CLICKER TRAINING: Everything old is new again?

The most important thing that clicker training can give to dressage riders is a new way of thinking. Clicker training teaches us to be open minded and creative in our thinking. To consider the horse's point of view. It also shows us that all training problems have the same basic issues at their core.

The challenge dressage riders have when it comes to applying clicker training to every day dressage training is they appear worlds apart. Most dressage riders have trouble seeing how to chunk down what we know as 'dressage' into small clickable bits. I had the same trouble initially.

Only after trying to work it out in my own mind did I realize that it wasn't that I needed fit the clicker into the existing dressage work, I needed to modify my approach to the dressage work so it fit into the clicker model. This doesn't mean that you have to go off the classical path. It just means that you need to find the ground floor.

Most of us learn dressage by jumping into the proverbial deep end. So, what is needed is more information about the things that happn before 'dressage' happens. That is where the clickable moments begin.

What is needed are some models from which we can draw. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Everything we need is already here if we simply look closely enough. We can start by remembering that the Old Masters said that the dressage training begins with the first time the halter is put on.

It is unfortunate that there is so little out there on the subject of what training needs to be in place before beginning dressage training. Most books on dressage start with the assumption that this training has been done. Here is an interesting passage from Francois Robichon de la Guerinieire's Ecole de Cavalerie first published in 1731...

"There used to be persons in charge of exercising the foals outside the breeding barn when they were still wild... Those with the most patience, skill, energy, and diligence were chosen; the perfection of these qualities was not as necessary for horses who were already being ridden. These people would accustom the young horses to allow someone to approach them in the stable, to pick up all four feet, to touch them, and to put on the bridle, saddle, crupper, girth, etc. They gave them assurance and made them gentle when mounted. they were never harsh or forceful, because at these times they would only use the most gentle methods that came to mind. Through this ingenious patience, they made a horse familiar with and a friend of man, maintained his vigor and courage, and made him understand and obey the first rules. If one were to imitate today the plan of these old connoisseurs, one would see fewer horses who are injured, ruined, one-sided, stiff and vicious."

Remember this was written over 250 years ago! Does it not make you a little curious what the "most gentle methods" were? What was this "ingenious patience"? Well what ever they were I think they would have appreciated clicker training.

So where does dressage start for a clicker trainer? The old masters speak of asking questions of the horse. Can you step your inside hind under your body? Do the horse's muscles remain relaxed while doing so? Can you take weight on your outside hind leg? Does the horse's joints bend softly when doing so? Can you bend left and right? Can you go forward softly? Can you stop softly? If the answers to these questions are "YES" we are on our way to a fine ride.

As a clicker trainer we can relate to this concept of asking questions. If the answers to the questions above are not yet "yes". Where do we begin to get to yes? The best place to start the search for a model that these old connoisseurs would have approved of is in my opinion the work of Bill Dorrance as told through his book, "True Horsemanship Through Feel". This has to be the greatest book ever written on the subject of horsemanship.

The difficulty that most dressage riders will have is this ground work is so preliminary that it does not look like dressage. But that is the challenge in training anything. To be able to see a sliver of what will be and build on that. How the horse accepts haltering and leading provide clues to how things will go under saddle. What if you attempt to lead the horse through a puddle? Under a tarp? Anywhere on a windy day? How does he handle it? How do you handle it? All of these slivers count and add up either to something positive or not.

Clicker trainers have no trouble grasping the idea that getting anywhere starts with taking the first step and then putting one foot in front of the other till you get there. Getting to Rome via Kansas on foot means spending quite a bit of time in Kansas!