This is a non-commercial, independent website, owned and written by Nancy Kerson, for the benefit of actual and potential adopters of BLM Mustangs and Burros and similar animals.
DVD or VHS (2-DVD or 2-VHS set) almost 3 hours of instruction!
$39.95 plus $5 shipping/handling = $44.95 total
Lesley Neuman: The First Touch Gentling Your Mustang $45.00
Lesley works with 3 wild horses at a BLM adoption, and very clearly explains what is happening, what she is doing, & what she sees in each horse as it progresses. Study this video and you can learn "pressure and release" gentling techniques to gentle your own new mustang!
Help for Burro adopters! Crystal Ward Donkey Training
All the basics of gentling, handling, and training. A MUST for new burro adopters! Good for domestic donkeys, too!
Behavior Modification, using positive reinforcement, is becoming popular among those looking for an alternative to "The Art of the Cowboy." Usually these techniques involve the use of food rewards, and seem to be especially useful for gentling older Mustangs who have such strong self-preservation instincts that they are too dangerous or resistant to train through "round pen" methods.
Please note the use of the words "positive" and "negative" have somewhat different meanings in the world of Psychology than in normal useage. "Positive" does not necessarily mean "Good" and "Negative" does not necessarily mean "Bad." In terms of these training methods, "Positive" means "adding something" and "Negative" means "taking something away." Positive reinforcement adds a treat or something else that is desireable to the animal, and negative reinforcement takes something away, i.e. pressure is removed. Both methods are used successfully by their various practitioners, and both methods can be either gentle and kind or rough and aggressive, depending on the skill and mind-set of the practitioner.
Clicker Training is a form of "operant conditioning" or "behavior modification" in which a horse learns to perform a set behavior by being rewarded for the correct response. Punishment is never used. The reward is withheld until the horse does the right thing, but doing the wrong thing is simply ignored.
Since there is a small lag between the time the horse responds correctly and the human's ability to produce the food reward, the SOUND of the CLICKER is used to instantly reinforce - via the clicker's unique sound - that this is the exact behavior being rewarded.
Clicker training was first developed for training dolphins and whales. It is now widely used for dogs and horses. Alexandra Kurland and Shawna Karrasch are some of the most well-known proponents of Clicker Training for horses. (See bottom of this page for links to their books) Because Clicker Training involves an immediate reward, many people report positive results using it to work with fearful horses.
Before Clicker Training can be used for anything truly useful, you have to teach your horse, and yourself (it takes more coordination than you might think!) how it works.
This is done by training the horse to touch a target object. It helps at first to work with another person - one person holds the object and the other holds the clicker. Either one can hold the "reward" treats.
Here Michael and another LRTC member work with one of the Olympic Wild Horses
1. Show Target. Say "Touch It"
2. Horse Responds (perhaps randomly at first, but that's okay)
3. CLICK the clicker to emphasize that this is the desired response
4. REWARD: feed a carrot (or other treat)
Once this is mastered, you can go on to teaching useful things. Just break the task down into tiny parts, and teach each step before going to the next.
Here's a quick video showing a BLM Mustang who is being trained with clicker training. I don't know this person, just found the video and thought it was pretty interesting.
Dr. Patricia Barlow-Irick operates "Mustang Camp" in New Mexico, which gentles and places for adotpion several hundred wild horses each year. She and her students use Behavior Modification techniques, though not necessarily with a clicker. She has a book, which is both an interesting read and an excellent primer in using behavioral modification and understanding animal psychology:
copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Nancy Kerson, all rights reserved - I'm happy to share, just need to be asked and have credit given where due.
Disclaimer: Horses are inherently dangerous. Use the information contained within this website at your own risk.
This is done by training the horse to touch a target object. It helps at first to work with another person - one person holds the object and the other holds the clicker. Either one can hold the "reward" treats.
