm an amateur at clicker and don't understand how to focus him on the task and not the reward.
Ideas?
Tomorrow I RIDE AGAIN! (Haven't been on him since Dec 26). Hopefully we will be granted a day free of hail, wind, snow, thunder and lightning, all which we've had repeatedly lately.
He's gonna be so happy to get out, and hopefully I won't lose him on these icy streets.
This photo is precious to me. It's his arrival here in January 2016. He was terrified but the donkey was there to calm him. He was unfamiliar with hay nets so when he took a bite and the net moved, he jumped back. See how far he stands from it? You can also see in this photo that he was soaking wet through his Winter coat, from the stress of trailering. And I must admit today, after all our work, he still sweats in fear each trailer ride. He goes in for me now, but he sweats a puddle underneath him each time.
I remember taking this photo, thinking, "Who is this horse? What have I done?"
Right now he's happily nibbling the needles off the tree that fell onto our pasture with his donkey, and tomorrow he'll get to go do something, yay!
I pray for a break in this stormy weather. Our power flickered! (I always tell my man, "If this was Seattle, we'd have no power."
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4 comments:
Clicker training: your timing with the *click* must be precise. This takes practice! I've gradually transitioned Fee over to my voice "GOOOOOOOD GIRL", mostly because I am phenomenally lazy and don't like to carry stuff around.
Also, there's a trick to giving the treats: you want the treats to be nice but not HIGHLY DESIRABLE. I cannot use Mrs Pasture's treats, for example, because Fee completely loses her brain because those are her BEST FAVORITE EVER. She cannot think in the presence of Mrs Pasture's treat. It's all about the cookie.
So I use bites of carrot, which are lovely but not ESSENTIAL ERMAGAWD MUST HAVE ALL NOW.
Good luck riding tomorrow!!!
Ha ha! Even though I can't stand all the firecrackers around here, I remind myself that at least our electricity stays on. In Nevada we were constantly having power outages, but fireworks were illegal, so there was a lot less booming. The other day I saw a news photo from my Nevada home's newspaper of two cars that somehow both ended up on someone's front lawn, and they both crashed into a power box. Electricity was out for most of the community. Half our power outages were due to wind and the other half were due to bad drivers.
Mag does the same thing my dog Stewie does. You point right at which toy you want him to pick up, and he runs around picking up everything else in sight. Maybe in their minds, pointing means don't touch it.
Oh, here's another thought on Mag "messing with you". Pickles Marie used to play a game we called "Yellow."
Here are the rules:
I would say, *go get your purple hotdog.*
She would run away and bring any toy except the purple hot dog.
And then, I would laugh.
I would say, "go get your pink monkey.*
She would bring any toy, maybe even purple hot dog, but not pink monkey.
And then, I would laugh.
Get it? Pickles M was making me laugh.
(we called it "Yellow" because my younger niece used to do the same thing with my mom when she was learning colors. Mom would say "which crayon is yellow?" and Cass would point at blue, pink, orange, black...anything but yellow. And Mom would laugh.)
He could be playing with you, he may not understand what you want or he may be doing what he thinks you want. Regardless, when you have a problem with clicker training, I find it is best to go back to the beginning.
You need to get him focused on the scraper. Remove as many distractions as possible.
Click him for touching the scraper. That is pretty easy, and if it is a case to a treat that is too desirable, it would show up there. Do it a lot, and as he improves, add a vocal or gesture.
Once he is really consistent, don't click him for just touching, and he should start to play with it. When he does, click him for that. Do it enough so that is his first idea--playing instead of just touching. At that point, hold off and since he likes to pick things up, he will--then click! In the meantime, you have created a good cue to tell him when you want to pick something up. That will help discourage him when he tries to pick things up that when you don't want him to.
I could get Cole to pick up things if I was in the saddle, but not if I was on the ground. He isn't a "mouthy" horse, so he didn't think to try it. My sister's horse is a mouthy horse, and it took just a few minutes to get him to pick up a dish so consistently that we never did it again--but if he sees that dish, he picks it up right away.
Good luck!
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